Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. Benefits of Balance Training
III. How Balance Works
IV. Balance Training and the Athlete
V. What Balance Training Will NOT Do
VI. Training Methods
VII. Summary

Introduction/ To the top

The human body is a rather tall assembly of bones and soft tissue that stands erect and tall on a relatively small base.  Gravity and the environment are consistently pulling the erect body downwards and in all sorts of other directions yet our bodies manage to stay upright.  Despite the fact that standing on our own two feet can be “simple” there has been an influx of all sorts of balance training methodologies that can be useless at their best, or dangerous at their worst.  It is my opinion that balance training, in one form or another, should be part of everyone’s program – particularly those that prefer bodyweight-only training (or misguidedly favor machines as opposed to free weights).  This article will address why balance training is important (both upright and inverted), how our bodies balance themselves, and some tips on how to train balance effectively.

Benefits of Balance Training/ To the top

Since few people aside from gymnasts and traceurs incorporate regular balance training into their program, there should probably be a major case that is made for why people should even bother.

There are loads of studies that explore balance training and most of them are in the elderly.  Why?  Because the elderly are highly likely to experience a fall that will break a hip.  The danger is that about 24% of people over 50 years of age die within 12 months after a hip fracture.  This should be particularly alarming to women who are more likely to break a hip due to post-menopausal dips in estrogens that cause osteoporosis.  In fact, post-menopausal women have about a 15% chance of breaking their hip in their life time.  That risk is easily mitigated by spending short periods of time performing balancing training – even if you don’t start until you are over 70, do simple drills and only balance train for 9 weeks.  Other studies show similar results – in fact one can balance like other adults who are 3-10 years younger with Tai Chi training.  If you found this site, it is more likely that you are an athlete looking for ways to avoid injury or improve performance as opposed to an elderly woman in an assisted living home. So, while these studies are interesting and highlight the need for good balance – we would likely want to shift our focus to those studies that show the relationship between balance, training, prehab and longevity (aside from avoiding a hip fracture).

If you have been through rehab for a lower limb you may have been subjected to balance training.  The rehabilitation environment is one where balance training was first introduced because of studies like this one.  This study, along with several others, suggests balance training to be an effective means of improving proprioception in those with an impaired joint (in this case the ankle).  But what if you haven’t suffered a lower limb injury?  Are there still benefits to balance training?  The research suggests that this may be the case.

When it comes to injury prevention, there are some compelling studies that suggest balance training can ward off injury.  Most of the work in this area has been done on the lower limb.  For example, one study shows that healthy young soccer players can improve their proprioception and prevent lower limb injuries by incorporating specific lower limb balance training into their program.  Another study on soccer players looks specifically at the incidence of ACL injuries.  The findings show that proprioceptive/balance training using wobble-boards can significantly reduce the incidence of ACL injuries in soccer players.  Another wobble board study showed similar results where adolescents added balance training into their program for only 6 weeks. Another study included balance training with plyometic training and it showed an overall reduction in the extremity of valgus measures on the knee joint.  If you have read our article by Steve Low on the drawbacks of shoes and sitting regularly, then you would know that increased valgus stress should be avoided to minimize injury and maximize performance.  If you haven’t read that article, then you may want to click onto it here: Shoes, Sitting and Lower Body Dysfunctions..

There is also data to suggest that balance training will reduce the chance of relapse in addition to reducing the chance of an initial injury.  For example, in this study researchers were examining the ankle.  From these results, there is a lesser incidence of recurring ankle sprains if the athlete (soccer or basketball, in this case) undergoes a balance training program.

Finally, there are also some studies that suggest that balance training is an effective means of making strength gains.  While I am sure these strength gains are mostly limited to novices, I am still sure that balance training is worthwhile for maintenance programs.  This study and this study both show that strength and performance gains have been made by participants using programs that take advantage of balance training.  Considering that higher level and novice athletes should utilize lighter days in their programs, making balance training a key part of these “light days” may actually help to accelerate strength gains.

Something to notice is that none of the aforementioned studies look at inverted balance (i.e. handstands) at all.  These studies are extremely hard to come by and I am assuming that is because hand balancing is just regaining steam among performance athletes.  I am confident that similar studies that examine rehabilitation rates and injury prevention in those that take part in hand balancing would yield similar results since the same mechanisms are at work – just on a different set of joints (the wrist, elbows and shoulders as opposed to hips, knees and ankles).

One side note that I would like to make is that there are LOADS of studies that go into how balance training on a Bosu Ball, wobble board, etc. lead to increased muscle activation.  That is, muscle activation increases during some movement when you do it on an uneven surface.  These studies gave way to the hoards of trainees standing on Bosu and Swiss balls while doing things like squats and curls.  For the performance athlete, it’s not really necessary to worry about muscle activation at all.  Doing focused training for increased activation will not benefit too much in terms of performance and will likely take time away from other more useful applications of balance and strength training.  With that said, muscle activation isn’t really the focus of this article and it shouldn’t be the focus of a balance training program since it really doesn’t matter all that much in the context of performance gains.  The only exception to this would be when some muscle has been identified as a “weak link” and increased muscle activation is required to overcome a plateau or correct pathologies.

In summary, the main proven benefits of balance training, aside from actually being able to balance on narrow objects and unstable surfaces,  include injury prevention, rehabilitation, strength increases and increased muscle activation.  The fact that we can achieve these ends while working on the functional task of traversing narrow/unstable surfaces and on standing on our hands is compelling enough to include regular balance training into one’s routine for GPP and performance gains.  Aside from that, balance training is just plain fun.

How Balance Works/ To the top

Human balance is actually a pretty remarkable feat.  The average male stands about 70 inches tall whilst standing on a base that averages out to be about 10-12 inches long and 3-4 inches wide.  Balancing objects to stand that tall while on that small of a base is incredibly difficult.  As our bodies move through space, muscles up and down the entirety of the kinetic chain are constant reacting to hold our body upright – and most of the time this is a completely involuntary process.   So, how do our bodies make it all happen?

There is a popular text on the subject written by Dr. Nashner called Pracitcal biomechanics and physiology of balance taken from his book, Handbook of Balance Function and Testing.  If you are interested in the full text from the book, you can find a digital copy here.  The gist of it is that our bodies sense the position of the body in relation to gravity and the surroundings.  To do this, the body utilizes three sensory inputs:

• Visual input – optical input from the eyes.
• Vestibular input – input from the vestibules in the inner ear caused by fluid moving around.
• Somatosensory input – input from the sense organs on muscles and tendons.

Visual input contains information from about the overall state of our surroundings.  Vestibular input contains information about where and how our bodies (actually, our heads) are moving in space.  Somatosensory input contains information about how our muscles are reacting to our environment.

Without getting too boring here, these three inputs are the basis of all balance and we balance the best when all three of these are working well together.  However, we can rely on any one of these inputs and our balance will remain intact – just diminished.  The real trouble with poor balance is when we inappropriately depend on a sense that is “fooling” us as opposed to a sense that is more reliable.  This intersensory conflict can cause sickness or balance loss.  For example, when you are sea sick you are relying on your sense on vision for balance when you should be relying on your somatosensory perception – that is why staring at a fixed image in the horizon will reduce the sea/motion sickness symptoms.  Similarly, when you are having a tough time balancing on a narrow ledge, fixing your eyes on a fixed object in space will stabilize the rest of the system as it forces the somatosensory or vestibular systems to controlling balance for us.  So, if you take nothing else from this article, just remember that poor balance can be acutely cured by fixing your vision on a stationary object so that the other two systems can do their job.

So, in short, balance works by taking these three systems and integrates their information to bring the center of gravity (COG) back to a stable or balanced position when balance is disturbed.  Training our balance allows the body’s automatic responses to learn how to adjust to these disturbances.  Beginning slackliners, for example, have a major shake on the line but that goes away as the brain learns to integrate new somatosensory information from the lower limbs.  The adjustment is specific to the stimulus (training on rings is different than a slackline is different than a solid rail is different than a bosu ball) so we need to train balance in the most applicable of ways. (This means that the BOSU ball is useless, by the way, since we rarely balance in a static place on an unstable semispherical surface).

With that said, if we want to improve our balance and get all of the benefits that were stated in the first section, then we typically want to train all three of these systems in harmony as well as independently.  For example, you may be balancing on a narrow ledge and are having difficulty – so you fix your eyes in place and keep your head in a static position.  This will reduce vestibular processing and visual processing and will train your somatosensory mechanisms to respond adequately to control balance.  As your somatosensory system becomes proficient at balance (that is, you balance easily with a fixed head and fixed eyes) then you may want to try balancing with a fixed head and moving gaze.  This will introduce more intense visual processing into the mix which will train the visual and somatosensory systems to work in harmony.  As this gets easier, you may close your eyes so that the two remaining systems have to pick up the slack or you can start moving your head/neck/body position so that you are training all three systems in concert.  These are all respected mechanisms for increasing the difficulty of balancing.

