Bodyweight Training and Beyond

 

High-Volume, High-Frequency Bodyweight-Centric Workouts for Transforming Your Physique

Part One: Bodyweight Training and Nothing But

     If you are going to achieve good results no matter your goals—be it strength, hypertrophy, or a combination of the two; whether you want to be “lean and mean” or big as a house—then you must learn to balance the 3 training variables of volume, frequency, and intensity.  (Intensity in this article, unless otherwise noted, will be how it is used in strength training circles—as a percentage of your one-rep maximum, not as the manner it's used in bodybuilding vernacular, which is how “hard” you train.)  As I have often explained, two of the variables need to be high—or, at least, one high and the 2nd one moderate—and the remaining variable needs to be low.  The exception to this is if all of the variables are moderate in a program.  Because of this stance, it means I have never believed that there is only one way to train, or that there is some magical program that is somehow superior to all others.  I believe, instead, that a host of training programs can be effective, so long as a program adheres to the 2-high, 1-low “rule” or the all-3-moderate approach.  However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t think certain programs are better for the average gym-goer.  Depending on your goal(s), along with your genetics (how you respond to a program; this is much more of a factor for hypertrophy than most understand), some programs are certainly better than others.  I have, for instance, long extolled high-frequency training (HFT) to be a form of training—though there are many ways it can be done—that, I believe, works better for the average lifter than its low-frequency counterparts.  The problem for most lifters is that HFT is, on average, harder to program.  Which is also the reason that I’ve long argued that the most popular form of working out on the planet is the one (maybe two) muscle group per workout method, where you train with high-volume, high-intensity, and low-frequency (often just once per week per muscle) because it’s incredibly simple to program.  You go to the gym, train a muscle group with as many sets as you want, as heavy as you choose, and as hard as you like, then you rest plenty and train it again.  It doesn’t get much simpler than that.  However, there is another form of training that’s just as easy to program.  On top of that, it’s also hugely popular among a large swath of the training population.  And what form of training might that be?  I’m talking about high-volume, high-frequency bodyweight training.

     I think that bodyweight training has become popular for a few reasons.  For one, it doesn’t require anything to start training other than your own body, the time to train, and the willingness to stick with the workouts.  Second, as mentioned, it’s simple to program.  Many who use it may not even realize that they’re actually following a time-tested principle of proper programming by training with high-volume, high-frequency, but low-intensity.  Since you’re only using your bodyweight, the intensity will never be too high, no matter how hard you train.  And, third, it’s effective.  Since HFT is more productive (in terms of gains) than lower volume approaches for so many trainees, physique athletes who switch from the typical bro-split workouts to bodyweight training often find—much to their own surprise—that they get better results, including more muscle growth, from the bodyweight training than they did with the high-volume (but very low frequency) bodybuilding workouts.

     In this article and the one (possibly two) that follows, we’ll look at several different methods that will produce these results.  However, instead of just looking at bodyweight training, I’ll discuss some ways that you can take this approach and also incorporate it into weighted workouts.  For example, I think one of the reasons that kettlebell training has exploded in popularity is that it can be trained in much the same manner as one trains with bodyweight workouts.  So, we’ll look at kettlebell workouts, too, along with barbells and dumbbells as we proceed.  We’ll start with bodyweight only training then move onto “hybrid” regimens that combine bodyweight with other methods in our 2nd installment.

     Looking back on my own training life, I first started bodyweight workouts more than 40 years ago, when I first took up martial arts training in a very traditional Karate dojo as a young boy.  We would do bodyweight squats, walking lunges, duck walks (a staple to this day in a variety of martial arts), Cossack squats (a little-used but invaluable movement for the lower body and flexibility), along with a plethora of pushups using varying hand positions, including knuckle pushups performed on roof shingles for callusing our fists.  On top of that, we did hundreds of punches and kicks against a makiwara board.  Perhaps the greatest judoka of all time, Masahiro Kimura (the arm lock known as “kimura,” often seen in BJJ and MMA bouts, is named after him) attributed much of his success to makiwara training, though he was also said to have done 1,000 pushups a day.  Judoka though he may have been, he also trained in Karate under the legendary founder of Kyokushinkai, Masutatsu Oyama.  Oyama was himself known for using high-volume bodyweight and weighted workouts.  A lot of the training that we did in the dojo, however, was not really that modern.  It came from hojo undo or “supplemental training” that had been a part of Okinawan Karate long before it was even known as Karate.  (“Karate” is a modern word forced upon the Okinawans.  It was originally known by other words such as shuri-te, meaning “China hand,” which, of course, wouldn’t have been acceptable to the Japanese.)  So, the form of training that Oyama was using had ancient antecedents.

