Official Physical Training Resource Thread

[PaCrappa]

Gaijin Punch joking about wanting to jog because I'm fit made me want to make this thread.

I think lifting weights is dumb and running is a waste of time. Not because I'm lazy but because those two activities have got to be the most boring things I can think of besides maybe watching video of people reading books. Well god bless the internet, because through it I was able to find that there are a bunch of ripped motherfuckers that feel the same way, only they have a bunch of seemingly well thought out reasons.

I suppose I should take a moment to explain that I am interested in combat sports (grappling) performance only. I'm not interested in being pretty. Being pretty is for chicks. I'll use the bench press as an example because it's a common exercise that most weightlifter people seem to feel is incredibly important. I have a friend who can bench 400lbs. My max is 150. This dude has a six pack of bricks and lats he could take flight with. The girls love his muscles. I won't bother going into much detail so sufficeth to say, when we hit the mat I crush him quickly and easily. Why? One small part of it is because I like bodyweight exercises and do 'em every day.

Pushing one solid steel bar does little to mimic any real life muscular application. When my boy Tim has to push arms in any direction other than the three angles he benchpresses from, all of a sudden he's not nearly as strong. Many of the body weight exercises that I like are far more dynamic than most anything you'll ever see people do with weights. And as such build strength in a wider range of muscles and go much further toward building joint strength. These things are obviously more important than big press or squat numbers when sports performance is an issue.

The last little bonus of training with your bodyweight is that little to no equipment is needed and you don't have to go to some foo foo gym where there's dudes who shave their chests hanging around.

So without further ado, I'll get to the real purpose of this thread. That is to provide you guys with links to the sites I like the most and to ask if you guys know of any I don't.

http://www.bodyweightculture.com/ If anybody thinks I'm full of shit in this thread I invite you to do all of the exercises presented in "Beyond Burpees: The Encore" and get back to me. Then watch the first Beyond Burpees video.

http://www.scientificwrestling.com Unfortunately you won't find any free exercise techniques at this site but they do offer some DVDs from Karl Gotch. "Conditioning For Combat Sports" was what really opened my eyes to how far you can take this stuff. The first time I saw a human do the Donkey Kong Jr rope climb (two ropes, one in each hand) was in this video. A few of the exercises on the DVD are shown in the lil teaser vid on this page: http://www.scientificwrestling.com/products/item2.cfm The site owner also reprints many old and hard to find texts on physical culture such as the 1911 "The Life Work of Farmer Burns" among many others.

http://www.mattfurey.com/index.htm I absolutely HATE this fucking dillweed and I wholeheartedly recommend that you pirate his shit rather than spending any of your hard earned money. Not because the material isn't worth the dough, but because he unscrupulously (IMO) uses his fame as a trainer/fitness guru to push his other bullshit "instant internet millionaire" marketing interests. I'll say no more than his "Combat Conditioning" program is pure gold and don't give him your money.

http://www.presstohandstand.com/stem.html I just found this little nugget today. Lots of stuff I can't even begin to do. I'm stoked!

http://www.bodyweighttraining.org/forum/ This where I found the press to handstand tidbit. Obviously a fantastic bodyweight training resource.

That's really all I have at the moment. And I just found the bodyweight forum a couple weeks ago. I search google for "bodyweight training" every so often but it's usually just pages of people like Matt Furey.

Are any of you folks into this stuff? If so, let's see some links please! I'll post 'em as I find 'em as well.

Pa

PS: If you think that lifting weights and running are totally awesome you should start your own thread because I definitely don't care and don't feel like arguing about it.

[PFG 9000]

PS: If you think that lifting weights and running are totally awesome you should start your own thread because I definitely don't care and don't feel like arguing about it.

Then maybe you should rename the thread.

[PaCrappa]

Soory bro. It's Official

Pa

[JBC]

Hey, thanks for all that Pa! I'll definetly check those out when i get home from work today. Any new training techniques i can do around the house are welcome indeed! I've never been a big fan of running or lifting weights either, but i still do it just to keep endorphines flowing. ^.^

[Pixel_Outlaw]

YOu don't need to work out all at once you can do small sets throughout the day to break up boredom. I've been doing sets of 20 pushups off and on. Maybe like 4-5 times a day watching tv helps while you excersize.
Ive tried doing knucke pushups they are a bit harder to do for me personally. Just use like a rug or carpet...
I dont any ideas for working the leg muscles really. Unless you want to play some serious DDR.

