(This article originally appeared on Chronicles of Strength)

“Have nothing – will travel”

That’s what I love about strength-based calisthenics training.  You need practically nothing apart from the most bare minimum of equipment and you get some big returns on your time and sweat investment.  Devotees of only the barbell or only the kettlebell will travel only as far as their cast iron weapon of choice will take them.  And much respect to them, because their tool of choice is a fantastic one, no doubt.  But the devotee of calisthenics training who hates gravity with such a burning passion that he’ll make his body defy its laws through the power of grit, determination, and head-to-toe coordination of flesh so eager to mutiny against this detestable theory…well, this one will travel as far as they want, because their weapon is on them at all times.

The worst excuse in the world is “I don’t have a gym membership so I can’t get fit.”  Neither did any of your ancestors, and I’m pretty sure if you look through a family photo album you won’t see a bunch of wieners; you’ll see people who moved a lot, worked with their hands, and those who are still around probably still have a vice grip and stories of how much more work they used to do by 9 am than you do all day.  Fitness isn’t confined to fern-laden mirrored paradises – far from it.  It’s forged from sweat, determination, and consistency, and you don’t need a laminated pass for that, you just need a plan.  I’ve got one for you.

I can’t give you the choice of some blue pill or red pill that will give you the answers to all of your delusions or let you live comfortably within them, so if you’re not at that stage, then none of what I say may ring true.  If, however, you’ve started to see that maybe the vast international conspiracy of health clubs that make “fitness” easy so long as you’re willing to part with your money JUST MIGHT not have your best interests in mind, then walk my way.

Enter calisthenics.  Often relegated to position of third-class citizen among strength training due to ignorance of its hidden power, bodyweight strength training is the secret to gymnasts’ brute strength and Greek physique.  Old school iron legends knew it is well, which is why 500-poundbenchers like Pat Casey and Marvelous Marvin Eder did copious amounts of weighted dips and weighted chins instead of suiting up in spandex and lifting gloves, copying the latest workout in Muscle and Fitness, and then chugging twice the recommended dose of BCAAs and spending the rest of the day at the water cooler talking about fitness instead of accomplishing it.  But I digress…

The better you can control your own naked self in free space, the faster you can improve your ability to control weights in free space.  Even if you’re not after becoming a gymnast, getting a hold of how your body moves will pay off in dividends later so long as you make it a point to kick ass at a few key moves.  And there are lots, so don’t make the n00b mistake of trying to do them all at once.  Get good at a few first and then we’ll talk about how to go all the way later.

So what are these first few?  The chin-up, dip, pistol, L-sit, and back bridge get my vote.  Why?  Because they’ll all build some freaky strength, some freaky flexibility, and can be regressed and progressed to fit your ability level.  Not strong enough to do dips/chin-ups/pistols/L-sits/back bridges yet?  Do pushups, bodyweight rows, assisted pistols, floor leg raises, and shoulder bridges.  You’ll get there when you get there, but start where you are.

Here’s your meat and potatoes program.  Three days a week, between 20 and 40 minutes with just the above exercises and a variant or two from time to time.  You can manage, trust me.

Here’s what your training will look like:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday

You’ll be doing ladders of each exercise, and you’ll be doing them in pairs.  Half of your session will be on one pairing and the other half will be on the second.  You’ll do the full ladder of one exercise followed by the full ladder of the next exercise.

Pair 1 (10 – 20 minutes; see below for times/days)
A1) L-Sit chin-ups – 1,2,3,4,5
A2) Pistol squats – 1,2,3,4,5 (each leg)
Do as many quality ladders as you can in the time allotted and then immediately move on to the next pair.

Pair 2 (10 – 20 minutes)
B1) Dips (3 second pause at the bottom of each rep): 1,2,3,4,5
B2) Bridge pushups: 1,2,3,4,5

Take your shirt off and admire yourself in the mirror because once you finish your second pairing you’re done for the day.  And you were gonna do that anyway.

