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Don't have a gym membership? Don't have weights? No excuses!

Fin109

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Alright, this will be a relatively brief thread but I would like to share some knowledge that may prove useful to any hopefuls that are having a hard time figuring out how to reach all those pullups, get that body you secretly do want, or really even have a hard time finding a place to workout. Well, if you have the spirit - you can do it. The thing is a lot of people do these 100 pushup challenges, or 20 Pullup challenges, where all they do is max out on one of these every day.

My question for you is; if you can do 50 pushups... Why are you still doing pushups when you could be working yourself even more? If you can do 10 pullups, why not to do 5 of something 2x as hard as a Pullup? Why are you lifting weights if you aren't already a master of your own body? You'll find a lot of people, even people who do only compound exercises, can't do some of the things people that only bodyweight can do.

I would like to suggest any of you hopefuls to look into calisthenics. Hear me out - its not just for well built leotard wearing men. Did you know Manny Pacquiao (very influential boxer) ONLY trains bodyweight? He only lifts weights occasionally, but his focus is all calisthenic. I dropped the 5x5 routine I was previously doing for only calisthenics, and for the 2-3 months I'd done 5x5, I've had about 1.5x the progress I made in just one month doing only calisthenics. I'll post a couple links below for information, I seriously suggest some of you folk to think about it. I can say without being a braggart that I have noticeably stronger core strength amongst the boxers I train with my size, and my arrms are getting there. (From 5 pullups to about 8-9!). Here is the program I follow, and it has an app for both android and iOS.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine

I also would suggest looking at other things on this subreddit. If this is too easy for you (meaning you. Can do EVERY progression with proper form, like a superhuman, then there is intermediate routines you can find that mostly involve rings)

Anyway, if you don't have access to weights, or want to change it up, I suggest you try this out. Don't forget a decent diet too.
 
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I absolutely prefer bodyweight to the gym.

One thing I can say, though, is that adding weight to calisthenics increases their effectiveness by a lot. I use a 10 lb medicine ball to do Russian twists and some of my pull-ups, and it makes them all the more useful in muscle growth.
 

Hansenmann

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I never really liked the gym, it makes you too dependent on machines and equipment for working out. I like to be able to workout wherever I am, which is why i prefer calisthenics.
 

Fin109

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I absolutely prefer bodyweight to the gym.

One thing I can say, though, is that adding weight to calisthenics increases their effectiveness by a lot. I use a 10 lb medicine ball to do Russian twists and some of my pull-ups, and it makes them all the more useful in muscle growth.

Yep, I only do weights with squats and deadlifts. I do squats one week deadlifts next, repeating. Legs are the only thing IMO that cannot be replicated by bodyweight. I agree as well Hansen, I wish I had started so much earlier. 100x more flexibility to be able to workout when I want now.
 

Fin109

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Yeah, the thing with Stoengs Pullup idea is that if you can already do a certain amount of pullups you should be doing harder things IMO (progressions). However if your goal is solely good pullups then its totally fine.
 

Surfguy

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Yeah, the thing with Stoengs Pullup idea is that if you can already do a certain amount of pullups you should be doing harder things IMO (progressions). However if your goal is solely good pullups then its totally fine.

It doesnt say you should not do additional work outs , the idea is to be fit enough to get accepted ......on a budget , theres quite a few here who think they know better than Stoeng but they've never been in the Legion...go figure.
Watch a few youtube clips , Legionnaires are not muscle bound steroid pumped meat heads , racing snakes is more the build.
 

Don Pedro

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Who needs a gym? There's plenty of hard work that can be done, the way our grandpa's and grandma's did it and lived to be almost centenary. Devilish laugh... Let's do our shopping online, because on the assumption ' i don't have time'. Muahaha.
 

Fin109

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It doesnt say you should not do additional work outs , the idea is to be fit enough to get accepted ......on a budget , theres quite a few here who think they know better than Stoeng but they've never been in the Legion...go figure.
Watch a few youtube clips , Legionnaires are not muscle bound steroid pumped meat heads , racing snakes is more the build.


I wasn't trying to rack on Stoeng at all, and to be honest that's why I made this thread - to show some more good body-weight exercises that will keep you light and fast (I gave a nod to Manny Pacquiao), nor does anything in here require you to pay for equipment except for maybe a pull-up bar if you can't find a good sturdy branch. I never insinuated I know more than him, merely saying I think it would be more effective to train strength on the entire upper-body for hopefuls because I would think there would be a bit more strength requirements than being able to do a good set of pullups. I do these in conjunction with boxing, can't be a slow meat head when getting smacked at.
 

Stoeng

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The main point with my little program is to keep things simple in order to achieve a well defined goal: To pass the entrance test and to go thru the Legion basic training without lagging behind. There are certainly hundreds, if not thousands of other and often better exercises one can do, but they were not needed for the defined goal.

