Grind Style Calisthenics
Page 6
Strength phase exercises for the push chain
There are many push chain strength exercises, but for the sake of direct tension control, I include only some of the most accessible and balanced moves in the program. These are the exercises of choice to fill your entire chain with as much tension as possible while still helping you progress your tension control and stability.
Level 1 Incline push-ups
This is where your push chain journey begins. Just like with incline rows, perform the incline push-up with the hands about shoulder width apart, and move your shoulder blades forward at the top of the rep while pulling them back at the bottom. Be sure to keep your shoulders pressed down away from your ears throughout the rep.
The incline push-up is also similar to the incline row in how you can adjust the resistance. The further you step back, the more you’ll work against the pull of gravity.
Key points
Keep your shoulders down and away from your ears, especially at the bottom of each rep. Shrugging shoulders are a prevalent problem that makes the push-up less effective and harder on the joints.
Watch out for "winging" your elbows outward, especially as you push upward. It may be helpful to imagine squeezing your arms in close to your side as you press.
Avoid sagging your hips at the bottom, especially at the bottom of each rep.
Level 2 Prone push ups
Eventually, you'll do your incline push-ups in a position that moves your torso directly against gravity. These are the second level or prone push-ups. The same rules apply to prone push-ups an incline push-ups, including using the same shoulder movement and attention to keeping your arms in close to your sides.
Key points
Avoid reaching for the floor with your chin or face as you lower yourself down. Keep your head back and chin slightly lifted to keep your neck and spine in alignment.
Keep your quads, glutes, and shin muscles tense to improve lower body stability.
Play around with the width of your feet, just as you can with rows. A wider stance will make the exercise a little easier while a narrow foot position will be more challenging.
Be careful to not sag or dip in your lower back especially as you reach the bottom of the rep.
It’s fine to get a bit of a stretch in your chest at the bottom, just don’t let your muscles relax to accommodate that stretch.
You’re your elbows are “winging” outward as you press up, reduce your range of motion and don’t lower yourself down as much.
Level 3 Dip hold
This technique is one of the few isometric strength exercises in the GSC program. I've included it here because it's very beneficial to build a solid foundation of strength and control in this position. This goes for using both stable dip bars and suspended handles.
Your goal with this exercise isn't to merely hold yourself up, but to push down in your hands as hard as possible and eliminate any shaking. Doing this may take some time, but it’s well worth it as it will set the stage for faster progress in more advanced steps.
Since this is an isometric exercise, I recommend doing this for the first two of your three grind sets and then practice a full set of prone push-ups on the third set. That way, you'll build static strength and stability while also including some dynamic movement which will enhance tension control and mobility.
Key points
Keep your shoulders back rather than hunched up or forward.
Maintain tension in your abs, quads, and shins to prevent your legs from just hanging loosely.
It's always tempting to restrict your breathing during an isometric exercise. Do your best to keep your breathing smooth and deep.
Maintain some tension in your quads and pull your toes up to prevent your legs from passively hanging which can compromise your stability.
Be sure to maintain tension in your chest to squeeze, not just your hands, but also your elbows in close to your body. Doing so will ease stress on your shoulders in later levels.
Try to keep your chin up and look straight ahead so you don’t develop a habit of looking down and hunching your shoulders forward.
Level 4 Leg assisted dip
Dips can be quite the exercise to jump into, especially if you're doing them on unstable supports. The difficulty of unstable dips is why I always teach people how first to do them with some foot support.
Maintaining contact with your feet on the floor also helps you control your body position as you move in a vertical motion. If you find that you’re rocking or twisting during dips, try this level and see if helps to identify where a hidden weakness may be lurking that’s compromising your stability.
Key points
Lowering yourself into a dip will test the stability and mobility in your shoulders a great deal. Only use the range you can move in without hunching your shoulders up and forward.
Keep your head up and eyes forward to prevent yourself from looking down and hunching your shoulders.
You can progress this exercise by adjusting the amount of pressure you’re placing into the floor. Crossing your ankles or pressing off with one foot is a progressively more difficult variation than keeping both feet on the floor.
Just as with push-ups, watch out for winging your elbows outward as you press up. Trying to squeeze your arms in as you push will bring more tension in your chest while improving stability and decrease shoulder strain.
Keep some tension in your rear deltoids, especially as you lower yourself down. The tension in the back of your shoulder helps improve shoulder stability and prevents internal shoulder rotation which is one of the major reasons people claim dips are bad for the shoulders.
Level 5 Full bodyweight dip
The full bodyweight dip is one of the most complete upper body exercises in existence. It works nearly every muscle in your upper body, plus it's a fantastic exercise for stability, mobility, and total body control. You would be hard pressed to find another exercise that can work your chest, arms, and shoulders like the dip.
