Hybrid and Bodyweight Strength Training For Maximum Results and Health

      My journey to my current hybrid training method began in the winter of 2012.  My passion for everything strength and conditioning related is always leading me to research new ways (at least for me) to get stronger, bigger, and more powerful.  I had just finished my first full season as a college football player at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  After having three ACL tears in three years I was excited to be healthy and ready to take my strength to the next level for the next season.  I fell in love with Olympic style weight training, which concentrates on the snatch and the clean and jerk, as well as their variations.  I immersed myself in Olympic lifting, and tried to learn everything I could about the technique and the style of lifting that produced unbelievable strength and power in top-notch Olympic lifters.  Unfortunately, combined with the training I was doing with my football team in the offseason, I took it too far.  I was stronger then ever before, and was able to achieve a 310 pound front squat and a 410 pound back squat, as well as a 250 pound clean and jerk, but I gave up something far more important, my health.

          What’s the point of having max strength if you’re too injured to use it?  One day I was training with my football team and was deadlifting 430 for my fourth set a three, when I felt a snap in my back.  I figured it was nothing and kept lifting.  The next morning, I could barely move.  I had to literally roll off my bed, I couldn’t tie my shoes to go to work, I couldn’t even sit up at work.  But I was so sure that I could just will myself through it, I kept lifting.  For two weeks I tried to continue to lift in the way I had, with mixed results.  Then one day, which practicing jerks from the box, I felt another snap in my back, this one more pronounced.  I immediately crumbled to the floor.

            Within the next week I began therapy for my back, and was forced to miss multiple spring football practices.  After an MRI, I found out that I had herniated two discs in my lower back.  The damage wasn’t serious, or career threatening, (as herniations go) but it was serious enough that if I didn’t take care of myself, I could do permanent and irreversible damage.  The trainer who had told me three times that I had torn my ACL sat me down and told me I needed to rest and do rehab, and consider a complete stop to heavy lifting in order to regain my health. 

              I was lost.  I had devoted so much time to Olympic lifting and heavy strength training, I didn’t know where to turn.  I loved training and I didn’t want to give it up and become weak and out of shape.  So I began, as I always had, to research.  I decided to go back and listen to and watch the teachings of a man who had helped me get started in kickass strength training years before, Zach Evenesh.  Zach is a strength coach who owns The Underground Strength Gym in Edison, New Jersey.  Years before, his videos had inspired me to work hard and have passion for the gym, to utilize bodyweight training, especially pull ups and its variations, as well as do the basics, like squat, deadlift, and bench press.  In this case, I was inspired by his love of bodyweight training.  He preached the power of bodyweight training, and had, after years of being under the bar, had sustained injuries very similar to mine, and had used bodyweight training to build strength and heal the body and mind.  Having concentrated on lifting heavy for so long, I was concerned about getting away from the barbell, and figured I’d have to sacrifice muscle and strength. 

            I was wrong.  As I did more research, I discovered other trainers and athletes who utilized bodyweight training to do incredible things.  Bar Brothers, Barstarzz, and Calisthenics Kingz, among other “bar athletes” utilized nothing but bodyweight training to build muscle and bodyweight control.  I realized that I hadn’t maximized my bodyweight training.  Bodyweight exercises, which I had always just thought of as push ups, pull ups, split squat jumps, and dips, were varied, intense, and flat out fun.  I began experimenting and practicing handstands, handstand push ups, gymnastics rings dips, L-sits, front and back levers, hand walking on parallel bars, muscle ups, squat jumps, kneeling broad jumps…the list goes on and on.  For most of the summer, I trained outdoors, getting away from the gym in favor of training on my elementary school playground and at the local parks.  Gone were the days of two and three-hour gym grinds using max clean and jerk and back squats.  Now I was working out with speed and intensity, utilizing a single 70 pound kettlebell and a 130 plus pound sandbag and my own bodyweight.  My workouts were no more then an hour long, but I was burning through fat and building athleticism, muscle, and strength like I’d never had before.  I was having fun and getting the results I wanted.  I was hooked.  Slowly, I began to implement barbell squats and deadlifts back into my routine once a week each.  My max strength is returning, and my bodyweight strength and athleticism is at an all time high.  At a bodyweight of 235 pounds, I can see my abdominal muscles for the first time ever, I can do five consecutive muscle ups, nearly 20 straight pullups, full body plyometric push ups, and can deadlift over 400 pounds less than three months after herniating two discs in my lower back.  Most importantly, I can do it all without pain.

       The point is, too many people focus SOLEY on weight training.  Everyday I see people on Facebook talk about how they’re going to the gym to “grind” or workout.  They go and do every conceivable exercise using dumbbells and barbells to attack every single muscle individually from every possible angle thinking that this is the way to strength and size.  Newsflash…they’re wasting their time.  The key to strength, size, and athleticism lies in doing basic athletic movements.  Squats, deadlifts, overhead pressing, and bench press heavy, carry heavy objects like kettlebells and sandbags, and utilize bodyweight and gymnastics movements like front and back levers, handstands, muscle ups, pull ups and push ups, and every conceivable variation of them.  This type of hybrid training builds strength and muscle that’s useful and functional, not that ballooned up bodybuilder crap that has no real use.  Time to man up, and become a stronger and healthier human being.  Invest in bodyweight training, you won’t be disappointed.