Someone asked me the other day that they are stuck on making progress with their training because they have ZERO access to equipment and all they have access to is the outdoors.

He has a school track and a playground…

I told him this is ALL he needs and if this is all he ever has for the rest of his life, he’d still be fine…

DROP THE EXCUSES!  You can still get some major results without equipment.

Before I go into this a bit further, I wanted to bring up a past Thursday Throwdown / Hardcore Hundred for your ever dying needs for a challenge.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M-HzopMgZk

Your challenge:

  • Complete 100 reps each of a Push, a Pull/ Row, a Squat, and Lunge
  • You can use whatever variation you want on each movement – Mix it up!
  • Keep track of how long this takes you to complete from start to finish

Only Rule: You MUST do this at a outdoor park / playground!

Hit this one up for this week’s Throwdown / Hardcore Hundred and be sure to post up your results in the comments below or over on my Facebook Fan Page…

Now, The truth is you can get completely JACKED, STRONG, and SHREDDED from straight up bodyweight training.

Look at some of the badass’ that dwell on YouTube that are completely shredded and jacked that do nothing more then train with their own bodyweight…

Some of these guys are absolute FREAKS!

If that isn’t enough proof that bodyweight training can make you jacked up and ripped, check out some of the famous gymnasts of our time…

I’m sure you’ve may of seen this famous pic somewhere before…

When it comes down to building up more muscle and strength with bodyweight training, what you need is VOLUME, PROGRESSION, and a solid eating plan to make it happen.

Let’s get into these points a little bit more…

VOLUME

When it comes to bodyweight training, if you want to gain more mass and pack on more muscle, you’ll have to steadily increase the amount of work you do overtime.

If you consistently do the same number of reps and sets on all of your movements, your body will adapt to the stimulus and never progress.  Anyone smart about training should already know this…

The good thing about bodyweight training is that it doesn’t tax your nervous system to the extremes that heavy weight training does.  This allows for you to add in a ton more volume and still be safe from over-training.

Quick side note…  While I’m a HUGE believer of heavy weight training, it’s not an absolute necessity in order to gain more strength and muscle, especially if you don’t have access to weights.

If you DO have access to weights, I would recommend you use them, but for the sake of this post, we’re talking about how you can get it done without ANY equipment…

Now, back on the topic of volume…  if what you want is to train more often with higher amounts of volume, bodyweight training would be the answer.

Overtime, as you progress and add in more volume to your training, your body will become faster at recovering from workouts, especially when all you’re doing is bodyweight training.

Olympic Gymnasts for example often train multiple times a day 7 days a week.  They are able to do this because their bodies have adapted to the extreme amount and volume they do overtime.

No, these athlete did NOT start off this way….

They PROGRESSED themselves to be able to handle this kind of volume.

Obviously most of us are “normal people”, not Olympic level athletes, so we do NOT need to train this much nor should we.  It just goes to show you that training everyday can be done with great results with gains in strength and muscle.

The good news is, if you want to get jacked up and ripped from bodyweight training, you won’t have to train multiple times a day, 7 days a week…

I’d say you would be fine with training up to 5 days at the max after you’ve built up enough general conditioning.

I would recommend at least 1-2 days rest minimum when training bodyweight, but if all you do is train bodyweight, overtime you could build yourself up to 7 days a week and be fine.

A monthly plan that increases in VOLUME overtime may look like this…

Month 1 – Training Days – Mon, Wed, Friday

Month 2 – Training Days – Mon, Tues, Thurs, Sat

Month 3 – Training Days – Mon, Tues, Wed, Friday, Sat

For sets and reps, you would stick around 3-4 sets per movement, NEVER going to failure with any of your movements (this is key when hitting more volume – when you go to failure in a set, this taxes the nervous system too much – AVOID failure while training for more volume to speed progression).

As far as what movements you do, you would be hitting FULL body workouts every training session, but your main focus would be to hit different planes of motion each day with lots of different variations of movements (see more info on this below).

PROGRESSION

When it comes to progression with bodyweight training, there’s a few different ways we can look at this.

1) Progression in total volume – increasing the amount of work being done each workout overtime.

Combining the idea of what we just talked about, as you add in more VOLUME to your training sessions, you are progressing overtime.  This will lead to more results.

2) Progression in difficulty of movements.

There are literally hundreds of ways you can progress movements.

I’ll let you use your imagination for this, but if you think about it, the basis of overall progression is simple, make your movements harder!

For example…  When a push up gets easy, make it harder by placing your hands in a different position…

Regular Push Up ========>  Close Grip Push Ups

Another way to increase the intensity of the movement or progress the difficulty is by changing the speed.

Regular Push Up ========>  Clapping Push Ups

Another example to really increase the intensity of a movement is to take away one of the other legs or arms…

Regular Push Up ========>  1 Arm Push Ups

You can also make it harder by switching up the movement plane.  By this, I mean instead of doing a regular push up, do a handstand push up instead…

Working in different planes of motion will put a whole new spin on how hard and difficult your bodyweight movements can be.

In fact, you should already be doing this within your bodyweight workouts.  Vary up the movements by switching up the variations.

Use multiple types of push ups, squat, lunges, and pull ups using the different types of set ups I mentioned above.

Those are just a few examples…

SOLID NUTRITION

Now, the final piece to the “get ripped up and jacked up thru bodyweight training” puzzle is everyone’s favorite…  Having A SOLID Nutrition Plan.

I get asked these two questions all the time:

“what exercises should I be doing to get six pack abs and build more muscle at the same time?”

and…

“what type of training program do I need to be doing to get lean and ripped?”

My answer is always the same…

F*cking Eat Right! 

The problem most guys have is that they have their priorities ass backwards.

Most guys think that it all comes down to the training program their doing.  While this is still important, it’s not the MOST important.

What you put into your body through eating is the most important thing in regards to your results.

To make things easy, focus on eating a Paleo like diet.

Cut out your processed junk foods, grains, sugars, dairy, legumes and increase the amount of REAL foods you eat.

One of the most effective and hottest trends right now is with Intermittent Fasting.

It’s nothing new, but more and more people have become aware of it and are now seeing the results first hand.

I for one have been fasting myself 6 days a week for 14-16 hours at a time and the results have been staggering!

I’ve increased my strength, power, and overall fitness performance levels and I’ve also leaned up while not losing any muscle mass (from what I can tell).

The main thing for me has been the increase in energy and performance. 

That’s what I’m truly after.

Now, since I don’t want to make this blog post any more drug out than it already is, the best resource I can supply to you in regards to getting stronger, more jacked up and ripped is to check out Jason Ferruggia’s, “The Renegade Diet”.

This is a full proof plan that I believe will work for anyone that’s willing to follow the principles Jay has written out in his book.

Add this in with what I spoke about above and you’ll be good to go!

So go now, hit up the Thursday Throwdown / Hardcore Hundred I posted above and tear some sh*t up!

After you hit the challenge, post up your results in the comments below or like I mentioned before, on my Facebook Fan Page.

ALSO,  post up your thoughts on comments on what I discussed in this post above.

If you have ZERO access to training equipment, the bits and pieces I discussed above will no doubt help you get more jacked up and ripped!

Live Aggressive and Get Strong!