The most important aspect of the dip is controlling your body in space. It's much easier to drop down and catch yourself at the bottom position before pushing back up. While that approach may be a great way to bang out reps, it can compromise your technique and put your joints at risk.
That’s why I recommend treating the dip almost as a pulling exercise as you lower yourself down. Maintain tension in your back and biceps while lowering yourself under control between your hands. Pause at the bottom and press yourself back up without arching your back or kicking your feet.
Key points
Don't be too aggressive with your range of motion, especially when you're just starting with this technique. If you prefer to stay with a shallow dip then do so, you don't have to reach a certain depth for the reps to count.
At the same time, don't limit your range of motion to an arbitrary gage, like a 90-degree bend in your elbow. If you can go lower without hunching up your shoulders, then go for it.
Make sure your range of motion also includes the top portion of each rep as well. Aim to fully straighten out your arms and depress your shoulders at the top of each rep.
It’s natural for the torso to tilt forward slightly in the dip, but avoid “scooping” where you arch your back as you push yourself up.
Level 6 Weighted dip
They don't call them "dip belts" for nothing! The dip is the safest and easiest push-chain exercise to load with external weight. Being able to place your feet on the ground means you'll never need a spotter and you won't need to add much external load since your bodyweight will make up most of the resistance. Unstable supports like rings or Grind Straps won't require nearly as much weight as stable dip bars.
Key points
Try to maintain perfect technique and your normal range of motion with the extra weight. Ideally, your unweighted dips and weighted dips should look precisely the same.
Winging elbows are much more common with weighted dips. Do your best to stay tight and pre
vent your arms from pushing outward.
Hanging weight from your waist will amplify any instability you have especially during the later reps in a set. If you find you’re rocking quite a bit, try using slightly less weight and see if that helps.
Hypertrophy phase exercises for the push chain
Push-chain finishers
These push chain finishers are a brutal way to torch your push chain muscles into blissful submission. The first variation is to do a hard set or two with an easier level exercise than your grind phase sets. So if you’re doing dips for the grind phase, then rest for a few moments and then go to town on a set of push-ups. You don’t even need to count reps, just keep cranking out reps until you’re peeling yourself off the floor.
The second finisher is to hold the top of the dip position as an isometric finisher. Just hop on up and hold the most challenging position you can for as long as you can. Be sure to keep breathing and maintaining supportive tension in your back.
Push-chain focus work
These moves are done on the Grind Straps, or a comparable suspension trainer and mimic some of the most popular bodybuilding exercises done on machines or free weights. Be sure to maintain tension throughout your whole body while practicing these moves. While they do focus resistance in various muscle groups, they are not isolation exercises that are meant to work one muscle group as you exclude everything else.
Chest Flys
The chest fly is one of the few exercises in GSC that use the arms stretched out to the side. This position does potentially place your shoulders in a risky situation, so it's crucially important to keep your shoulders packed down and back. Feel free to allow your shoulder blades to move forward and back as they do in a push-up, but do your best not to let your shoulders shrug up to your ears.
You can adjust the resistance on your chest the same way you adjust the incline push-up. The further you step back with your feet the more your chest will work against gravity. Stepping forward will reduce the resistance, and I highly recommend using light resistance the first time you try out this exercise.
Triceps extensions
This technique is such a fantastic way to blast your upper arms! The trick here is to start with straight arms and bend your elbows to bring your hands back to your eye level or just above at your forehead. It's natural to want to move your arms at your shoulder, and this can help prevent stress in your elbow. Just make sure you don't get too much motion so your hands to go up over your head. Make sure most of the movement of this exercise uses the movement at the elbow and not the shoulder.
Y-Flys
I love this exercise for targeting the deltoids. It does a much better, and more complete job of targeting the shoulders than any lateral or front raises with free weights.
Part of the reason is because this exercise moves your arm forward, upward, back, and laterally all at the same time, so it covers more planes of movement than just up-and-down lateral raises.
The other great thing is, you can dial in the perfect level of resistance through where you place your feet. You no longer need to feel like you're stuck between the 15 and 20-pound dumbbells. Now you can adjust the resistance to the level that's perfect for your shoulders while also making adjustments whenever you feel the need.
Chapter 8
Grind Style Abs
The Grind Style approach to abdominal training is one of the best parts of the GSC program. The techniques in this chapter will help you solve some of the most significant problems in modern day core training.
The modern plague of bad ab workouts
Weak abdominals and other core muscles abound in modern society. It seems like almost everyone wants to build up their core and make their abs pop. Granted, some of that desire is the misguided attempt to reduce belly fat, for which core training plays a relatively minor role. Aside from that, there's still a vast, and unsatisfied demand for more strength in the midsection. There are whole books dedicated to core training, and gyms often have some variation of a core class.