Here are some other tidbits/factoids on balance and how it works that you may want to spout out at your next dinner party:

• Males demonstrated greater sway (difficulty balancing) than females
• One leg increases postural sway (difficulty balancing) by roughly 800%
• Blindfolding increases postural sway up to 300%
• Age tends to degrade balance
  • This is due to degradations in feedback from all three systems.
  • Broken hips in the elderly lead to increased incidence of death and are caused by balance degradation.
  • Significant correlations were found between age and length of sway path for one-leg standing (larger sway indicates degraded balance).
  • Youngest groups in studies demonstrate the largest area of stability over which weight could be shifted and controlled.  The oldest group demonstrated the smallest area.  That means you can’t deal with disturbances better in old age!
  • One-leg balance scores are an important predictor of injurious falls in older persons.
• Vision plays a small/non-existant roll in balance control in children up until the age of 7.
  • This is possibly useful if you plan on coaching children.

<Balance training and the Athlete/ To the top

Now, as athletes we usually have enough on our plates.  In addition to our S&C program of choice as well as sport specific training, what exactly is the benefit on balance training?  Well, for the older folks it’s clear that balancing and redeveloping proper balance can add years onto lifespan just because once you break a hip the recovery alone can be fatal.  However, for people who are training in sport, there are stark benefits to training balance aside from strengthening our sense for old age.

Firstly, at any age, poor balance leaves us prone to injury.  Recognizing this, recent trends in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of athletic injuries have been placing more and more weight on balance deficiencies.  Among other things, studies are indicating that balance training can enhance dynamic balance ability for up to one year after training with minimal maintenance training.  Other studies, such as this one, are showing that cohorts are using balance measurements to predict injury susceptibility.  For those who have had previous injuries, this is proving worthwhiles – for others, its proving not to work so well.  The point is that clinicians are starting to look at balance as a method for predicting and controlling injuries in athletes and in some cases its working very well.  Aside from injury prevention, some early studies in the matter are also showing that mixing balance with other methods of training can be effective at improving measures of neuromuscular power and control.  To put it more simply, this study shows that a combination of plyometrics and balance training may maximize the effectiveness of training in a group of female athletes.

What Balance Training will NOT Do/ To the top

Up until this point, I have been pushing balance training and its benefits pretty hard.  It is worthwhile to take a minute, step back, and look at what balance training will NOT do just so that we can avoid any confusion.

Firstly, balance training may alleviate symptoms or reduce risks but it won’t fix underlying problems in some cases.  For example, if your mother is suffering from osteoporosis she is very susceptible to breaking a hip.  Balance training will help her to avoid the fall but it won’t magically make her bone density increase.  On the plus side, for certain balance deficiencies, specific balance training can be worthwhile as a therapy that does act on the root of the problem

Secondly, studies suggest that balance training may fix some of the balance deficiencies that correlate well with injury rates.  This does NOT imply that balance training will actually avoid injury – it just fixes the markers that are currently being used as correlates.  Compare this to cholesterol.  Cholesterol is NOT the cause of cardiovascular disease but it is used as a correlate for disease.  Fixing the cholesterol problem does not fix the underlying problems such as high stress, high inflammation and inactivity.

Also, certain balance problems originate from problems in the nerve signals such as those from the optic nerve, vestibular systems and muscles.  Balance training may help to increase balance to compensate for these problems (as the two other systems may be able to compensate for the deficiency) but the actual nervous system problems themselves will not be fixed by balance training.

The last point in this vein that I would like to mention relates to Mile Head Injury (MHI).  A few studies point to the fact that MHI can impair balance for a day or two and balance training will not fix these problems during that time.  Additionally, it can be dangerous to engage in balance training in the two days following a mild head injury.  After a hit to the head, it is best to stay off the slackline and high ledges.  Balance will be impaired and it is best to steer clear of balance training at that time.

Training Methods/ To the top

There is no shortage of training methods to improve balance.  For some reason though, very few of these methods have been well represented in peer reviewed studies. In peer reviewed journals, the most represented forms of balance training include the BOSU ball and the balance board – both of which are suboptimal balance training methodologies.  Why are they suboptimal?  The first rule of S&C for any sort of skill enhancement is that the movement should be as close as possible to the target skill.  For general preparedness and sport’s sake, the BOSU ball and balance board are novel and dissimilar to most practical movements.  Other methods of training are rarely inspected for balance work but there is more than enough reason to believe that training in these less-researched methods will be just as beneficial (if not more beneficial due to their similarity to real world and sport related movements).  Below is a short list on the different types of training methods that exist for balance training and even though they aren’t studied directly, there are some interesting studies that are quite relevant when we think about them with respect to balance training.

Slackline

Slacklining is my preferred method of balance training.  Anecdotally, I have seen a lot of people improve greatly in balance on rails, balance beams, ledges and slacklines in as little as 1 week of consistent practice.  After 4-5 one hour sessions with a partner, it is not uncommon to be able to walk on the slackline which, in my experience, has a very solid translation to all other situations in which balance is needed.  Slacklining is not only easy to learn with a partner, but it is also a lot of fun.  Setting up the line takes only a few minutes but it draws a lot of attention.  In the park when I would train slacklining alone in Colorado, I would often convince a passer-by to get on the line with my assistance which would make for an interesting afternoon.

The basis of slacklining is to set up a strong nylon webbing between two trees or posts.  The webbing is held onto the endposts/trees by either a ratchet or carabineer setup.  I prefer ratchet setups when I am alone since they are quicker and easier to set up – though carabineers don’t require much re-tightening and readjusting. Once the line is established, you either step up onto the line (or jump on if you are a bit more advanced) and train various skill.  The line is an unstable surface which requires the somatosensory portion of the brain to adjust substantially.  The initial adjustment can take as little as 5 minutes or as much as a week of consistent practice depending on the individual.  Some drills that can be performed on the slackline include walking backwards, forwards, sideways, kneeling, pistols, squats, turning, pivoting, jumping, line surfing, line bouncing.  Each of these can be done with a moving head, moving gaze, closed eyes or eyes behind the back which will cause conflicting signals from the vestibular, somatosensory and visual components of balance.  In short, these modifications will make balancing harder and will make you a better at balance.

If you were only able to choose one type of balance training, then I would certainly go with slacklining for an hour a week, or so, since it has a high degree of translation to other balance applications and the real world.  It also fun and makes for a fun activity to do in leisure time with friends and family.

Rail Balance

Rail balance is very similar to slacklining.  The only difference is that rail balancing does not require you to purchase a line and the balancing surface generally doesn’t move.  Rail balance is one of the most practical methods of training balance since finding a rail to stand on is relatively easy (so long as there are buildings around).  The techniques that can be trained on rail balancing are the exact same as slacklining so reread that section if you need some ideas.  A good balance program would mix rail balancing with slacklining – but performing rail balance does not have a great translation over to slacklining, in my experience.

Weightlifting

Weightlifting doesn’t really get enough credit for aiding in balance.  It doesn’t get enough credit for anything, really.  In general, even if you only do isolation exercises, strength correlates to balance in at least some populations (like this study that examined strength-trained women or the study linked earlier in this sentence).  That means, even if you only do isolation exercises on the major muscles of the lower limb, you may see an increase in your balance.  Just for good measure, this link points to another study where back extensor isolations helped with balance – but in a different way than direct balance training.  Strength training through isolations helped to increase postural control by increasing the fast compensatory responses that are necessary to maintain balance after it has been disturbed.  Standard balance training increased balanced by reducing variance (or sway) overall.  This is important evidence that suggests that strength training is a great compliment to standard balance training.  And these studies just looked at isolations!  I speculate that the highly coordinated and variable nature of the core lifts (squat and deadlift) along with the Olympic lifts (Snatch, Clean, Jerk) all provide a much better means of increasing balance through strength training.  If you are reading this site it is likely you already incorporate at least some or all of these lifts into your program and these studies really drive home that there is no replacement for these exercises – but they should be done in conjunction with standard balance work on a slackline, beam or rail.  Standard balance training cannot replace the benefits of strength training.  The converse is also true.