At least one day a week add in some specialized variety (i.e. change how you do the exercise just slightly).  Here’s an example:

Pair 1 (10 – 20 minutes)
A1) Pull-up (pronated grip) (hold for 3 seconds at the top) – 1,2,3,4,5
A1) Pistol (start from the bottom) – 1,2,3,4,5

Pair 2 (10 – 20 minutes)
B1) Dip with a leg raise (do the dip and at the top bring the legs up to an L-sit) – 1,2,3,4,5
B2) Bridge pushup with limb raises (lift an arm or leg at the top) – 1,2,3,4,5

I’ll leave it up to your discretion on what days you’ll vary things up.  Don’t go crazy.  Stick to one or two variations so you don’t constantly try to reinvent your workout and end up adding a preposterous amount of variation and a piddly amount of strength.  If you’re not big on any variety at all, I’d still recommend throwing in an L-sit leg raise after each dip at least once a week, as it’s a fundamental straight-arm hold that will do some good for your scapular stability.  I could make up a whole workout full of straight-arm scapular moves, but that will have to wait for another article, and only if you’re good, too.

Monday will be your medium day.  Do 15 minutes of Pair 1 and 15 minutes of Pair 2 for a total of 30 minutes of practice.
Wednesday will be your light day.  Do 10 minutes of Pair 1 and 10 minutes of Pair 2 for a  total of 20 minutes of practice.
And Friday will be your hard day.  Do 20 minutes of Pair 1 and 20 minutes of Pair 2 for a grand total of 40 minutes.

How do you progress?  Easy – drop out one minute from each pair each week until you can’t race the clock with good form any longer.    And if you’re saying to yourself “but I can do dips, pullups and pistols with no problem – this isn’t going to be a challenge for me,” then the answer is obvious: add weight until it’s tough.  Could not be simpler, and it will work like a charm.

There you have it.  Do this for a few weeks and see if your strength, muscle mass, flexibility, and coordination don’t improve.  Spoiler alert:  They will.  And when they do, please drop me a line on my Facebook page Aleks “The Hebrew Hammer” Salkin.  I’d love to hear about it.

Calisthenics For Iron Domination

You know what, I get it. No really, I get it. 

You think of calisthenics as a “back up plan” when you don’t have any iron handy rather than a discipline to be practiced and mastered. To be honest, I don’t blame you. YouTube and Facebook are replete with matchstick-legged Eastern European street workout urchins posting party-trick calisthenics moves and blood-and-guts high-rep sets in tragically dub step-laden compilation videos all over the place, and if that’s all you see, who can blame you for thinking that calisthenics is best suited for teenage hoodlums with a probable criminal record and a propensity for always skipping leg day?
​
The reality, however, is far more intriguing, and it holds a lot of potential for demolishing your previous strength and conditioning PRs both in your barbell and kettlebell practice and replacing them with all new levels of iron domination.

Interested yet?
Good, because the scope of this article is going to be on how to employ calisthenics training into your current training to enhance your kettlebell and/or barbell practice.
But first…

Why calisthenics?

To put it simply, calisthenics – when stripped down to its most fundamental elements – is the ability to control and master your body in free space. The better you can do that, the easier it is to control external objects in free space as well as defy gravity. In fact, this is the first thing we even learn to do as we’re developing.  We don’t build our strength by bench pressing our Legos; we do it by learning to make gravity bend to the will of our bodies by first learning to lift and control our heads, roll around on the ground, rock back and forth, crawl on all fours, and eventually walk upright. These humble beginnings – known as the developmental sequence – set the stage for all the rest of your strength and athleticism, and it starts with defying gravity.  When you can make gravity bend to your will, you can make iron do the same. 

Convinced yet?

No? Fine, no problem. One need only take a look at any of the old school iron legends and you’ll notice one big thing in common: in addition to hoisting preposterous poundages, they always had incredible calisthenics feats to their name.
​
“Marvelous” Marvin Eder could reportedly do a mind-bending 8 one-arm chin-ups per arm, and John Grimek was said to do 6-7 per arm. Moreover, both Eder and proto-powerlifter Pat Casey performed incredibly heavy dips on a regular basis (Eder could do a dip with two 200 lb men clinging to his legs), with Casey even occasionally going so far as to do 8-hour dipping sessions (you read that right). Casey was the first man to bench press 600 lbs and Eder was the first man under 200 lbs to bench 500. Wonder why.

