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The Constant Awesome

Deep Thoughts and Reflections on 2020

What a crazy year it has been. We went through quite the rollercoaster to say the least. And I think this volatility is going to continue in 2021, testing everyone on an emotional, social, physical and financial level.

Not only did we go under lock-down and got stripped of our liberties, but I lost my dog Medax to old age a few months ago and my uncle to covid this month. The weirdness is palpable everywhere. We are social beings, unable to socialize. Our incessant connection to our phones is frightening, especially after watching The Social Dilemma which basically illuminates how screwed we really are because fake news on social media spreads 6x faster than the truth, and disseminating fact from fiction becomes harder and harder. This results in extreme polarization which can ultimately lead to crumbling of democracies, the global economy and the end of human kind as we know.

Phew, well that got pretty grim really fast, sorry about that. It has been a heavy year. I will switch gears and talk about a lot of different topics now, as I usually do on these year-end posts.

Like a plant, you’re either growing or dying

You’ve probably heard that line before from somewhere, and I’m proud to say I am consistently growing my online presence. My YouTube channel now has 94,800 subscribers and my website gets a ton of traffic. I am really happy I’m able to do what I love and help others at the same time.

I’ve consistently put out a YouTube video almost every week and if there wasn’t a video for that week, there was a blog post like this one! I published 6 free yoga videos and dozens more! (check the very bottom of this post for the list!) Also, nearly every Sunday, there has been a corresponding e-mail that goes out if you’re on my mailing list which you should join here if you want my latest content and special discounts on my premium programs.

When the lock-down started…

For a moment, this was life.

People got thrown out of their usual routines, out of work, out of pay and forced to be indoors far more than normal and I found myself staring at my screens more often. Pent up tensions created the perfect storm when George Floyd was murdered which caused the entire USA to erupt into riots/protests creating havoc and mayhem in every major city in the country. My girlfriend mentioned how it sucks for those stuck at home in abusive domestic situations which is truly a sad situation. It seems under these circumstances, relationships with strong foundation will remain solid but those with destructive communication and lack of appreciation for each other, are far more likely to collapse under the stress. So we’ve either gotten a new generation of “Coronnials” or a spike in divorces like it happened in China and Saudi Arabia.

Some ways to chill with your significant other? Play card games like Gin Rummy. Learn a language together. Go on bike rides.

Speaking of new generation of kids… All of a sudden “online classes” are the norm

It seems as though schools were mostly great for babysitting the kids so the parents can go out and work. Arguably, the most important part of K-12 education is the socialization. Without the social aspect, the best part of school is gone. Are kids really going to learn much when being forced to stare at a screen for another 8 hours on top of the many hours they look at their devices and screens already? Parents taking matters into their own hands and switching to home schooling might make more sense in the interim because with young kids being forced to take online-classes because I don’t think they will be learning very well and it’s detrimental to their health, a double whammy.

School aside, I think the new generation of kids could be pretty screwed up. They’re not able to grow, play, socialize in normal ways. And a couple of my friends kids are already socially awkward and have anxiety as the fear of coronavirus has been embedded into them. Humans are now the most connected they’ve ever been, but the most isolated in more ways than ever. The feature of a disposable lifestyle bleeds onto relationships, making them short lived, or worse, not authentic.

I think it’s going to be very hard for kids to find themselves and find out who they are or who they want to be with the social media showing them a skewed reality. Or maybe they will adapt better than us and be fine, I hope. But depression and suicide numbers are up (amongst all age groups), and I don’t see that changing. In Japan, more people died from suicide in October than from COVID-19 in all of 2020.

With gyms closed down, the world became very interested in how to work out with bodyweight exercises

And this is pretty cool because I’ve been making content on how to workout with minimal equipment for years and made many more follow along yoga videos this year!

I went to the local park and found a bunch of people there!

I was really happy to see so many people at the adult playground! But it was astounding that they were standing around, doing literally nothing for the half hour I was there working out. I gave them some pointers, and it was nice. Then I posted this picture:

Little did I know that tons of people would come out of the woodwork to lambast me.

The DM’s I received were kinda like this!

And then shortly thereafter, even the parks got shut down…

We need adult playgrounds more than ever

I think now is the time to make a presentation to all our local city councils, convincing them that we all need our local parks (all of them), to have workout equipment for adults. Kids don’t just need play. Adults need it even more, especially now. It’s very sad that it’s a struggle for most of us to have access to pull up bars or various heights and parallel bars. All the parks should have traveling rings and a slackline park and a spot to stretch/do yoga on as well while we’re at it. These are seriously low maintenance, one-time-cost improvement projects that provide extreme benefit to the health of the people, giving them a nice space to move and strengthen their body. It also helps the local businesses.  I think we can make the case for it now, better than ever, given the fact that gyms are closed. Who is with me?

Were you like Isaac Newton during quarantine?

During the Bubonic Plague of the 17th century, Isaac Newton isolated himself from society and in that time of solace, he invented Calculus, defined the laws of gravity and discovered that white light is actually made of a bunch of colors. Shakespeare also wrote King Lear. Quite productive when you don’t have the phone to distract you. Were you able to do the same? (I definitely wasn’t.)

Isaac Newton discovering white light is made of many colors through a prism.

Are you the person who is going to get fat and lazy because the gym is closed? Or are you the person who overcomes the constant struggle that is life and self-actualizes their dreams despite the challenges presented to them?

Even for someone like me who has been active without a gym for well over a decade, I found the quarantine-life to be quite the shake up even for me because all parks were closed (including Muscle Beach) which is where I normally workout! So I understand the struggles. Still though, I worked out at home with my simple pullup bar and rings.

I also learned to juggle. And let me tell you, it took me a whole month just to be able to juggle with 3 balls.

I also got back into handstands after a 2+ year hiatus and achieved a 15secs of a sloppy, arched back handstand with closed shoulders while hosting a handstand motivational month in May 2020 on r/bodyweightfitness.

Bicycling was my savior during quarantine.

The bicycle allows me to get out and about, stay away from people, exercise, get fresh air. When we were on full lock-down, I very much enjoyed the calmer, quieter streets with less traffic out there trying to kill me. The lack of smog and freshness of the air was astounding. Luckily, I live in the foothills so I have access to mountainous roads which allows me to this circuit where I end up climbing 2000ft in elevation in an hour which is really brutal.

Big shoutout to my brother who built this bicycle for me from the frame up. For the bike nerds, it’s a Surly Cross Check with Shimano 105 and Thompson components. 😀

Another interesting phenomena: Craigslist normally has hundreds of used bicycles for sales. But since the pandemic, bike shops were sold out of ALL bikes and manufacturers ran out because they usually make the bikes a year in advance based on projected sales. I noticed this same phenomena happened in the 2008 financial crisis: People needed to cut expenses and started bicycling instead of driving and people had to find new ways to entertainment themselves in a cheap manner.

“Adjust your mode of transportation by the scale you want to experience the world at.”

Nowadays I mainly ride my bicycle every single day for commute or for climbing the local mountains. I also go to the local park 3-4x/week, take my rings and slackline with me. I do 5 sets of one pulling exercise (mantle chinups currently) and slackline in between sets. The slackline provide fun skills to work on. The rings help increase my brute strength/skills and badassery. And the bike-riding is just plain fun.

In regards to the 5-sets of Mantle Chinups: They are a progression toward the One Arm Chin Up (OAC). The OAC is a monster of an exercise that is quite possibly the most difficult bodyweight exercise in the pulling world, much harder than a full front lever. As a result, I have been able to easily hold a single-leg front lever (where I was at before) without working on it anymore since they both utilize the same muscles of the upper back.

When I first started gymnastics strength training, I wanted to learn and practice every exercise and skill known to man, but a lot of that has changed now.

Fast forward 10 years and I’ve been absolutely loving to do the opposite: minimizing my exercise selection down to the the bare minimum, picking only the most solid exercises that give the most bang for the buck in the shortest amount of time. This usually means one pulling exercise and one pushing exercise for the upper body a la the minimal routine and I ride my bicycle nearly daily and that takes care of my lower body. Here’s some examples:

  • HSPU Partial-ROM Progression mated with Advanced Tuck Front Lever Rows
  • Decline Pike Pushups mated with Towel Assisted One Arm Pull-ups

I enjoy working out as frequently as possible. But that would not be possible if each session is too intense and difficult. So I try to do the minimum effective dose in regards to stimulus, to achieve supercompensation. This reduces the chance of injury and allows me to recover fast enough that I can workout possibly the next day without always needing a rest day. (Read: Is Emotional Insecurity Driving your Workouts?)