Hand Balancing

If you know anything about me at all it’s that I love handstands.  Handstands all the time, everywhere.  Personally, I feel like doing a handstand is one of the most fun acts that I can do anywhere, anytime.  Most balance training targets mostly the lower body and few people aside from gymnasts, crossfitters and traceurs even touch on handstands anymore.  That may be the reason why handstands are understudied and basically ignored by most peer reviewed journals.

Luckily, I managed to dig up some studies that have some good implications regarding upper body balance training and their effects on health and performance.  To put it into perspective, lower body balance surely helps with walking and avoiding a fall but upper body balance should have similar benefits.  The bad news is that performing upper body balance training (in my experience and this study) has little to no translation to balance performance.  The same is true that lower body balance training has little to no translation to inverted balance (that is, handstands).  However, postural regulation when inverted appears to be regulated in the same way as when we are standing on our feet – all three systems play a part.  So, what does this mean?  If we want to have the most stability and control over our bodies, we need to train balance on our feet and on our hands (handstands and rings).

When it comes to handstands, I am not going to go over the basics of how to get started and learn how to balance.  You can find some great resources on how to work on handstands either at BeastSkills, Drills and Skills or Gymnastics Bodies.  Rather, I want to delve deeper into the intricacies of handstands and some things that are overlooked by beginners that relate back to the topics in this article.

Balance, overall, is a closed kinetic chain movement.  For people who are unfamiliar with this term, it basically means that you are performing the movement with your body in contact with the ground such that you act on the ground to move a weight rather than acting on the weight itself.  A deadlift is a closed kinetic chain movement whereas a leg extension is not, for example.  In closed kinetic chain movements, each segment of the chain transmits forces to every other segment along the chain.  Each segment’s motions are influenced by forces transmitted from other segments.  In plain English, each part of your body will influence another part of your body so it is important that form is perfect.  Most new handstanders ignore most of their chain and this is why you see lots of beginners flailing their legs and/or getting a “banana back”.  This leads to balance impairments due to a lack of consciousness of the entire chain.  Recall that balance contains three components which include somatosensory input.  By forcing the muscles to learn how to balance while receiving this wacked out input from the muscles while legs are flailing in the air is entrenching horrible habits and the benefits of balance training may not be as great. This was just a very longwinded way of saying to train your handstands with good form or your brain may not be able to be reprogrammed so easily!

Another point goes to head position.  For some reason, some people still think that your head should be in a neutral position while doing handstands.  As we know from the previous sections of this article, vision and head position are a main component of balance – so head position is much more important than most people will lead you to believe. This study shows that having the head tilted WAY far back or in a slightly bent-back position was far more stable than keeping the head neutral or ventroflexed (looking at the feet).  With this in mind, beginners should keep head position very slightly tilted with the goal of progressing to competence with ALL head positions, noting that looking at the feet is the most unstable of all positions that have been studied.

One final point for coaches – touch your trainee’s thighs!  As we saw in our previous sections, the three systems that control balance don’t necessarily need to work in concert – they just happen to work in concert better than when they work alone.  Touching the thighs enhances the somatosensory perception of inverted trainees.  This also means that it can compensate for losses of vision such as closed eyes or for altered head positions.  If there is a novice struggling with handstands or an advanced student struggling with a new handstand variation, touching the thighs will help in getting new skills more quickly.

Aside from handstands, most of these facts apply directly to other upper body gymnastics skills.  The elbow levers and planche progression are also phenomenal tools to work on upper limb balance techniques.  Additionally, any sort of rings training in a support position such as dips, support, L-sits, iron cross, etc. will contribute to the stability in the shoulder girdle that will help drastically with upper body balancing skills.

Balance Board

As stated earlier, the balance board is a classic in peer reviewed articles.  Why?  I don’t really know.  Balance boarding has no significant translation to any sort of practical movement that I can discern.  Balance boarding, practically, is extremely boring.  The only thing worth mentioning on the balance board is that people who snowboard tend to pick up balance boarding very easily…though I have yet to see someone proficient on a balance board translate that to snowboarding skill.  The balance board still provides a lot of researchers with a tool to work with and some data that is compelling regarding balance.  Personally, though, I think you can save your money on a balance board and start walking on rails and slacklines.

BOSU Balls

When people mention balance training, the BOSU Ball is typically the first thing that comes to mind.  This is probably because the BOSU ball has been a great tool for researchers performing studies.  Researchers can easily get a BOSU ball to use in their studies as they are cheap and readily available.  The BOSU balls provide an unstable surface that is highly controlled.  People on the BOSU ball appear to be consciously balancing for long periods of time which lends itself to easy data collection.  This is one of the main reasons EMG (muscle activity) studies are done on the BOSU ball…it’s easy as hell to do!

Studies that have been conducted using BOSU balls appear to be very compelling until we look a bit deeper.  One study, for example, shows that performing exercises such as pushups on a BOSU or swiss ball increases EMG activity.  That sounds great, right?  Well, as performance athletes, we don’t really care about muscle activating muscles in this way.  The instability of the BOSU ball is making muscles work harder to control themselves under the BOSU ball.  When you remove the BOSU ball, the muscles still act with increased activity that is not necessary because they have been conditioned to do so.  This might sound good, but it ingrains motor patters that are not desirable.  In fact, BOSU ball training may decrease sport applicable performance due to improper activation and conditioning – the increased EMG activity may actually hurt performance!

That aside, this is all a moot point since studies indicates that advanced athletes benefit very little from BOSU ball training.  That means if you train hard with heavy weights, then the BOSU balls won’t do much for you once you pass the novice phase – so why do two things instead of just one?!  Stick to heavy weights and leave the BOSU ball on the shelf.

I know what some of you may be thinking.  Why not do the heavy weights ON the BOSU ball, just to cover all of your bases!  Well, firstly, that’s idiotic.  No one should have any significantly stressful amount of weight loaded onto the body or in their hands when they are performing on an unstable surface.  That is a great way to get yourself or someone else hurt or killed.  Secondly, if you read the first part of this section, you would see that increasing muscle activity while weighted can actually hurt your performance.  Just to make sure I say it again –  keep the BOSU ball on the shelf.

Summary/ To the top

Well, in summary, balance training is often ignored when it should be an integral part of a trainees program.  Most of the people reading this article should already recognize the benefits of the core lifts and lifting heavy and this actually covers most of your bases in terms of bringing balancing skills up to par – at least the clinical par.  For performance, I believe that specific balance training (of at least 1 hour a week, in a casual setting) should be implemented to make the most progress in balance training.  If you are a traceur, this training is absolutely necessary for your sport.  If you are looking for general preparedness, then it is necessary for your active lifestyle where you may need to balance across a river or narrow ledge sometime during one of your misadventures.  If you are a competitive athlete then it is probably less necessary to go out of your way to balance train for your sport even though there is some evidence supporting that it will maximize performance.  Rather, as an athlete, it may be worthwhile to investigate balancing as a hobby that way you get the training in on your “off time” out of the gym.  Keeping training fun is half the battle of being competitive and sticking with it – and balance training can be a blast.

Note: Most of the studies cited in this article are linked as they are cited.  However, many studies were cited based off of the terrific article on balance titled Research and Clinical Applications of Assessing Balance.  If you would like further reading then this article is a great place to start.

I’ll say it straight: Overcoming Gravity is the best book money can buy on gymnastics and bodyweight strength–period! This book reads like what it is–an absolute labor of love, an all-encompassing masterpiece written by a bona fide genius in the field. This book wasn’t written to make a ton of money. There is so much advanced training information in this huge volume that it could have easily been watered-down and split into ten books…maybe more. Overcoming Gravity has the power to change the way you train–not just for a handful of workouts, but for an entire lifetime. Buy this book!

—Paul “Coach” Wade, best-selling Dragon Door author of Convict Conditioning and Convict Conditioning 2

The following article is a very small portion of the encompassing programming methodology that goes into constructing a bodyweight routine aimed towards increasing both strength and hypertrophy. Enjoy reading it. If you have any further questions, feel free to leave a comment, sign up on our forum, and buy the book.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. Decreased leverage is the key to strength
III. Skill development
IV. Exercise selection
V. Exercise selection summary and importance of mobility and flexibility
VI. Resources for finding exercises, goals, and equipment needed
VII. Routine construction
VIII. Summing up the parts
IX. Conclusion

However, since the legs are much stronger than the upper body they require weighted stimuli to make optimal progress. Additionally, for those with other goals such as gaining mass, a combination of bodyweight exercises and barbell work or strict barbell work will get you better results. See our Barbell training recommendations for that.