​British berserker, pro-wrestler, and all-around tough guy Burt Assirati was an iron nut famous for squatting 800 lbs before squatting had even become fashionable and curls were still socially acceptable (so long as you didn’t do them in a squat rack). He could easily bust out such next-level calisthenics feats as multiple one-arm chins per arm, stand-to-stand bridges, one-arm handstands, and even the coveted and rarely seen iron cross – all at a not-so-svelte 240 lbs.

The Father of Modern Bodybuilding (and the guy who still appears on Mr. Universe trophies) Eugen Sandow was said to be able to do one-finger chin-ups on any finger of either hand (including his thumb)

Weightlifter and world record holder Paul “The Wonder of Nature” Anderson routinely performed handstand pushups and one-legged squats. He also once outran an Olympic gold medalist in sprinting in a 20 yard dash, which is not bad for anyone, let alone a 350 + lb slab of beef.

Fred Hatfield – more affectionately known as “Dr. Squat” – was the first man to squat 1000 lbs in competition. He started off his athletic career as a gymnast.

So beyond fundamentals such as being able to move your body through free space and a few examples of old school legends using calisthenics, what does calisthenics mean for YOUR iron practice?

• Builds intramuscular coordination and teaches it organically.  If you’re not tight as can be in any severely leverage-challenged movement such as the front lever or one-arm/one-leg pushup, gravity will expose it in short order by bringing you earthward.  No compensations allowed here.  The better you can recruit literally every muscle in your body toward one task, the easier any feat of strength becomes.
• Teaches you to produce tension from nothing.  One of the cornerstones of StrongFirst’s teaching methodology is that tension is a skill, and producing it is the gateway to any and all higher-level strength feats, both with bodyweight alone and iron.  This becomes especially apparent when feed-forward tension techniques come into play.  The better you can feed your tension forward, the heavier you can lift and the more control you can exert on a weight.  Show me a weightlifter or powerlifter who is totally loosey goosey when he steps up to dance with the weight and I’ll show you a dude or gal who’s about to get folded in half like a grilled cheese sandwich.
• Builds unparalleled scapular stability.  For the same reason the Get Up has been instrumental in building up many people’s heavy military press, straight-arm calisthenics feats such as the front lever, handstand, back lever, L-sit, Planche, and others lead to a what-the-Hell effect in all of your lifts akin to that of experienced athletes using kettlebells for the first time and seeing a huge spike in their performance.  Sounds almost too good to be true, but usually the best things in life are.

So NOW are you convinced that calisthenics is good for more than just over-produced YouTube videos from behind the former Iron Curtain? 

Good. Now it’s time to get to work.

So how do you start employing calisthenics moves for brute strength into your training?

Due to the incomparable versatility of bodyweight training, you have multiple choices:

A) Drop your iron completely, spend 1-3 months doing bodyweight training only, and then re-test yourself on your favorite lifts and see how you fare. An extreme approach – and one that can work wonders – but not necessary.
B) Save them for your variety day. A great option that will fit into just about any 3-day strength program and allow you to get in some high-quality, low-rep work without feeling rushed.
C) Pair a few low-rep sets with an iron drill of your choice. 
D) A mix of all of the above options.

Just for fun, we’ll go with D.  Why?  It will allow you to spread out a number of high-yield calisthenics exercises throughout your program and get the benefits not only of regular low-rep, high tension strength practice, but do so without overwhelming you.  What’s more, you’ll also fill in a lot of gaps in your strength and begin to acquire a variety of skills you’re less likely to get in your regular iron practice.  Filling in these cracks will propel you forward in all of your athletic and iron goals. 

Here’s a sample program.

Let’s say your regular practice is 3 days a week of the following:

Double kettlebell clean + press
Double kettlebell front squat
Swing

Here’s how we’re gonna spice it up, fill in the gaps, and crush weakness even faster using a deadly blend of both iron and your own fair flesh. The following are my recommendations on how to maximize it with a complementary assortment of classic calisthenics moves.

