Sometimes, whether it be by preference or by the circumstances you find yourself in,
you may or may not have access to equipment.
And in those cases, what is your decision?
Are you going to give up on your workout entirely or are you going to find a way to get the
job done given the situation you find yourself in.
Well today I wanted to go to one of the requests that you guys have been making, a Shoulder
Workout, Bodyweight only,
that showed you how you can overload.
How you can create change in your body by doing the right kinds of bodyweight exercises
to substitute for the things that we more typically do in the gym.
So with that being said lets break it down exercise by exercise,
you see what you classically do, you see what you can be doing if you find yourself in a
situation where you just don't have the equipment with you.
Alright so lets kick this workout off with our compound move, our Dumbbell or Barbell
Shoulder Press.
Guys you know it doesn't matter what type of equipment you're using here, the focus
of this exercise is to push that weight,
push some heavy weight and start building those shoulders up.
But if you don't have access to either one, are you left with nothing?
Absolutely not, guys you know we have other options.
Here you can see me doing a Handstand Pushup against the wall.
Even if you're big and strong, I can tell you, this exercise becomes really challenging
really quickly,
and especially the heavier your bodyweight is at the moment.
Right, you've got to push more the more you weigh.
But even if that's not a challenge for you, you can add in our Wall Walk Pushup variation,
where you're going to do a Wall Walk out all the way to a Flat Plank position,
then walk yourself back up.
And you can see with every push of my hand, I'm using more and more of my shoulders to
get back into the position just to have to do pushups again.
So we can definitely overload this exercise and get you working right off the bat in this
workout.
Next up, one of the most classic exercises that you can do for your shoulders, a Dumbbell
Side Lateral Raise.
Of course, this is the one that targets the medial head.
This is the one that we all know and have relied on for years but does that mean that
there's no equivalent here either?
No there is, actually.
I've shown this before, we feature it in our ATHLEAN XERO Program, the Bodyweight Side
Lateral.
And the key here, as you watch me doing this move, is the relative motion.
Remember relative motion means that as long as the motion that's occurring at the joint
is the same, we're good.
And you can see that, yeah in a typical Side Lateral Raise, my trunk is staying fixed and
my arm is traveling away from my body.
But in a Bodyweight Side Lateral Raise, we fix our arm and we let our body rotate away
but the end result is that our shoulder is in that abductive position.
So we're getting a loaded abduction here for our shoulders that will help us to still target
this medial head, even when we just don't even have equipment at our disposal.
Ok, now lets work our way around to the back, we've got the rear delts to worry about.
And again, classically the Dumbbell Rear Delt Raise.
We do this all the time, when we're trying to get and target that back side of the shoulders.
But again we've got an option guys.
And again in ATHLEAN XERO, the Reverse Iron Cross Pushup.
This is a very intense way to create an overload.
Again just try the exercise and I promise you're going to feel a contraction you probably
haven't even felt from doing the dumbbells.
A lot of times guys will rely on the dumbbells to try to heave the weights up and not get
a good enough contraction in the posterior delt,
try this and I'll tell you, you're going to see the difference and feel it right off the
bat very first rep.
Next it's time to get a little bit more functional.
As a trainer for professional athletes guys, you've got to be able to also recreate a little
bit more functional carryover into the things that we do.
So that we can become more explosive but we can do it in a way that's going to translate
to what we do.
So on our Shoulder Tap Presses, you may have tried these before.
Some people like to use a dumbbell, some like to use a kettlebell, some could use a landline
set up in the corner.
The essence of it is that you're pressing shoulder to shoulder, ok as you see me doing
here.
And what's great about this is there is a high functional carryover to sports.
Whether I'm an offensive lineman that finds myself down here and I have to, you know,
press in a different direction.
I can't always direct my force straight ahead.
Ok, we know that the other guy on the other side of you is going to move.
So we have to adapt to that.
An MMA fighter is going to have to grab somebody and have to control them from above.
We also have basketball players having to go up for rebounds and we need to have to
strength to go in asymmetrical directions,
that's a great way to do it with a Shoulder Tap.
But again if we don't have the equipment does that mean that we're screwed?
Not at all, we've got Pike Circles.
So we could take our bodyweight, position ourselves in a Pike position as you see me
here,
come down to the ground, lower myself to one side, so I'm overloading let's say the right
arm, I'm sliding around, sliding that weight across to overload the left arm,
then pushing back off there, back up to the top.
And I can work these circles, both in a clockwise and a counterclockwise direction
so that the loading arm on the descent is changing if we keep going back and forth.
So what I would do here, is just do say, if you're doing to whatever your failure reps
are, divide half of them to the clockwise and half of them to the counterclockwise direction.
And finally for those that think that bodyweight training can be an inferior way to train,
compared to weighted training,
we've got certain issues that actually are able to be more easily addressed with bodyweight
exercises than they might be able to with weights.
You guys say a video, I hope, that I did the other day on a Spontaneous Eccentric.
Of what it was and how we could apply it to our shoulder training with a Dumbbell Side
Lateral Raise.
And if you haven't seen that video, I'll link it up right over here, because it is definitely
worth the watch.
But that being said, some would feel that maybe even that is a little bit too risky
for them.
I called it an Advanced Shoulder Exercise for a reason.
But maybe bodyweight allows us to actually do the Spontaneous Eccentric concept and do
it in a more controlled safe manner
and that's exactly what I'm going to show you here.
We're able to do this in a much more secure way because we're controlling our own bodyweight
here.
And we get the explosivity we're looking for in the exercise.
And we're getting that Spontaneous Eccentric contraction that we're looking for every single
time that my hands hit the floor here.
And then of course, I've got to reverse direction and get myself back up.
And you can start the way I'm showing you here just by leaning forward with one arm,
hitting the ground, kicking the leg up, going to a Handstand Kickout and then from there
getting back up.
I'll tell you, it doesn't matter which leg you kick up in the air, the bottom line is
,it's the overload you're creating on the shoulder and this is a great way to really
push yourself
even when you have not a single piece of equipment at your disposal.
So there you go guys, a complete shoulder workout whether or not you have equipment
or if you don't.
As a matter of fact, sometimes you're going to find that your hand will be forced.
Whether you're traveling or you're just in a location that doesn't have the equipment
that you need to get a great workout, you really have no excuses anymore.
Because you do have an option and you can start doing these workouts right away and
start overloading and causing the overload you need to build muscle.
That being said, If you're looking for a complete program guys, you know as a coach, my job
is to make sure I have you covered
regardless what circumstances you find yourself in now and if you have equipment or if you
have access to a gym, or if you want to train at home with limited equipment,
you can do that with the ATHLEANX Training System.
It's just a pullup bar, a band, and some dumbbells and you're good to go.
But for the guys that prefer to workout with bodyweight or just don't have the space or
the ability to get any equipment, guys I've got you covered here as well, ATHLEAN XERO.
We like to say, NO BARS, NO BANDS, NO BENCH, NO BULL, literally 100% bodyweight only.
NO EQUIPMENT AT ALL.
So guys, pick your program, get yourself started.
The big thing is, start training like an athlete so you can start looking like one.
You can do that at ATHLEANX.COM.
In the meantime guys, if you found this helpful, make sure you leave a thumbs up and some comments
below.
Whatever else it is that you guys like to see, that's what I bring here.
You're the ones asking for this, now you've got it.
Leave your other suggestions, I'll make sure I get to them too.
Alright guys, thanks a lot.