In addition to the impressive levels of strength that can be built, bodyweight strength training for the upper body requires excellent proprioception and kinesthetic control. Manipulating the body in space increases feedback via mechanoreceptors, cerebellar system, and other neural factors, which when combined altogether likely gives a correctly programmed bodyweight exercise a slight advantage over weights in terms of upper body strength development. Since force output is based upon cross sectional area of the muscle, angle of attack on the joint, individual limb length, but most importantly neural factors, developing these neural factors quickly in conjunction with the strength and mass will help you gain impressive results quickly.

Anyone who has developed both barbell strength and bodyweight strength can attest that the transference from one to the other is strongly in the favor of of bodyweight exercises (in most cases and with comparable strength skills).

Try it for yourself!

Note: I will not be discussing any bodyweight leg exercises. You can add them for your own measure on your own time – the template I will discuss does allow for them to be put in though.

The brief summary is that force is force. Thus, if we can apply the correct stress to the muscles through various exercises we can see increases in both strength and mass.

Rather than increasing weights or adding weight to the body, gymnastics and other bodyweight sports provide structured progressions through which the stimulus on the muscles can be increased without increases in body mass. This is done through decreasing leverage.

Decreasing leverage in exercise is primarily employed through two different methods.

1. Changing the body position is the obvious way to decrease leverage. For instance, both planche and front lever have changes in body position to make the exercise more difficult.

Progressions of the planche series

What happens is through extending the body position, the center of mass is shifted further away from the fulcrum (joint angles). This increases the torque which is the force applied around an axis of rotation. Since our bodies are built on leverage methods (muscles move our bones), all forces on the muscles can be thought of in terms of torque on the muscles at certain joint angles. This is the basis of biomechanics.

2. We all know that muscles are strongest at near resting length as that is the point where the most contractile fibers overlap. Thus, if we lengthen or shorten muscles and then place the same load on the body, we are effectively requiring more force from the muscle when it is weaker.

muscles are strongest at normal resting length

Typically this is seen with more advanced strength moves on rings where the arms are held in straight arm position. The straight arm position places the biceps as maximal length and thus requires significant amounts of strength and mass to do the skills safely.

Similarly, in the planche the primary shoulder muscle (anterior deltoid) is placed in an extended position (compared to an overhead press where you get more leverage out of it). This requires more force output to perform.

Note: Increasing reps increases endurance! This is not the answer. We who try to develop bodyweight strength primarily stick to the lower repetition ranges just like training for strength in barbell lifting. We will discuss this more on why later.

It is unlike barbell training where you can begin learning the more complex movements (such as the Olympic lifts – snatch and clean and jerk) as a beginner and reach a decent level of proficiency within a few months. In fact, with barbell work this is preferable because it allows for years upon years of meticulous training to reinforce proper movement patterns to do it under heavy loads.

Bodyweight skill development follows a different tract. The levels of progression are separated by competency in previous skill development in combination of strength development.

For example, a basic skill such as a handstand and its various progressions has many different levels to work through such as:

• The basic static hold upside itself developed from the wall to free standing,
• developing a proper straight arm press,
• obtaining a freestanding bent arm handstand pushups,
• obtaining a one arm handstand,
• controlling various positions in handstands or one arm handstands
• potentially one arm press handstands

The complexity of progressions and the varying nature of many peoples’ ultimate goals make progressing in pure bodyweight work extremely difficult if you are not under the tutelage of someone who knows what they are doing and can offer correct progressions and tips on what to work on next.

Skill development work will play an ultimate role in developing proper strength. It is to be included in every session. As one’s individual skill, strength, and work capacity improves exercises that may have been previously classified as “strength” skills may become skill work.

Thus, it is important every 6-8 weeks to reassess your goals exercise selection in the context of what constitutes skill work and strength work as your training progresses. We will talk about how to properly do this later.

• The shoulder is the lynchpin of the upper body just like the hip is for the lower body.

All upper body moves go through the shoulder. For this reason alone I believe most of the exercise selection of a routine should be based upon the different articulations of the shoulder.

Bodyweight skills have the unique quality that many of them require excellent upper body flexibility/mobility to perform. For example, proper handstands require 180 degree shoulder mobility and strength in that position. Likewise, manna, back lever, one arm pullups, etc. all have shoulder mobility requirements that need to be properly developed to ensure success.

the shoulder – image from exac.com

• Keeping the shoulders (glenohumeral / scapular articulations) operating optimally is the key to bodyweight strength success.

This is not to say we are going to ignore the elbows, wrists, and rest of the articulations in the upper body. Rather, focusing on the shoulder will allow us to correctly select exercises that will build a properly balanced routine.

• Any exercise in which the center of mass of the body is moving towards the hands is a pulling exercise
• Any exercise in which the center of mass of the body is moving away from the hands is a pushing exercise

This works for most exercises in almost all cases.

The primary static exercises that everyone wants to learn that are pulling exercises are the back lever, front lever, and iron cross. And the statics that are pushing are your planches and inverted cross. The maltese and victorian are at the borderline which is fitting because they are full body tension exercises to the highest degree.

full back lever and full back lever

iron cross and planche

inverted cross and V-sit

Fortunately, bodyweight exercises have a limited amount of articulations of the shoulder that we train with.

There is very little “elbows out” in gymnastics in any type of shoulder flexion unlike what you can do with barbell and dumbell pressing. This is because of lack of control. Handstands with elbows coming out to the side will inevitably be unstable – the elbows need to be tucked in front of the body to adequately correct the body as a balancing lever as it moves in plane.

Most people who randomly do handstand pushups (HSPUs) or add them as supplementary barbell work do them with elbows flared out. While this is stronger (because of the added trapezius involvement in scapular elevation) this does not allow proper development of strength.

For this reason, our “pushing” is in flexion based shoulder work only.

Shoulder flexion – image from purdue.edu

There are the occasional exercise with transverse flexion such as rings flys or one in abduction such as inverted cross. in some of the upper level strength development exercises. However, these will not be covered because they are not for beginners or even semi-intermediate level strength. Once you know how to structure your own routines you should be able to program these in properly for yourself.

Therefore, our “pushing” is comprised of flexion based shoulder exercises is divided primarily into two categories that we can use namely:

• Flexion exercises in flexion
• Flexion exercises in extension/hyperextension

Flexion work in flexion is primarily horizontal and vertical pushing work such as press handstands, handstand pushups, planche work, most pushup variations, etc.

Flexion exercises in extension/hyperextension are exercises where the elbow pass behind the midline of the body and initiate flexion in the concentric phase. These are all dip variations, muscle ups, very deep pushup variations, and some odd exercises such as german hangs or back lever can be classified into this category as well.

On the flipside is the “pulling” based exercises which is based in shoulder extension. We have one exception in this case – adduction –since we will will need adequate mobility in for proper shoulder development. This will eventually be used for development of wide grip pullups, bulgarian dips, iron cross, etc.

Shoulder extension – image from purdue.edu

These are divided into two categories:

• Extension exercises in flexion + adduction
• Extension exercises in extension/hyperextension

Extension exercises in flexion + adduction is compromised of most of the vertical pulling variations such as pullups, front lever progressions and pullup variations, and the aforementioned bulgarian dips, iron cross, etc. Most of the bodyweight type rowing exercises can be categorized here too.

Extension exercises in extension/hyperextension are very few and far between. The most obvious one is manna, and to an extent V-sit. Some of the high pulling body row variations also fall under here in the plane of transverse extension.

Manna

This is why I highly encourage everyone to start training manna if at all possible. It has done wonders for my shoulder health and strength as it effectively balances out a lot of the pushing work.

Most routines are also so pushing heavy that there is very little pulling work as named above. These need to be kept in balance to ensure that strength and muscle tension/length issues at the shoulder do not develop.

• Do one vertical push upwards and downwards, and one horizontal pushing exercise
• Do one vertical pulling exercise down, and one horizontal pulling exercise.
• Do manna OR add in another horizontal pulling exercise OR vertical pulling exercise upwards

It is best if the vertical upwards pushing starts out as handstand work. Handstands are critical for the development of body proprioception and control. Progression in this skill signifies the level of ability of the user. Very few people develop strong bodyweight abilities without proper handstand work.

A proper handstand has the body in alignment stacked on top of each other part by part. There should be no arch, and if at all maybe a slight hollow position.

Proper vs. improper handstand in modern gymnastics – images from beastskills.com

In a perfect world everyone would work both manna and handstands as coupled skills. I like this for multiple reasons:

1. Development of strength in active flexibility positions is the key to dominating bodyweight movements. These will drastically increase your proprioception and ability to control your muscles through all range of motion.

Handstands work proper overhead flexion range of motion of the shoulders, and manna works the limit of extension range of motion of the shoulders.

