Back To The Basics!

Overhead Pressing is badass

It's tempting to get caught up doing all kinds of crazy assistance work.  Bands and chains are all the rage these days, and they can without a doubt help improve strength and explosiveness in EXPERIENCED lifters if utilized PROPERLY in a training program.  However, people tend to overcomplicate their training programs, worrying and relying far too heavily on exercises that they often don't understand, just because they read about them in some drug store magazine or saw a professional athlete or roided up guy perform them on the Internet.  Without a doubt, the easy access to information in today' world of technology has been both extremely beneficial, and detrimental.  On one hand, there is a wealth of information at our fingertips whenever we want it, which allows us to be more educated than ever before, but at the same time, we have also lost touch with what worked for us in the first place.

With that in mind, today's workout brought it all back home.  All that was needed was a barbell, our own bodyweight, and a single resistance band.  We banged out this upper body session in about an hour and a half, resting very little between the bodyweight supersets.  My push press felt strong, and I was able to handle more weight than I have been.  I'm loving the overhead pressing for building strength and explosive power in the whole body, and the bodyweight supersets had me both gassed and feeling an incredible pump.  Don't neglect bodyweight training.  Too many people think because they can bang out a few pushups and pull ups that bodyweight training is no longer useful and they have to use weights to build mass and get stronger.  Bodyweight training is powerful beyond words.  It can help you build muscle, strength, athleticism, lose weight, and train even when you can't access a gym.  If you want to truly be strong, you better be able to handle your own bodyweight.  Get after it and let me know what you think.

If you want to see the workout of the day in the morning or ask questions of me or anyone else who trains with us regularly request to be added to the group "JMSB" on Facebook.

General Warmup
Dynamic Warmup

Bear Crawls
Crab Walks
Scapula Pushups--2x10
Pushups--2x10

Band Pull Aparts--2x20
Band Rows--2x10
Band Pull Downs--2x10
Band Triceps Extensions--2x10

Power
Jammer--4x5

Strength
Push Press--4x8 (Increase weight each set, should fail on 8th rep of 4th set)
--Worked up to a set of 8 at 187 lbs

Assistance
Wide-Grip Lat Pulldowns--3x12

Bodyweight Circuit #1--50 Reps of each in as few sets as possible
Pushup Variation (Do a different pushup variation each time)
Inverted Rows

Bodyweight Circuit #2
Dips--2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12
Pull Ups--2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12

Pull Ups are one of the best upper body
exercises you can do and you can do
them anywhere

Gun Show
2 Board Press--60% of Estimated 1RM Floor Press
2xFailure (Humbling)

Rehab/Abs--3 Rounds
Band Face Pulls--15


Choice Abs (Sprinter Sit Ups)--12 each side