Nov 8 2009

Getting started with bodyweight exercises and what to expect…

Welcome back to my first 15 months body weight training!

Wow! In 15 months of  practicing bodyweight training  you can certainly achieve
some pretty spectacular results. And I’m talking strength, fitness and fat loss!

Today, I’m going to share some of them with you.

I’m a big believer in “simple and get good at one thing
first”…then we can move to the next task in hand-don’t you think?

In other words if you have never done any type of push ups or pull ups,
bodyweight squats or any type of bodyweight exercise then start with the basics and
build on that foundation.

Or perhaps like me you could already do the basics so I focused in on just
one or two specific movements that I wanted to become proficient in or
in the case of handstand push ups be able to do just one.

OK let’s get started…

Do you remember last time I told you my arms ached?

Truth be told even lifting semi-heavy boxes would put stress and
pain in my elbow joints that left me with an ongoing ache-and that
began 14 years ago.

So,  I began performing bodyweight exercises early on in 2006.

But, if I threw a handstand my wrists would feel like they were too
weak to hold, but wait a minute  I weight trained for 20 years…

Shouldn’t they be strong enough!

I went to bed at night and my arms would ache all night…I didn’t
know what to do with them, but I had a gut feeling that what I was
doing was benefiting me so I resolved to carry on.

One of the first exercises I began with was handstand push-ups. My
first attempt was not what I had expected, I mean I’m a reasonably
strong person but I could hardly manage one push-up!!

What was very interesting was when I asked my 19 year old son if he
could do any…

…he flipped into a handstand and pumped out 5 or 6
without much difficulty at all…wow! How come he could do that?

Big clue here…please listen closely-Jamie, my son, as a pre-teen
and then into his teen years did a lot of break dancing. Aha, that’s why
he could do handstand push-ups, he was already versed and
conditioned as a bodyweight practitioner!

Me, I was an ex lifter of metal!! (I’m still not saying here that
you should not lift weights-but for now I have chosen not to).

Back to the handstands-how do you go from barely being able to do
one to over 20 full handstand push-ups in only months and not years?

Here’s what I did. Every night before and or after my shower I would do some kind
of handstand work-oh and by the way I’m not talking 20 minutes or
more, no just 2-3 minutes is all I spent-seriously.

Well, I think I”ll  share with you what I did in those few minutes to improve in my
next post to you…

See you next time then and keep strong. Oh, and I’d love to hear what you think.

Danny
P.S. if handstands are your bag then turn to page 52 of the Dump The Gym Fitness Formula
if you have it, or if not you can snag it FREE by heading to the top right hand side of this page.

P.P.S. Handstand press ups not your thing? You just want to get started on a
bodyweight exercise routine or program then Dump The Gym Fitness Formula is for you too.

P.P.P.S. By the way the aches and pains completely disappeared after about a year.

2 Comments on this post

  1. Tom said:

    Cool…I love handstand pushups. They’re great for your shoulders…

    I’m interested, did you use a wall or are you balancing with no support? The latter is much, much harder.

    [Reply]

    January 8th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
  2. admin said:

    Hey Tom,
    Yep, they are a great bodyweight exercise and yes I used a wall.
    You are right free handstand push ups are harder but mainly because of balance coming into the equation and the different muscles employed. That said, I don’t think there is a great difference in strength needed for one or the other.
    Cheers,
    Danny

    [Reply]

    January 10th, 2010 at 6:18 pm

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