2. Both handstand and manna have built in core control and strength work. Thus, less time needs to be spent on core conditioning, and more emphasis can be put in on skill and strength development.

3. As previously mentioned, developing these skills simultaneously will ensure that imbalances of the shoulder will be less likely to develop.

The alternative is additional scapular retraction work (another horizontal pulling exercise) or an inverted pulling exercise (such as inverted pullups) to keep the pulling and pushing exercises balanced.

Let me note that if people have previous injuries or impaired posture/mobility/biomechanics/strength imbalances then certain work may be needed or integrated to correct these deficiencies concurrently with bodyweight strength work. Unfortunately, this is a whole other topic, but I am going to at least put together a sample routine here and explain the reasoning behind such exercises.

My recommendations for barbell work from “How to construct…” has always been something along the lines of structuring a routine based on 2 pushing exercises, 2 pulling exercises, and 2 legs/posterior chain exercises. This is similar to what I am going to do here except we are going to select exercises from each of the categories we have previously determined in both shoulder flexion and extension planes.

For those with no experience with exercising you should start out with 2 pulling and 2 pushing exercises.

For those with some experience with exercising, I tend to like 3 exercises for push and pull starting out, and then integrate it down to 2 with an increase in skill work as work capacity increases.

I use this structure for two reasons. First, getting the person to work in many planes of motion is going to help extensively learning to manipulate themselves in space. This is a bit unlike barbell training where you want to stress few fundamental movements. Secondly, distributing the volume over another set of exercises will help because it is harder to keep strict technique. Barbell work you can tell when form degrades and make load adjustments; in bodyweight work the body will inadvertently adjust to improper technique which decreases forces applied often significantly. Once technique becomes more ingrained then this is less of a problem.

For our “pushing” exercises we want ones that are based in flexion in flexion and flexion in extension. For beginners, the best things to choose that will give the most benefit are in the veins of handstands, planche, and dips.

For our “pulling” exercises we want ones that are based in extension in extension and extension in flexion. For beginners, this would be pullups, some sort front lever or back lever work, and inverted rows or inverted pullups.

For legs there are lots of things you can work on such as sprinting, pistols, plyometrics, or other methods such as this. I do still recommend weights should be used, but sometimes people have no access to equipment so they have to make do with what they have.

Mobility work may be integrated into warmups and/or as skill work, during workouts, or even post workout.

One of the more effective things I have personally done for my manna progressions is to do my shoulder stretching (german hangs / skin the cats) directly before so as to allow better movement of the shoulder girdle pressing into hyperextension.

Both german hangs and wall slides + band dislocates are musts as they will help improve proper shoulder range of motion in extreme flexion and hyperextension for handstands and manna respectively. Not that this is all of the work that should be done, but they are the more important of the two.

Ido Portal has produced a good set of videos on scapular mobility and stability which you should definitely think about incorporating into warmups or cooldowns.

Scapular mobility
Scapular stabilization

Additionally, proper leg and core/back flexibility are important to develop as well. Obviously, for the legs you have your classic splits that need to be worked on as well as ankle stretching. These are obvious.

Splits are critical for development of handstand press variations – image from about.com

For the back, there are some good posts on Gymnastic Bodies on how to start developing these which should be integrated into the warm up or cool down.

Improving back flexibility 1
Improving back flexibility 2

Likewise, wrist flexibility and strength should be developed as well.

Wrist pushups are good, and so is rice bucket for strengthening.

So all in all we want to develop proper mobility and flexibility of our: ankles, hips, back, shoulders, and wrists. These will all be crucial to developing a lot of strength we need, so they should not be neglected.

We list a multitude of good goals and potential exercises in our Setting and Achieving Goals article.

Similarly, DrillsAndSkills lists many good exercises. Roger’s articles are also a gold mine for some of the particular techniques and nuances that need to be developed as well.

Jim’s Beast Skills site has many skills that people want to strive for as well.

Gymnastics WOD has a bunch of different gymnastics video resources talking about technique and such. I would not recommend their programming for strength based work, but they have some decent conditioning workouts if that is what you are looking for as well.

This sticky post I made on PMenu has more more gymnastics specific resources.

Coach Sommer’s Building the gymnastic body has pages of picture demonstrated exercise progressions.

There are many youtube video channels that now have a lot of the different exercise progressions.

As always we strongly recommend that you obtain a pullup bar and a set of rings. For most people, the things that work best are a doorway pullup bar and a good pair of rings. The rings may be hung off of the pullup bar, so you do not need to find somewhere outside to hang them unless you so desire.

For beginners, I recommend that a full body routine of 3x a week (so MWF for example) of 2 pushing, 2 pulling and 1-2 leg exercises be used.

Skill work can be used on top of this if you need to. I typically recommend that both L-sit and handstand work be done in the beginning as “skill work” as HS and manna progressions are paired together effectively to balance the shoulder.

So for a beginner with some training behind their belt, a sample program would begin with:

skill work:

• 5-10 minutes of wall handstand work
• 60s of L-sit and/or straddle L

pushing:

• 60s of planche
• dips or support hold work on rings

pulling:

• 60s of back lever
• 60s of front lever

+ 1-2 leg exercies of your choice. For beginners, I typically recommend barbell lifts such as squat or deadlift because they are superior to bodyweight lifts for building strength. However, bodyweight exercises such as single leg squats / pistols, sprinting, hill sprinting, box jumps, stair training, etc can be used effectively as well.

As you become more advanced (2-3 more cycles with appropriate rest weeks of the above cycle of 4-8 weeks), the program morphs into:

skill work:

• 5-10 minutes of freestanding handstand work and/or working on straight arm press handstands
• L-sit / straddle-L– or if sufficiently advanced progressing towards manna work
• support hold work

pushing:

• planche
• appropriate multi-plane pressing or dipping variations
• Another exercise IF necessary (vertical or horizontal pushing)

pulling:

• back lever
• front lever
• another exercise if necessary (horizontal pulling related)

+1-2 leg exercises of your choice.

At this point, if skills are obtained such as back lever or front lever, or if it is not sufficient volume then you can start to add multi-plane pulling movements or such things as rope climbs. Weighted pullups/dips or progression pullup/dips are good. Multi-plane pressing, pulling, or combination exercises such as muscle ups can be integrated into each specific category.

Quality of work is more important than quantity. More is not always better, especially in the case of bodyweight work where significant energy must be expended into the skills to not only learn them correctly but also perform them correctly. Form deteriorates much more easily with bodyweight work than barbells.

If you are thinking about adding more exercises consider how your body is reacting first:

~Are you making progress week to week?
~How do you feel within the first 24-48 hours after workouts?
~Is the quality of your other lifestyle factors such as sleep/school/family/etc. deteriorating?

If there are other factors that are causing problems such as lack of sleep or outside stressors then it may not be a good idea. If you are struggling with soreness of any kind whether it be muscle or especially joint then it may not be a good idea. If you are making good progress then why change what works for now?

Clearly, undertraining is not good, but overdoing is generally far worse in most cases. It’s always a good idea to push your limits once in a while to see where they are at. This will give you an idea what you are capable of at that particular point in time; however, you have to realize that you will likely need to back off after you push past your limits so you can properly recover without developing overuse injuries. When in doubt, take a couple of extra rest days and then see how you feel.

From here as you start to achieve your goals, you need to progressively implement harder exercises.

One alternative I would like you to consider is routines with little or no isometric work. I tend to prefer more movement based routines over strict isometric work. You do not necessarily have to work the isometrics to obtain the isometric skills, but it will be faster if you do. I have built up to crosses, straddle planche, full front lever, etc. without the use of much if any isometric work during training.

The way you would program something like this is that instead of the additions of planche, front lever, back lever, etc. to your program you would substitute in extra exercises for those. For example, for the planche we would go with a horizontal pushing exercise such as a planche pushup progression, pseudo planche pushups, or other rings pushup variations. With front lever we can do front lever progression pullups, or even delve into barbell or dumbell work with bent over rows or one arm dumbell rows. You can also go with reverse flys or weighted inverted rows.

There are many choices on how to do work. The reason why I like working strictly movements is I want to be stronger in all planes of movement rather than strict isometric positions. Studies have indicate that isometric movements only confer strength within about 30 degrees of the range of motion being worked. For the shoulder 30 degrees is nothing when it almost has 300+ degrees of rotary movement.

Something to think about, but then again I suspect that almost 100% of you are doing bodyweight strength training because you want to obtain such skills like planche, front lever, etc. in which case I would recommend keeping the isometrics in your routines.