     Although I used bodyweight training at times, once I reached the age of 16 or so, I primarily switched over to free weights.  I wanted to be strong and big, and I was pretty sure that bodyweight workouts weren’t going to cut it.  I’m not sure, however, if I was correct on that assumption.  I know it's a standard cliche, but I wish I would have known then what I know now.  I didn’t take up bodyweight training again as my primary workouts until 20 years later, in 2009, when an unexpected, and lifechanging, occurrence ended up being a blessing in disguise—well, at least from a workout standpoint.  In late ‘08, early ‘09—I’m unsure of the exact date; odd considering the relevance, I admit—I separated from my first wife, who I had been married to for almost 13 years.  During our marriage, which is also the time when I competed in powerlifting, I amassed a large amount of weights and equipment that filled our entire garage.  I had a squat rack, a Forza bench (which I still use to this day), a lifting platform for deadlifts and the quick lifts, along with an assortment of plates and dumbbells totaling close to 1,500 pounds, not to mention a sled, a sandbag, and several heavy bags for martial training.  Living in an apartment upon our separation, I took little with me other than a couple of dumbbells—if I’m not mistaken just a pair of 30 and 80-pound dumbbells.  I did end up purchasing a pullup bar and a pair of “Fat Gripz” (to this day, one of the best purchases a home lifter can make) to wrap around the dumbbells for thick-bar work.  So, for workouts, I did very little other than pushups, chins, bodyweight squats and lunges, and some dumbbell curls and presses.  I also used the 80s, along with the Fat Gripz, for deadlifts, one-arm overhead presses, and farmer walks.  What happened?  I got in better shape and looked noticeably bigger than I had been in several years.

     I learned a valuable lesson.  The more options one has, the more confused he can become over what to do.  There’s a reason that quite a few folks who go to prison come out looking better than before.  They don’t have options.  Forced to train with little other than their own bodies, they do the kind of workouts that can actually make a difference.  They do pushups, chinups, and bodyweight squats.  Some may have access to weights, sure, but not all of them.  You know what?  Their muscles are better for it.  In modern life, we just have too much “free will,” leaving us to our own devices, which typically means sitting on the couch and watching TV instead of working out.

     Let’s now turn to some methods, thoughts, tips, and workouts that can be effective for bodyweight training.

     One of the issues with bodyweight training is, because you can do so many reps at one time, that trainees will often burn out too early due to fatigue accumulation.  If you decide to do a single 100-rep set of bodyweight squats—something that, though hard, is certainly doable—you may find that that one set fatigues you so much that you can’t do anything else for your legs, or other muscles, for that matter.  But, if you break that 100 reps down into smaller size chunks, you’ll find that not only can you get 100 reps, but you can get a lot more than that.

     A few times on the blog, I have mentioned the 10,000 swing challenge, where you do 10,000 swings over the course of a few weeks, doing 500 reps of swings at each workout.  But you get those 500 reps by doing ladder clusters of 10, 15, 25, and 50 reps—that’s 100 reps—five times.  That’s a good technique for bodyweight movements, as well.  The movement will, obviously, dictate the reps that you select.  100 rep clusters are good for bodyweight squats or other leg movements such as lunges.  40-60 rep clusters are good for pushups, depending upon your bodyweight.  20-30 rep clusters are good for chins, once again dependent upon how much you weigh.  Just how many clusters you would do per exercise would depend upon your conditioning.

     My Uncle Kirk—who is 74 and can still deadlift 400 pounds—told me how, one time when he was injured, he couldn’t do any heavy lifting but he could do push ups with no pain.  He did pushup ladders, starting with 1 rep, then adding a rep on each set until he got up to 20 reps, then he worked back down to 1 rep.  That’s 420 reps, folks!  Not only did he preserve his strength when he returned to regular lifting, but he said he also gained some size in his chest, shoulders, and his triceps.  If you want to try something such as that, unless you’re already well-conditioned for it, I imagine that 420 reps is too much in one workout.  Also, it might be better, once you have gone “up” the ladder, to start over again at the bottom instead of going back down it.

     One way to control volume, ensure that you’re doing enough but not too much, and keep your muscles strong and fast is to do ladders the way Uncle Kirk did it but instead of having a “pre-set” rep that you’re going to stop at—20 in my uncle’s case—stop once your reps slow down.  In my book, this is better than going until you reach the point of momentary muscular failure, or close to it (but if you like training that way, and you find you do get good results from it, you can do that also).  The key here, however, is that, as you progress, you’ll notice that your “slow down point” gets higher and higher.  For your first workout, you might start at 1 rep and do ladders up to 15, but you stop at 15 because that is the rep that’s slower than your first.  As you start your next ladder cluster, you might slow down at, say, 12, so you stop there.  On the next cluster, it might be 10.  And so on and so forth.  By the way, if you’re out of shape, you might slow down after just a few reps.  That’s perfectly fine.  Don’t let it discourage you.  One of the benefits of doing bodyweight training along with a fat-loss protocol is that, as you lose weight, your workouts become lighter since resistance is bodyweight, which means that you’ll quickly see results because you’re getting stronger and you’re using less resistance.