Many businesses, especially yoga studios are permanently closing and that’s a huge bummer

Even as a yoga teacher who makes videos, I absolutely loved going to a class in a studio once a week because it’s far more motivating than doing it at home in general when you’re surrounded by like minded folks. Plus, it’s always good to have an open mind and be a student of life.

But it’s very sad to see that many local studios have not survived and those who have are offering online classes. I have tried to take online/zoom classes with the yoga teachers I like, but it’s really not the same. (And I could tell the spark is missing from the yoga teachers themselves as well.)

While I have been publishing my own follow along yoga videos for you all, I have found myself even following my own hamstring and hip flexibility program to maintain my lower body flexibility. If you have not experienced them, you gotta check them out!

Side note: All “non-essential” businesses are going to be hurting really bad. Many will not survive. Any market with any over-saturation is going to hurt the most. This is a cleansing process that happens naturally in capitalism, but a scary one given the fact that the largest of corporations are thriving in turn. Seems like the future will be more and more of a consolidation of giant companies constantly gobbling up smaller ones.

How will COVID change the work force?

A lot of people think, “This is great, I can work from home!” But now, you’ll be competing for jobs with people from everywhere, not just your town. You will be competing with globalization like crazy now. However, opportunities are massive during these kinds of times. If you cannot see the opportunities, I don’t know what to tell you other than think about what it is you use everyday since life has become cut down to far fewer necessities. (For example, dentists might find themselves quite busy because those with rotting teeth and bad breathe are now doubly aware of it with a mask on. By the way, don’t just floss and brush your teeth, but also scrape your tongue with a metal object and it will further reduce bad breath.)

The separation of work from home is crucial for mental health

A lot of people have anxiety from not having any work or place to go to. Or worse, maybe they are stuck in an abusive domestic relationship. Find ways to separate your work and home and playtime. Go for a hike or a walk every single day. Try to find ways to get away from your significant other. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder, rekindling the attraction.

If you’re having issues with finding ways to stay physically active at home, check out my Work From Home Fitness Program which I proudly created this year!

One thing COVID19 taught us is that we have to be very selective with who we hang out with and it made us question who is worth it and who isn’t. Gatherings are now far more intimate and tight-knit. I feel for those who don’t have a strong social circle. If anything this pandemic has taught us, is that it’s more important to have a couple very close friends, than a million acquaintances.

Universal basic income sounded like the most far-fetched idea a few years ago, yet you’re all getting a taste of it now.

UBI is when the government gives you some money every month for your basic needs. It sounded like fantasy, yet many people in the developed countries got a taste of what it’s like by way of a “stimulus” check or really cheap loans.  This sounds good on paper but the minute you take away the need and therefore the requirement for someone to seek self-actualization by giving them that safety net: Not only do they become reliant but they become unhappier. And they become unhappier because you’ve taken away their right or reason to exist and to grow. Deep down there will be an inner knowing and inner understanding that the government has taken away all the experiences for you to “hunt” and deliver value. By learning to deliver value is how you gain self-actualization (meaning, to achieve your full personal potential).

Money comes down to a flow of energy: Can you do something of high value that people are prepared to release some of their energy to you? And what do you do with that energy? Do you manage it responsibly? It always flows from those who value it least to those who value it most. So welfare statism can and will be an incredibly destructive force. Welfare has its time and place for those truly disabled, but to give it to everyone can and will break the character of man because as the saying goes: “A mans toil is his happiness.” Having a reason to get up in the morning and responsibilities to take care of gives purpose and happiness in life.

In regards to the financial markets…

The stock market crashing seems to be the start of a long winded, yet overdue recession. The higher you go up, the harder you fall, and we had been going up with irrational exuberance, and why? Because.. when COVID hit, the financial brokers (robinhood, td-ameritrade, schwab, etc) got the most sign-ups in history. Stuck inside their homes, with no casinos or sports gambling available anymore: everyone started gambling on the stock market, presumably with all the stimulus money and business loans and the markets bounced so hard, it was impressive you could say. Now we have a whole new generation of “traders” who think they are all geniuses because “stocks only go up.” After enduring through a bear market myself, boy will everyone be in a world of hurt if they don’t understand risk management or don’t have a long-time preference in mind.

The federal governments printing money became so obvious the BRRR meme was born. Bitcoin skyrocketed because it is a hedge to inflation, its code forces it to be deflationary in a world full of currencies that will all eventually fail (average lifespan of a fiat currency is 150 years). (Side note: To learn more on how bitcoin works, watch my presentation here.)

Now the issue is, the US government has printed more dollars in 2020 than in the last 200 years combined, devaluing the dollar in hopes of saving the economy. And this is happening all around the world, not just with the US dollar. Now with so many business negatively affected and employees fired or furloughed. How will everyone pay the bills? How will anyone without large savings pay their rent/mortgage? Debt-forgiveness might occur in our lifetime. All those mortgages and student loans might be forgiven. And in exchange you will be a slave to the government in some way. Sound a little farfetched? The World Economy Forum lays it out in a video all here for you to see: #1 says “You’ll own nothing and you will be happy.” That is scary shit and therefore: Financial sovereignty has never been more important because we might go through a complete debt-restructuring and a mass “reset” most people are oblivious to because they don’t know how money actually works.

People are very bearish on the dollar, thinking it’s going to zero due to all the printing. But what actually will happen is the dollar will die not due to its weakness, but due to its strength.

Imagine this, most developing countries in the world are always in need of US dollars because it is a more stable and stronger currency than their failing currency. So what happens when the Turkish Lira actually goes to 0? And then another country follows after. And then another one after that? A domino effect of everybody and their mother scrambling for dollars. The dollar will then go through a deflationary cycle, but it may be so strong that it causes an entire melt-down of all things priced in dollars. We are literally going into uncharted territories here on a GLOBAL scale and it is very, very important to pay attention. Work hard, do your best, scrimp and save because the world is in a precarious place right now monetarily speaking.

Now that the media has realized that coronavirus or vaccine is the ultimate clickbait, it seemed as though we we’re going to be locked down forever.

I’m not a COVID-denier. My uncle died of COVID just this month. I know many people who have gotten it and experienced anywhere from mild to severe symptoms. But it’s a bit concerning how fast we complied. The coronavirus will come and go, morphing into new strains forever, but the government will never forget how easy it was to take control of your life and how fast we complied. The fact that our phones track us 24/7 (and we never leave without it, voluntarily), and now “contact tracing” is becoming mandatory, it is all very Orwellian to say the least. Just like when 9/11 happened, it was an opportunity for governments to clamp down on our rights and freedoms, I fear this will be the same. With the vaccine coming to fruition, in the future it seems you will be a dissident for believing in your immune system. And I don’t think it will stop at COVID19. There will be COVID20… COVID30… and so forth. They will milk this for as long as possible. Unfortunately the government hasn’t made any recommendations on how to help you fix your health. Luckily there’s people like me providing help the best we can.

Moral issues coming up

When people were protesting the lockdown, I saw a poster that read, “SACRIFICE THE WEAK” so we could get on with our lives. Some people believe in natural selection and to speed up the process of herd immunity by naturally just going through it. So if you can’t handle COVID19 and you die, that’s just part of natural selection, right? But then what about my own parents and older loved ones? Would you say the same if the virus, instead of killing mostly old people, was killing children and adolescents instead like the Spanish Flu was doing in the early 20th century? It’s a very tricky subject. Then we have other issues such as: If Walmart and Target and Home Depot can all be open without killing people, why can’t small businesses? Are the solutions worse than the disease?

Medax passed away after 17 years of an incredible life together

D’aww, I will never forget you.

I have had Medax since she was a puppy. She will forever be immortalized in my memories and in my videos. I made a video saying goodbye to her here in case you missed it. It was met with hundreds of comments and I will post one here that I connected with strongly:

“I’m so very sorry to hear about Medax, what a wonderful soul she clearly was. I’ve only been watching your videos for the past six months for physical therapy reasons, but seeing her appear in each one always made my day. Lots of people have fantastic relationships with dogs that are as profound as any human relationship, but only the truly lucky have that perfect bond, where your different personalities align and you become one. It was clear to me and that you guys had that. So very sorry for your loss, but also so glad that you got to know one another for the length of time that you did. Sending you lots of love and healing, sir.”

Here is a playlist with all the videos that have Medax in them.

Meditation is the antidote to the modern day frenzy

Start with just 10 minutes a day when you first wake up.

Since I noticed me using my phone/computer more often, I have been forcing myself to meditate more often for just 10 minutes. To just peel my eyes away from my screen, close them, and just breathe. Here’s a very simple way to meditate that I’ve shared in the past. I think the only way to combat the ever-growing frenziness of the world, is to do less. Naval says, “To measure the quality of your life, simply do nothing and see how it feels.” I reckon, the more comfortable you feel with yourself doing nothing, the better.