Pike and straddle compression exercises – images from drillsandskills.com

For these I would add them to either the end of the workout when you do flexibility work OR you may add them into the beginning where you’re working on your L-sit/straddle-L/Manna work. Both work well from my experience.

Here are some guidelines:
1. Stretch your hamstrings for 30s
2. Arms straight, hands by your knees.
3. Pull your knees up to your face straining your abs as hard as possible.
4. Hold 10s. If you feel lots of cramping when you first start you’re doing it right
5. Repeat 1-4 about 5 times.

If you can get your knees to you face for most of the sets, move your hands closer to your toes.

I am going to assume that most of you are either using weights for lower body in which you are getting adequate lower back work. If you are not, I would recommend bodyweight work such as glute-ham raises, reverse hyperextensions, or other such bodyweight exercises.

We are not working to failure. Set and repetition selection should be based on being able to complete the first set of an exercise with a repetition or two to spare. If you do this, on the final set of an exercise it will usually be to near failure or failure. Failure is taxing on the CNS and if we overwork it then the quality of our workouts degrade much faster.

Ideally, we want to work to decrease the strength deficit relative to the muscles, but also increase muscle mass to an extent. For this in my opinion it is best to work in the 3-6 repetition range for full range of motion movements.

Depending on how many exercises you have, we would want to optimize the number of repetitions through a weightlifting chart like prilepin’s table

prilepin’s table

Although this chart was built for Olympic lifters and subsequently modified for powerlifting purposes, it can shed some light on what we are aiming for.

With 3-6 reps we are working in the 70-90% range. So our optimal range of total repetitions for an exercise is approximately 15-18 repetitions. This can be split up as needed – 3 sets of 5-6, 4 sets of 4, 5-6 sets of 3, or whatever other variations you want to throw in.

One of the ways to get a “feel” for the percentage you are working with is RPE — rating of perceived exertion. If the repetitions feel harder in nature you’re probably closer to the 90%, while if you can bang out the first couple easily you’re probably closer to 70%. It’s a good guage of how hard you are working.

Alternatively, I tend to like the scale of just doing as many repetitions as possible of an exercise stopping about 1-2 repetitions short of failure as I mentioned above. Once you get strong enough to where you can do more than the 5-6 repetitions, you need to implement a harder progression of the exercise and reduce the amount of repetitions.

In general, 45-60s of isometrics counts as approximately 15 repetitions exercise as approximately 3-4s counts as a single repetition. So if you are getting shorter holds I would aim for a lower about of total time, as the intensity is much higher when holds are shorter. The 45-60 seconds is an aggregated time, so it may take you anywhere from 1-10 sets to complete these.

Try to keep the total time per set consistent so your first hold will only be approximately 50-75% of your max capability. Again, we are not going to failure except maybe at the last set; we are trying to maximize the total amount of work we can do so as to get the most stress on our muscles without hindering our recovery. This will get us the fastest progress.

Eccentrics/negatives follow the same rules. One of the best ways to break up front lever negatives or one arm chinup negatives is by doing 2-3 sets of 2-3 repetitions of about 7-10s lowering of the movement. This comes out to approximately 45-60s of work just like the isometrics, and it breaks it up into manageable sets.

Overall capacity, I would aim for approximately 25-50 repetitions of pushing, and another 25-50 repetitions of pulling work per workout. This can be fluctuated as necessary due to fatigue or improvement in strength, but this is a good range to aim for.

Rest times for strength development can be anywhere from 3-7 minutes in between each set. Having trained for a while I prefer about 5 minutes between my sets. Depending on your conditioning and work capacity you may prefer a bit lower.

Alternating pushing and pulling exercises may allow you to shorten rest times a bit more if you are time constrained. For example, if you are doing planche and front lever isometrics you may do a set of planche and then rest for 90-120s and then do a set of front lever. This will help make you more time efficient, but may blunt your gains very slightly because it becomes a bit more metabolic.

For newer people since they progress a bit faster and for longer I would suggest more weeks without rest unless it clear they are not making much progress. If this occurs, one day of work may need to be eliminated per week to allow sufficient recovery between sets.

Overall, doing full rest is not productive during a recovery week. I will present a couple alternatives that tend to work well.

1. I would suggest that you keep the intensity high, but cut half of the volume during your rest weeks.

For example, this can be done by eliminating 2 days of workouts. So if you’re on a M,T,R,F schedule of workouts then you may only do 2 workouts such as M,R during a recovery week.

2. Another alternative is to eliminate half of the exercises. This can be done exclusively by eliminating isometrics. I would suggest eliminating the isometrics for a week, as it is more productive in most cases to continue working on full range of motion through the muscles during rest weeks.

3. If it was a particular brutal cycle on the body it may be worth it to eliminate all of the isometrics and exercises and exclusively focusing on the skill work and prehabilitative protocol.

For example, continue to work on handstands and ring supports, and improve shoulder, wrist, back, hip and ankle mobility and flexibliity.

Rest weeks are often very good times to implement more prehabilitative work and stretching protocols to reduce the amount of scar tissue/adhesions in the muscles, and get your mobility ready for the next set of training.

1. Warmup / mobility work
2. Skill development
3. Strength/power work
4. Cool down / prehabilitative or rehabilitative work

From there we move into mobility work to warm up the joints to allow successful movement. All of the mobility/flexiblity work I have talked about is listed below. In general, I would save the the static stretches for post-workout cool downs, but anything that helps warm up the joints in the dynamic phase listed below may go into your mobility work in the warmup.

Shoulders:
Scapular mobility
Scapular stabilization
german hangs
wall slides
band dislocates

Jim Bathurst has suggested an alternative to wall slides:

• I was shown a great/better variation where you sit with your butt against the wall, legs straight out in front of you. Grab some PVC at 90/90 elbow/shoulder degree and press above your head like a wall slide.

Wrists:
Wrist pushups
rice bucket

Hips/ankles/legs:
Splits
Pike
Straddle
Ankles (can be found page 4)
The splits… and more…

Back:
Improving back flexibility 1
Improving back flexibility 2

Anything that you can practice extensively for 5-15 minutes without becoming significant fatigued, but that you still need to master is classified as skill work.

Once handstands or any other movements such as L-sits, straddle-Ls, elbow levers, or whatever else you want to develop becomes like this you may put it in this category.

Implement active flexibility work here or after the workouts when doing flexibility.

L-sit and straddle-L sit can be performed on rings, parallettes, or the floor

Elbow lever

If possible I would try to work on anywhere from 2-4 skills at one time but no more than that otherwise it will take too long. Most people do not have excessive amounts of time in their day that they can devote to training anyway.

~handstand work with manna
~planche with front lever or back lever

Routine construction should follow the general template of 2-3 pushing and 2-3 pulling exercises for about 3-5 sets of 3-6 repetitions depending on work capacity. You are aiming for a total of about 25-50 repetitions total for each pushing and pulling exercises in your workout. Rest approximately 3-7 minutes between sets. Alternate pushing/pulling work if you are time constrained and shorten the rest periods to 1.5-3.5 minutes.

Remember, quantity is not always better than quality – focus on getting the most out of your exercises. If you are too fatigued to finish exercises properly then simply terminate the workout for the day.

We are not working to failure. Set and repetition selection should be based on being able to complete the first set of an exercise with a repetition or two to spare. If you do this, on the final set of an exercise it will usually be to near failure or failure. Failure is taxing on the CNS and if we overwork it then the quality of our workouts degrade much faster.

You may substitute isometrics or eccentrics for exercises according to the data above.

Cycles should be continued for at least 4-8 weeks followed by a rest week. From there goals may be evaluated and new exercises and skill selected depending on if you completed your goals or are stagnating on exercises.

Implement active flexibility work here if you did not implement it in the beginning with the skill work.

In addition, this is the time to add isolation prehabilitative work as well. For example, the external rotators are a bit neglected in most gymnastic work. Thus, it may be beneficial to do a couple sets of side lying external rotations or the middle part of a cuban press to help keep the shoulders healthy.

Side lying external rotations – image from build-muscle-and-burn-fat.com

Similarly, more band dislocates and wall slides are recommended here as well as wrist pushups and rice bucket wrist conditioning.

The aim of this article was to successfully educate you on how to properly construct a bodyweight strength routine. The underlying caveat that took me so long to write this was that I wanted to ensure that anything I recommended would be able to keep a person in it for the long haul while mitigating potential injuries. I hope this helped you to be able to do it.

The resources out on proper bodyweight programming are scant so it is with regret that I was unable to get this article out sooner. However, now that it is out I hope it is extremely useful to those looking to exclusively bodyweight strength train.

