The Bodyweight & Barbell Workout

How I Combine Bodyweight Training With Barbell Workout

• Bodyweight movements test your mobility and strength.
• You can be as strong as an ox but if you cant lift yourself up then you lack real-world strength.
• Bodyweight exercises have carry over to the weighted lifts.
• You don’t need to be a calisthenics pro to be able to do bodyweight exercises which can make you strong, lean and muscular.
• When bodyweight exercises and related weighted movements are combined together, it gives you hell of a workout with less weights on the bar.

Why Bodyweight?

Many people in a typical gym can squat a lot but when you ask them to do a deep squat with just their bodyweight then they struggle to do so. So, where did all the strength go? The strength that was developed by squatting hundreds of pounds every week?

The answer is this. The strength is still there but it doesn’t carry over to squatting down naturally .

Doing a deep bodyweight squat needs your hips to have enough mobility so that it can stretch , contract and extend through out the entire motion of squat. Also years of squatting without heavy without any thought to flexibility eats up the mobility of most lifters.

By lifters I don’t mean athletes. Athletes need to be flexible and thus pay serious attention to mobility and flexibility. When I say “lifters”, I am talking about your average gym guy or the big hulking guy at your gym who takes up all the available plates.

Any bodyweight movement for example squats, forces you to do a full range of motion and this requires you to have good mobility in your body. When done right, the mobility gain from the bodyweight exercise carry's over to the weight lift and can help you to have a greater range of motion in the weight lift and thus results in strength gain.

There is another advantage in including bodyweight movements in your daily workouts.

Once again we will take squat as an example.

Let’s say in your gym or your home you just have a barbell and a pair of 20kg plates. You are a seasoned lifter and can lift more than 100 pounds while squatting. Now, in this scenario you just have those 20kg pair and nothing else.

Here, you can do two things to keep your workouts challenging and gaining strength and muscle.

• Increase the reps in squats. Say, you do 100 reps with those 20kg pair on the barbell.
• Do a few sets of bodyweight squats and then do a couple of sets of weighted squats with those 20kg pair on the barbell.

The first approach is good. It can help you look macho I get it. There’s nothing more macho then doing 100 reps squats. Isn’t it?

You know what ? If you are busy, have a full time job or have kids then going to the gym and doing 100 reps squats is just a serious waste of time. There is a place for high rep squats and I do it time and again but it’s not for everyone and it’s not for every situation.

So, what you do? You can follow the second approach.

Do a few sets of bodyweight squats and then do a couple of sets of weighted squats with those 20kg pair on the barbell.

How To Do It?

Here’s how to do it →

1. Step-ups: 3sets, 12 reps- The key is to go slow on this. Don’t pace up during the movement. Lower yourself slowly and raise your self slowly. Going slow will put more stress on your muscles and will help them to get fatigued with low reps. This is what we want i.e. to pre-fatigue your muscles before the main movement.
2. Paused Front Squats: 2 sets, 8 reps- Pause halfway during the squat i.e. go down and the while coming up pause when your thighs are parallel to the floor. Pause there for 10 secs and then come up. This completes 1 rep.
3. Paused Glute bridge with feet close to your body: 2sets, 8 reps- Keeping your feet close to your body attacks the hamstrings more. The key here is to pause on the top of the motion. Pause for 5–10 secs and squeeze your glutes and hams as hard as you can for the entire period.
4. Stiff legged deadlift:2sets,8 reps- While lowering the bar down, don’t just lower it but push your hips backward. This places more emphasis on the hamstrings.

The above template looks simple but if done right then your muscles would be fatigued long before moving onto the weighted movements. This will allow you to reach to failure with less weights in your weighted movements. This is also the principle of muscle building.

What Would Such A Program Look Like?

Here’s a template for you.

Now, this is not an end-all-be-all program as nothing is set in stone. This can either be used as such or can be used as a template to build your own program.

However, there are some underlying principles on which this template is built.

