Periodic Table of Bodyweight Exercises (Clickable)

What Are The Muscles In The Arm?

Yeah, we’re starting off with the basics here.

I’m not going to get into too many details here. For general purpose, here’s what you need to know:

Shoulder Muscles (Deltoids) – Lift up the arm up

Bicep Muscles – Flex the elbow

Tricep Muscles – Extend the arm

Forearm/Hand Muscles – Flex and extend the hand and fingers

Yep, told you we would stay basic.

You can get very detailed in regard to muscle insertion and origins and actions.

Is it necessary? Not really, but it can help if you are working on creating your own arm exercises and are trying target a specific muscle.

Video

How To Make Any Of These Exercises Harder

Ok, that should give you a great starting point for your bodyweight arm training.

However, remember that you must try to fatigue within a certain rep range depending on your goal in order to (a) build muscle (b) build strength or (c) build endurance.

So here are 3 techniques that I like to incorporate into some of the sets in order to make them harder.

1. Increase Time Under Tension

Spending more time under tension will help you fatigue the muscle more effectively. If you find an exercise too easy you can very quickly make it harder by decreasing your speed of the positive (concentric) and negative (eccentric) phase of the movement.

2. Focus On The Eccentric Contraction

The eccentric phase of the movement is when the muscle is lengthening but its under tension. Research has shown that this phase is where most of the muscle damage is done. If your goal is to build muscle, then spend most of your time here.

3. Increase Squeeze While Doing Movement

In my Isometrics Strength program I go into this in more detail but essentially you can squeeze the muscle harder than what is needed to perform the movement. This uses dynamic tension and recruits more muscle fibers. Its a great way to tear more muscle tissue.

The Benefits Of Training Your Core Directly

Why should you use exercises that focus on your core?

Aren’t bodyweight exercises targeting your core anyway?

Yes, calisthenics exercises do train your core (especially as you progress to more advanced movements) and, as you’re going to see, some of the movements below are full body exercises.

As such, you can “get away” without targeting your core directly.

However, you’re missing on some great benefits of direct core training.

Benefit #1: More Core Strength

Let’s be real.

It just common sense that if you train your core directly, your core strength is going to be a lot greater than if you trained it only indirectly.

Which, leads us to…

Benefit #2: Achieve Advanced Moves Faster

Almost all advanced calisthenics moves require a strong core.

A great example is the front lever.

Training for a front lever is going to strengthen your core, however, if you can already perform a dragon flag, you’ll be able to achieve the front lever must faster, cause you already have the necessary core strength for the movement.

Bodyweight Exercises For The Lower Back

Here you’re going to find the bodyweight exercises that target your lower back.

The movement pattern that will be trained is spine extension along with some stabilization.

The exercises are divided into 2 categories based on their difficulty.

Bodyweight Core Exercise #51: Reverse Plank

This exercise can be also done for reps.

In addition, it can be used as a shoulder stretch as well.

Bodyweight Core Exercise #53: Superman Exercise

This exercise can be done for reps or hold it for time.

Bodyweight Core Exercise #58: Headstand Presses

In the beginning, use a wall for safety.

You can also put a pillow under your head so it doesn’t hurt.

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