     How many ladder clusters should you do in a workout?  This depends upon both your personal work capacity and how frequently you plan on training.  At first, I would do less than you probably think you need to do.  I like daily training.  I think it’s one of the ways that you can see fast results.  So, starting off, you may just want to do one ladder.  As you progress, you can start adding ladders to each session until you reach the point where your daily workout consists of multiple ladder clusters.

     If you have been training with a low-frequency program beforehand, you are going to be sore after a workout, even one with fairly low volume.  That’s one of the problems I have with low-frequency training.  It never conditions the lifter to train with frequency and, therefore, never develops a strong work capacity.  This means that, at first, you’re going to have to learn to train through the soreness.  Don’t worry.  You’ll adapt.  If you train a movement every day, your workout might look something like this:  On the 2nd day, do 75% of what you did the 1st day.  On the 3rd day, do 50%.  On the 4th day, go back to 100%.  5th day, 75%.  6th day, 50%.  Take off on the 7th day.  (Even God needed one day off during a week.)  In the 2nd week, go to something such as this: Monday: 100%; Tuesday: 100%; Wednesday: 75%; Thursday: 100%; Friday: 50%; Saturday: 100%.  That’s just an example, albeit a pretty good one.  Eventually, you’ll reach a point where most of your days are at 100%, but even the most advanced lifters need to rotate between hard, moderate, and easy days.  Bodyweight training is no different.

     Another route is to make each workout 100% but take off more days at first, then begin to reduce the days off.  If you train full-body, then take 2 days off after each training day for 2 weeks.  Then go to a 3 day a week plan, such as Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  After 2 weeks of that, go to an every-other-day plan such as Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, and so on.  After another couple weeks, go to a 2-on, 1-off plan for 2 weeks, until you’re eventually training as many days in a row as you want before taking a day off.

     Bodyweight training is also no different from weighted workouts in the fact that you can do full-body programs or a variety of split regimens.  You can train one exercise per muscle group, two exercises, or even a handful of movements for each bodypart.  You can keep it as simple as just doing bodyweight squats, pushups, and chins in a session or you can do a workout consisting of pushups with a variety of hand placements, dips, chins (using a close-grip, medium-grip, and wide-grip), squats, lunges, wall sits, Hindu squats, and Bulgarian split squats.

     Okay, let’s see what a couple workouts might look like using what we’ve discussed thus far.  If either program looks as if it has too much volume for you, then take some of my advice that I’ve already written about it and slowly work up to what is recommended here.

Full-body, minimal exercises, maximum frequency

     Do the following program 6 days a week, taking off one day per week.

Push ups: 100 reps

Bodyweight squats: 500 reps

Chins: 50 reps

     Get the reps any way that you want.  You can do ladders or straight sets.  On the pushups, for instance, you could do ladders, starting at 1 rep, add a rep on each set and work your way up to 10.  You then start back at 1 rep and work your way up to 9 reps—that’s 100 reps total.  Or, you could do 10 sets of 10 or 5 sets of 20.  Anyway that works for you.

Two-way split - upper/lower

     Do the following workout 6 days per week, training your upper body on the first day and your lower body on the 2nd.

Upper body:

Dips: 5 ladder clusters of 2-3-5-10 (for more on this method of training, see my previous article “Skill Training as Size Building”)

Push ups: 240 reps.  For these, do 2 ladders, starting at 1 rep and working your way up to 15, then repeat for a total of 240 reps

Chins: 5 ladder clusters of 2-3-5

Steep incline situps: 3 sets of 15-20 reps

Lower body:

Sissy squats: 5 sets of 10 reps, minimum rest between sets

Hindu squats: 100 reps

Walking lunges: 60 reps

One-leg calf raises: 3-5 sets of 20 reps (each leg)

     You may find with either program above that you need more or less volume.  Bodyweight training is the same as weight training in regards to volume for the individual.  Some lifters don’t just get by but thrive on fairly low volume—so long as the frequency is high enough—whereas other lifters do better on programs that utilize a lot of volume.  If you decide to use one of those two programs, do it as written, however, for two weeks.  At that point, you should know if you need less or more.

     In our next installment, we will turn our attention to hybrid training, combining bodyweight workouts with weighted ones.  My original intention here was to just write one article, but, as we’re only halfway through and this thing has already stretched out to 3K words, I decided it would be better to break it up into two parts.  Also, it could be that I have assembled enough material that we will need a Part 3, which would probably be a “specialization” piece.

     I have a couple of other articles going right now, so whether or not Part 2 will be my next post or after a different article, I will leave to the power training, bodybuilding gods and what creative inspiration they decide to bestow upon me.  Until then, train hard and stay at it!

     As always, if you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the “comments” section below.  If you’re already a bodyweight training proponent, let readers know some of the programs and methods that have worked for you.