Main days: (exercises listed as sets x reps)
Double KB military press – 3-5×5
+ 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps of a handstand pushup progression you can manage without excessive strain.
Double KB front squat – 3-5×5
+ a set of 3-5 hanging leg raises before your sets. Optional set of 3-5 afterward.
Weighted pullups -3-5×5 (these weren’t in your original program, so I did you a favor and added them in.  You’re welcome).
5-10×10 single kettlebell swing
+ 2-3 sets of 2-5 reps of any easy pistol progression before you start swinging

Variety Days:

• Front lever progression – 3-5 sets of 5-10 second holds 
• L-sit progression – 3-5 sets of 5-10 second holds
• One-arm/one-leg pushup progression – 3×3
• Back bridge progression: 3 sets of whatever your current flexibility levels will permit

You might have noticed this is anything but a beginner’s program.  This will demand a lot of work from you, and as such will also demand a lot of recovery. I suggest starting your sessions off with some Original Strength resets to get the lifting juices flowing, and a cool down of more OS, or some of Pavel’s fast-and-loose drills along with Master SFG Jon Engum’s Flexible Steel drills to stretch what you’ve so powerfully tightened. 
So what’s the benefit of each choice and each pairing?

Handstand pushups: These allow you to work on your overhead pressing groove and get in more volume – crucial for overhead pressing success – with less overall fatigue, since simply doing more military presses will serve mostly to trash your legs and abs, which handstand pushups will not.  Moreover, your forearm flexors will get some repose since they’ll no longer be crushing handles during your presses.

Hanging leg raises: to quote Pavel “I have never known a single person who regularly practiced hanging leg raises and failed to develop a hard and useful set of abs. Ever.” If that’s not good enough for you (for shame!) HLRs will also help connect your grip, your core, and even your lats into your front squatting efforts. Unless you’re one of those non-squatting chicken leg-types I mentioned earlier in the article, I shouldn’t have to explain why that will be useful for your squats .

You may consider doing them both before AND after as some ab assistance work for your squats, as that’s one of the arrows in the quiver of Igor Shestakov. Who is he? Oh, just some Russian powerlifter who has squatted 854.3 lbs at 181 lbs of bodyweight. And he does 2×20 both before and after, so a few sets of 3-5 ain’t gonna kill you.

Weighted pullups: one of the best back builders around. Your grip and core will sit up and take notice, too.

Pistols: Pistols are great for building what Pavel refers to as “steering strength”, while also powerfully teaching you how to root through your feet, engage your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and abs together at once. My friend Corey Howard of Sioux Falls, SD – a former powerlifter – told me that a few years ago he did only pistols for his lower body strength work. When he came back to swings, his heaviest bells suddenly floated with incredible ease. What’s not to love about making heavy bells float with ease?

Front lever and L-sit progressions: both of these are fundamental – and indispensable – straight-arm scapular strength moves. Straight arm scapular strength is the final frontier of upper body strength development. Overlooked and underappreciated by the average strength enthusiast, these are a power tool against weakness in all its forms, and are without a doubt the greatest way I know of to speed toward ever-increasing strength in all of your favorite feats – including kettlebell and barbell feats. Ignore them to your own detriment. The amount you’ll be doing won’t impress any gymnast (but then again, not much will) but it will set you on the right track, and a little dab will do ya.

One-arm/one-leg pushup: see part 1 of my blog on this topic (From Bodyweight To Heavyweight Pt. 1: Mining the One-Arm/One-Leg Pushup For A Heavier Military Press) so I don’t have to repeat myself here.

Bridge: We all spend too much time in forward flexion, and most bodyweight feats will only add to that.  These will reverse that.
And as a recap, here are a few things to keep in mind for each of your calisthenics moves:

High tension! Crush the pullup bar (or the floor) with your hands while trying to “break” it.  I cannot stress this enough. This is StrongFirst-style bodyweight training. Don’t hold back.

Low reps. Keep the goal the goal. If you want to trade in your iron for calisthenics later, by all means go for it. For now it’s supposed to be assisting your efforts, not hindering them. More than 10 total to help you charge up your iron practice (with the exception of weighted pullups) is not necessary. Focus on tensing and recruiting as much muscle as possible with each rep. Same goes with the straight-arm work. Start conservative on both difficulty of the progression you choose and time under tension.

Go hollow! Flare your scapulae, practice the karate navel maneuver (point your bellybutton toward your face, tensing your abs and glutes at the same time), and keep your shoulders down. Obviously this will not apply to the bridge outside of keeping your shoulders down.
Relax after each set. Fast and loose, stretch, etc. You know the routine by now.

