- What's up, elite Thenx athletes.
It's Chris Heria.
Welcome to another video of official Thenx.
Today we're gonna be covering lesson three
of the Introduction to Calisthenics.
L-Sits and pistol squats.
If you haven't seen lesson two on Push-ups,
click the card notification to watch it now.
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- [Navi] Listen!
- All right, so let's get started on lesson three
of Introduction to Calisthenics.
pistol squats and L-Sits, which is basically
legs and core.
And when you're doing any type of fitness,
whether you're doing bodyweight training
or weight training, you're gonna need to work
on your core and your legs.
You need to work on everything
to be a well-rounded athlete.
And working out your core and your legs
helps you to strengthen other lifts
because you're engaging your legs and your core
when you're doing other exercises.
So first we're gonna start off with the L-Sit.
The first progression into learning how
to do an L-Sit.
And if you've never even tried to do one in your life,
Don't worry, we're gonna get you covered.
We're starting from the very beginning.
So the first progression is knee raises.
You wanna find some parallel bars
you can find at a park, put two chairs together.
And we're gonna start off at the top.
So, from the top right here, shoulders pushing down.
Don't be slouched like this, but activate those shoulders.
Squeeze your hands to have a really nice, tight grip.
From here you're gonna activate that core.
Pinch your hips and squeeze that core.
Make sure your legs are really tight together
and lift straight up.
Back down.
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Now if this move is difficult for some of you guys,
you guys can just do one at a time, two at a time.
As many times as you can until you fatigue
and come back down.
And then just work on that number.
So max out that specific number.
So if it's 10, five,
go up, do as many as you can.
and then come back down.
When you're ready to go again, go for it.
So you wanna develop this move right here.
All right, This is the beginning, okay?
Basically, everybody can start to do this move right here.
And if you can't, you can always just jump up,
hold it, come back down.
Even one is fine.
So you wanna master this move right here.
You wanna do at least 10 with perfect form comfortably
before moving on to the next progression.
So the next progression is going to be
Tucked L-Sit Hold.
So after you've been doing those knee raises for a while,
you should have developed some type of core strength
to be able to lift your legs up
and then just hold it there.
You wanna keep your legs at a 90 degree
and make sure your shoulders are pushed down.
Keep that chin up, looking straight.
So you wanna build this hold over time.
Many of you might start,
especially if you're just, just starting,
even some people that have been doing weights
and weight training, they don't normally do static holds
and they don't even normally train their core.
So if there's struggling for you, that's no problem.
Even if you can just hold it for just two solid seconds,
three solid seconds, hold it as long as you can,
stop, come back down.
Do that about five times
until you feel like you just can't hold it anymore
and then go to the previous progression.
Would be knee raises.
All right?
So you can see we're working down the progressions,
as well as if watched the other Introduction to Calisthenics
videos.
That's how you increase your repetitions,
that's how you get stronger fast,
by working down the repetitions.
So, once you guys can master this L-Sit Hold
and you can hold it for about 15 to 20 seconds,
we're ready to move on to the next progression.
And the next progression is leg raises.
So now we're gonna keep our legs locked and straight.
And instead of breaking right here at the knee,
we're gonna keep it tight.
So now we're gonna engage our core even more.
And we're gonna lift up straight, come back down.
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You wanna make sure when you're doing this move
there are lines.
Straight, straight lines.
Don't bend your legs, don't bend your arms,
don't slouch down.
But straight, come up straight.
And come back down straight.
When you're straight, when your legs are straight,
when your arms are straight, you are really
engaging your core.
You are engaging your muscles properly
to strengthen this movement right here.
So when you're coming up, another little tip,
you might be able to kind of have like a little swing
momentum when you first start doing this.
But the more your do this, you're gonna get better at it.
And eventually you'll be able to control it more.
And what you want to start thinking is
how can I control it coming up
and don't just let your legs drop,
but how can I control it coming back down.
So you want to activate the coming up and the negative,
the eccentric coming down.
All right so let me show you one last tip
when you guys are doing this.
Once you've gotten really comfortable with doing this,
the last step you can take is when you get here,
just pause for a second, squeeze, come back down.
Up, squeeze, come back down.
Now when I say squeeze, squeeze your hand.
