All Around Strength and Conditioning

This will be a continuous post, limited only by my imagination, and the willingness for someone to take pictures of me at the gym.

Tow Haul Cables: these are the bread and butter of my chest training, they are a lot of the same benefit’s as Elite Rings, and TRX system, without the cost. I like to hang them off the smith machine to adjust the height as necessary. I have choked up much of the length of the strap using the cam, and so consequently I only need to loop it twice around the bar.

Here’s the set up for push ups, flys, jackknives, L flys and depending on the height of the bar, dips.

These are suspended push ups, among many other names, but because I’m not using rings, they are not ring push ups. I have my feet up on a bench to add more emphasis to my middle and upper chest.

Jackknive variation- this one keeps your tense, and can aide you in standing roll outs on the evil wheel
L Flys basically one arm goes forward as in the jackknive and the other one goes out as in a fly
This next pictures is two-fold, it illustrates a suspended fly, and if you notice I have a purple jump stretch band around my chest, this can reduce the weight, and aide you in getting the movement down. I never use the band, unless it’s time for some serious forced reps. Basically just choke the band around the bar, and then get inside of it, and get pumping.


Powerovers- basically this is doing push-ups on either side of a medicine ball, the catch is that we’re exploding ourselves up and over. This one has awesome carryover strength to the one arm push-up, and can really help your bench. I’m doing these ones off of a bench, to target a bit more of the upper chest, put also because I find them much more difficult.

Side to Side Dips are one of the best ways to increase the number of dips you can grind out, they have tremendous carryover benefit for core stability and the one arm pushup, and just getting 20 is super difficult.

This is similar to weighted dips, without the weight. Using a jumpstretch band looped over the back of your neck, (or traps) can add anywhere from 30-80 lbs depending on how you loop it, length of your arms, and ability to move up and down.

Here is an exercise I have yet to see in any book, and it’s basically a combination of flys and pullovers. Or as I like to call them pullover flys. So basically you lay on a bench, or medicine ball (remember core stability, and this one is a doozy) Then brings your hands together (as in top of a fly), then you lower them down into a fly, and at the bottom of the movement, you bring your arms up towards your head, into the bottom portion of of a pullover. Then you bring the movement upwards and forwards to finish the pullover. Then reverse the movement from the top of the pullover back down into the bottom portion, bring your arms back out to your sides (bottom portion of the fly) then brings your hands together. Thats one rep. A lot of people tell me they are too sore to move their arms the next day, this tends to target much more of the outer portion of the chest. This is a great finisher, or next to last finisher.

Wall Pushups- these ones are much more difficult than they look. They can help you build the pressing power needed for pseudo-planches, and planches. Just back your feet up into the wall, and lower yourself down into a pushup position. You want to keep tension in your whole body, and that means pushing your feet especially hard into the wall.

Wobble Board Pushups- a no brainer here. Just get on a wobble board, and push. There’s all sorts of variations of this one. You can mimic the exercises used on the Reebok Core Board for a fraction of the price. Rotating the board with two hands and doing pushups can be similar to that of the Core Board, the one handed variations which allow you twist challenge the whole body to stay stable, and give your shoulders a nice burn.

Last night I was thinking of a functional ground based way to train the upper chest. Apart from using a hammer jammer, I thought what about a fly movement? So here is the standing double barbell incline fly. Essentially I took two Olympic bars, and placed them in the corner. Then placed a weight on the end. Afterwards I got in between them both and pressed them to a lockout position. I slowly allowed my arms (with a slight bend) to drift towards my sides. This was a true test of core stability since the awkwardness of the technique forces you to keep your core tightly contracted to avoid unwanted body english. Once they were about just below parallel, I squeezed them back up together eventually getting the plates to touch. This was my first time trying something like this so I went light to avoid injury, however I feel that the nature of the beast does not allow you to add a super large amount of weight due to the plane of movement.

Lunge position variation- for more power this position is a bit more athletic and really allows you to be explosive.

Wrestlers Bridge and Press- Basically a neck bridge with a press of some sort. I've usually seen this done with kettlebells, but not all gyms carry them, so I went with some plates. The plates with grips are a bit tricky to hold. This exercises should also be classified under core exercises, and static neck exercises.

Halo's- you grab a plate, preferably with handles, and start with it behind your back, you then rotate it around like a wheel, and then around your head. Your deltoids get flexion on all three heads, and this one makes an awesome finisher.

Modified Hammer Jammer- assuming your school gym is like mine, and it doesn’t have any nice or even modern equipment, you have to make do with what you have. The idea behind this one is to get the barbell angled into a wall, and you want to bring it to your shoulder (squatting makes this even better) then explode forward pressing the barbell forward. For more stability, core tension and overall power, try this with two barbells. This one has excellent carryover power for punching, and pushing.

This next one is a plate press, has a similar feeling to a kettlebell press, difference is the plates are bigger, and less wieldy. Clean them in a neutral position, and then press them overhead (I like to rotate them so my palms are facing forward) but train specific.

Triceps Bodyweight Extension- this is similar to a standing french press, but the bar is stationary and you move around it. The lower the bar, the more difficult this is to do. I like to do these with a weighted vest on to make things much harder. You can use various grips, pronated, supinated, neutral (if you do it on a bench or chair), and your hand spacing can be close, middle, wide, etc. Various angles target different parts, and illicit different growth.

Close Grip Pike Press- Basically a pike position where you place your hands together in a diamond shape (as in a close grip push up) then you lower your body towards the ground, and stop when your head reaches the ground, or when your forearms are resting on the ground. This one really nails the long head, and is a super low tech way to isolate those triceps, and get some good core stability while you’re at it.

If you find this one difficult at first, spread your legs and distribute your weight.

Triceps Blaster- this one is adapted from a nifty Human Kinetics book on stability balls, basically get into a push up position on the ball, and then roll your forearms around the ball, then straighten them back out. You’ll feel this one in your core pretty heavily until you get used to it. This one really targets (at least in my experience) the lateral head of your triceps.

The pseudo-planche is one of the greatest horizontal push exercises I know. No equipment necessary, and essentially are you are doing is a push up but your hands are positioned right outside of your hips (or torso) and then you press up. This shifts most of the weight directly to the shoulders and chest, an excellent warm-up, and with some added weight, it can produce some amazing pushing power.

The lying french press, or lying skull crushers is essentially the same idea as it would be with free weights, except that you are using your own bodyweight as the weight. You can start in a plank position, and from there extend your elbows. Your chest, and shoulders will do some of the work, but you really want to focus on elbow extension.