Yeah, after…something. May as well be goblet squats, she has the KBs.
1 Like
Or uneven loaded (cos she’s got two different weight KBS) overhead KB squats!
1 Like
Why?
What makes regular pushups more basic than 1-arm pushups? Why are they a necessary exercise? If she’s trying to get stronger, why bust out 30+ regular pushups at a sub-100 body weight?
Same goes for goblet squats, why are they better or more important than pistols? She’s too advanced to get strong with 45 lbs goblet squats.
Those things are good for warmup sets but they’re not necessary.
1 Like
I actually want to get good at pistols and 1 arm pushups though. Keeps my mind off of how much I hate not being able to lift barbells
I thnk this is a good way to add volume week over week when I can’t add pistol reps
yeah… I reckon I’d hit a 250lb squat before that happens 
If trying to combine the “basic-ness” of pushups and the whatever-ness of 1-arm pushups could you just elevate your feet while doing pushups? It’d make them a little harder but you could still push reps and also would have a very simple way of gauging your progress (higher and higher elevation).
Because this is a girl who has obvious issues with being underweight, and encouraging her to do ego movements that take advantage of that fact is irresponsible. She can EASILY load herself and do bilateral exercises instead, getting more benefit from it and actually working towards her goals those bilateral movements. Pistol squats are never going to help her squat X times her body weight or whatever, but they might give her a permanent knee injury. And yes, 50 regular pushups is better than 5 shitty one armed pushups. She can easily find ways to make pushups tougher if she is somehow too good at them.
In this case, doing only unilateral movements seems odd to me.
1 Like
I can do HSPU and lots of them, just don’t have a good wall (all of the ones in the garage have a groove that tears up my scalp). surfaces aren’t great either
1 Like
You’ve made a lot of assumptions in that post.
What does being underweight have to do with it?
What makes something an “ego movement”?
How can she easily load herself bilaterally?
Why is bilateral loading more beneficial?
Where did Anna say her goals were all related to bilateral lifts?
Why won’t pistol squats help her squat X times her BW?
What makes pistol squats dangerous?
Have you seen her perform 1-arm pushups? Her form was shitty?
1 Like
I am not going to spend time rebutting any of this, it is up to Anna to figure out what she is going to do and how she is going to do it.
But this log is the one place in all these forums you can go to find the most shitty advice given to a person, and that person routinely follows exactly the advice she wants to hear despite it being so obviously against her best interests. In my opinion, this is just more of that.
Those weren’t arguments, they were just questions, there’s nothing to rebut.
My opinion is that this log is full of good advice.
1 Like
Gonna have to disagree here. I don’t see any way in which a resistance level you can do 50+ reps of is more effective for anything, but maybe cardio, than an exercise you are hitting 5-8 reps on and progressing.
Look at the push up world record holder, can do thousands yet has the chest development of someone who would struggle to bench 225.
That’s exactly what one arm pushups are doing.
I apologize for the aggressive tone from my other posts (@vision), I had a hair up my ass for unrelated reasons.
But that said, I sorta agree with the advice generally speaking…but in this specific case, I would not personally recommend any exercises to Anna that specifically take advantage of and improve as a result of her low bodyweight. I would recommend things that encourage her to put on weight and progress that way. I think that means bilateral movements that are somehow weighted and made more difficult. Not unilateral movements that take advantage of low bodyweight.
It did seem a bit out of character.
Thats not the purpose at all. The problem is that normal push-ups are doing the exact same thing, bodyweight movements are always easier at low bodyweight. Given her available equipment a one-arm pushup is the best way she has to overload that movement currently. There are other bilateral variations that are more difficult, I believe I have sugested a few previously, but getting 6 good reps out on a one arm is a very good level of tension on the muscles she is trying to train, much more so than a push-up marathon. It’s not some contortionist trick to do a one-arm push-up, and its only an ego lift if you are doing it to show off, not to train. They were the staple of my COVID training also, with me doing 4 or 5 reps at the start, and up to 15 reps a few months later.
Many many people have given many good suggestions to this end.
Unilateral and bilateral movements both take advantage of low bodyweight as I said before, and the problem is that as far as i understand she doesn’t have the equipment available to mechanically load either. That being the case, using leverage to increase tension rather than load is the next best alternative.
You seem to have this view that all unilateral exercises are juggling on a bosu ball while curling and balancing a squat bar on your head, I’m no lover of that added instability nonesense, but basic unilateral exercises are not the same thing. There is a basic stability hurdle to overcome initially, after that its just straight up tension like any bilateral movement.
2 Likes
No, I do see the benefits of the unilateral movements and will generally concede your points. I am just not convinced all the bilateral possibilities have been explored.
For example, I am still trying to wrap my head around this comment:
I mean…you can’t find a wall? Lol. Obviously HSPUs are a vertical press rather than a horizontal one, but surely this could be worked in.
I make this specific point about the HSPUs because being able to do them at all is something a lot of people only wish they could do, because they are fantastic.
1 Like
No disagreement. I think HSPUs are a very good exercise. As I’ve said from the start the goal is tension without bias toward or away from either bilateral or unilateral. Whether its uni or bi is almost entirely irrelevant as long as you can overcome the initial balance hurdle IMO. I would whole heartedly reccomend HSPU’S and did them regularly in my lockdown training.
2 Likes
Hahaha, I thought you might have meant something like that. I have sometimes smashed my own head on the floor panel, and believe me, it sucks even more when your head is shaved clean.
The solution is easy, though…scooch your hands an inch or two away from the wall, or as far as it takes to eliminate the problem.
Or even more hilariously, wear a helmet.
1 Like
Tip for hand stand pushups.
I do mine with my hands about 45cm from the wall, I then have one leg straight up in the air, the other leg bent at 90 degrees with the foot against the wall (distance from the wall determined by the distance from your knee to sole).
That way you are never scraping your body against the wall, but are still pressing vertically.
At the top of the press your knee is at 90 degrees, but your foot doesnt slide as your press, you just extend your leg so your are at ~45 degrees at the bottom. No head banging, no scraping and texture of the wall is irrelevant.
3 Likes
No worries, I don’t come on T-nation to get heated, I just like to hear different people’s ideas.
When I first started lifting I had a belief, I assume I came up with it, that bodyweight loading was best to lose weight and external loading was best to gain weight. The idea was that the body KNOWS what the stressor is and adapts as needed to improve (ie. lose weight to make calisthenics easier). For example, I thought pullups were better for cutting weight and building relative strength and pull-downs were better for bulking up …
I don’t think the body has any idea.
For someone like Anna, who has a tendency to work as hard as possible, who thinks the more tiring a workout is the more effective it is, and who generally tries to work off calories, I think the more she removes from her training the better off she will be. Anna has gone from training hard 7 days a week with a high work:rest ratio to training 3-4 days per week with an exercise selection that allows her to remain in a strength focused rep range. I think she’s making good progress and I don’t understand what your concern was yesterday.
3 Likes