When you squeeze your hand, you're gonna squeeze
your forearm, your tricep, your bicep, your shoulder,
your delts, everything, your core.
Point those toes hard.
You wanna feel like your legs are bound together with rope
and you're squeezing 'em tight together,
pointing 'em straight.
So as you begin to do this,
you're gonna get really comfortable
being in that L-Sit and you're already preparing yourself
to hold that L-Sit.
All right, so one more time.
Come up, squeeze, come back down.
Solidify that L-Sit and then come back down.
All right, make sure you guys are breathing
when you're doing this.
When you can do about 15 reps with perfect form
comfortably, you're ready to move on
to the next progression.
And the next progression is L-Sit Hold
single leg and switching.
Let me show you guys what that looks like.
So now
we're gonna go up from here
and we're gonna try to hold this
and then go to one leg.
When you can't hold anymore, switch.
Eventually it's gonna have to wait one second.
(grunts)
And so forth.
So this is the next progression.
You wanna master this move right here.
Hold, lock out everything as long as you can.
When you can't hold it anymore, you're gonna switch.
Now eventually of course you're not going to be able
to hold it as long as you keep switching.
But that's the whole point, to hold on as long as you can.
Because that L-Sit doesn't just come
from the engaging of your core.
But it's how tight you can hold onto the bar,
how much your shoulders will fatigue from holding on,
and how straight you can keep your legs from your quads.
All right?
So you wanna master this move right here.
You wanna basically be up there for at least 20 seconds
doing this.
So you'll go up.
One, hold.
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When you can't hold anymore, come in, hold.
Now work your way down the progressions.
So you wanna remember to work your way
down the progressions to start increasing that L-Sit,
strengthening that L-Sit technique
and getting you told holding your first perfect L-Sit.
So that was the last progression.
Now we're gonna actually hold the L-Sit for our first time.
So we're gonna go up.
By this time after practicing all of the progressions,
you should be able to just hold it.
Lean back and straighten those arms.
Squeeze your hands.
Make sure you're looking forward and you're breathing.
You wanna master this move right here.
Be able to hold it at least 10 to 15 seconds
and start moving on to more advanced stuff
like coming in
open and closed.
Eventually L-Sit to Straddle.
And more advanced L-Sit moves.
But even if you could just hold this move right here,
just for two seconds, three seconds, work on those.
Make them two perfect seconds, three perfect seconds
and eventually they're gonna increase,
especially if you're working down the progressions,
maxing out each progression and going all the way
to the bottom.
And doing sets of that.
So right here is the progressions, the mastering,
the L-Sit.
So now we're gonna move on to the pistol squat.
Let's go.
So for the pistol squat.
Before you can even learn how to do a pistol squat,
you need to know how to squat.
You need to know how to squat properly.
So let's start off by that.
First, we can start off on a high chair.
If you're an actually beginner beginner,
you can find a surface that's really high
and practice this.
But you really wanna find
something like up to your knee.
All right, so let me show you guys
how to do your first perfect squat.
So from here you wanna be about a foot in front
of the box.
And we're gonna use this box, one, as a reference point,
and two, as an assistance to come down on our squat.
Now when doing a squat, people normally
just go straight down.
When you go straight down, your knees
are gonna pass your feet and you don't want that.
The way that you properly do a squat
is to start off in these three gears.
Think about this.
Chin has to be forward of course.
You wanna start off in a proper stance.
There's different ways to do squats.
Wide, shoulder-width, and closed-legged.
We're going to start with just the normal shoulder-width.
We're gonna have our feet pointed forward.
And from here our knees are forward, hips are straight,
shoulders are back and from this position right here
you can have your hands in front of you.
And we're gonna now start to first push our hips back.
Like as if we're gonna prepare to sit on the chair.
So you really want to think as if
you're gonna sit on the box.
So the first thing you do when you sit down
is you push your hips back and then you start
to activate your hamstrings to come down.
And when you do, make sure that your body stays straight.
So actually sit down on the box.
As you can see right here, my knees aren't passing my shoes.
And from here we're gonna activate the glutes,
activate the sole of your foot and your calves
to initially come up and then again,
activate the hamstrings to come all the way up
and then move your hips back into center
to finish it off.
So it should look like this.
Hips,
hamstrings,
glutes and calves, come back up.