[PaCrappa]

Props. I do pushups during commercials as well.

Pa

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Oh and if you drink some fruit juice or coffee and other strong food you can have some potty issues while doing excessive situps.

[PFG 9000]

I like the traditional running and working out, though I'm often too lazy to do either.

I'll check out the links though, it certainly seems interesting.

[PaCrappa]

I like the traditional running and working out.

To each his/her own. There is nothing wrong with it if you like it.

*edit* Interesting choice of words in "traditional". Thinking more deeply, which do you suppose is the older and more popular tradition? Moving one's own body (something every human has had access to from day one of humanity)? Or putting steel plates on a steel bar and pushing those around (technology required)?

Pa

[Acid King]

I'm with you, Pa. Standard exercises bore me to tears. I really have to start exercising because my back is all 54 flavors of fucked (multiple herniated discs, arthritis, etc). I'll have to look through these sites later at work.

[landshark]

I enjoy running, lifting weights, and body weight exercies. I just like staying in shape.

Best body weight exercise I've found so far is rock climbing. Nothing has ramped up strength and upper body endurance faster for me.

[The n00b]

Truly fitness is subject to interpretation. As a long distance runner, I have to laugh at the body builders and martial artists. Body builders can barely walk fast and have the worst cardio ever. Their muscles are grotesque too. Martial artists can study for 7 years only to have their asses kicked by a boxer with a little experience. Not to mention Bruce Lee is the exception rather than the rule in most of these cases.

While I can merely run away from a fight and my exercise doubles as a genuine form of transportation. I never get bored because if I hate the scenery, I just run in a different direction or change up my distance. Dodging cars isn't boring either.

That said, you should try dumbbells pacrappa. Dumbbells can mimic the natural motions of the body while building muscle. Barbells can also help your lower body strength. You'll build up far more strength this way than just by using bodyweight exercises. BTW before anyone says strength isn't everything...well it isn't but all things being even strength can only be an advantage.

Edit: lifting weights is far older than you might think too. It first got started with people noticing that when you lifted heavy objects often enough, you got stronger. Fixed weight dumbbells followed soon after. It's not older than body weight excercises but then nothing is older than running. Races have probably been around since we were a bunch of monkeys.

[Dale]

I'm an avid strengh trainer as well as runner. I've built kindoff an unbalanced body, I have huge shoulders chest and back I have very skinny runners legs a fat stomach and arms with huge triceps and small biceps. I've probaly been doing allot of stuff wrong but I'm learning more about excersize all the time. I usual do allot of weightlifting a little cardio more weightlifting then intense cardio. I checked out the first link Pacrappa posted and the forum their seems to be allot of people who know what their talking about when it comes to excersize, I think I'll look for tips their. I do do allot of the stuff reccomended their already though.

Allot of my problem is I love to eat with a passion and as create a faster matablism I tend to use it as a tool to consume even more food. Now don't get me wrong I've tried to cut back for awhile and have been pretty sucsessful.
But I'm a kid and I should enjoy some large quanites of food
every now and again. It makes me sick listening to all the pansy kid's at my school who tease each other for eating to much choclate and gaining a few pounds over the weekend. I say you should worry about that shit later when your matabolism slows down enjoy this stuff now when your a kid lose weight later.

[Pirate1019]

Seems everybody here had a bias .

Personally I am a runner. It stays interesting if the scenery is nice and things like that. (See n00b's post). I also get into the bodyweight excercises, mostly to build flexability for running, but it helps develop your core and other parts of the body. Our XC coach is really good about balancing the training schedules. Some coaches just tell you to run X number of miles a day.

I can only say that I laugh at pure bodybuilders. Anybody else is fine with me, but straight up bodybuilding seems asinine in my mind.

To each his own I suppose.

[shinsage]

I used to hit the gym, but after a girl at the YMCA front desk found out my membership expired a year and a half ago, I've been swimming at my work's pool.
Swimming's my choice of working out, sometimes to the point of going so hard I feel like fainting.
I used to do push-ups/sit-ups a lot, just haven't felt like doing those in awhile.

I'd love to box or fight someone just to see how good I am.