So there you have it.  A demystified approach to combining iron and bodyweight training to get brutishly strong, defy gravity, and unceremoniously smash all of your old PRs, replacing them with newer, more impressive ones. You already have all the tools you need: your iron of choice, your bodyweight, gravity, and time. Now all you need to add is work. Give it two to three months and drop me a line at aleks@alekssalkin.com to let me know how it worked for you.

Happy training, and have fun defying gravity.

Mining the one-arm/one-leg pushup for a heavier press

(This article originally appeared on strongfirst.com)

Long before the bench press was the apple of every gym rat’s eye, in the days before drugged-up muscle and pills, powders, and potions ruled the world’s fitness scene, only one thing set the real men and women apart from the boys and girls: strength.  And the ultimate show of upper body strength was – and still is – the overhead press.

Legendary powerlifting coach Marty Gallagher once pointed out that if you left a barbell on an island populated by heretofore undiscovered natives and came back a week later, they would have figured out a way to put it over their heads.  Dinosaur training genius Brooks Kubik has noted that in the days before toning and shaping, people judged your strength first and foremost by how much you could press over your head.  There’s no doubt about it – overhead pressing is just plain COOL.

“To press a lot, you must press a lot.”  This is an incontrovertible fact, delivered to us by Pavel’s landmark vehicle for world kettlebell domination Enter The Kettlebell.  There’s no way around it – if you want to press heavy stuff over your head, you have to press heavy stuff over your head! 

But variety is important, and sometimes – just sometimes – the detour is the way.  More and more I’ve found that calisthenics strength training has been the key that I’ve needed to launch me in new directions and to new heights in my iron practice, and the path in this instance started on the pushup.

Not just any pushup, either – the rarely-seen and elusive one-arm/one-leg pushup.  I, like any self-respecting kettlebell fanatic, love the feeling of heavy iron over my head.  After years of fits and starts, successes and setbacks, I decided to take a much needed break from kettlebell pressing.  My journey began in March of 2012, a good 9 months after my obsession with calisthenics training kicked off in full force, and right after attending and learning from Pavel and Dan John at the Easy Strength workshop.  I decided then and there to seriously program bodyweight strength training and started Dan John’s 40 Day Easy Strength program to see just how strong I could get from it.  I decided to tackle the one-arm/one-leg pushup, the weighted pistol, weighted pullup, dragon flag, and the single-sided kettlebell rack carry.

After 40 days of ignoring my nagging exercise ADD, I took a few days off and tested myself.  I was beyond pleased with my results.  Not only did I make massive improvements in all the exercises, but something unexpected happened: the 36 kg kettlebell – which previously sat on my chest and laughed at me every time I tried to press it – fired skyward the first time ever!  And what happened to me wasn’t a fluke either.  My coach and mentor John Scott Stevens, SFG II attended the Naked Warrior workshop with me in October and hadn’t touched his half-bodyweight bell (40 kgs) since then.  I gave him a program to nail his one-arm/one-leg pushup (which will appear in a few paragraphs), and that’s the only upper body pressing he’s been doing since then.  On March 15 – 5 months later – I asked him to test his 40 kg press for the sake of this article and he nailed five reps in a row on his right arm – a lifetime PR. 

Sitting back and looking at both my and Scott’s successes in the overhead press has elicited some observations that, every time I’ve tested, have proven over and over again to be correct: Bodyweight strength training will teach you more about the discipline of building strength than any other method.  That’s not just me saying that either – Pavel noted the same thing at his dynamite Naked Warrior certification last year.  So what benefits does bodyweight strength training hold for you and your iron practice?  Among the many things, it boils down to one very simple thing: total tension.

Progressing through bodyweight-only strength movements is not as simple as adding weights – it’s about reducing leverage.  Reducing leverage necessitates more full-body tension with each passing progression.  With each increasingly difficult progression, leakages in tension are no longer mere leakages – they’re full-on roadblocks to you successfully completing the movement.  Full-body tension is not just the goal – it’s the requirement. 

Seeing as how this is our goal for improving our strength with kettlebells and barbells, leakages and weaknesses become crystal clear in an instant when the unforgiving pull of gravity keeps you grounded and humbled.  Learning how to plug the tension leaks when they rear their head pays off in dividends once the lifting gets heavy and playtime is over.