I think meditation is the antitode to all the social media and distractions. Going on social media to tell people not to use their social media is one thing. But to actually lead by example and simply just add meditation to your life and see if that balances things out, could be really worth it. It’s one of those things that have a very low risk, very high reward potential. It’s one of those very small tweaks you can make in your life that can have a HUGE impact. Kind of like an asymmetric bet. But on your self.  (Not using your devices is almost an act of rebellion at this point, and it must be done.)

Just set a timer for 10 minutes on your phone. Put it far away, sit comfortably anyway you like, close your eyes and do nothing but relax, maybe focus on the air going through your nose. That’s it. That’s how simple it can be.

Final Thoughts

This quarantine has made us think of what we really need in our lives. And what we don’t need in our lives. Use it wisely. Find how you can use this time to channel your creativity to live out the greatest version of yourself the best you can. Don’t give up as creativity comes and goes. As for 2021? Expect the worst but hope for the best. We have no choice but to adapt to the times so that we will ultimately come out stronger and more resilient under this newfound pressure.

Now go on… use the pressure on yourself to turn into a diamond!

 

Blog Posts of 2020 You Might Have Missed:

YouTube Videos of 2020 You Might Have Missed:

How to add RPE to your workouts to keep training injury-free!

In the past, I had written about how to implement a Steady State Cycle (SSC), which is basically where you choose a challenging number of sets & reps (volume) of an exercise and stick to that for 8-12 weeks. The SSC is an extremely conservative program intended for gymnasts/calisthenics-athletes to safely train straight-arm exercises that are notorious for being very taxing on the connective tissues. (Think like Iron Crosses, Planches, One Arm Chinups, etc.)

The way it works is that it that it purposely forces you to stick to the same volume for a prolonged period so that the exercise goes from being an intense challenge, to actually too little of a challenge on purpose so that while the muscles plateau in strength, the tendons could catch up on the healing process demanded by the exercise. The reason for this is because tendons take 10x longer to heal than your muscles. So, while your muscles might be getting continually stronger, underneath the surface, the tendons are unable to recover and fully heal until eventually joint-pain suddenly rear its ugly head and you need to take weeks or months off.

Weeks 1-4 = Hard effort (overload), 4-8 = Medium effort (load), 8-12 = Easier effort (underload)

Enter the concept of Rating Perceived Effort (RPE)

I’d like to introduce to you a similar concept that you could use to add and modify your current program for exercises that you think are potentially risky on the joints, to reduce your risk of injury. I have used this concept countless times in the past couple years with great success as it provides great peace of mind. It introduces a smarter form of auto-regulation that allows you to progress a bit faster than an SSC as it is not as conservative and allows for more freedom.

What is the Rate of Perceived Effort? (RPE)

The Rate of Perceived Effort/Exertion is a subjective metric for any exercise that you jot down at the end of all your sets based on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the hardest:

  • Ten means it is max effort and you definitely couldn’t do 1 more good rep.
  • Nine is very close to max effort, but you possibly had one more good rep left in you.
  • Eight means you probably had 2 more reps left in you.
  • Seven means it was difficult but manageable and you probably had 3 reps left.
  • Six means it was moderately difficult but you had plenty of gas left in the tank.

Utilize RPE to improve your decision making

Let’s say you’re running my Minimal Routine which is an adaptation of Pavel Tsatsouline’s Fighter Pullup Program and you finished your 5 sets of pullups and pushups. At the end of those 5 sets, you can jot down what the RPE felt like for each exercise. So let’s suppose you experienced 10 RPE for the pullups and 7 RPE for the pushups. For the next workout session, according to that program, you’re supposed to add 1-rep to the pullups and pushups, but does it make sense if the RPE was 10?

  • If your RPE is 10, it doesn’t make sense to add 1-rep again. Probably best you stick to the same # of reps until the RPE feels lower.
  • If your RPE is 9, it’s up to you here if you should stick to the same # of reps or add more. If the exercise has given you issues in the past, you might want to err on the side of caution and just prove to yourself that the volume is manageable before adding a rep.
  • If your RPE is 8 or lower, you’re likely fine to add another rep on the next workout day.

To sum up: If you encounter 9-10 RPE, stick to the same volume and intensity until the RPE feels like 7 or lower. Then you know you’re ready to increase the volume again. 

Here is a real-life example from my notes when I was training for Single Leg Front Lever Negatives (with Toes at Knee)

Date Reps over 5 sets (Volume) RPE Notes
7/11/20 54432 (18) 7
7/12/20 55432 (19) 8
7/13/20 65432 (20) 9 Notice the RPE is trending up.
7/14/20 65432 (20) 10 This is a sign to stay at this volume until 6-7 RPE
7/16/20 65432 (20) 8
7/17/20 65432 (20) 7.5
7/20/20 65432 (20) 8
7/21/20 65432 (20) 7.5
7/23/20 65432 (20) 8
7/27/20 65432 (20) 7
7/28/20 65432 (20) 6.5
7/30/20 65432 (20) 6 Breakthrough! Now I can increase volume again.

Notice how I was increasing the # of reps until I started stalling out. So I stuck to the same volume, grinding through it and after 10 workouts (about 2 weeks), my RPE went from a 10 (max effort) to a relatively easy 6. (From my experience it usually takes only 1-2 weeks). Now, I can feel good and safe about increasing the volume or intensity. I didn’t have to stop working out. I just kept chugging away until that volume became manageable. Most importantly, this undoubtedly helps the tendons to heal to the demands of the exercise while the muscular strength is maintained. It is imperative you add this metric for any exercise that is difficult on your joints or if you have had a history of issues with them in the past.

In conclusion…

This small but important addition to your training journal will help you notice trends of your RPE creeping up to unsustainable levels and then drifting down to manageable levels which will help you to keep training, not lose any strength, and to continually get stronger in a safe manner. I hope that helps you and if you have any questions, please let me know!

Are you too tall for Bodyweight exercises? Why Height Affects Bodyweight Exercises

Since my previous blog post on how great performers don’t necessarily mean great teachers was very popular, I will continue with a sequel going in depth as to WHY height and weight makes such a big difference in bodyweight exercises!

Your ability to perform bodyweight exercises are highly dictated by your strength to weight ratio, which is ruled by your height and weight.

From the most basics such as pushups and pullups to the most advanced such as front levers, planches, iron crosses and so forth, the human experience and journey of calisthenics is so wildly different when it comes to shorter versus taller folks. You could have shorter folks gaining front levers without ever training for it while taller folks training for it for years with little to show for it.

Absolute Strength vs Relative Strength

  • Absolute strength is the maximum force you can exert.
  • Relative strength is the maximum force you can exert relative to your weight.
    • This is also known as your Strength to Weight Ratio

When you are tall, your absolute strength is an advantage which is why there are weight-classes for many sports, otherwise it would be unfair. But your relative strength is at a disadvantage compared to shorter people. So the taller person will have greater absolute strength but lesser relative strength.

Think of an ant versus an elephant. An ant can carry many times its own bodyweight. An elephant cannot. The elephant is absolutely stronger but the ant is relatively stronger.

The taller or heavier a person becomes, the harder bodyweight exercises become because more strength is required to perform the same exercise relative to a shorter and lighter person.

If you look at the height/weight chart, it is obvious that as height increases, the ideal weight increases as well. But it doesn’t increase linearly. As people get taller, their weight increases at a much faster rate (exponentially).

Height-Weight Chart for Adults. Notice how weight increases more rapidly as height increases.

Galileo’s Square-Cube Law Rules You

To best understand the relationship between height and weight, we must understand Galileo’s square-cube law which states that as the surface area (height) increases by the square (^2), the volume (mass; weight) increases by the cube (^3).

  • For example:
    • If surface area is 4 meters, the volume is 8 meters.
    • If surface area is 8 meters, the volume is now 32 meters.
    • Doubling the surface area results in triple the volume.
Note how the blue line Volume (Mass; Weight) increases much faster than the red line representing Area (which coincides with your height).

So in calisthenics, height has exponential effects on the weight which in turn affects the strength to weight ratio.

It is for this reason all the more imperative that a tall person should strive to be lean to be able to perform advanced bodyweight exercises otherwise the handicap from the excess body-fat will be even greater. This makes them struggle more, requiring more dedication and often necessitates more intermediary progressions. A shorter person, on the other hand could not only breeze through progressions but even skip major progressions. They can even reach many goals without even adhering to a good routine before hitting plateaus.

Thus, shorter people have much greater advantages to bodyweight exercises.