[Pirate1019]

I have trouble with seasons. When Winter hits I box myself up in my house and leave as little as possible. I hate cold weather. This disrupts any sort of schedule I'm on. I try to balance this out by taking a weights and agility class at school but semester changes mid-winter so I have trouble keeping up unless I take a full year of the class.

[GaijinPunch]

Nice thread, Pa. I'm trying to do stuff to keep me in shape w/o having to join the gym. Although I hate jogging, I find it helpful for me. Gotta keep the ticker going. I'd rather cycle though.

[Arvandor]

I've never been a big fan of jogging, and after getting in a motorcycle wreck, I have a semi-bad knee that makes jogging the stupidest thing I could possibly do to stay in shape. I'll either go for walks(does like nothing, I know), ride my bicycle, do random pushups throughout the day, or leg lifts. For the leg lifts, I just lay down in a doorway and brace my arms against it (I learned this exercise in a martial arts class, and we'd use each others legs for support), and then just lift both legs up vertical, let them back down (without touching the floor, of course), then repeat. This works out both the legs and abs most notably. I haven't found a good place to do circles though, which is basically just moving your legs in half circle motions instead of the linear movements in normal leg lifts. There's no room in the apartment that's wide enough at the doorway, there's always a wall nearby.

[professor ganson]

Weights vs. strength training using my own weight? Most of my adult life I have preferred the latter, but sometimes I like to use weights. The gains in strength using weights are very real and come fast, but they are a bit less useful for someone (like myself) mainly concerned to be healthy, fast, and good at soccer.

[The n00b]

I just thought of an example for those people who think strength built up using weights has no practical application. Well I occasionally do this exercise called the bent-over row when I work out. I never really did this exercise with the thought of building up huge muscles. I just did it because it worked a rarely worked muscle that I used to be hella weak with.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Bac ... erRow.html

Now a couple weeks ago I was helping a buddy with home improvement work. He had all these boxes of tiles in his garage. Well when I lifted them, he was surprised that I could haul them up with one arm(either one), while he had to cradle them using both his arms. When I picked up a box of tile, my arm immediately went into "row" mode.

I'm a history buff so I was fascinated to think that a couple thousand years ago, this was how the row exercise started. The exercise must have had a very real purpose in strengthening the muscles of laborers.

[PaCrappa]

Thanks for the input guys. I'm off to class but I'll be back later to discuss.

Pa

[Pirate1019]

Bent Row stuff

We do those too. They work certain back/shoulder muscles. It helps us runners keep our arms in good form and helps for when your pumping your them. If your arms start to flail out to the sides then you lose foreward momentum. One of my favorite dumbell excercises.

[Valgar]

I just thought of an example for those people who think strength built up using weights has no practical application. Well I occasionally do this exercise called the bent-over row when I work out. I never really did this exercise with the thought of building up huge muscles. I just did it because it worked a rarely worked muscle that I used to be hella weak with.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Bac ... erRow.html

Now a couple weeks ago I was helping a buddy with home improvement work. He had all these boxes of tiles in his garage. Well when I lifted them, he was surprised that I could haul them up with one arm(either one), while he had to cradle them using both his arms. When I picked up a box of tile, my arm immediately went into "row" mode.

I'm a history buff so I was fascinated to think that a couple thousand years ago, this was how the row exercise started. The exercise must have had a very real purpose in strengthening the muscles of laborers.

There is a difference between Body Building and Weight Training, which seems to be a huge misconception here. Compound exercises should be done to build basic strength (instead of doing x50 reps of dumbbell curls). Often recommended are Pull Ups, Squats, Deadlifts, Dips, Bentover Row, Pullovers, Bench press.

Funny because when you watch the video...they are doing just those exercises, but mixed together and without weights.

Strapping 25 pounds onto your pull ups is going to give you much greater gains then using only your own weight, that is just how it works.

[PaCrappa]

I dont any ideas for working the leg muscles really.

Squats. I'm sure that bodyweight forum I linked in the original post will have tutorials for proper form and a few variations so you don't get bored. I enjoy what the wrestlers call "hindu squats" and start each day with fifty as part of my morning wakeup routine.

I really have to start exercising because my back is all 54 flavors of fucked (multiple herniated discs, arthritis, etc).