One of the big problems that most people encounter with bodyweight strength work is that it is very hard to see progress as opposed to adding weight to the bar every session or every other session. However, like any training the key is consistency. If you work (1) hard and (2) consistently you will make good progress. This is key for any type of program whether bodyweight, barbell, or both.

For those of you who wish to do a combination of barbell and bodyweight work you may note that many of the exercises are very similar to pulling and pushing exercises. You may substitute these in for exercises in your barbell routines and it works out fine.

If you still have no clue, Jim Bathurst (BeastSkills) wrote an article for Performance Menu that focuses on bodyweight skill integration with barbell work. I have read it, and it is almost exactly what I would recommend. If you are not a subscriber of PMenu journal it will cost you $2.75 though.

Good luck with your training!

For reference and convenience, this document can be downloaded in PDF format here.  For a brief primer into this article, check out Ryan Ford’s YouTube introduction.

In order to succeed in a sport, fitness program, or physical activity, it is necessary to establish a diverse and intelligent strength and conditioning program. To maximize your gains in fitness and apply them to highly sport-specific skills, it helps to track your progress, set goals, and achieve balance in your physical capabilities. We have written an article on how to set useful goals.  The goal of this document is to provide guidelines based on useful goals that allow new trainees to gauge milestones and monitor progress over time.

This list of goals was chosen because working these skills will simultaneously improve many of the components of physical fitness. First defined and organized by Dynamax, these components are relevant in all kinds of sports, combat, and physical activities. They are:

1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance – The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.
2. Stamina – The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.
3. Strength – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.
4. Flexibility – The ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.
5. Speed – The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.
6. Power – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.
7. Coordination – The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into one distinct movement.
8. Agility – The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.
9. Balance – The ability to control the placement of the body’s center of gravity in relation to its support base.
10. Accuracy – The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a certain intensity.

While many resources go over setting goals and even provide a list of goals that may be worthwhile, many people are unfamiliar with what sort of progress to expect. With potential benchmarks and milestones unknown, this leaves the trainee feeling out of control. Lack of knowledge and lack of control often times results in lowered motivation. To address this problem, the following guidelines have been established so that a dedicated trainee will know the sort of progress they can expect with focused, dedicated training.

These guidelines were originally created as a collaborative effort between Eat. Move. Improve.,a fitness resource, and APEX Movement, a Denver, CO based parkour facility.  Eat. Move. Improve. was represented by Steven Low and Chris Salvato whereas APEX Movement was represented by Ryan Ford and Matt Marshall.²

Note well that this set of guidelines is open for critique and feedback. It was created by the authors over several months of brainstorming, observing, and research in the Olympic lifting, CrossFit, parkour, and gymnastics communities with an open-source, black-box methodology in mind. A small group of people cannot accomplish as much as a large group – especially bearing in mind that some users and readers of this article may have more experience in certain areas than the authors. Please leave us your comments or contact Chris Salvato (chris@eatmoveimprove.com) or Ryan Ford (coloradoparkour@gmail.com) with feedback.

Using the Skill Guidelines

The time frames listed for each level are based on progress that the authors have seen directly through personal experience, coaching experience, and through their involvement with their respective communities. Keep in mind that younger populations tend to progress faster than older populations; those with less stress tend to progress faster than those with more stress; and those with better sleep cycles tend to progress faster than those with poor sleep cycles. The goals listed below are for young males in the age range of 15-35 at a starting body composition of under 20% body fat. In future editions of this article, we will include more demographics.

The milestones in this article can be reached within their respective time frames by training 3-4 days per week for the first couple of years. It is advised to keep training diverse, but simple. Focus on only a few feats of strength, skill, and endurance at once. Eat. Move. Improve.’s Steven Low recommends that trainees start with and focus on no more than 2 pushing, 2 pulling, and 2 posterior chain strength goals at once. Any endurance training or skill training can easily fit into the preceding strength program.

Level One – Healthy Beginner (0-12 months)

• Level one guidelines are milestones that can be attained by an untrained, sedentary individual within their first 12 months of training (assuming they are free of any serious injuries or health conditions). This level is the minimum standard for a healthy lifestyle and lays the foundation for basic strength gains in the following years. This basic strength will translate over into more rapid increases in capabilities.

Level Two – Intermediate Athlete (1-2 years)

• Level two guidelines can be attained within 1-2 years after level one has been reached. These skills should be considered normal for a healthy athlete that is pursuing increased performance. The translation from one skill to another is still very high here, so working towards a few goals will also help other goals advance towards level three.

Level Three – Advanced Athlete (2-4 years)

• Level three guidelines can be reached within 2-4 years after level one has been reached. This is an appropriate level of general fitness for those who would like to perform for long periods of time and possess a high level of strength. Taking part in high intensity sports such as parkour, combat, or highly competitive sports while possessing the abilities of level three allows for a higher degree of participation while mitigating the risk of injury. Athletes that posses many level three skills will get the most out of their training as they are able to train continuously with few injuries and work on technique consistently and without interruption.  Most individuals can obtain most, if not all, of level three skills with proper programming and dedication.

Level Four – Specialized Athlete

• After reaching level three, some trainees may choose to take certain skills to the next level. Most level four guidelines entail specialized training that will not allow for other goals to be included in the athletes program. For example, pursuing a straddle planche will require consistent, hard training that may make another goal, such as a competitive 5k run, unrealistic to simultaneously pursue. An athlete can work toward level four without sacrificing level three accomplishments, but usually only a small number of level four skills can be attained for each individual.

Level Five – Highly Specialized Athlete

• To reach level five in many of these skills takes a combination of superior genetics, dedication, and intellect. While level five is not necessarily a world class athlete, most people will not be able to perform many level five skills without sacrificing performance in other domains. By the time the athlete is at level five, thousands of reps/runs/holds will have been performed; years of experience will have been established towards this goal; and the athlete may progress beyond level five towards a world class level. By even striving for a level five skill shows remarkable determination and drive.

Nomenclature

AW                 Against Wall
B                      Bar
BW                  Bodyweight
DH                  Dead hang
DPU                Deadhang Pull Ups
FS                    Free Standing
G                      On Ground
HSPU             Handstand Push Ups
KPU                Kipping Pull Ups
OAH               One Arm Handstand
PB                    Parallel Bars or Parallettes
R                      Rings
ROM               Range of Motion
RTO                 Rings Turned Out
SL                    Straight Legs
SA                   Straight Arms