There was a great Ted Talk by David Epstein that talked these differences in body shapes in the Olympics. People think that playing basketball when you’re young makes you taller or doing gymnastics when you’re young makes you shorter because those are the people that are in those sports. But neither of these are true. That is simply a form of survivorship bias where the successful athletes mask the failures of the others. Gymnastics favors shorter people and the sport of basketball favors taller people. These are the people that tend to make it into the spotlight and those that can’t make the cut won’t be around.

Note: Not all bodyweight exercises require lots of strength.

Something like a handstand, for example, is more skill based and doesn’t require tons of strength, so the height shouldn’t matter. Same for any other skill-based exercise, such as slacklining, for example. I’ve seen a number of people who used to hold handstands when they were younger and got old and overweight but kept handstanding and they can still do it regardless. On the other hand, I’ve never seen anybody remotely overweight (not even the slightest bit) be able to hold a high level strength move like the planche or front lever.

What is considered tall or short?

Since I started frequenting the Original Muscle Beach since 2013, I trained with countless folks and I noticed after a few years there was a huge disparity in progress between certain people. I started to notice a very obvious pattern. The shorter and lighter folks generally experienced continually linear progress even without proper programming. The taller and heavier folks had the completely opposite experience: longer drawn out plateaus and more frequent regressions even when following a robust program.

5’9″ (175cm) seems to be the tipping point

If I had to choose a cut off point where the balance tips in ones favor or out of favor, I would say around 5’9″ (~175cm). People shorter then 5’9″ (175m) will have a distinct advantage at the rate in which they progress in bodyweight exercises over those that are taller. The shorter they are, the more extreme the advantage. The taller they are, the more extreme the disadvantage.

Note: Do not let this information deter you! There are plenty of people in the world taller than 5’9″ that can and do impressive things in the world of calisthenics.

What role does age play?

Age does not seem as big of an issue in this context. The biggest issue older folks have is that by virtue of simply living longer, they might have racked on more injuries and have compounded issues. I will say that, when you see people doing a lot of explosive moves on a bar (like 360 degree muscle ups that require abrupt release and high impact regrabs), you will notice they are often not only in a certain body size but also a a certain age range (in their teens to 20’s). Older folks with joint issues do not fare well with high impact moves.

Pros of being tall:

  • Greater absolute strength potential.
  • If one is truly dedicated and motivated, they will have to dig deeper in finding technically superior workout routines to ensure optimal, more efficient ways of getting stronger. For some, this is actually even more motivating, because while it may take longer to get the move, it is that much more gratifying when they do.

Cons of being tall:

  • Decreased relative strength. (Absolute strength divided by bodyweight)
  • Slower progress; More plateaus and times of regression
  • Aesthetics much slower to show
  • More intermediary progression exercises required
  • For some, this is demoralizing and they move onto weightlifting.

Those who are shorter can get away with attaining moves without having to train for them in very methodical ways. They can skip entire progressions. They often will not experience the same struggles taller folks do.

To put it into perspective, the taller folks will have to grind away for weeks, months or even years on a particular progression exercise before being able to progress to the next one, while the shorter person may not even need to train it and entirely skip it.

My personal benefit of being taller is that I can be a better teacher

As a coach, this is more-so a blessing than a curse. I know many people who achieved certain high-level strength moves quite fast, whereas I had to figure out how to scale the exercise in novel ways to get there. As a result, it’s a blessing in disguise because the more I struggle with it, the more I understand the anatomy of where the weak-points lie and I can relate to many people as I’ve experienced the struggles every step of the way.

Being taller does not mean you cannot achieve greatness!

  • Regardless of height, just make sure you workout consistently and at a sufficient intensity to ensure progressive overload.
  • If you are tall and overweight, strive to be leaner otherwise the excess body-fat makes for a greater handicap.
  • Overall, don’t be deterred and remember that life is all about the journey. Just because something takes longer to achieve, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for it. When you do achieve your goal, you can be very proud of yourself and nobody can take that away from you.

And last but not least, it is your mental fortitude that will determine your success. If you really want something, you will get it. Just think back to anything you’ve ever wanted in life. You probably got it and it should be no different with your physical training. If you need extra help, I offer online-coaching as well to help optimize your training. Hope this was insightful!

Don’t be fooled: Why the best performers aren’t automatically the best teachers

Simonster holding a full Front Lever, one of the most difficult, straight arm bodyweight exercises.

Recently I went to the Original Muscle Beach to workout and in the distance I saw 2 guys repeatedly holding a full front lever (FL; pictured above) doing it for the ‘gram.

Seeing a full FL hold in the general population is extremely rare (probably a <0.1% level of rare). Even amongst the extremely able-bodied muscle-beach-population I would surmise that less than 3% can hold a full front lever, just to give perspective as to how uncommon it truly is. The reason for this is because it requires an obscene amount of strength to pull it off. There is no “trick” that will help you. It requires an excellent strength to weight ratio.

I went up to them to commend them on their excellent display of strength to which they were very thankful. Now being up close to them, I quickly noted how lean they were and, not surprisingly, on the shorter side (less than 5’6″ or <170cm). One of them had such low body fat actually that I could’ve used them to give lessons in muscular anatomy.

I told them where I was at with my personal front lever progress (full front lever negatives) and I asked them what worked for them. They both basically said “just do everything and you’ll get there” and that it took them only “about a year or 2” to get there. It was then I realized again, that they didn’t struggle with achieving the front lever whatsoever in the same way I did.

If you’re short and lean, the human experience and journey of calisthenics is going to be very different than your taller, heavier brethren.

Being short and lean makes for a huge advantage with bodyweight exercises. So much so that you can go through progressions with such little fuss that you might actually skip the very progression exercises others may be stuck on for months. You can achieve goals with suboptimal programming or no legit programming at all. You don’t have to be as methodical or precise in your training. You literally just need to put the work in and you will experience consistently linear progress with shorter plateau’s or regressions.

On the flipside, somebody very tall and heavy, no matter how methodical they are with their program adherence, will experience long, drawn out plateaus. They will need to figure out the intermediary progressions to help them bridge the gap, use solid programming and have extra mental fortitude to persevere through the extra months and years of arduous, slow progress.

5’9″ (175cm) seems to be the tipping point

From observing and training with hundreds of people of different sizes and shapes I’ve come to realize that 5’9″ seems to be the line in the sand. If you’re taller than 5’9″ (175cm), everything becomes significantly more difficult. Go much taller and the progress becomes exponentially slower. Shorter than that height and progress is  more compressed, steady and linear. If you’re much shorter, progress will be exponentially faster! To put it in perspective, someone who is 5’3″ & 120lbs might take 6 months to achieve a front lever while someone 6’3 & 190lbs might take 3 years.

Just a few pounds makes a noticeable difference…

In a year I typically fluctuate between 175 and 182lbs (summer and winter). And when I’m 182lbs, my front lever performance takes a massive hit. When I start losing some weight and I am at 178lbs or lower, everything becomes so much easier it’s actually ridiculous considering it’s only a difference of 4lbs. (Any lower weight than that and I start to feel like I am a different body entirely.) So I can imagine if 4-8lbsmakes that much of a difference, how much being 20-40lbs lighter would with shorter limbs for greater leverage!

To put it into greater perspective…

My friend, who is particularly quite short (5’3″) and also very lean (6 pack and all) was doing pullups and I asked if he ever worked on the front lever. He said no, never and that he just does pullups and dips and that’s it. I was training for the front lever alongside with him and he tried it out and was actually able to hold a full front lever for almost a second with literally zero training for it. Meanwhile, it took me a solid year and 150+ workouts to get to that same level to put things in perspective. So if he trained for it seriously, he wouldn’t need to dig as deep and figure out what it takes to achieve some of these moves. He can most likely get there by literally just doing random exercises and reach his goals.

The lighter/shorter folks will often master bodyweight exercises faster. However, it doesn’t automatically mean that they will be the best coaches or teachers, despite their incredible performance abilities.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been disappointed by the teaching skills of a high level athlete or gymnast. It seems like they can’t relate to the struggles that taller/heavier folks have to go through. They may not realize that what worked for them, doesn’t work for others. They also might not realize how much more refined and granular the progressions must be for success.

Note: At this point I should say that these are my sincere observations and not meant to be an attack nor meant to discount any one particular persons abilities. And I am not saying that if you are short, you didn’t put the work in nor that you’re not a good teacher. I am talking about the finer nuances within this topic. And if you disagree with me, definitely leave a comment below! I encourage discourse!

Ironically the taller/heavier folks who have mastered these difficult moves are often able to teach intricacies of how they got there because the journey was so much longer and drawn out that it’s very difficult to forget the struggles one had to go through to achieve the breakthroughs.