My program was not designed for fitness freaks (they don't need me), it was designed for normal kids that has no money and but wants to become a good solid soldier.

Try to keep things simple, if not we end up like the yanks. Blowing up tents in the desert with million dollars missiles ;-)
 

canuckroyal

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The main point with my little program is to keep things simple in order to achieve a well defined goal: To pass the entrance test and to go thru the Legion basic training without lagging behind. There are certainly hundreds, if not thousands of other and often better exercises one can do, but they were not needed for the defined goal.

My program was not designed for fitness freaks (they don't need me), it was designed for normal kids that has no money and but wants to become a good solid soldier.

Try to keep things simple, if not we end up like the yanks. Blowing up tents in the desert with million dollars missiles ;-)

Best post I've read on here in a while. Especially the part about Yanks, it's so truthful I almost pissed myself! The worst part is my service has forgotten their roots and attempts to emulate their ways!

Massive Headquarters, an overabundance of staff officers and super expensive kit that serves no real purpose other than lining the pockets of charlatans and snake oil salesmen in the Defence Industry!
 

legio31

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This is a good page beastskills I can do the 1 arm push up elbow in my problem though to much pushing not enough pulling exercises for chinnies would probably need 2 pulling exercises to get my chinnies up. The muscle up looks solid just a different grip on the bar .My upper body was always the strongest though in the infantry always the last man out the plank .
http://www.beastskills.com/the-muscle-up/
One arm chinnies read these take ages to learn solid
http://www.beastskills.com/one-arm-chin-up-pull-up/
 

sombrerox

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Your advice is not very good, everything has it's own benefits, dedicated gym goers can lift 200-300kg off the ground, calisthenic guys can stand on 1 arm and someone else can do something else, none of those feats are really useful in particular but they CAN be useful at one point in life. The only thing I don't understand about legion's physical tests is how come the standards are same for small, average and big guys, it's obvious if you have a short guy who weighs 65kg and a tall big guy weighing 100+kg, that both pull ups and running will be much harder on the second guy. My only advice to potential candidates would be to ease a bit on strength training and replace it with running/rope jumping/cycling/swimming/heavy bag or any other cardio exercise of their choice (running obviously being irreplaceable) because that's what they are gonna do when they get there, just for comparison, my first time in Paris, I arrived weighing 105kg and by the time I had medical (~10 days) I dropped down to 93kg, because at home I ate up to 5 times a day (full meals) and in Paris I ate basically 2 times a day (lunch and dinner) as breakfast was just a piece of baguette and cream of your choice along with coffee/cocoa/milk (you choose one). You will lose some strength along with weight of course but your pull ups and push ups will actually improve, because the weight you lose is greater than your strength loss (from 9 pull ups I went up to 13 and from 65 push ups to 90, since it was summer that's all we (recruits) did all day long when we had free time).

Summary: focus on endurance/cardio and be sure you will lose some weight unless you are "low" on it already.
 
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cujo6688

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did anybody ever try to do the workout of bruce lee? what you guys think of his way of training? He was actually my motivation as a small kid for learning Kung fu :) (would love to be able to do his two finger push up but can't) he had really nice programs on strength and endurance also but there very hard to find
 

mulgarat

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I took up Calisthenics / Street Workout about 6 months ago. Was keeping fit doing the Legion thing as have done for 30 years, that is, 6-10km run, a set or two of pompes, traction, abdominals, squats. A bit of free weights in the gym. No real gains, shot knees, shot back and diet inconsistent.
Discovered "convict conditioning" and then through the wonder of you tube have built a program that see's us on the bars nearly every day. Cut the running back to once every week then once every fortnight. No need to run. Find that doing anywhere from 25-30 sets of variations of the main body weight exercises is a good full body and cardio workout.
Good result after 6 months. Lost weight, increased lean muscle and flexibility, significant increase in strength and core stability. Back and knee pain resolved, posture improved. Diet is far better. Feel about 20 years younger.
Working on advanced moves muscle ups, planches, levers, flags and pylometric transitions. The good thing about Cali is you never get bored, there's always another challenge to set yourself. You set 1, 2, 5 and 10 year goals. Get inspiration from some of the names on You Tube. Got access to a pretty good outdoor bar gym so no excuses.
This is a routine I do once every month called the mini murph as a break from straight cali, you can add weight vest as you improve.

10 Pull Ups
30 Crunches
25 Pushups
25 squats
10 chinups
1km run

(repeat 5 times for time).
 

mulgarat

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Yep, I only do weights with squats and deadlifts. I do squats one week deadlifts next, repeating. Legs are the only thing IMO that cannot be replicated by bodyweight. I agree as well Hansen, I wish I had started so much earlier. 100x more flexibility to be able to workout when I want now.

Try pistol squat progressions for a start.
These are leg work outs, two approaches:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2W_R__fQaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXqfsvAO_V8

You can also get a weight vest to increase resistance.
 
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