All of this pent-up demand points to a simple truth: that most abs workouts suck! If they didn't, we wouldn't be constantly searching for new core workouts, books, and various gadgets.
The good news is that it doesn't take much to train your abs effectively. You don't need 20 different core exercises. You also don't need to endure hundreds of reps that make your abs burn with the mild intensity of an Easy Bake Oven. All you need to do is improve your tension control and crank up the resistance until your abs burn hotter than a blow torch.
Tension control phase exercises for the flexion chain
Poor abdominal tension control is the number one reason why many ab workouts suck. You can do all of the planks, crunches, and leg raises you want, but nothing will come of it if your brain has trouble stuffing your abs with tension. The good news is that once you improve your tension control, even a modest core workout will become supremely effective.
Cat-Cow exercise
This classic yoga technique is one of the best abdominal tension control exercises there is. The top "cat" position makes it easy to crunch and wake up your abdominals. The real challenge is maintaining abdominal tension as you go into the "cow" position as you extend your spine. Keeping even a little tension in your elongated abs can be very hard and will probably take some practice. Thankfully, the cat cow exercise is easy enough to do every day, which I highly recommend. Not only does daily practice help improve tension control, but it also helps mobilize your spine and releases stress in the back.
Seated floor press
This isometric technique uses a bit more resistance than the cat cow exercise. Start off sitting on the floor with your legs straight in front of you and press your fingertips into the floor just above your knees. As you press down into your fingers, gently try to lift your feet off the floor. Don’t worry if you can’t lift your heels off the floor just yet, it’s not necessary to do so to get the tension flowing in your flexion chain.
Unlike the cat cow exercise, this technique includes all of the muscles along your flexion chain especially the muscles in your hips and the top of your legs.
Table top press
I like this exercise because it’s easy to practice on a daily basis. Stand about a foot away from a counter or table and place your hands flat with your palms down. Press your hands downward using isometric tension in your arms, shoulders, abs and hips. You may also find it’s more effective to pick up the front of your feet to improve the tension in your shins and quads.
Stability phase exercises for the flexion chain
Crawling
Crawling is one of the best total body stability exercises you can do. It requires stability throughout every joint in your body while maintaining a tight core to prevent excessive lateral motion with each step.
The most natural form of crawling is to move right into a bent-knee variation of the cat cow exercise. Start in the cat position and drive your toes into the floor to lift your knees up about three inches. From there, step with your hands and feet to move forward, backward and side to side while keeping your back level to the ground.
You can progress any crawling exercise by taking bigger steps with your hands and feet. The bigger the steps, the more stability and strength you'll need through each transition. You also don't have to move along the floor with crawling moves. Just remain in place and pick each hand or foot off the floor for a couple of seconds.
Strength phase exercises for the flexion chain
I always recommend starting light with these exercises, especially if you're finding your abdominal tension control is somewhat lacking. Poor flexion chain tension control is easy to work around with a compromised exercise technique. A lot of people and even many athletes, can do advanced core exercises, yet they hardly feel it in their abs due to the compensation of other muscles.
Always remember that muscle tension is what makes your workouts effective, not whether or not you can move your body in an advanced way. An "easy" exer
cise that fills your muscles with tension will always be much more effective than an advanced exercise that uses compensation. That's why I encourage you to practice whatever level of exercise you feel your abs working the most. You also shouldn't feel your lower back straining whatsoever. Low back stress is surefire sign that you're overloading your abs with too much resistance, and there's not enough supportive tension in your core.
Level 1 Hollow body hold
The hollow body hold is an excellent tension control exercise, and it's very easy to adjust the resistance on your core muscles.
The easiest level is to crunch your shoulders up while tucking your legs toward your chest. This technique is a similar position to the cat position only now you're fighting against the pull of gravity to create resistance.
You won't be moving because this is an isometric exercise, but you can elongate your body to increase the resistance on your core muscles. You can stretch out with your legs, arms, or both. In either case, keep your abs tense and your lower back flat on the floor. Make sure your abs are rock solid as you extend your body by moving at your hips and shoulder joints.
Key points
Keep your abs tight, so your lower back is pressed on, or close, to the floor.
Be sure to maintain a stable core with your lower back on the floor.
Do your best to breath as smoothly as possible. You can use shallow breaths, but make sure you don't hold your breath.
Pull your toes up toward your shin to maintain tension along your shins and quads.
Level 2 Knee raises
This level is one of the best ways to learn how to maintain abdominal tension while moving your legs. The bent knee position offers a light level of resistance while moving your hips through a modest range of motion.