I desire to become...a bodyweight beast.

[j.d.]

Greetings fellow strength-obsessed companions,

Now I know this may all sound obscure and absurd but here's the deal...I pretty much had a sleepless night due to the fact that I had my eyes glued to my computer screen watching clips of these truly extraordinary feats of strength online only to find my long term strength goals warped by what I had just witnessed.

Now don't get me wrong here, I've been on SS for just under a year and I love it and I'm going to continue squatting, deading, powercleaning etc no matter what (although to be honest, I'm beginning to feel indifference towards benching and pressing) I mean, anytime a gym debate with my peers arises, I'm first to say how rad SS and its derivatives are.

BUT...now I want to be able to do double/triple clap pushups, clapping pullups, one armed pullups, muscle ups, standing ab wheelies, handstand pushups etc...just all these totally badass bodyweight exercises. And yes, I do realize it may take years for me to perform these bad boys correctly and consistently...

Now there MUST be someone on here who also has/does/will share this here ambition. So please come forth kind sir/madam and lead me onto the path to become a bodyweight beast...while I continue to get stronger and more useful in general with SS. Perhaps a combination of the two can be executed??

What doth thou sayeth??

[Dastardly]

Head over to beast skills.

perhaps buy ross enamaits book.

and look in your local area for gymnastic facilties / schools. I hope you are including tumbling in your "bodyweight" mastery ambitions.

[Jonathan Vechet]

I believe body weight strength is a great way to train and is often overlooked.

Here's some things to get you started:

Gymnastic Bodies

Beast Skills

Overcoming Gravity

Convict Conditioning

Good luck.

[kinski]

Dude, your post made me wanna do the same thing. Just tried some one arm pushups- was able to do 7 on the right, and 3 miserable grinding reps on the left... interesting.
I feel that unweighted body weight exercises could be practiced daily to some degree without interfering with barbell stuff.
Baby steps for me: First goals would be to do 20 one arm pushups per arm, and master the hand stand... Cool post.

[Corrie]

Don't forget to work that vertical jump too :P j/k

Seriously though, join an adult gymnastics class. It will be the best practice you can get, you get access to tons of equipment at the facility and you get coaches who can teach you technique. Bodyweight work takes a lot of strength but it also takes a ton of practice and technique work.

You'll also get access to trampolines and such so you can learn to have really good body awareness safely.

[jsteffen80]

I think it's great to have strength goals outside of the gym and the barbell. Anything from strongman to those ninja warrior competitions really intrigue me with their diverse displays of functional strength.

[galensjp01]

I actually have great interest in this. I was actually gonna incorporate more bodyweight stuff once I made the transition to 5/3/1 down the road. Seems to be the one program open for the most additional volume/variety. For now though I'm doing SS until I need to make to make the transition. And yea...Beast Skills is probably the best site to visit as he seems to embody a lot of variety into his program. He couples Oly/Strength lifting and gymnastics from the looks of it...and does it successfully at that. Most of the stuff on there is insane...

[WayneRooney]

Good thread.

I agree, bodyweight exercises are fun and are definitely not just for strength endurance. Rip himself advocates chins, pull ups, dips...

Have you read Never Gymless by Ross Enamait? If you haven't already done so, check out his website rosstraining.com.

Ross and the guy from beast skills both combine barbell/dumbbells with bodyweight movements. Building the gymnastic body by coach sommer has some nice progressions for the static holds as does overcoming gravity.

Personally, I hated convict conditioning.

You may want to invest in some gymnastic rings, paralettes, a weighted vest, a dip station and a pull up bar.

[j.d.]

Whoa!! Thanks for all the replies, really appreciate it...

I've looked at the sites y'all have recommended and they look unreal...Literally just ordered Overcoming Gravity and Building the Gymnastic Body...

I guess my main concern is how to combine these gymnastic bodyweight exercises and SS into a single workout plan extravaganza. I've read through some threads in the forums of the said websites and have found that the only logical way to approach this would be to strictly do these exercises for the upper body and then squat and dead (don't know about pc) for the lower body...Anyone out there know of the optimal way I can combine the two?? I'm guessing that benching and pressing will have to be scrapped??

[j.d.]

Oh and I'm also guessing a good amount of conditioning will have to come into play as well??