Bodyweight Exercises For Real Life

From a general POV, Bodyweight Exercises have a lot to offer in terms of a solid construct of fitness. The problem with today's aspects of Bodyweight Training is that it's not treated as a sacred area of developing practical and proper applications for real world situations and is treated mainly as a source believed only used for endurance and doesn't generate a lot of strength. You can develop insane skills and build a crazy physique like those Barstarzz guys or do things that create great skill for certain competition but where does it go in the real world?

In things like Crossfit, they push to their absolute limit without regard for safety and practical applications. Most of the time, the pull up in that system isn't a true pull up and they're setting themselves up for injuries beyond their understanding. A real pull up develops strength for real life and has a greater rate of building an injury proof back, shoulders, arms and core. If you want to test your endurance and your lung power, go for a good hike, one of the best exercises for developing stamina for hiking is the Step-Up.

The basic principles of Bodyweight Training is to develop what Johnny Grube refers to "Conditioned Strength", you know I've written about him in the past and even though I don't agree with him on certain things, I have high respect for his conditioning. If you can't carry firewood without getting winded or be able to walk up stairs easily, there's something you need to do in order to counter those things. You're not going to be able to chop firewood from benching or able to swim by doing machine curls but if you apply exercises such as animal movements, squats, core work and sprints, you'll be in shape for days.

I have said that most Bodyweight Exercises are boring to me because once you get into the high reps within the triple digits, where do you really go after that? That doesn't mean they don't work like a charm, they most certainly do and I can attest to it by being able to do things that don't get winded in real life, I've hiked for long periods of time, chopped wood without losing strength and can swim pretty well. A key aspect to have a hold on is how you breathe, the better your breathing, the more endurance you have period. This is a critical element in a combat situation and I learned the hard way that if you can't control your breathing, you might as well be dead. In No-Gi Grappling, at first I was putting too much emphasis on my strength and not seeing how my breath work went and I was gassing out quicker than you can say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Little by little, I relaxed a bit more and focused on my breathing while rolling and was lasting longer in rounds.

You don't need to do hundreds of crunches and you certainly don't need to do muscle up upon muscle up to use your training in the real world. Use the basics down to a T and that's really all you need. You can gain more advanced skills but the basics will save your ass more than those advanced moves ever will. Also, if you're getting injured in training more than in the real world, there's something wrong there. In training, it's more controlled and applying things that are useful and learning what works, but in real life, not everything is in our control and sometimes injuries at times are inevitable but we do the best we can to not let that happen.

Get in condition not just to look like a million bucks but to use it when the time comes to either go on hikes, help a friend move, do some labor as a job or to help people in need or to even save a life.