Post: #1

After reading Eugen Sandow's (world's first bodybuilder) book "System of Physical Training" I noticed he gave some excellent advice he picked up from years of perfecting his training. I've been incorporating his ideas for over a year and it helped me tremendously in mastering more complex bodyweighttraining exercises/ calisthenics.

Awaken your muscles

Focus on the particular muscle, at the moment you train. This sounds easier than what it means. Create a link between your muscle and your central nerve system (CNS). 'Awaken' the muscle, i.e. flex the muscle you train on command and isolate it. If you want to someday master a muscleup or even a plance, you must learn to first control your particular muscle, before you can use them for these advanced exercises.

Personally I've noticed that isometric training -- muscle training without movement -- can be very helpful for 'awakening' muscles. Mastering the L-sit will help you to do more complex other exercises, like L-pullups or L-dips.

Diagnose your weaker parts -- and work to make them stronger

Focus on your whole body and try to find out what your weaker muscle areas are. Diagnose your weakness and then try to make them stronger. Again this sounds a LOT more simple than what it means in practice. Administrate what you do, what you're able to do and if you can do what you want to do.

Think before you train.
1) Look at a muscle map, identify which exact muscles are insufficiently developed,
2) establish how you can challenge these muscles the best way (routines) and
3) make a training scheme to improve the strength, flexibility, explosiveness, etc. of these muscle groups. Self analysis and testing are your best guide here: you know what works and what does not work for your body.

Vary your fitness goals -- not just mere kgs/lbs

Always set new, difficult, yet approachable goals. Don't just set your goals in the amount of weight you lift. Vary in a wider sense, i.e. balance, intensity, perfection of execution, duration, flexibility, sets/reps, complexity, grip and explosivity. Mere focus on weights can make training dull if you already reached your peak.

To vary your training goals you will keep challenging yourself, while also making yourself stronger. If you just focus on the dimension of weight, you can grow bored and many guys do. Boredom leads to stagnation and eventually less training.

Book downloadable here:
http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/S/sspt/Sando...index.html

It's pretty old, but very good, but just remember that if you want to read it.

Eugen Sandow Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Sandow

Post: #2

Yeah, 'awakening' the muscles sounds like bullshit but it's not. I hit the bench press hard for a little better than three months, using heavy negatives, drop sets, five to twenty sets, wide grip, narrow grip, threw the entire kitchen sink at it and it didn't really matter, my bench never grew and it just didn't hit my triceps at all. I left the gym just as fresh no matter how much volume I threw at it and never seemed to get sore (or grow). I still don't understand the bench press.

So instead of benching I decided to do many sets of(10-20) of heavy dips and weighted dip negatives with 120% of my 1RM and focus on lowering the weight as low and as slowly as possible, then jumping back to the starting position to do another negative rep. Once I can't do any more negative reps I jump back to the support hold and just hold myself on the dipping bars until I can't anymore (time under tension is important). Now my arms (triceps and biceps), chest, and traps are blowing up. I'm going to do this another three months and go back to the bench to see where I'm at.

Post: #3

Hey Hades,

That's great. I broke through deadlift & bench press plateaus through similar methods. I developed my upper body strength tremendously, thanks to HSPU and advanced pullups (L-Pullups, semi-OA pullups, towel pullups). After I became better at these exercises, I gained a lot of strength.

My limiting factor was the deltoid muscle. I trained this muscle group through doing pushups with fists on a swiss ball. Another good exercise for the delts is to explosively push dumbbells from the side of your body to shoulder height. Just throwing it out here to show how I succesfully managed to correct a 'weak part' into a stronger part of my body. This caused me to succesfully move the bench press plateau.

I also gained muscle definition by succesfully mastering pistol squats; and later on to perform pistols on a balance board. This helped me to make my knees much stronger and get better at the deadlift.

Post: #4

I'm pretty much writing right from my workout notebook so it's going to be a long read --

Yeah, I spent months on the pistol negative because balance is an issue. Holding a plate or dumbbell to the chest (or held out) definitely speeds up the learning curve. It's much easier now. The bodyweight stuff I can't hit as hard as barbells because compared to most serious lifters I'm a pretty fat dude. I need to lose about thirty pounds before I can get good and ripped, according to the marine body fat calculator.

