Category: Lifting

It strikes me as how the body gets used to calisthenics real easily, it could get used to slightly weighted calisthenics just as well.

Try that out as an experiment.

…..

Do high reps regularly, but do them weighted ever so slightly.

Then add a bit, but keep those reps in the stratosphere.

Eventually you’ll be doing pushups for sets of 50 with a person, even an impressively large person or two small humans, standing on your upper back.

Persistence & Tenacity

Early on in my training I saw numbers between 60% and 70% of your bodyweight called the bench press equivalent poundage of a pushup.

Most sources said either ⅔ or 65% bw.

I call that difference negligible, and use them when I calculate the bench equivalent of my weighted pushups.

The Equation :
bw x .66 + x

x is the number of pounds on the upper back, I just straight lump sum add it to the pushup equation since the resistence is centered at my scapula directly across from the chest, the prime mover.

Who says you need a barbell to get the training effect of heavy benching?

Persistence & Tenacity

Chins :
5 x bw

Weighted Chins :
1 x bw + 25
1 x bw + 45
1 x bw + 70
1 x bw + 90
11 x bw + 25

Stronger grip is necessary to make the +70 and +90 really solid. I basically jumped to the bar on those two sets and pulled as fast as possible. The speed up was impressive, but the negatives too were fast down.

I was hyped up to “what was I thinking” (linked below), and maybe to “pouring up” by pimp c on either the +90 or the 11 rep set.

Sing a line, timing the song well, jump to the bar, smoke the rep!

Keeping a hurry up pace up with the dude who trains weighted chins with me training with me.

BW+90? That’s something like a chin up as a 340lb fat man.

I’m that strong.

Today’s Amp Up Music :

Overhead Squats :
3×10

DB C&P
8 x 75s

That’s a PR, the Sig Klein challenge is close. I had to search to find a second bell, that was funny, normally I never have to go looking for the 75s.

Mantra Pushups :
10 sets

10 sets of pushups, bringing you into the mid 200 to 300 total reps area is a very solid standby.

I use this as a standby, I’ll go to the gym to get out of the house, and get this done when I’m not particularly feeling the gym.

Five sets or so in, and I’ll be hyped to be at the gym, and I’ll do full body like the usual.

Today was almost an off day.
I had pushups to do, and didn’t realize till after I’d done the overhead squats that May PT wasn’t required today.

The Mirror :
I look better in the mirror.

Calories are fairly low. Activity is high. I keep training. Diet is whatever sounds good, just not huge in calories.

I like the change I’m seeing, I’m strong, and feel good.

I expect abs this summer. Probably around 230lbs while very strong.

On the final rep I count to 100 while atg, it’s probably 15 seconds, at parallel again I count to 100, again probably 15 seconds.

Counting is always fast under load.

At the top I squeeze as hard as possible to…you guessed it, a 100ct, probably 15 seconds.

You may see stars by the end of this, as it’s the 10th set, while the intensity multipliers make the last the best set – the one with the most effort in.

I even do the most reps in that final set.

You don’t need much bar weight, nor much weight on the dowel when you’re improvising.

It’s my giant set finisher :

•pushups
•db c&p
•overhead squats

I love it.

I have so much further to go, and the topper?

To end I’ve gotta get those bells back to the rack.

Lots of time under tension makes me a strong man.

I’m very very strong, and I’m getting lean.

Persistence & Tenacity

Some Current Supersets :

•pushups
•db c&p
•overhead squats

•seated row
•pullups/chins

•pushups
•seated row

•pushups
•overhead squats

•db c&p
•seated row

•pushups
•handstands

The above are all examples of supersets I’ve been doing lately.

I could add a kettlebell swing in anywhere additionally.

Supersets are great.

In addition to the cardio and fat burning effect, you get a freakish strength when you’ve reached a high enough level of performance in each exercise during every set.

Thinking low reps is the only way to be/get strong is a farce.

Any rep range will do, and strong at a fast pace means you’re even stronger when you train for it and take long rests.

From general fitness, bodybuilding, and just being freakish standpoint supersets are better than actually taking rests.

Stop the limitations, lose the inhibitions.

Very strong while supersetting is very strong. I’m getting into my Cardio Calisthenics™ territory again while using pf’s equipment in addition.

I’ve seen some very impressive supersets. Mental toughness, your self talk plays in. Go hard. Don’t suck.

Persistence & Tenacity

Most would say that leg work is the most important to train for building mass.

Don’t sleep on the back work!

It’s the strength of a man’s back that determines his rugged physicality.

The legs will always have to support you, and will be firing statically for a lot of back work.

Back work will carry the legs.

Bulk ain’t gonna allow for stork stilts underneath you!

And you’re not going to get better at chin ups with back squats!