Personally, I had to implement a very strict regimen. I couldn’t just put the work in willy-nilly without very well thought out programming and expected to level up. And I couldn’t do that with the handicap of excess body fat either, so body-fat reduction was even more imperative to increase the power to weight ratio.

I’m not discounting anyones abilities at all. Everyone had to put the work into it too, for sure. But just be aware that the people who achieved these strength-moves easily, are not automatically the best at teaching it to others. You would think they are, because they can perform very well and some of them are indeed very good teachers, but most of them are not, unfortunately. Ironically, the worst ones seem to be the gymnasts who learned everything at a very young age. The people who could relate the LEAST to adults are gymnasts who learned everything when they were young!

This concept applies to flexibility and weight loss as well!

Flexibility: Somebody born with hypermobility can have the splits or show off flexibility that fall into the realm of contortion. Does that mean they can teach someone who can’t touch their toes with legs straight, how to get there? Not necessarily. Especially if they were never in their shoes to begin with. Alternatively, the people who couldn’t touch their toes and now can do the splits may be the best person to ask for advice. Alternatively, the person who was inflexible to begin with and later gained flexibility will better be able to help those because they were once in the same position and know what it takes to get there.

Here’s an obscene level of flexibility! (Btw this picture is CGI!)

Weight Loss: Similarly, a person that struggled with obesity and is now very lean is probably more qualified to teach people how to lose weight than the person who was underweight their whole life and never struggled with any binge-eating disorders to begin with.

This is a blessing in disguise

I want to make it clear that I am not looking for pity, nor wishing I was short or anything like that. I exceedingly enjoy the training that I do and love my body. I just find the paradoxical nature of this topic very interesting. I actually see my tallness as a blessing in disguise because my struggles make me a better teacher. I know that when I achieve a difficult move, I am very well acquainted and qualified to know what it takes to get there. And that, my friends, is how you must always see the silver lining to things, otherwise life will be really dreary.

So now I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Did I strike a chord with you? Do you agree/disagree? Let me know! And if this topic was interesting to you, let me know and I’ll write up an indepth article on why and how the concepts of relative strength and height/weight play such a huge role in bodyweight exercises!

Top 8 Tips To Stay Fit Without a Gym

I haven’t had a gym membership for a decade, yet I’ve never stopped being active during that entire time, so I’m going to share with you all the things I do to stay physically active in a balanced manner without ever needing to go into one. (Note: I have nothing against gyms, if you love gyms, good!)

1. Make space to lay and sprawl on the ground.

This may be an odd tip to start out with but I believe it is very important to make space in your home to lay down. I have been to peoples house and clear they don’t have a place to really stretch out their limbs as wide as possible and that’s really weird to me. It tells me they don’t do many scrumptious moves. The floor is firm and it is therapeutic to roll around on the floor, stretch and twist in all sorts of ways. This kind of sprawling around is not the same as laying on your mattress.

In my apartment, I have to move my ottoman to the side to have enough space to move around freely. Maybe for you it’s the coffee table.

All sorts of options open up when I make space such as you’ll see in the following GIF: My dog Medax chilling supine while my friend teaches me Hammock Pose of acro-yoga:

 

And then below you have Rod Cooper of the Movement Collective (follow him!) demonstrating some of his floor-massage and play:

2. You must have a place to hang even if you do nothing but hang

Even if you never do a pullup, simply hanging is worth having a pullup bar. I actually don’t think I could live without it at this point. Hanging is very healthy for your shoulders, decompresses the spine and maintains your grip strength. Install a pullup bar such as a doorway pullup bar. Or if you have a yard where you could hang some rings from a bar or tree can work as well. (For more ideas, check out the hanging month where you try to hang for 7 minutes a day.)

And on the flipside, if you hang regularly and pullups are easy for you, you can make them a lot harder by going for one-arm-chinup progressions with a towel as demonstrated on the right of this text. (As you get stronger, you just need to hold lower on towel until eventually you may be able to do one-arm-chinup negatives.)

3. Stick to one solid strength training routine

Our modern-day lifestyles don’t require much physical effort, but exercise is required to keep our minds healthy and if we don’t provide that stimulus, our muscles and bones will get weaker and waste away. Increasing your strength is a journey that should never end because like a plant,  if you’re not growing, you’re dying. And since change is the only constant, if you don’t try to ramp yourself up to a new level, you’re going to regress.

Most minimal-equipment exercise routines are trash with zero progression exercises and terrible programming.

Here are some very well thought out bodyweight exercise plans that require just a pullup bar and the floor:

4. Flexibility-focused sessions and self massage are necessary to alleviate stiffness.

Just as important as strength training is to stretch once in a while to maintain your level of mobility and alleviate accumulated stiffness. If you aren’t sure what to do, I have a bunch of options such as my…

5. Take up a skillful hobby or 2!

A skill is anything that requires a lot of repetition to finesse and get good at but strength is not the limiting factor.  They’re very healthy for both the body and mind as they increase body awareness and can double as a form of meditation. Handstands are a classic bodyweight-exercise skill. I just recently started to try my hand at juggling. The ultimate in skill-work is dance as it’s super complex and great at loosening you up as well! What’s important is you choose something you enjoy getting better at! I associate a lot of the “flow arts” with skill-work, which are fantastic to help you get in the zone.

  • Some ideas:
    • Walk the Slackline. (Then, hoop on the slackline.)
    • Learn to Juggle. (Then, juggle on the slackline coming soon)
    • Master the freestanding handstand.
    • Dancing is the ultimate in skill and movement complexity. Look up dance tutorials online!
    • Other flow arts: Hula Hoop, Spin Poi, etc…

Then you can combine your skills and do things such as hula hoop ON the slackline!

6. Choose something FUN for Cardio!

Personally, I prefer low-impact exercises such as bicycling. Make sure you review my articles on how to ride your bicycle safely on the street and how to mountain bike.

Ever since traffic has been lower on the streets during quarantine, it has been even nicer with the lower smog

Running is fantastic in terms of cardio, however just be aware that that it is a high impact exercise on joints and could hurt them if you’re overweight or doing it on a hard surface. Try to find a grassy field or park you can run around instead. Same goes for if you’re jumping rope.

Swimming is also a fantastic low impact exercise. If you hang out with a friend, you can play frisbee or kick a soccer ball or play volleyball or tennis. Now that I can’t go ice-skating (due to covid19), sometimes I will go roller blading as a completely different activity. Change it up. It’s good to find new ways to get the heart pumping. But what’s most important is that it’s fun and enjoyable. No point in doing things that you know make you miserable.

7. Expose yourself to the sun during non-peak hours

It’s a great practice to get some sun everyday, weather permitting. Go for a walk and try to expose as much of your skin as possible for a few minutes each morning. Obviously, the sun can be harmful during peak hours and hot days but after sunrise or before sunset, the ultraviolet light isn’t harmful and it’s very therapeutic. Plus, magic-hour (just around sunset) when the clouds light up different colors is an awesome time to be out.

When the Overly Attached Girlfriend Meme Combines with the Sun

8. Find ways to connect with nature regularly.

Being stuck indoors is really not good for mental and physical health. The antidote is nature. Even if you have to go far away to find a hiking trail or go to a secluded beach, it’s worth it. Or it can be as simple as walking up the hill or find a rooftop to catch a nice view of the sunset. I most frequently get a taste of nature, sun and some cardio most frequently by bicycling. Oftentimes I setup my slackline and rings at the local park and get both my skill and strength training and feel the grass on my barefeet at the same time. Nature is medicine. Don’t ignore it.

My favorite thing in the world is to find trails with water-features (lakes, rivers, waterfalls, hot springs). Go explore your local world!

In conclusion

  • Make space to lay and sprawl on the ground.
  • You must have a place to hang even if you do nothing but hang.
  • Stick to one solid strength training routine.
  • Flexibility-focused sessions and self massage are necessary to alleviate stiffness.
  • Take up a skillful hobby or 2
  • Choose something FUN for Cardio
  • Expose yourself to the sun during non-peak hours.
  • Find ways to connect with nature regularly.

That pretty much covers everything that I regularly do to stay active and healthy without needing to ever step into a gym! As you’ll notice, I rotate through many different activities and that’s because I believe that play and variety is the spice of life! But there is a method to the madness and I hope that helps you to optimize staying active without ever needing to step foot in a gym as well!

The 7 Minute Flexibility Routine

This is a free flexibility routine meant to mimic the short but frequent sessions of my minimalistic upper body strength training routine. The body can be stretched in literally countless ways but I have narrowed the routine to 7 sections that will cover the major muscle groups. As a result, this whole thing will take only 7 minutes once you get used to it. The first couple sessions will take a bit longer since you’re learning the stretches, but after that it’s a breeze. This can be a solid way of alleviating stiffness from prolonged inactivity to limber up, maintain or exceed your current flexibility in a short amount of time.