______________________________________________________________________________

• Metabolic conditioning
  • Locomotive tests
    • Run (100m)
      • Level one – 20 sec.
      • Level two –  16 sec.
      • Level three – 13 sec.
      • Level four – 11.5 sec.
      • Level five – 10.5 sec.
      • World Record – 9.58 sec. (Usain Bolt, Jamaica)
    • Run (400m)
      • Level one – 120 sec.
      • Level two – 85 sec.
      • Level three – 60 sec.
      • Level four – 54 sec.
      • Level five – 48 sec.
      • World Record – 43.18 sec. (Michael Johnson, USA)
    • Run (5000m)
      • Level one – 36:00
      • Level two – 24:00
      • Level three – 18:00
      • Level four – 15:40
      • Level five – 14:00
      • World Record – 12:37 (Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopia)
    • Rowing (500m)¹
      • Level one – 150 sec.
      • Level two – 110 sec.
      • Level three – 90 sec.
      • Level four – 83 sec.
      • Level five – 80 sec.
      • World Record – 75 sec.
    • Rowing (2000m)¹
      • Level one – 12:00
      • Level two – 9:00
      • Level three – 7:45
      • Level four – 6:50
      • Level five – 6:20
      • World Record – 5:36.6
• Bodyweight skills and Gymnastics
  • Pushing
    • Push ups:
      • Level one – 5 push up
      • Level two – 20 push ups (R)
      • Level three – 5 tuck planche push ups (PB)
      • Level four – 5 straddle planche push ups (G)
      • Level five – 1 planche push up (G)
    • Dips (begin some weighted dip work at level two)
      • Level one – 3 (PB)
      • Level two – 10 (PB)
      • Level three – 30 (R, full ROM)
      • Level four – 15 (RTO and held at 45 degrees past parallel)
      • Level five – 15 (RTO and held at 45 degrees past parallel, straight body, leaning forward at 45 degrees)
    • Planche progressions:
      • Level one – 15 sec. (Frog)
      • Level two –  15 sec. (Tuck)
      • Level three – 10 sec. (Advanced Tuck)
      • Level four – 5 sec. (Straddle)
      • Level five – 3 sec. (Lay)
  • Pulling
    • Pull ups (begin some weighted pull up work at level two)
      • Level one – 3 KPU (chin over bar)
      • Level two – 20 KPU, 12 DPU (chin over bar)
      • Level three –  40 KPU, 20 DPU (chest to bar, move on to weighted pull ups)
      • Level four – 25 DPU to lower sternum (move on to weighted pull ups)
      • Level five – 25 DPU to belly button (move on to weighted pull ups)
    • One arm pull up/chin up:
      • Level one –  n/a
      • Level two –  n/a
      • Level three –  10 sec. one arm pull up/chin up negative
      • Level four – 1 (each arm)
      • Level five –  5 (each arm)
    • Back lever:
      • Level one – 1 skin the cat (piked with straight legs)
      • Level two –  10 sec. (advanced tuck)
      • Level three –  12 sec. (half lay)
      • Level four –  10 sec. (lay)
      • Level five –  20 sec. (lay)
    • Front lever:
      • Level one – 1 skin the cat (piked with straight legs)
      • Level two –  10 sec. (advanced tuck)
      • Level three –  8 sec. (half lay)
      • Level four –  5 sec. (lay)
      • Level five – 12 sec. (lay)
  • Handstands
    • Handstand hold
      • Level one – 60 sec. (AW)
      • Level two – 120 sec. (AW), 15 sec. (FS)
      • Level three – 45 sec. (FS)
      • Level four – 10 sec. (OAH, fingertip assist)
      • Level five – 5 sec. (OAH)
    • HSPU:
      • Level one – n/a
      • Level two – 5 (AW, G)
      • Level three – 2 (full ROM, AW, PB), 15 HSPU (AW, G)
      • Level four – 15 (full ROM, AW, PB), 2 (FS, PB)
      • Level five – 15 (FS, PB)
    • Handstand press
      • Level one – Headstand press (elephant press)
      • Level two – 2 press to handstand (G, any method)
      • Level three – 2 straddle presses to handstand (G, SA, SL)
      • Level four – 5 pike presses to handstand (G, SA, SL), 1 press to handstand (R, any method)
      • Level five – 3 pikes presses to handstand (R, SL)
  • Seats
    • L-sit:
      • Level one – 5 sec. tucked L-sit
      • Level two – 25 sec. L-sit
      • Level three – 60 sec. L-sit (G), 10 ft. L-sit walk
      • Level four – 30 ft. L-sit walk
      • Level five – 75 ft. L-sit walk
  • Legs
    • Broad Jumps:
      • Level one – 6 ft.
      • Level two – 8 ft.
      • Level three – 9 ft. ­­­
      • Level four – 10 ft.
      • Level five – 10.5 ft.
      • World Record – 12 ft. 2 in. (Arne Tvervaag, Norway)
    • Standing Vertical Jump:
      • Level one – 10 in.
      • Level two – 18 in.
      • Level three – 24 in.
      • Level four – 28 in.
      • Level five – 34 in.
      • World Record – 48-52 in.  (Unverified and Speculative)
    • Standing Box Jump:
      • Level one – 18 in.
      • Level two – 30 in.
      • Level three – 40 in.
      • Level four – 50 in.
      • Level five – 60 in.
      • World Record – 58-68+ in. (Unverified and Speculative)
    • Pistols (each leg):
      • Level one – 5 step ups on 24 in. box
      • Level two –  5 pistols
      • Level three – 5 pistols +25% BW
      • Level four –  5 pistols +50% BW
      • Level five – 5 pistols +75% BW
    • Natural leg curls:
      • Level one – n/a
      • Level two – 1 negative – 3-5 sec.
      • Level three – 1 negative – 8-10 sec.
      • Level four – 3 concentric
      • Level five – 10 concentrics with eccentric
  • Combined push/pull
    • Muscle up:
      • Level one – n/a (work on dips and pull ups)
      • Level two – 1 (DH, R, RTO at top and bottom; symmetrical), 1 (bar; symmetrical)
      • Level three – 10 (strict, DH, B)
      • Level four – 5 +25% BW (R)
      • Level five – 30 in 2.5 min. (R, kipping allowed), 2 with 50% BW (R)
  • Parkour Specific Movements
    • Climb up (climb up from a hanging position on the wall)
      • Level one – Beginner climb up (by any means necessary)
      • Level two – Intermediate climb up (symmetrical arms, distinct pull up and dip motions)
      • Level three – Advanced climb up (symmetrical and straight arms, appears to be one fluid motion)
      • Level four – 10 clapping advanced climb up (symmetrical and straight arms, appears to be one fluid motion) & 5 advanced climb ups with 15% BW
      • Level five – One-up climb up (from hanging position to vault up and onto the wall in one fluid motion) – OR – One arm climb up (on a flat wall, no overgrip)
    • Wall run vertical (subtract standing reach from wall run reach)
      • Level one – 22 in.
      • Level two – 40 in.
      • Level three – 52 in.
      • Level four – 62 in.
      • Level five – 70 in.
    • Vault exit distance (max exit distance over a 3 ft. wall; any type of vault)
      • Level one – 4 ft.
      • Level two – 8 ft.
      • Level three – 10 ft.
      • Level four – 11.5 ft.
      • Level five – 12.5 ft.

¹ Based on C2 rankings for all weight classes and genders.
² The idea was originally inspired by a set of standards put forward by CrossFit North several years ago. Many of the ideas in the introduction are influenced as such. A copy of their skill standards can be found here.

For the change log, see Page 2.

I. Setting Goals
II. Commitment to Achievement
III.Goals List

Setting Goals

A problem that we often see with beginners is that they do not know how to set goals. Goals are an integral, yet often overlooked, component of an effective training program.   Sure, one can make progress without goals — but performance increases skyrocket when high quality goals are set.

Firstly, what is a goal?  According to Merriam Webster, goals are “the end toward which effort is directed.” In terms of training, high quality goals are tangible feats, measured by metrics, that you wish to accomplish.  Below are some examples of high quality goals:

1. Perform 10 dips on parallel bars with good form.
2. Run 400 meters in 60 seconds.
3. Reduce body fat to 15%.
4. Put on 10 pounds of muscle.
5. Lose 10 pounds of fat.

Now, when most people set their goals for the first time it is common to see very low quality goals.  Low quality goals are typically not well defined and not based in a metric.  That is, they don’t include any numbers.  For example, some low quality goals are listed below:

1. Improve on dips.
2. Run without getting winded.
3. Lose weight.
4. Gain muscle mass.
5. Get fit.

We want to establish high quality goals, based on numbers, because we can construct a routine around these goals.  In other words, routines are based on progressions towards high quality goals.  If you have a goal to perform 10 dips then it is logical that you need to first build up the capacity to perform a single dip, then 2 dips, then 3 dips, etc.

If you are still having a hard time understanding how to set high quality goals then you should keep the SMART model in mind:

Specific
Measureable
Action-Oriented
Realistic
Time and Resource Constrained

With that said, make sure that your goals are in line with your overarching objective.  Let’s use Bob and Alice as examples.  Bob wants to “get stronger” but has set a goal of 150 pushups in a single set.  This is somewhat lackluster since 150 pushups in a row is a feat of endurance, not a feat of strength.  In another example, Alice wants to “have great handstands” so a goal of performing 30 pullups will not move her closer to her goal.

An easy way to make sure that your SMART goals are in line with your ultimate aim, you should break down your desired movements into separate, distinct components.  Going back to Bob, he may want to consider pursuing high strength gymnastics techniques like the planche or perhaps set a goal of performing a squat with two times his body weight on his back.   Alice, by contrast, may want to break down the handstand into two separate SMART goals of holding a handstand for 2 minutes against the wall and perform a 30 second freestanding  handstand.

One caveat is that many trainees feel that they can improve their performance by sticking to low intensity body weight exercises.  An example of this is Bob; he wants to “get strong” by doing 150 pushups in a single set.  Speaking more generally, I understand that many people want to stick to bodyweight exercises because it is cheaper and more convenient than weightlifting. Bodyweight exercises are great because you don’t need to go into a gym where people are screaming and grunting while doing leg extensions – a definite plus. Let us be clear, though, doing 150 push-ups in a row does not mean you are strong – it means you have good endurance doing push-ups. If you wish to gain strength through bodyweight training then you must get creative and broaden your horizons. If you really have an interest in increasing endurance then you will find that it is much easier to see endurance gains when you are already very strong and powerful.

A lack of strength will always limit you in all other domains – technique, endurance, skill, balance, flexibility (active and passive), agility, coordination, etc. You must be strong in order to excel in all of these other domains. The converse is typically not true.  It is important to keep this in mind as you set your goals.

To understand how goals drive for progress then continue on to Page 2.