Sunday, October 18, 2009

Bodyweight training

Lately, I've gained enough strength to add dips and chin-ups to my gym program, and ordered a gymnastics book which should contain more bodyweight moves.

In weight training you adjust the weight to suit your strength. In bodyweight training, you have variations. Bodyweight training requires some initial strength, so not everyone can start with it. But you won't face the upper limit ever. Here are for example some pull-up variations:
  • Chin-up. Heavy on biceps (hauis). The lightest of all pull-up variations.
  • Pull-up. Hands have overhand grip unlike in chin-up. A little heavier. I expect to have enough strength for this when I get bored with chin-ups.
  • Mixed-grip pull-up. One hand has underhand grip while the other has overhand grip. It is good for endurance that you can use a bit different muscles between series.
  • Muscle-up. You raise above the bar by doing a dip after the pull-up phase.
  • False grip pull-up. A component move for the muscle-up. It enables you to switch to dip after the pull-up phase.
  • Front lever pull-up. It is extremely heavy on your core and shoulders to even get to the static position.
  • One-handed pull-up.

2 comments:

Tiedemies said...

If by Pull-ups you mean ones you do like a chin-up, but with wider grip and your neck touching the bar, those are actually lighter for me. The reason is, my biceps are weak compared to my Latissimus dorsi.

Simo said...

Animations for most common pull-ups are here. One more variation is by the way behind-the-neck pullup, so the neck can touch the bar in two ways.