Advanced and Practical Body Weight Training

In 2009, we had a popular article series with John Cortese about body weight training:

• Guide To Body Weight Training Part I – Benefits
• Guide To Body Weight Training Part II – Basic Exercises
• Guide To Body Weight Training Part III – The Big 5

Since then I have sprinkled in some more basic and practical exercises, including:  BW Tricep Skull Crushers, Push Up Challenge #1, Push Up Challenge #2, and  Pull Up Retractions.

All these exercises are awesome and I would category most of them as intermediate level movements.

A few more advanced movements were in one of my most popular videos:  Ultimate Pull Up Variations.

I also don’t like to get “too fancy” when it comes to body weight training, or training in general.

I’ve been to a few body weight training sites where the movements were so complicated that the benefit would not exceed the extensive learning time plus exercise time.

Here’s your solution.

We have been using a few advanced body weight training series that contain very little learning and practice time before you get the benefit.

Most of our athletes learned these exercises in a few minutes and were able to use the same day.

Advanced Body Weight Training Exercise #1

Parallel bars or parallettes are found at very few gyms.  Even though there are few easy homemade solutions, we don’t even need to go that far for our exercises.

Take a pair of hex head dumbbells and elevate them on some rubber mats or bumper plates.

Muscles Targeted:  Shoulders, Core, chest, and triceps.

Step #1.  Perform an “L” sit

Step #2.  Pull your knees to your chest

Step #3.  Tuck your knees underneath and rotate your back towards the ceiling.

Step #4.  Return to start position and repeat.

Advanced Body Weight Training Exercise #2

Wall hand stands and hand walking is extremely easy to learn and also easy to advanced.  Most trainees can immediately do the basic wall walks, but you can crank it up by doing single hand stands, adding pushups, walking sideways, etc.

Step #1.  Set up in the push up position with your feet at the base of the wall.

Step #2.  Walk your feet up the wall while simultaneously walking your hands towards the wall.

Step #3.  After getting your hands as close as possible to the wall (work to within a few inches), then return back to the push up position and repeat.

Advanced Bodyweight Training Exercises #1 and #2 Video

 

BONUS Advanced Bodyweight Training Variation

“I can already do these!” I’m sure some people will be thinking.  Here’s one more variation that will hit your core, shoulders, and chest like you won’t believe!  Keep your abs super tight to not hyper-extend your back.

Conclusion:

I am confident almost everyone can do these exercises with just a few hours of practice.  The “advanced” portion comes by adding reps, sets, or variations to really crank up the difficulty!

- Joe Hashey, CSCS -

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