What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today I want to show you five bodyweight exercises that are on the more difficult side of calisthenics
exercises that are not as hard as you think they are.
As a matter of fact, I’m going to give you the cheat codes.
The tricks, the tips, the one thing you want to focus on – or two – that will make
them a lot easier.
They’re not throw away exercises, guys.
These are all things that are going to add a benefit to your training program as a whole.
But if you can’t do them, you’re not going to be able to gain those benefits.
With that said, let’s get started right away with the dragon flag.
The dragon flag is a more difficult ab exercise, but it’s actually more a glute exercise.
That is the big problem here.
If you’re looking for the cheat code stop focusing so much on this side of your torso
and focus more on what’s on this side of your torso.
That’s the key.
If we look at the mechanics of the exercise, what we’re losing here is the opportunity
to get the glutes to help out because you’re disengaging them.
If your hips start dropping in here, as you start to get out straight, like that, yes;
your abs are working to hold up your legs.
But what really needs to be working are your glutes.
They need to be squeezed up.
If you think about only one thing during this exercise, make sure you’re not allowing
your hips – as your legs get out – to start sinking and dropping, creating this
angle between your thighs and torso.
Instead, if you squeeze your butt up you’ll straighten that out so you have one straight
line between your thigh and your torso.
If you squeeze your butt up as hard as you can, holding the rest of your body up will
be infinitely easier.
So, it should look like this.
Come up.
You can start high if you want it to be easier, come down.
Come down here.
So, the secret is not necessarily the abs, but the ass.
The second exercise here is the explosive pushup variation we call the “Hannibal Pushup”.
It’s not as difficult as it may seem.
The thought process is, you’re really trying to not think about exploding up to where you’re
touching everything in one shot, but where you’re cutting the distance in half.
All I have to do is bring my hands from a position here, to a position about here where
my pelvis was.
All I have to do is bring my toes from a position here, to a position up here to where my pelvis
is.
So, I’m not trying to think about exploding to touch them together.
I’m thinking about meeting in the middle.
So, when I get there it’s not as difficult.
The ground I have to cover is not as bad.
I don’t have to explode as much as I thought I did to get there.
So, I come down, come up, right in the middle.
Exercise number three is the typewriter pullup.
You’ve likely seen this before.
It’s definitely amore challenging version of the pullup because you have to have more
control of your body.
Especially at the top, in the most difficult range in the exercise.
But don’t forget you do have another hand on the bar.
This is not a one-armed pullup.
The other hand should come into helping you to perform this exercise properly.
The other thing you want to do is make sure you’re widening your grip here.
If we’re going to be sliding side to side and you start off too narrow, you’re not
going to be able to do that without having to change hand position, lifting your hand
off the bar with all your bodyweight suspended.
What you want to do is be able to slide with your hands in position.
So, first of all, get wide.
Second, as I come up – and I’ll demonstrate this in full in a second.
As I come up and I slide myself to this side, this hand is key.
I want to utilize the strength of my wrist to give me some support on top of that bar.
Just because I’m not holding this way doesn’t mean I’m not holding onto the bar.
I am holding onto the bar with my thumb and my wrist.
So, you slide to this side here, you reengage that hand, you slide that way, and extend
the hand.
Point your hand and your fingers out, away from you so you’re turning and getting the
thumb down toward the ground to hook on the bar.
So, it looks like this.
I come up, wide, and then I go to the side.
I can come back here to the side, to this side, to this side.
Or I can come up angled and go right into it.
That’s more of an archer.
So, the key is getting wide, staying wide, and then when you’re up, realizing that
this is providing a lot of downward force on the bar to allow you to perform this.
Next, we have the high box jump.
You guys have probably seen some people do some pretty impressive jumps here.
This isn’t even all that impressive for the guys that are really, really good at these.
However, it would be challenging for a lot of different people.
I will tell you this: you do not need a great vertical jump to be able to execute a high
box jump.
What you need is the ability to get your knees up toward your head or over your head.
However high you can get your knees up and over your torso, the easier this is going
to become.
What we want to do is work on the hip flexor capability.
So, if I was going to warmup for this exercise what I would do is come up to the box, I’d
lift my knee up into it like this, try to get as high as I could.
And then lean in, really stretching out the muscles in the posterior chain here that are
going to get stretched as I bring my knee up and lean in.
We want to get that knee up toward the head.
Of course, I’ve got to do both sides.
Then I’ve also got to realize I’ve got to get my hands, if my hands are going to
be working for me, I need to think that my feet have to come up toward my hands.
So, I could stand here in place and then drive my knees up.
My feet up toward my hands.
That way, to more dynamically warmup the movement.
Finally, we know that we could do a deep sink down into it to, again, get ourselves into
position where our head and upper body is approaching our feet.
The last key here is, after getting ourselves warmed up that way, is to not forget to use
our arms to do this.
So, we’re using the arms that are driving from here, up as I lift.
So, it will look like this.
Come down.
One more time.
And then down.
So again, really trying to get my legs up.
I wasn’t jumping straight here, through a vertical.
I was bringing my legs up to try and get myself and my feet up on top of this box.
Finally, exercise number five: the floating tuck planch as seen here.
Now, I’m going to tell you guys.
This not nearly as difficult as it may appear.
That’s because we’re utilizing physics to perform the exercise, if we do it right.
What we want to do is mostly focus on two things.
Number one: the position of our hands on the box when we do it.
We have some options.
I could have my fingers faced backward this way.
I could have them faced that way, or I could have them faced out with a wider hand position.
But there’s only one right way to do it because we want to make sure our hands are
as close to our center mass in gravity as possible.
In the case of this exercise, and many, it’s our pelvis.
We want to make sure our pelvis is balanced on our balance point here.
So, if I have my hands here in this position, or in this position you can see the natural
bend of the elbow is outward.
With an outward bend of the elbow we see it’s not nearly as good as it could be if we put
our hands facing backward.
Why?
Because now when the elbows go back, they’re going right down into the pelvis.
Getting really close to that center mass, giving me a better balance on this box.
Not to mention, we know when our elbows are tucked into our side, I can get a lot more
lat engagement here for stability.
What we don’t want to happen is to get up here, balancing, and have our upper body wavering,
or having our shoulder blades jostling up and down because we have no stability through
the back.
We want to have tightness through the back.
So, if you do those two things it becomes a hell of al to easier.
So, I get my hands facing backward and tucked in, and then I get in position here.
I’m going to lean forward so now I’m balanced over the top like that.
Then once I’m there I’m going to lift my knees up, continue to fall forward, and
then allow my legs to go back, balancing and counterbalancing the legs and feet with my
head, and upper body.
So, I’m in here like this.
Elbows in tight.
In this position here and press out.
Come in, tuck, out, in, out.
In, out, and down.
So again, it’s a balancing act.
Yes, you need to have adequate upper body strength to be able to isometrically hold
yourself there, but it’s not nearly as demanding as it may seem if you have the mechanics of
the exercise wrong.
So, there you have it, guys.
There are five bodyweight exercises, not nearly as hard as you maybe thought they were.
Now, I’ve given you some cheat codes to allow you to get out there and start trying
them.
Guys, if you’re looking for a step by step bodyweight only training program, no equipment
at all required; that’s our ATHLEAN-0 program.
It’s available over at ATHLEANX.com.
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All right, guys.
I’ll see you soon.