My last two posts were about the "reverse pyramid" or "right triangle" (because I got tired of hitting the space bar) approach to push-ups, pull (chin) - ups and squats. This is a scheme where you start with one rep and then add a rep each set until you can't do it any more. You record the rep count for the last completed set and that's your max. In my last post I beat my max on all three exercise, and beat it significantly. So my strength increased and I think I know why. And it's NOT because I've been doing the reverse pyramid a lot lately. In fact, if you just consider the last few posts you'd think I've concentrated on the reverse pyramid almost exclusively, but actually I haven't at all. Two months separated the last two posts and I hadn't tried the reverse pyramid during that period at all, so there were two months between efforts. Why the significant strength gains? Was it rest? Body-part splits? Training to failure? No!
Instead, during that two months I did a bit of misguided wandering down old, familiar, and dubious (at least for me) paths. It's no fun to post about such things, but I'll explain it here. Basically I can't quit thinking that I should maybe do body-part split workouts to failure with days off. I guess if you start out as a weightlifter, you just can't completely get this mentality out of your head, even though you spend so much time touting (and practicing!) whole body every day routines as I have done here. So I tried push/pull/legs splits and going to failure (briefly, like twice), again, and AGAIN, I don't like them.
Then I thought of a different and much newer and better idea. I wondered how I could make the exercises more effective and difficult without slowing them down (intentionally for its own sake), pausing, changing the angles, changing the rest, or doing things with one side of my body at a time. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that, and I still do these things. But I wanted to make the move harder within itself.
That got me to the idea of engagement. One thing I've often heard bodybuilders talk about is squeeze. Squeezing the muscle as you are performing the movement. It's engagement, really. Rather than throwing the weight up, or half-assing it like the people curling 5 lbs while talking on the phone, they really squeeze. Engage all the muscles, and especially the ones performing the movement. They also point out that if you do this, you'll have to decrease the weight. Most people don't want to do this. They'd really rather press 225 crappily and half-way than get a good set with 185. And then drop on the ground loudly the weight and hoot and grunt like a primitive.
The other thing you may notice if you pay attention is that there are lot of big guys lifting small weights, and lot of small guys trying to lift big ones. I've also started to notice that there are a lot of big guys who lifted big weights in the past and who are now in surgery for hip replacement or who can't touch the tops of their heads because of permanent shoulder problems or can't do any squats at all because of knee and/or back problems.
All of this led me to ask how I could translate this idea of making a set of bench press with 185 or even 135 more difficult AND more effective than a set of bench press with 225 without slowing it down or pausing or changing the angle, to body weight calisthenics. Squeeze. Engage.
In a set of regular push-ups: try to imagine and flex each muscle in the upper body on each rep, try to push yourself all the way up until you are almost arching your back, with the heels of your hands imagine that you are pushing the entire planet away from you, don't stop pushing when you get near the top or bottom of the movement... pause at the top or bottom if you want to but that's not necessary. Squeeze, try to get every fiber of ever muscle involved.
In a set of regular squats: push yourself up in such a way that it feels like you might launch yourself into the air (but make sure your feet don't leave the ground), feel it in every muscle of the lower body, including the muscles right above your knees, which you may have previously thought you can only work by doing leg raises or sissy squats, dig your heels in and try to imagine that you are attempting to push the entire planet away from you....
Pulling exercises: this one is fun. Why? For one, pull-ups and related moves where the entire body is lifted are difficult on their own and don't necessarily need to be made more difficult. But they can be, and it's certainly worth trying this approach for a set of five if you can normally get 14. Engaging every muscle in the upper body and making sure the full range of motion in the back is achieved (around the scapula) are important. But what I also like about this approach is that it makes body-weight rows a new and exciting option. I've always sort of found them to be too easy and not really worth doing for anything other than warm up. But they ARE a different movement and deserve this treatment. Imagine you are pulling the entire world toward you. Engage every muscle. Really stretch when you go down so that it looks like you are really reaching for the bar or the tree limb.
If nothing else this approach gives you a renewed focus on what you're actually trying to do here. It gets you away from being caught up in high set and rep count goals. If you do this, you'll be hanging out around 10-12 reps per set, if not even fewer, which for me is low. Good stuff.
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