New to the forum and dedicated to bodyweight

[framptonbmx]

Hey everybody,

My name's Bob. I'm from New Jersey and I started doing basic bodyweight training about a year ago. I'm 25 years old, 6'2" and 170 lbs. I seem to have a lot of trouble building muscle because of my height, I think. I do pushups, pullups, chinups, dips, and crunches, but I have never lifted any type of weight in my entire life (other than my own). My goals are to be able to do a muscle-up, a handstand pushup, a one-armed pushup, a human flag, and a dragon flag. I just bought a weight vest hoping I could achieve that muscle up by doing weighted dips and pullups. If any of you pros have any advice please help me to achieve my ridiculously lofty goals. I look forward to having all you hardcore bodyweight pros inspire me to train harder.

[Dave.cyco]

Hey FramptonBMX! Welcome to BWC.

Weighted dips and pullups should help with the muscle up, but there seem to be other tricks involved too. Patricularly the transition, which seems to be the hradest part to train for. I haven't trained for the muscle up so someone else can give you more info on that.

I am 6'6" and 185#, so I feel your pain in the lankiness department. I have recently commited myself to incorporating powerlifting as a large part of my training, and I can already tell that it is going to help me put on some serious muscle.

My last session involved barbell squats and deadlifts, as well as 1 arm chin (OAC) and 1 arm push up progressions (OAP). So you can mix up your training styles if you want and still get good results.

[framptonbmx]

Hey Dave,

Thanks for the quick reply. I don't really have access to a gym or weights, so I'm hoping that with enough weight in my weight vest added onto my bodyweight training, with time I will be able to develop muscle that way. Here's to hoping and training hard.

[greenfitness]

I only have one word of advice for you. Diet.

This is going to be your critical factor. Eat lots of good calories fruits and vegetables are my choice. Some may disagree but as I have said in previous post these items are what I feel humans were meant to consume. Opinions vary on this but make informed decisions. I did not get to this point over night. I used to lift weights, hit the gym take down the protein shakes like mad, the bills, the creatine all the latest hype with non of the glory. You are going to need to take in lots of calories and put in good workouts. The weighted vest will help with muscle building. Also performing more advanced levels of the workouts will help. Take a look under articles at the 20 level challenge will help to give you some good ideas.

[CSta]

Framp, as far as building muscle mass is concerned, many experts recommend exercises that permit only 8-12 repetitions per set. See the Position Stand issued by the American College of Sports Science. http://www.acsm-msse.org. Click on Position Stands on the left hand side. The article was issued in 2002. Thus, you'll want to perform your BW exercises in such a manner as to permit only 8-12 reps per set.