With those basics established, your time has come: you may have run for a long time, but you can no longer hide from the benefits of calisthenics training. 

Before discussing programming, you’ll want to get your technique down, and YouTube University should not be your first choice for learning it (unless you’re on my YouTube channel, of course, in which case class is always in session).  Follow the tips below for each and every rep. 

1. Keep your shoulder pushed down – it’s a one-arm pushup, not a one-arm trap up!
2. Keep the crook of your elbow pointed forward (“screw your shoulder into its socket”).
3. Get into the hollow position (squeeze your butt, flare your shoulder blades, and brace your abs for a punch)
4. Kick your hip over to your working side.  Much like a military press, having the hip under the working arm will support you in completing the movement.
5. Get tight!  Power breathe to get the necessary full-body tension, squeeze your non-working hand into a fist, and practice all reps – even the easier ones – like they’re your “heavy” ones. 

As far as programming, you can thrive on very few reps of these per day and get ridiculously strong.  Let’s keep things simple and use Dan John’s 40 Day program.  Include an upper body pull, something for your lower body (squat/hinge), an ab exercise, and either something high-rep (swings/snatches) or (preferably) a loaded carry.  I recommend loaded carries for the sake of your overhead press, but that’s just me.  Your conditioning will likely drop during this program.  Deal with it.  It’ll be much easier to get it back after all the strength you build anyway.

As with anything we do at StrongFirst, progression is the name of the game.  In most cases for feats of bodyweight strength, adding weight isn’t a viable option.  The secret weapon to succeeding and progressing with one-arm pushups is by doing a miniature version of the movement – in this case, elevating your working hand and slowly reducing the leverage as you get stronger.  You’ll find a lot of weird pushup variations out there purporting to help you achieve your one-armer, but truthfully, the best and most results-producing method is the one above.  It leaves nothing to chance and the only variable that changes is the leverage.   Save the goofy pushup variations for your collection of party tricks.

Here is your program (listed as sets x reps)

Week 1: 
Monday – 2×5
Tuesday – 2×5
Wednesday – 5, 3, 2 (decrease elevation each set)
Thursday – 2×5
Friday – 2×5

Week 2: 
Monday – 2×5
Tuesday – 6×1 (decrease elevation each single)
Wednesday – 1×10 (very light)
Thursday – 2×5
Friday– 5, 3, 2 (decrease elevation each set)

Your 2×5 set should be at whatever height would serve as your 8-10 rep max.  On days in which you decrease the elevation, decrease it just enough that you feel the difference, but not so much that an onlooker would think you’re struggling.  All your reps should look the same, regardless of their difficulty level.  Remember to apply the technique tips from earlier in the article.

This next part is optional, but honestly, it’s what I would have done if I could go back and do this all again.  Walking over to your elevation and doing quality reps will work no matter what.  But to more precisely groove the pattern and ingrain the movement into your body – not to mention build strength even faster – add the following specialized plank drill before each set.

Hold a 5-second one-arm/one-leg pushup plank at a lower elevation (ideally on the floor if you’re strong enough).  Then, actively pull yourself into the bottom position – low enough that your shirt brushes the ground.  Hold this position for five seconds, then relax.  Shake out the tension, walk over to your elevation, and do your reps.  Repeat on the other arm.

Here are a few excerpts from my first bout with this program

Day 1: 2×5 (mid-thigh level)
Day 10: 5 (mid-thigh), 3 (knee level), 2 (below knee)
Day 21: 2×5 (knee level)
Day 26: 5 (knee level), 3 (below knee), 2 (above ankle)
Day 36: 2×5 (below knee) 

As you progress through the program, your easy sets should gradually progress closer and closer to the ground.  Before you know it, one-arm/one-leg pushups will be yours

Simple?  Yes.  Boring?  Oh yeah.  But effective?  You’d better believe it.  Add in stacked kettlebell rack walks at the end of your sessions to groove the rack position for your press and your target weight in the military press will shoot sky high faster than you can say “power to you!” 