Instructions:

  • Below you will find 7 sections. Some sections have multiple options. Start with the first one.
  • Do ONE stretch from each section for 30secs and you’re done. If it’s a unilateral exercise, do 30secs per side. Use a timer or breathe for 5-10 breaths. The order is not too important.
  • Do it daily or multiple times a week and build the habit. If you don’t have a flexibility practice currently, these short but frequent sessions will work like a charm.
  • If you have prefer a different stretch for any muscle group, do that instead!
NeckChest/Shoulders/HamstringsHip FlexorsSpine/Upper Back/ShouldersGlutesHamstrings/CalvesLower Back

This is a simple, scrumptious neck stretch when done correctly.

This forward fold with the arms behind you, coming overhead, are one of the most accessible stretches that stretch multiple muscles at once. All you need is a towel or band if it’s too restricting to do it with hands together.

  • Forward Fold Shoulder Rinse (30secs)
    • Level 1: Static: Forward Fold with Arms Overhead
    • Level 2: Dynamic: Bend one knee and pull arm down to the side.
    • Level 3: Do it with a weight in your hands (not pictured)


The hip flexors are the muscles at the front of your thighs and hips that lift your legs up in front of you. They are always flexed when seated. These are probably the most important to do daily to undo sitting, alleviate lower back pain and excessive anterior pelvic tilt.

No matter which level you are at, the cues in this follow along video can and will be applied to ALL the hip flexor stretches you will ever encounter, so start here with Level 1:

This will stretch your lats, provide spinal mobility and increase thoracic extension to help oppose any excessive rounding of our upper back. Watch this 3 minute video to get acquainted with it in detail and know you’re doing it correctly.

  • Cat Cow with Hands Elevated (10reps):

The glutes are hip extensors (opposite of the hip flexors) and this is a knee friendly way to stretch them.

  • Level 1: Figure Four Stretch
  • Level 2: Grab shin instead of thigh

Standing splits require zero equipment and are a fantastic way to stretch the hamstrings by actively using the glutes and hamstrings of the lifted leg at the same time. You could hold them statically or try any of these dynamic variations to help pass the time if it’s excruciating.

Dynamic Standing Splits Variation #1:
Tap here for Dynamic Variation #2

Dynamic Variation #2: Focus on keeping the standing leg straight as you tuck the other knee in and out. In the beginning it may be hard to keep it straight but it will be in no time.

Tap here for the Regression

Regression if one is unable to perform the above variations:

Tap here for Advanced variation

Advanced single-leg balancing variation:

I recommend you end the session with one or both of these. The following 2 clips were taken from this 20min yoga video.

Childs Pose

Feet Together, Knees Apart, Sit on your heels and rest your forehead on the ground.

Supine Twist

Lay down, put the hands in a T position, lift the knees and twist to one side as you look the other way.

The End

I hope you enjoyed that little routine of wonders! As you probably know, I have a ton of follow along yoga and flexibility videos but this routine is for people who want to do their own thing by just looking at a gif or video and doing it on their own (similar to my splits or toe-touching routines which are a bit more complex). If you prefer my follow along videos and would like the cream of the crop in regards to maximizing effectiveness of your flexibility training, check out my ultimate flexibility bundle.

Let me know how you like this routine! If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below and thanks!

Top 5 Tips to Transition from the Gym to “At Home” Bodyweight Training Successfully

Since a ton of people are now looking into working out at home and investigating how to transition to bodyweight exercises to maintain their gains (and their sanity), I’ve been noticing many recurring misconceptions that should be cleared up so that you can workout effectively at your own home!

1. Don’t mix up concepts of endurance training and strength training.

For some reason a lot of people (especially young folks) discover bodyweight-fitness and the first thing they think of is “I’m going to get really strong by being able to do 100 pushups in a row.”

Why would you think doing 100reps of something would get you so much stronger? It would increase your strength initially (after you’re able to do, say 20-30 reps). But the rest of the way toward 100 will just increase your endurance, not your strength. And if your goal is to have a better physique with larger muscles that pop, then you need to work on getting stronger.

If you were at the gym and wanted to build stronger and bigger biceps, would you choose an extremely light weight and do 100 bicep curls non stop? (Your answer should be a big fat no.) Instead, you would choose a weight of significant resistance that would allow you to do only 6-12 reps per set.

So why is it that when people discover bodyweight exercises and want to get really strong, they try to make a goal of doing 100 pushups? Maybe it’s because they don’t understand the concepts of progressive overload or know how to increase the intensity with bodyweight exercises? Well, no worries, because if you were in that boat, you’re about to get lifted!

2. Progression exercises are the key to getting stronger.

An example of progression: Tucked L-sit moving toward Full L-sit.

Sadly, I watched a few famous YouTubers trying to take advantage of the COVID19 situation by recommending “at home” workouts filled with a bunch of superfluous exercises that were to be done to failure without providing progression exercises to help you level up (or regression exercises to make them more manageable). This was really unfortunate because it’s just adding more bull-shit to an industry already rife with bull-shit.

The concept of progressive overload needs to be present in your training plan to have good results.

When strength training with bodyweight exercises, you cannot add/remove plates of weight, so to change the intensity (load), you would need to increase the difficulty by moving to a harder, more difficult variation of the exercise:

  • If pushups are too hard, you could elevating your hands and do incline pushups.
  • If pushups are too easy, you could elevate the legs and do decline pushups.
  • When that becomes easy, then you could move onto pike pushups.
  • When that becomes easy, you could do pike pushups with feet elevated.
  • When that becomes easy, you move onto handstand pushups against a wall. See where I’m going with this?

You need to pick a progression exercise that is appropriate to your strength level, rather than simply doing an exercise that may be far too easy to make you get stronger, or far too hard to do properly. For more help on how to do that, read my blog post on how to make any bodyweight exercise easier or harder.

3. Train the movements, not the muscles. Or in other words, don’t focus so much on the individual muscles.

Many gym-goers work the body in isolated parts because they have access to machines or weights that allow them to. However, most bodyweight exercises are compound exercises, meaning they use many major muscle groups all at once. (Even in weight lifting this is true where people focus on the “big lifts” of squat, deadlift, bench, and overhead press.)

If you want to get better at pullups. Do pullups. The movement will take care of any weak links.

Think of graceful athletes, dancers, gymnasts, acrobats and martial artists: Do you think they got that way because they did bicep curls and tricep extensions? Or did they train the body as a whole, so that the muscles work synergistically all together in coordination? With bodyweight exercises, you’re often going to be using most of your body in that holistic fashion. The only time that a muscle truly works in isolation is when you’re using a machine or weighted exercise that isolated it on one axis of rotation.

Now, with that said, isolation exercises do have their place if your goal is to maximize your size and strength because they help you eek out more volume than you normally would get. For example, my hypertrophy routine uses isolation exercises because it’s a hybrid routine that utilizes both weights and calisthenics and is meant to maximize size and strength. My Smart Core program focuses on the core as well, because it’s a huge goal for many.

4. You could train your entire upper body with just Pulling and Pushing movements.

Instead of thinking of the muscles individually, if you focus on pushing and pulling exercises, that takes care of the upper body.

  • Pushing exercises:
  • Pulling exercises:
    • Pullups, rows, front levers and all their variations.
    • Work the back (lats, rhomboids, rear delts), biceps and core.

Structural balance takes care of itself if you train these two major movements. I would recommend you do slightly more pulling work than pushing, to counter our modern day sitting culture because we’re often stuck in a “push” position. My free, minimal routine offers a structured way to train these two together in a methodical manner.

A pullup bar is all you need. But the ultimate bodyweight fitness tool is if you get a pair of wooden gymnastics rings and find a place to hang them from. They’re pretty cheap and will keep you humble for life because there’s literally no limit as to how difficult you can make things on them. (I hang them from my basic doorway pullup bar in these quarantined days just fine.)

In regards to legs: Nothing compares to a barbell squat but the Single leg squat (“pistol squat”) progressions are pretty good and build balance. Start with chair pistol squats (with single leg squats standing up and down from a chair). When that becomes too easy, do them from a lower platform until eventually you need no platform. Holding a dumbell outstretched straight out in front of you will mitigate the ankle flexibility requirement when you get to the very bottom.