The movements on which this program is focused are →

• Hip Hinge
• Push
• Pull

Look’s simple! Well that’s the idea.

I want to keep my programs as simple as possible.

Let’s loo into what a typical week would look like.

Week1-Day1

• Glute Bridge-3*12 → Squeeze your glutes and hamstrings on the top of the movement. Hold the squeeze for 5–10 secs and then lower your hips to the floor. This completes 1 rep. Continue this for 12 reps for 3 sets
• Feet Elevated Glute Bridge-3*12 →The same movement as above but keep your feet elevated on a chair or on couple of plates. Squeeze your glutes and hamstrings on the top of the movement. Hold the squeeze for 5–10 secs and then lower your hips to the floor. This completes 1 rep. Continue this for 12 reps for 3 sets.
• Paused Front Squats-2*8 → After hitting the bottom position in the squat and then while coming up, pause when your thighs are parallel to the floor. Pause for 5–10 secs and then come up. This completes 1 rep. Continue this for 8 reps for 2 sets.
• Paused Calf Raises-3*12 →Pause for 5–10 secs at the position where your heels are raised. Do this for 12 reps for 3 sets.
• Cardio of your choice.

Week1-Day2

• Pull ups- 30reps
• Dands(10 reps-EMOM-10mins)- Dands are traditional pushups which originated in India and are a staple of wrestlers in India. This works out the chest, back, hamstrings and your entire core. This is a push-pull exercise on steroids. Perform 10 reps of this every-min-on-min i.e. set your clock’s timer to 1 min and then start doing 10 reps. The remaining secs of the 1min will be your rest period. Once the first 1min lap completes set the timer to 1min again and then do 10 reps. Continue doing this for 10mins. The formula is simple. The faster you pump out reps in a 1min lap the more you get to rest.

Here is a video to help you get started with Dands.

• Squat cleans(5 reps-EMOM-10Mins)- Perform 5 reps of squat cleans for every min-on-min. If you can’t do cleans then here is an alternative —
• Stiff legged dead lifts(10 reps-EMOM-10Mins)-This too has the hip hinge m(5 reps-EMOM-10Mins)

Week1-Day3

• Wall assisted handstand pushups-30 reps
• Chest Dips-30 reps
• Bodyweight Tricep Extensions-30 reps
• Push Press-20 reps
• Turkish Getups-20 reps
• Cardio of your choice.

Week2-Day1

• Snatch grip Deadlift/Good morning(10 Mins EMOM)- Do these exercises back to back with 10 reps of each exercise every minute on minute.
• Barbell Row/Situps/Jump rope(10 mins EMOM)- Do these exercises back to back with 10 reps of each exercise every minute on minute.

Week2-Day2

• Handstand pushups 10 reps(5 Mins EMOM)
• L-sits(5 Mins EMOM) — Every minute target to hold the L-sit position for as long as you can, preferably for 20 secs at least.
• Pushups(5 Mins EMOM) — Every minute target to complete 10 reps of pushups.
• Leg raise(5 Mins EMOM) — Every minute target to complete 10reps of leg raise.

Week2-Day3

• 50 Pike Pushups on Plates- This is like a regular pike-pushups but instead of placing your palms on the floor, place them on the edge of plates. So, that when you lower yourself during the movement then you will have to travel extra distance towards the floor to touch your head to the ground.
• 50 Good Mornings.
• 20 Turkish Getups.
• 20 Rope jumps.

Week3-

In this week pick up the exercises from week 1 and week 2 in which you were weak. Try to beat the number of reps you did in these exercises for the past week or beat the intensity in these exercises.

For example if you were weak in push-ups such that you were not able to complete the number of sets or reps in the past weeks then try to beat those numbers this week.

Do note that this week is not a “test” week but rather a progression week. The goal of this week is to really push yourself in your weakest movements and in the process, emerging stronger than the previous weeks.

Conclusion

Nothing is written in stone so feel free to modify this routine as per your needs but keep the philosophy same.