I'm curious though, about pistol and deadlift carryover. What are your numbers for both? I can do five very good pistols at 215# and my deadlift is in the neighborhood of 350#

If you want your delts to blow up, the dip can't really be beat. I do dips now with a weight belt tied in front and behind so I can hit slightly different areas of the shoulder and tricep.
Regular (or weighted) very slow dip negatives can reduce the possibility of injury to the shoulder, just tense up everything as hard as possible and slowly negative as low as possible, thumbs to armpits is ideal -- keep the reps low (2 to 5 reps) and the sets fairly low (4-5 sets). It's also an active stretch. I'm not a big fan of lateral raises like you've mentioned because they seem to tweak my shoulder a bit.

Surprised you can do a HSPU and you still think the delt is your limiting factor, most guys can't do a HSPU at all.

Post: #5

I don't think I fully understand the 'awakening' concept, anyone have a link to an article etc. ?

Post: #6

(09-19-2013 01:53 AM)NuMbEr7 Wrote:  I don't think I fully understand the 'awakening' concept, anyone have a link to an article etc. ?

People commonly refer to it as the "Mind-Muscle connection"

Basically it means that you should be able to focus on whatever muscle or muscle group you are working on and really feel it contracting. Not just mindlessly heaving the weight up and down with poor form.

Post: #7

(09-19-2013 12:48 AM)Hades Wrote:  I'm pretty much writing right from my workout notebook so it's going to be a long read --

Yeah, I spent months on the pistol negative because balance is an issue. Holding a plate or dumbbell to the chest (or held out) definitely speeds up the learning curve. It's much easier now. The bodyweight stuff I can't hit as hard as barbells because compared to most serious lifters I'm a pretty fat dude. I need to lose about thirty pounds before I can get good and ripped, according to the marine body fat calculator.

I'm curious though, about pistol and deadlift carryover. What are your numbers for both? I can do five very good pistols at 215# and my deadlift is in the neighborhood of 350#

If you want your delts to blow up, the dip can't really be beat. I do dips now with a weight belt tied in front and behind so I can hit slightly different areas of the shoulder and tricep.
Regular (or weighted) very slow dip negatives can reduce the possibility of injury to the shoulder, just tense up everything as hard as possible and slowly negative as low as possible, thumbs to armpits is ideal -- keep the reps low (2 to 5 reps) and the sets fairly low (4-5 sets). It's also an active stretch. I'm not a big fan of lateral raises like you've mentioned because they seem to tweak my shoulder a bit.

Surprised you can do a HSPU and you still think the delt is your limiting factor, most guys can't do a HSPU at all.

Hades, excuse me, I missed your response a while back there. I can do dips quite well, both with weight (say 20kg, 3x8), difficulty (L-dip) or sets (3x20). You're absolutely right, the dip is very good for triceps also.

I'm not very strong compared to what some guys say they can bench press (>100kg), but I don't often meet regular guys like pushing iron like that at gyms. Those who can (and there are!) often have a very large & wide upper body.

I could squat ~120kg at my best -- but I'm very careful, I have an injury in my left achilles heel -- but nowadays I focus more on pistol squats (w/ balance board), leg raises (w/ kettlebells), glute dips & box jumps. Calisthenics, while not the holy grail, just suit me and my body type very well. For me, it works better than intensive resistance training. Deadlift, I dunno, I rarely do it.

PS

I recommend you follow Ross Enamait & Al Kavadlo. Ross is especially inspiring -- what a beast of discipline! If I ever think of not working out during the week, I think what that guy would be saying to himself for slacking like that. Works everytime.

Cheers

Post: #8

Your recommendation I find hilarious, I've been following both of those guys for years.
Ross Enamait, jesus, that guy is amazing. Swole as shit, one armed ab wheel rollouts - with 75 pound weight vests on?! Insane!
But yeah, I'm gonna go sober up and reply in the morning, cheers.