I just started doing pushups a week or two ago everday along with my training to get some endurance. They helped and i noticed some more endurance. THey didn’t affect my training at all, and i just added bodyweight full squats also everyday for 50reps. These helped even more, and now i’m addicted to endurance exercises, basically matt furey stuff, even though i havent tried anything of his yet. I was wondering if i could gradually increase the squats/pushups without hurting my training. Is there anyone that does 500 hindu squats and pushups and other stuff everyday along with their training? cause i would love to start doing stuff like this, without getting rid of weights. One more thing, i read some places that for pushups you have to touch your chest on the floor, is this true?THanks
Mike Mahler was doing nothing but bodyweight exercises for some time on a daily basis. I know that now he uses bodyweight exercises in conjunction with kettlebell and heavy weight training with a few basic exercises. Hopefully, he’ll give you more insight.
I'm following Coach Davies programs. He uses a mix of bodyweight exercises with weights. I would take a look at some of his unweighted and weighted GPP work that uses bodyweight exercises (pushups, towel chins - awesome!, jumping jacks, star jumps, burpees, mountain climbers, etc). You could easily incorporate this kind of stuff with your workout, and you will make a ton of progress! Especially if you want to drop the weight training. You could get some awesome workouts using bodyweight exercises and a jump rope! And you could always get a kettlebell too! That's all you would need to make some awesome progress and not have to use any "weights" or go to a gym! Cheap and effective. The beginning of a "Renegade" gym as Coach Davies would say.
You may have accidently brought up a tremendous topic of, dare I say, “Health”. The impact of non-weigted exercises and functional movements with say kettlebells upon your quality of life is incredible. Well - I think I owe you because you’ve just given me a topic to write about. In faith, Coach Davies
Hey Ron, what type of training are you doing? Do you do the Pushups and BW squats with your regular workouts or do you do them separate (pushups in morning, weight in afternoon)? What kind of weight training are you doing? I’d like to add bodyweight exercises everyday in addition to my weights (which is not everyday) but am worried about overtraining. It’s good to hear that it’s going well so far.
Ron–I use the hindu push-ups and squats as part of the jump-rope drills outlined by Coach Davies. They have made such a tremendous difference in my overall conditioning. My shoulders look better than ever, and my heavy weight workouts have only improved because of better CV capacity.
Calisthenics, especially when done a la Coach’s GPP, are awesome! I have also started incorporating some of the KB lifts (with dumbbells for now, until I get some real KBs) and they have also really helped me get stronger. You definitely don’t need “conventional” cardio exercises on these programs. This is way more useful and productive, not to mention it’s just plain fun! Not the least bit boring.
The body awareness I have gained is incredible too--really feeling different muscles and how they work, which will also help your lifts in the gym. Good luck!
I would not do 500 squats everyday while lifting weights. It is okay to do 500 squats once or twice a week. I would gradually work up from 50 to 500. For example add 10 squats to your total each day. Do the same thing with pushups and it will not have any negative effects on your weight training. If you are really into bodyweight exercises take a few weeks to few months off of the weights and focus on bodweight exercises. I doubt that you will lose any strength and you will probably be stronger when you return to the weights. I currently do high re hodweight exercises as finishers to my KB workouts. For example I will do 60 hindu pushups with the portable power jumper and 100 squats with the PPJ at the end of some workouts. I also still add in reverse pushups, finger-tip pushups, arms in pushups etc.
if you don’t mind me asking, Why do you want to do these excercises?