Well I never did care for weights and running but what got me digging more deeply into the bodyweight stuff was actually a bad back injury of my own. Have you been to physical therapists at all? If not I have a couple of stretches and excercises that have really helped my back feel better. Also I remember you saying that you were big on the drug and drink thing. Hey me too, so let me be the first to tell you that dehydration is your very WORST enemy in a struggle against back issues and arthritis. I still smoke a bushel of grass about every day but I have definitely stopped all drinking (except new years and birthday) and drugs, including pain medication. It's made a difference.

Best body weight exercise I've found so far is rock climbing. Nothing has ramped up strength and upper body endurance faster for me.

I'd love to try that. I think I'd do well because it's an activity that I can sort of butt my head against. Unfortunately, in city, that activity is totally dominated by computer money Patagonia hippies (remember I live in Seattle). I'm afeared to even walk into one of those places because they might be playing some sort of Dave Matthews tape. I need to hook up with someone that can take me out to some proper rocks to try it out in nature.

Truly fitness is subject to interpretation. As a long distance runner, I have to laugh at the body builders and martial artists. Body builders can barely walk fast and have the worst cardio ever. Their muscles are grotesque too. Martial artists can study for 7 years only to have their asses kicked by a boxer with a little experience. Not to mention Bruce Lee is the exception rather than the rule in most of these cases.

Agreed on all. Many fail to realize that Bruce Lee was much more a street fighter than a traditional "martial artist". He was about effectiveness in fighting technique and even moreso in training methodology. He's one of the few Chinese martial arts guys that I feel can legitimately be looked up to from a sportfighting perspective. Probably the only modern one.

Also, I do own a set of dumbells and am absolutely willing to try anything where fitness is concerned so bent rows 2-nite!

Allot of my problem is I love to eat with a passion

I have the same passion/problem. It just makes me fat. 217lbs after the holidays. That's an issue considering I'd like to compete at 184 in March. I suppose I can go 197 if I have to.

I also get into the bodyweight excercises, mostly to build flexability for running, but it helps develop your core and other parts of the body.

Flexibilty and core strength are probably the two most important physical traits for the grappler. Proper technique and strategy can make up for lack of limb strength.

Swimming's my choice of working out, sometimes to the point of going so hard I feel like fainting.

I used to swim alot as a kid and still love it. But no gyms near me have a pool.

I'd love to box or fight someone just to see how good I am.

If you haven't trained for that or spent alot of time fighting in "the street", take a boxing class first. Because if you haven't, I'll do you the favor right now of telling you how good you are: You ain't. Don't get yourself hurt. Baby steps.

For the leg lifts, I just lay down in a doorway and brace my arms against it (I learned this exercise in a martial arts class, and we'd use each others legs for support), and then just lift both legs up vertical, let them back down (without touching the floor, of course), then repeat. This works out both the legs and abs most notably.

I absolutely love those. One of the best ab/hip flexor exercises you could ever do. 100 of these is far more effective than 1500 crunches. In class did your partner shove your legs back down to the mat? That's how we do and I fucked up my back by being overzealous and doing too many reps, too many days in a row.

The gains in strength using weights are very real and come fast, but they are a bit less useful for someone (like myself) mainly concerned to be healthy, fast, and good at soccer.

Indeed. Unless you get a bit unorthodox it seems that most weightlifting routines isolate certain muscles too much. This usually creates some nice bulk for the night club but doesn't always translate to an improvement in real sporting performance. Depending on which sport of course.

Funny because when you watch the video...they are doing just those exercises, but mixed together and without weights.

It's the mixing together that makes this stuff different. Did you try all of those exercises or just watch the video? The exercises you mentioned are obviously fantastic but some of the stuff in those burpee videos is like from another planet when it comes down to actually doing it. Wheel burpees? Get outta here!

Strapping 25 pounds onto your pull ups is going to give you much greater gains then using only your own weight, that is just how it works.

It is and it isn't. I'm not sure what you're doing with all of these "gains" (are you a sporting fellow?) but application of strength will vary from activity to activity. I have a military flack jacket that is heavy as hell and I have worn it whilst doing dips, pushups, pullups and squats. It cuts down my number of reps, makes certain muscles bigger and makes the ones that got noticably bigger feel stronger. On the mat I found no appreciable difference when sparring and went back to doing higher reps of the same stuff. Was I stronger on the pullup rack? Probably. But I want to be stronger on the mat and I feel that the endurance that goes into high rep bodyweight training goes further toward that end.