Be sure at the end of each session to stretch out your hip rotators, your QL, and your dear abbies to keep your soft tissues happy and movable.  I speak from experience when I say ignoring those things will come back to bite you in places you probably won’t enjoy. 

One good press deserves another.  It will be hard, but putting your kettlebells aside for a few months and conquering the one-arm/one-leg pushup will likely be one of the best things you do for your press.

Go forth and be bodyweight strong, my friends.

PS: if you like pushups of all types, stripes, and difficulty levels, then you’re gonna love this: ManVsWeight.com has put together a massive list – the largest in the world – of 113 of the best and most effective pushup variations out there.  So if you want to build brute strength, muscle, and raw power, I highly recommend you check out this list – it’s fantastic! ​

http://www.manvsweight.com/push-up-variations/

Aleks Salkin is a level 2 StrongFirst-certified kettlebell instructor (SFG II), StrongFirst-certified bodyweight Instructor (SFB), and an Original Strength Certified Coach. He grew up scrawny, unathletic, weak, and goofy, until he was exposed to kettlebells and the teachings and methodology of Pavel in his early 20s. He is currently based out of Jerusalem, Israel and spends his time teaching clients both in person and online as well as spreading the word of StrongFirst and calisthenics. He regularly writes about strength and health both on his website and as a guest author on other websites. Find him on Facebook athttps://www.facebook.com/alekssalkintraining and online at http://oldaleks.littlelauberdesigns.com.

Yes, folks, sometimes there are shortcuts in life.

Wanna improve the number of one-arm pushups you can do?

Have you ever tried NOT doing more one-arm pushups?

Sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but it may be just what the doctor ordered. In fact, this lesson can be learned not only with one-arm pushups, but pretty much whatever other pet lift or exercise *YOU* obsess over to the bold and senseless exclusion of other equally-worthy and helpful exercises (ones whose regular practice will more often than not improve your pet lifts anyway).

I found this out recently after a boring night of doing I don’t even remember what (probably philosophizing over deep thoughts like “What makes teflon stick to the pan?” or “where do babies come from?”). I decided to break up the monotony by testing my one-arm pushup rep max on each arm for poops and giggles and found that I could do not one, not two, but EIGHT one-armers per side with zero warm-up! And this after a solid two years of no regular one-arm pushup practice, representing a too-legit-to-quit 60% increase in my previous rep max on each side (i.e. 5 per side).
Losers, whiners, and Redditors (i.e. losers and whiners) the world over are likely to attribute such unexpected mad gainz to 1. PEDs, 2. genetics, 3. dumb luck, but the real answer is far more compelling and applies directly to YOU and what YOU are doing (or more to the point, *not* doing).

Filling gaps.

Doing only the movements that you enjoy is similar to eating only cake because you enjoy it more than vegetables, then being pissed off that you look like the Michelin Man. Really?

I get that you like bench presses, curls, and nose-bleed high back squats that don’t come close to parallel, but finding out new and creative ways to do these exercises while avoiding others is progress in a very narrow direction and will catch up to you eventually, and almost certainly in the worst way. Playing with new movements, lifts, and activities will work wonders for your physical development and capabilities and will rear its head in countless ways.

In the time I spent away from one-arm pushups, I did more of the following:

* Crawling of all kinds (obviously)
* Heavy double kettlebell clean and jerks
* Souped-up pike pushups and handstand pushups
* Weighted dips and chinups
* All manner of straight-arm movements – front lever, handstand, back lever, planche, pullover, and weighted side-holds
* Sprinting
* Different types of squats
* Rotational movements

Which one helped the most? I have my suspicions (crawling and straight-arm work, I’m looking at you), but honestly, who cares? It was stuff I hadn’t done previously and it all strengthened me in ways that JUST doing one-arm pushups and my other favorite exercises would have. And if you can make your cake taste better by eating vegetables, why wouldn’t you?\

Whenever you start your next program, surprise yourself by taking out a few of your best moves and throw in something completely different. Doing a lot of bench press? Try overhead pressing for a while. Doing a lot of back squats? Try some martial arts squats and see the difference it makes. Throw in crawls, sprints, marches, etc. Twist, bend, flex, and extend yourself in any way you can. Explore what you can do by investigating what you can do. Come back in a few months and hit up your old favorites again and I think you’ll be surprised to see that not only are they still waiting for you, but that they’re better than ever before.
​
Pictured above is the lovely and talented Jen Sinkler picking up a barbell in a way you’ve probably never tried. She can lift 300 lbs in this manner, and is no-doubt stronger than you for it.