5. Common Complaint: “I don’t feel my chest working when I’m doing [insert pushup variation here]!”

Oftentimes I read statements like this. Just because you don’t feel it working there, doesn’t mean it’s not working there. Two people can do the same exact exercise and feel it in completely different places. Where you feel it, usually means you’re just weak there and that’s going to be super personal. But if you’re doing some sort of harder pushup variation and not feeling your chest, trust me, it’s still working. And it will get bigger if you keep putting in the work consistently and at the right intensity.

For most, it’s hard to feel the lats being worked during pullups but that doesn’t mean they’re not working! Make sure your form is good and they are!

Final thoughts

Personally, I workout because I want to do fun things and impressive things with my body and my good physique is simply a reflection of my capabilities. Instead of working out to get buff for looks, I workout because I enjoy it and getting buff is the side effect. When I need to pack on strength and mass, I do it because I need to achieve a move that requires strength. I find this way of thinking to be the most aligned with my personal goals. And with more people flocking toward finding ways to workout at home, I hope this blog post helps to make the transition into bodyweight-training a lot easier. If you’re looking for complete, comprehensive routines and tutorials, check out my previous blog post on how to get stronger and more flexible at home.

Get Strong and Flexible at Home! 💪

A lot of people are stuck indoors and can’t go to their gyms due to the coronavirus pandemic and are now searching for ways to workout at home. Well, you’re in luck because I’ve been training like this with minimal equipment and sharing how it’s done for the past 8 years! I have literally hundreds of free resources listed below so pick what section you’re in the mood for and go for it! No excuses!

Comprehensive Bodyweight Training Routines

Follow Along Yoga/Flexibility Videos

Follow Along Bodyweight Fitness Videos

Compendiums

Flexibility Training Tutorials

Click here to expand

Strength Training Tutorials

Click here to expand

Rehab / Prehab / Joint Strength

Click here to expand

Self Massage

Click here to expand

Motivational / Inspirational Workout Videos from Muscle Beach

Click here to expand

Weight Loss and Nutrition Series

Part 1: How Weight Loss Works: Calories, Diets, Exercise, Physique and More

There is so much misinformation and outright BAD information in regards to weight loss, fat loss, diets, calories, exercise and so forth that I am really happy to make this video talking the reality to dispel myths and set you on the right path! If you don’t want to watch the video, the transcript is below as well.

Click here if you prefer to read the information in the above video.

What’s up everybody, I’m excited to share with you a whole new series and this one is gonna be on nutrition. This is a long time coming so I’m really happy to be doing this. This first video is all about how weight loss and fat loss works and I’m excited to be doing this because it’s a topic with a lot of misinformation and a lot of people need help because let’s face it, everybody is fat all around us. Not just with adults but also with kids, so this is a huge issue.

Calories, Calories, Calories

The major thing you gotta keep in mind is that calories are the number one predictor of whether you’re going to be gaining weight or losing weight. Basically, your body burns a certain amount of calories per day. It depends on how much you’re burning based on your gender, weight, age, height and activity level. If you eat more calories than you need per day, you’re going to gain weight and vice versa.

Some people might say that doesn’t work because I’m old or my metabolism is slow. Well, if you keep making those excuses the reality is that you just need to eat less.It’s very possible that you’re not calculating things accurately. Like, for example, the calculators themselves that tell you how many calories you’re burning per day, are estimates. They’re just a guideline. If you’re eating slightly less and still not losing weight and you’re accurately weighing and measuring everything then it’s likely that your metabolic rate is even lower than that and you need to eat less. So, that is a big deal.

Patience

Also, a lot of people are not very patient. A lot of the weight you gained happened very slowly over months and years until you saw an old photo of yourself and realized how much you’ve changed. You’re not going to lose that weight in a few weeks. It’s going to take time. You’re going to lose some weight in the beginning and it might take months if you’ve been struggling with this for a long time and you have a lot to lose. You’re going to have to trust the process, if you are losing some weight and stick to it.

Diets

There’s so many different kinds of diets, weight loss diets, lifestyle diets. There’s a bunch of different diets listed here and a lot of times they work because they’re restricting certain foods that you can eat or maybe the time when you can eat and that in turn is creating some sort of caloric deficit and that is causing you to lose some weight. What’s important here isn’t the diet itself. It’s which diet is suitable for your lifestyle. One could work great for one person and a different one can work great for another one.

You cannot out-exercise a bad diet!

One of the first things people think of when they wanna lose weight is that they need to exercise. They say, “I gotta go to the gym” or, “I gotta start working out.” Working out is great and highly recommended but the reality is you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. You need to get a diet in check otherwise you’re gonna keep spinning your wheels.

Exercise is great. Work on your abs. Work on getting a strong 6-pack but it’s actually not going to show itself until you actually lose the fat that covers over it and the only way to do that is by getting your diet in check and eating less calories than you need.

Like this infographic below shows, let’s say you do an intense kickboxing class and burn 500 calories in that hour. But what if you have one cheat meal of 1,500 calories afterwards because you feel like you deserve it. The reality is that one cheat meal easily negated all the work you did that day.

This is why it’s important that you focus on the diet. If you go crazy with the cardio everyday nonstop everyday, and don’t change a thing with your diet, sure, you’re going to lose weight. But what ends up happening is that cardio makes you hungrier overtime because your metabolic rate not just for that day but the day after and you end up craving more food. Eventually there’s going to be a rebound effect. In the beginning you might say you don’t feel hungry cause you worked out and you feel good but eventually there sill be a rebound effect and you need to be aware of this.

I have a detailed blog post on the topic of abs being made in the gym and revealed in the kitchen here.

You should always do strength training

In regard to exercise, everybody should be doing strength training because if you are losing weight, that’s great, but it’s also possible you’re losing muscle if you’re not strength training at the same time.

Don’t be this guy who lost fat AND muscle!

You want a high quality weight loss which ensures that you’re losing mostly fat and minimizing the muscle lost. If you’re losing weight and not working out, you’re also going to be losing weight in the form of muscle and that’s not good because your physique is going to look worse. You’re going to lose a lot of your muscle definition and you don’t actually want that. It looks good to lose bodyfat but you want to keep the muscle you have and you do that by doing intense strength training. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time, and there are many ways to go about this and  it should be done. So that is one huge point that should never be neglected.

How little should you eat?

The more severe your deficit, the more extreme you go, the less sustainable it will be and eventually it will have a bad rebound effect so you have to find some sort of balance where you’re eating slightly less each day to make this sustainable. Because you didn’t gain all that weight in one day, you gained it over a long time and you want to take your time losing it so you can stick to whatever you’re doing that’s working for you.

Now, I tackled a lot of different nuances in this whole topic of weight loss and I would like you to know how you liked this article. Let me know what questions you have. Let me know what you would like me to cover and maybe I’ll cover exactly that next time. Now, I’d love to see what you have to say as well and I’ll see you in the next video.

Part 2: How To Lose Weight Without Exercise Or Dieting, Guaranteed

In this video you will learn how to lose weight in a guaranteed fashion by using an app such as MyFitnessPal that will help ensure you’re eating less calories than you’re actually burning. I go over the pros/benefits and cons/downsides to this guaranteed weight loss method and then give a bunch of tips on how to help you succeed with it.

Click here if you prefer to read the information in the above video.

Do you want to know how to lose weight in a guaranteed manner so that you don’t waste your time trying diets that might work or might not work? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Calories in versus Calories Out (CICO)

The first concept you need to understand is very simple: Calories in versus Calories Out

Your body burns a certain number of calories everyday to live, survive and do all the processes it needs to do. This is dependent on your age, weight, height, gender and activity level and there are calculators that will estimate how many calories you burn on average per day. And the food you eat has energy in the form of calories. So you’re eating throughout the day and if you’re eating less calories than your body needs, then you’re going to lose weight. If you’re eating more calories than your body needs, you’re going to gain weight.

An example of a “TDEE” calculator that shows how many calories you burn per day.

Logging your food is the answer (Counting Calories)

Now we just take that concept and count our calories. Get the app called MyFitnessPal and it has a database of 10’s of thousands of foods. And even easier, if the food you’re eating is in a package, you just scan the barcode with your phone camera and put the number of servings you ate and it counts how many calories you’ve ate. People used to do this with pen and paper but now there’s an app on your phone that does it for you, and you use your phone throughout the day anyway.

Benefits of Counting Calories

The benefits are huge. The biggest one is that you could eat anything you want. You could have your ice cream, your cereal, etc, as long as you stay under a certain number of calories. Another thing that’s very important; this is a lesson that stays with you forever, is that it’s going to teach you how many calories you’re actually supposed to eat and how many you’re actually eating. This is HUGE. You might not realize that the breakfast you’re eating is a massive amount of calories until you actually count them. You have to go through this process to see where your excess calories are coming from. It’ll make you more aware on so many things. For example, you may not realize how frequently you’re snacking until you do this.