And do the opposite.
So this
is your first squat.
Once you can do this perfectly, you can do it
on a lower surface.
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And eventually you'll just hover right above that surface.
You wanna make sure to activate your core and your breathing
when you're doing this.
So once you've practiced this,
you can do about 15 to 20
with perfect form, eventually you want to take away the box.
And when you can do it taken away,
you're just doing air squats.
So they should look like this.
And a lot of people ask how far down should you go.
90 is okay for just starting.
If you wanna get a good range of motion,
you wanna get a good stretch,
you definitely want to try to go lower.
Okay, so now you want to be able to do
20
air squats just like this
before moving on, all right?
And once you can do 20 perfect air squats,
then we're gonna go into the next progression
and that is plyometric squats.
So once you've mastered your squat,
now we're gonna go into squats and add a jump to it.
All right, so we're gonna go down and when we come down
here is where we're gonna push as hard as we can,
an explosion.
Boom!
And then absorb the impact coming back down.
Make sure, and by this time
you should be more advanced in your squat
so when you come down you're taking the gears.
Hip first, hamstrings, then glutes,
foot and calves.
So boom and then you take the impact the same way.
Once you can do this way about 15 times in perfect form,
try to go even higher and bring your knees up when you jump.
So down,
up.
Those are more advanced plyometric jump squats,
but if you can master those,
it's gonna make it a lot easier to doing your pistol squats,
because pistol squat is on one leg.
So once you can master this, now we're ready
to start learning to pistol squat.
Should have developed some leg strength
to be able to do the first progression.
The first progression is just like the squat.
We're gonna start with the high surface.
And we're gonna activate the same way.
So first with the hip, then is the hamstring,
then you're gonna finish off with the calf,
the sole of your foot and your glute.
So first We're gonna come right here,
make sure we're centered, look forward.
We're gonna bring one foot off the ground
and we're gonna start.
Sit down
and come back up.
Sit down
and come back up.
Just focus on sitting down on the box.
Don't focus so much of, oh I'm gonna try to pistol squat
or I'm gonna try to squat and then do it with one leg
and then come back up.
Just focus on that one objective.
Sit down on the box with one leg.
Okay?
When you can do it with the other leg.
Don't forget the other leg.
Always both legs.
All right?
So when you've mastered this,
you wanna start bringing it down.
eventually on lower surfaces.
Don't forget with the other leg.
And when you can do this progression 10 times
on each leg comfortably, you're ready to move on.
And you can still always bring it down lower, guys.
Remember, just like the squat, eventually you want
to be doing this move on a lower surface
where you're coming down
and you're not even touching anymore.
You're just coming right back up.
You're getting barely close to the box
and then coming back up.
Or you can just lightly tap it.
All right, so now we're moving on.
So once you've been able to master this progression,
now we're going to go into assisted pistol squats.
So we're basically gonna do a pistol squat
holding on for assistance.
You can hold onto a bar, table, resistance band,
whatever you want.
So, from right here, you're gonna hold on.
We're gonna bring one leg forward
and we're gonna use the same technique that we used.
Make sure our knee doesn't go too far forward,
our hips activate first, then the hamstrings,
and we come down.
You wanna lean on the side that you're using of course.
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Make sure that that leg stays straight
and make sure that you do it with both sides.
Activate that core when you come down.
So eventually, after doing this move right here,
you might start off with just a couple reps.
But as you keep on doing this
and you work down maxing out the progressions,
you're gonna be able to build up your reps.
And once you've built your reps up to 15
on each leg comfortably, you're ready to try
your first pistol squat.
So when you're doing your first pistol squat,
make sure you have balance first.
Don't just go up and go for it.
So keep that leg up, make sure you're balanced,
bring it down, make sure to lean on that one side,
and then come right back up.
Make sure that you're doing it on both legs.
And first just start of doing one at a time
like you see me doing.
Do one then alternate the other leg and do the other one.
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So once you've mastered this, right,
you're alternating one leg each,
you'll eventually be able to rep consecutively
on each single leg.
And when you can rep about 10 on each leg,
you wanna start adding weight onto it.
You can hold a dumbbell and start doing it
and that's how you're gonna take on your pistol squats
and your legs to the next level.
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Peace out.
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