Pa

[PaCrappa]

I was reading a fairly old interview with Fedor Emilianenko the other day and when asked about weights he says he doesn't use any. When asked how many (insert bodyweight exercise here) he could do he said he had no idea and that he is on a timer and doesn't count. One quote I particularly liked was when he was asked how the hell he got so strong, his reply was, "By training with strong sparring partners".

Anyway, I'm sure some of you guys have heard of it but I have a feeling when he said he was "on a timer" he meant he was doing the Tabata thang. The Tabata method is to pick whatever repetitious exercise you like and crank 'em out for twenty seconds followed by a ten second break, repeated eight times. Most people who haven't trained like this have a very hard time at first. By the third set of pushups I was having trouble and I couldn't last the whole twenty seconds on the fourth set the first time I tried a Tabata. I'm better at it now, but that shit is brutal and can be applied to just about anything including weightlifting exercises.

And just for kicks here's a sweet example of the sport I've been pursuing for a few years now, Brazilian jiu jitsu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXM9J10IfSw

Pa

[Diabollokus]

I like this thread.

edit: might as well contribute

Pa yeah, I hear you on the body weight stuff, I'm basically a power athelete I fight MMA (amateur!) and do power movements for strength. My lifts aren't anything special though

I still do alot of chins dips and pull ups, ab raises and hand stand push ups, had trouble finding anything for lower body besides running or leg press. Definetly noticed I am stronger core wise from wrestlng no doubt, the strongest people I train with are definetly the gymnasts. Theres a 64kg girl in my club ex circus acrobat, strong as an ox! currently a world champion.

It seems to be making your muscles work together via compound multi group training to acheive functional strength and balanced co-ordinated movements that makes you strong. Deadlifts imho are were its at, to be honest I like weight lifting, running and exercise in general however it all has a purpose directly tied to my sport. Theres no point curling your biceps unless that movement has a functional purpose in your sport.

My natural bench press has probably gone up 50% just from grappling.

But Pa look at Sean Sherk, hes ripped to pieces, bloody strong and the champ, I think hes the way to be. lasted 25 mins with florian, cardio amazing! You should try some of the cable resistance machines, more natural movements over a wider distance, I love em.

People forget Power = mass X acceleration, you don't have to be huge to be a powerful guy, being fast and explosive gives you one hell of an edge over the big slow guys, static strength in my opinion is useless, I'm never static (nor is the guy trying to armbar me!) on the mat so why do shit loads of bench press? I say drop the weight down increase the speed of movement become more explosive.

Everyone needs to analyse their sport, and say 'right what let me down here?' endurance cardio sucked, oppponent was stronger, I was too slow or technique was poor' break it down and tailor training to yourself as an individual. Or why do you train? 'get bigger, leaner etc'

[PaCrappa]

I was hoping you'd show up. I know that you train hard. If you have any ideas that you think we're not aware of, or links to any other sweet training resources, let's have 'em

Pa

[Diabollokus]

Training resources....

For what 'Goal though'? strength, general conditioning, routines or nutrition diet related. Training must have a purpose.

A great training resource I recommend to anyone is:

http://www.maximuscle.com/trainingtips

http://www.maximuscle.com/toolsanddownl ... utine.html

http://www.maximuscle.com/toolsanddownl ... tines.html

Theres no body weight info here but it explains the principles of getting into shape very well.

[scrilla4rella]

great thread!

I would just like to add that one thing that is feel is very important for the body in conjunction with any sort of exercise is streching. I don't know any fancy hippie-ass techniques like yoga or anything like that but the basic, touch your toes sort of stuff they did in Gym class, helps get the blood flowing and helps me get motivated to run or do pushups.

deep, consistent breathing seems to be the key with streches and all physical exercise in general. It really helps me get out of my lazy modes and you can do it in your living room...

Yeah, short push-up breaks are really great. Even if at first you can only do like five at a time just try it through out the day and you will see yourself get better and then it becomes addicting

[Diabollokus]

Yeah I know all about the joys of stretching, can be painful. My right hip does need it though.

I remember one time I was training with a tiny 4ft 9 korean student, obviously I'm going to say she was ex TKD, I'm not to good at doing the splits, well I was working my way down when she jumped on my back! using her own weight to force me lower! I was like wtf???? I honestly think I went 2 inches lower that day! Told me thats what they did to her in S. Korea