It’ll make you super aware of when you’re eating, why you’re eating, what’s causing the impulsiveness, what are the triggers. You’re going to start to notice patterns you never noticed before.

I wrote exercise is not necessary because whenever people want to lose weight, the first thing they think is “I gotta go to the gym.” No, really, the first thing you gotta do is control your diet. Control how much you’re eating. And that’s what’s going to help you to lose weight. Everyone should be exercising regularly all the time, whether they’re trying to lose weight or gain weight or whatever. It doesn’t matter. That part should just be a constant presence in your life. But the diet part is what you need to get in check, okay?

Negative side of Counting Calories

Let’s face it, it can be a little bit stressful to have to log everything that goes in your mouth. It’s a bit tedious, it could be cumbersome, however, it does get better with time. The first week might be annoying as hell, but when you start to see the results and you start to understand how much you’re actually eating, this is an important lesson that outweighs the negatives.

And I’m gonna be frank with you, the people who don’t want to count calories or say it doesn’t work for me without even trying, often have the biggest issues. Because they’re not facing reality. They don’t want to face the reality that they’re overeating and they just stop doing it. So you really need to be honest with yourself. If you actually want to lose weight, you’ve gotta like actually want to be aware of where your excess calories are coming from and it’s going to take work to stop it. And honestly we have the technology that makes it super easy, so enough with the excuses!

The other drawback is, if you’re making food at home, you need a food scale, so that you know if you’re eating 6 ounces of chicken or 12 ounces of chicken. It’s hard to gauge meat, nuts, cheeses most especially if you’ve never weighed them before. And the other drawback is if you’re eating out or eating out at a friends place, it’s hard to know how many calories are in that food if it’s not in the database. However, I would always recommend you round up to be on the safe side.

How much of a deficit should you eat at?

The general recommendation is that you should eat 500 calories less than you need per day. Now if you’re a petite woman, 500 calories might actually be too extreme. Maybe 300 calories less, something like that. Because you don’t need as much to begin with, so in terms of percentage, maybe you should be eating about 20% less per day.

If you’re eating 500 calories less per day, you’re going to lose about 1 pound of fat per week. So keep that in mind. It’s a nice, sustainable number for most people.

How to ensure you’re on the right path?

Now, to ensure that you’re on the right path, you want to weigh yourself every week. And you want to do it under the same circumstances. So for me personally, I only weigh myself if it’s morning time, I’ve just pooped but I haven’t ate anything. If those 3 conditions exist, only then will I weigh myself. Because if I weigh myself in the evening, after a big dinner, the weight is going to look very different than all the previous times I’ve weighed myself. It’s not going to be meaningful, comparable data.

And the other thing is in the app you could log the weight and take a photo of yourself at the same time which I recommend as well because it’s great to have the before and after photos.

Weight Loss is Non-Linear

Another thing you gotta keep in mind is that your weight is not gonna drop off a cliff. In the beginning it’s going to drop off fast but that’s mostly going to be water weight. Don’t expect an accelerated rate of weight loss in the long term. You’re going to plateau and then sometimes come back up before you go down. Sometimes you have to go 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Expect that the weight is not going to go down in a straight line and you’re not going to give up: You’re going to stick to it because this is a numbers game.

And that’s another thing, you don’t have to weigh yourself everyday. Maybe once a week, twice a week, but you don’t need to obsess over it because you’re going to lose weight slowly overtime and it’s all about the long run.

Tips to make calorie counting easier

  • Even before you eat something, log it. Don’t say I’ll do it later because you’re going to forget. It’s going to be shocking how easy it is to forget what you’ve ate. Extremely mind blowing, actually. These things add up so fast it’s just uncanny. I like to log things while I’m heating things over the stove top or in the microwave.
  • If you’re going to have a cheat day, it’s really important that you keep logging your food. You have to be honest with yourself. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel ashamed because it’s not really important that you’re going over your calories on one day. What’s important is that you are going to be in a deficit over that week or over that month. It’s not really important that you are under your calories every single day. Some days you’re going to be over and some days you’re going to be under. As long as the days you’re under are outweighing the ones where you’re over, you’re on the right path. So don’t stop doing it just because you went over one day. Keep at it. That’s one of those big things that we gotta psychologically be honest with ourselves.
  • Another cool thing is if you have a measuring cup, learn what 1 cup or 2 cups is like in your favorite bowls that you use frequently so that if you just pour something in your bowl, you know if it’s at a certain level that’s 1 cup or 2 cups. So you don’t have to meticulously use a measuring cup each time.
  • Another thing that makes it way easier is if you do intermittent fasting. So for me personally, I don’t eat breakfast, so I don’t need to log 3 meals a day. All of a sudden I don’t need to log 3 meals a day but just 2 meals a day.
  • If you’re the kind of person that eats a ton of snacks all throughout the day, maybe you should reduce the frequency of how often you’re snacking because if you do that then you don’t have to log as much, as often.
  • If you are not sure how much food you’re actually eating, be on the safe side and round up.
  • If you’re logging an exercise, the MyFitnessPal app actually overestimates how many calories you’re burning so round down on that so that way you’ll ensure you’re still on the right path.

Now I want to read your comments. What do you think of calorie counting? Have you tried this? Have you succeeded? have you failed? Are you going to try it again? Is this your first time hearing about it? Please let me know what you think and if you’re going to do it, try it and what your results were in the past. I’d love to hear and thanks for reading. Much success to you!

Bonus Part 3: Body Image Perceptions, Body-Fat-% vs Strength, Online vs Reality, Fat vs Ripped

The above video has received, and continues to receive, the most engagement from the YouTube audience. It all started when a user asked why I’m not concerned about getting leaner… so here’s a video answer. It’s a complex issue I can talk about forever, so here’s just 7 minutes. I recommend you check it out as it ties into the same topic of nutrition and weight loss but more-so about finding comfort in your own body image.

Reflection of the Month: What is the story you tell yourself?

I recently realized that when it comes time to reflect on the year, I find it very enjoyable and the more I think about what to write, the more the ideas keep flowing. That opportunity gets me into a very healthy creative flow which is rare because the perfectionist in me usually overthinks about what to write about. Henceforth, I’m going to transmute the concept of reflecting on the year, and apply it on a monthly scale and see what I could come up with and try to make this a monthly must-do because whatever you focus on, expands. And expand I will!

One of my ambitious goals for 2020 is the Swing to Handstands on Parallel Bars.

This exercise is frightening and challenging. Practicing it makes me feel a bit of anxiety. And that’s a good thing. I remember I used to get this anxious feeling a lot more often before when many gymnastics-related exercises were new to me and I had to overcome them psychologically. It feels good to experience this emotion again. It makes me feel alive to do things at the edge of my comfort zone.

My coach that’s helping me to perform the swing to handstand says I don’t even need to have a long enduring freestanding handstand to perform this as you’re only in the position momentarily.

However, since I want to gain confidence, I do want to hold a freestanding handstand again too. I used to practice it a ton in the past but I haven’t for a long time. I realized a couple years into handstand training, that the reason the freestanding handstand was so difficult for me, despite having a very good bodyline with open shoulders and a strong core, was because my right elbow does not straighten like a normal elbow. I had a bicycle accident 12 years ago where I messed up my wrist and elbow and it never healed back to normal. So basically when I’m holding a handstand, the right elbow is slightly bent during lock-out, which tips my entire body to the right and breaks my bodyline in a deceiving enough way that I can’t correct it.

The story you just read above is the story I’ve been regurgitating for several years already. While it’s true in factual history, I’m quite bored of it. The stories that we tell ourselves and to others define us and frankly, this story creates a very limiting mindset. It is literally just an excuse for why I can’t do something. These narratives have the power to shape our future and we need to be mindful of it.

The reality is, it’s not that I can’t hold a handstand ever because of my asymmetry. I just need to work a little bit harder to compensate for my unique anatomical circumstance.  So I’m going to work on it. I’m going to figure out what I need to do to stay in a handstand indefinitely. (I already know I need to master the scissoring drill from my handstand tutorial among other things.) The puzzle may be more difficult for me to figure out but I’m just about done saying this story. I want to prove that I can overcome this.

Besides, I used to have wrist issues and tennis elbow and I overcame all of them. Why should this stop me?

For 2020, I hope to capture many more handstand photos of me such as this!

So for 2020, I want to tackle mastering the handstand head on and this desire got sparked-up because I want to perform the Swing-to-Handstand on the parallel bars. I am also well on my way to having a full front lever and mastering dislocates on the flying rings. But I’ll leave those for another time.

So now you need to ask yourself… What is the story you keep telling about yourself? Is it maybe time to change the story?