Hard to believe, but it’s not only possible, it’s the only way.

The idea of beating yourself up with your training every time you walk into the gym seems to be an entirely new one as far as I can tell. Not because people never did it before, but because so many “professionals” in the fitness industry seem to be telling their clients/followers that only by giving it everything they’ve got, by pouring out every ounce and every drop, could they ever hope to achieve the muscular development and fitness they crave.

(Now, that’s not ENTIRELY untrue. If that’s all your life is dedicated to, then go all out. But the reality is that if you’re like most people, your training revolves around your life and what it demands of you – your life does NOT revolve around your training.)

Let’s look back to look forward.

Look back at the iron greats of days past – and not just the iron greats, but the ones whose names AND records still stand as a testament to what the human body is capable of. Did they lift until their calloused hands bled and begged for mercy? Did they lift until they had to crawl out of the gym? Did they lift so hard they had to take a week off? Did they lift so hard they snapped tendons, broke bones, tore muscles, and ruined joints? Some were known to war against the weights (the legendary Louis Cyr is a good example), but for all the differences in their training methods, pet lifts, and teachings, as if with one voice they all said almost exactly the same thing:

“Practice the exercises, and do not ‘work yourself out’.”

This philosophy produced unmatchable, Greek statue physiques such as that of George Jowett and Maxick – physiques that were both as supple as a chamois cloth yet hard as the marble statues they resembled. It birthed the mind-bending feats of strength that stand to this day, among them are Arthur Saxon’s 370 lb bent press (a move in which he put that weight over his head with one hand), Paul Anderson’s 6,270 lb back lift, and Hermann Goerner’s 727 lb one-hand deadlift. All these men took their time between sets and always gave a strong effort, but rarely overexerted themselves. They also prioritized recovery, because as co-founder of Original Strength Geoff Neupert has succinctly pointed out, “It doesn’t matter how much work you can do; it matters how much work you can recover from.”
​
Your strength is a bank account. You’re either adding to it or withdrawing from it. This coming week, make a deposit by lifting heavy, but not “hard”; by dominating the exercises you’re practicing and not letting them dominate you; and by resting more rather than pushing ever harder.
If you start your week as a pauper, you can still end it as a king. Remember that.

Looked at another way, if you spend every penny you make each week, are you surprised when your account is a barren wasteland of Insufficient Funds notices and overdraft fees at the end of each week?

If you put the pedal to the metal every time you get behind the wheel of your car, take sharp turns at high speeds, and let your car run until it’s really low on oil and other fluids, are you surprised when your car transforms into a barely functioning, duct-taped-together bucket of bolts and mismatched spare parts?

So then why are you surprised when you “give it 110%” and “leave it all in the gym” each and every time you train…and have only aches, pains, and frustrations to show for it instead of PRs and gains?

Like with anything good in life, the more you force it, the more it gleefully eludes you. Training is no different. Any attempt to force your body to do something it’s not ready for will end in your body working against you. As it’s been said before, in order to control nature, you must obey nature. The obedience required to consistently lift heavier, do more work, and crush more weakness is as follows:

* Consistency and frequency over balls-out intensity.
* Prioritizing recovery over mindlessly pushing forward.
* Training in the 50%-80% range most of the time, and testing yourself only every once in a while.
* Knowing how to interpret the signs your body gives you and come back again another day when necessary. 
* Don’t change exercises once the gains stop rolling in – change your approach (i.e. a different variation of the same exercise, etc.)

The list could go on, but you get the idea.

Seeing how sore you get is a job more easily accomplished by getting hit with a baseball bat.

Seeing how much of a burn you can feel is a job better done by sticking your hand in a fire.

Seeing how much you can puke is a job more appropriate for a spoonful of syrup of ipecac.
​
But getting better consistently and measurably is a job better done by patience, consistency, and nudging your body forward rather than trying to drag it kicking and screaming. Try this approach out for the next few months and you’ll be amazed at the kick start in your strength and conditioning gains. You might even learn to like being patient.