(Though I can see overhead squats doing so.)

You want to be big?

Go to planet fitness and marry the seated row, with extramarital relations to chins, pullups, and db c&p.

I add in smith btn press – which I feel as a rib cage expander, and it doesn’t matter that I do only 10% of the leg work I’d be doing if I was at a barbell gym with the right vibe running bulgarian squat every day.

Legs are covered with the carryover from back work (seated row, db c&p), and occasional periods running daily overhead squats.

Superset Everything :

•db c&p w/seated row
•db c&p w/chins or pullups
•seated row w/chins or pullups

These are SUPER sets!

You get very strong doing so.

I’m at the point where chins/pullups are an endurance exercise, am repping the stack on seated row, a bit lighter for very high reps, and am working my way to the stack one handed.

I’m thriving on lots of volume.

I can press past a pair of 100s.
The 75s are comically light.

The Sig Klein challenge is soon.

I make pf work!

In this moment with a focus on back and shoulders.

I was laughing to myself thinking about how big a push/pull I’d have when/if I ever go back to lifting in barbell gym circumstances.

How long does volume at pf take to make a 405lb bench? It’s close.

I’ve calculated weighted pushups to 365+ lbs, and have gotten stronger since.

(The video equivalent to doubling about 330lbs, off camera same “weight” x5-6.)

My back is growing with all the seated rowing, heavy sets getting stricter, and I’ve been transitioning to doing so one handed, as a stand in for heavy one arm db rows.

Factor in weighted dips and weighted pullups/chin ups.

Volume the stack of the lower back machine to keep your lower back in the pink.

With honest work you’ll build a big push/pull at planet fitness.

The place does work well when you make it so.

And I hadn’t even mentioned smith benching or bodybuilding the back with the same.

A lifting partner has gotten me to do shrugs in the smith, I hadn’t shrugged in years.

I was laughing, him thinking 4p shrugs, strapped in the smith machine as heavy. I keep telling him about “pf heavy” vs “real gym” heavy.

(Planet Fitness “Heavy” vs “Real” Gym Heavy – article for another time)

I make planet fitness work for me.

Why not train there til you’re hitting an over 1000lb push/pull.

If you’re not, you’ve yet to maximize pf.

Lats & Triceps
Pulldowns & Pushdowns

While it feels fairly lazy to me, it’s a great pump ESPECIALLY when you have the right attachments.

Straight up bodybuilder style, I could’ve done dips, but I always do dips, this was a change of pace.

Pulldowns with the full on Pulcinella lean, pushdowns trying to feel the stretch in my triceps.

I was working the angles, playing around with stance, lean, positioning until it all felt right.

The two movements are a great superset, feeding into each other.

There’s old school precedence, pullovers into french curls, putting these movements and muscles together.

Jumping Rope Is Big Man Cardio :

From The Archives :
Late 2017

As a 15 year old lad of 6′  and barely 170lbs I was forced along with the rest of the wrestling team to skip rope for the better part of 10-15 minutes or 500 skips whichever comes first.

Having become self conscious of using a jump rope after age 5 as “jumping rope is for girls” was the general consensus on the playground at the time I now found myself whacking my upper back or skull about 50 times, and catching it on my foot for a similar number of repetitions 4 days a week that winter as I had not practiced the damn thing in about 10 years (with a short aside of being forced to take part in a “girly” activity by a 4th grade gym teacher).

Unlike running which I very much mentally burnt out of, as I grew I continued to jump rope.

Maybe I like the activity. Maybe I felt overly invested in it’s use as after that season of wrestling I spent a solid hour daily the next summer practicing it (and getting down basic tricks, in addition to actually skipping/jumping the rope efficiently) fully expecting to be forced into the 15 minute/500 revolution protocol again the next winter only to have a change in coaches, the new one liking long ass running. (Coincidently this is how a 200lber can get to running ~21:00 5ks. Do it 4x weekly as hard as possible by coach’s command while blaring foreign rap and other music no one else has heard of. This also is how one grows to hate running, another coincidence.)

Humorous forewording aside: the jump rope is a perfect cardio option, particularly for a big man.

Jumping rope provides similar benefits to distance running but without the negatives. It is far more sustainable.

You will not have it affect your system as much. Whereas running will pump up your lower back, often bother some joint or other, and often enough make you feel weaker jump rope doesn’t dip into recovery like that.

Running gets you better at running. Jump rope has in addition to the cardio benefits also trains agility. It can make you more “bouncy”.

Running indoors on a treadmill I find to be retarded. Go outside! (I do in fact enjoy running bleachers.) Jump rope on the other hand can be done anywhere.

(I skipped a ton of rope in 2015 supersetting with pushups, this oddly got me my running ability back while having run at most once every 3 months.)