Strength Training Using Your Own Body - Training Over 40

“I should head to the gym.”

“I need to start working out.”

Do these sound like you?

Good!

But where do you start?

I’ll help you out.

If there’s a worthwhile use of your time, the answer is getting stronger. But why strength over any other factor? Well let’s assume you clicked this because you want to get stronger or workout or get in shape or, if you’re following along in the series, you’re over 40 and don’t know what to do.

For everyone that owns a body, your ability to use your body determines the physical quality of life you have. The stronger your body is, the more it can produce force and the more it can handle the every day things you have to do, whether that be picking stuff up, getting out of a chair, or carrying stuff from point A to point B.

Yet when we think “get stronger” we think maxing out on a squat in a gym.

If you’re intimidated, you’re still not off the hook, you just have to starting using the purest piece of exercise equipment out there:

Your own body.

Bodyweight Strength Still Works

For a personal experience, when I was in middle school, I really wanted to be stronger. I really wanted to lift heavy. But since we weren’t going to a gym (I’m not sure I was allowed at my age), I just stuck to a TON of pushups in my room before high school. The head coach recommended pushups and running for anyone about to enter football as a freshman, so I started running too. Not fun.

I finally made it to high school and was able to lift. We did lifting but also still did a ton of other bodyweight movements as well. Very quickly was my body able to get a handle on the bench press (my favorite lift at the time). I’m not sure when exactly, but I was able to hit 225 pretty early on. Not the strongest guy in the world, but I think my body was ready to do the movement since I was doing it all the time with my own bodyweight. Dips also came easily to me. Fancy that.

When I became a fancy college student, I still kept in pullups and dips.

After college, I threw most of my bodyweight exercises out the window and just lifted. I got out of that exactly what I put in: I ended up getting a bit stiffer and slower. I should have realized that everything is related and there are ways to keep things in to keep using your own body.

Strongmen In History (No Barbells Required)

I recently re-read the story of Herschel Walker. If you don’t know him, he was a college-level football player and track athlete, running back in the NFL, USA bobsled team member and UFC fighter. He also did some ballet. How’s that for a physical resume?

But when he was a wee lad, he wasn’t athletic at all. Getting advice from one of his brothers’ track coach, he started doing a ton of bodyweight exercises and sprints. This meant thousands of reps per day in pushups, pullups, etc. When he did touch a barbell, he maxed out at 375lbs. Not sure how long it took him to get there, and there’s the whole “yea but he had great genetics” argument, but it’s still a pretty good number. It also seems like all those pushups reps did something for him.

We can see this repeated in other athletes:

• Gymnasts who lift well despite not lifting for most of their lives.

• Old school strongmen who used their own bodies starting out then moved over to weights.

• Sprinters, throwers and other athletes who are freaks with the barbell, despite taking seasons “off” from lifting.

Then there’s you.

You’re probably older than a college student, and let’s be honest, starting out with lifting weight can be a scary idea. Even if you’re not older, you might have at least a few years of being sedentary under your belt, making the barbell scary (even though it doesn’t have to be).

There are things you can do to work up to that point, and that’s good ole calisthenics.

A Simple Body Weight Program

Step 1: Pick the Movements

Don’t overcomplicate things.

Start with the basic planes of motions a human can do. These will be boring, but you have to cover the basics before you worry about other stuff.

• Pushups - Can later lead to dips and handstand pushups.

• Pull-ups

• Squats - Can be made harder with pistols

• Bridges - Good for your back. It’s not a deadlift, but it extends your hips so I just picked it and went with it.

• Leg raises - For good measure

Step 2: Make Them Harder

Over time, you need to make these harder. Yes you can do a lot of reps, but there comes a point in time when you need to do something harder than 100 pushups against the wall.

As an example with the pushup, once you can do a decent amount of reps against the wall, move to a counter. Then go on the floor on your knees. Then do them on your feet. Then do them with narrow hands. You can see that this provides plenty of progressions to work on.

Step 3: Gateway to the Bar

You can use these movements as a gateway to the barbell. If you can do a ton of dips, then you’ll probably have a decent time learning and getting stronger on the bench press. If you can do pike or handstand pushups, you’ll have an easier time moving to a 45lbs barbell.

Even if you don’t want to lift, then the world is yours because if you wanted to dabble in it down the road, your body will be ready.

Step 4: As Assistance Exercises

For my people that love the iron, make sure you keep up with your bodyweight movements.

Why?

To keep yourself limber and able to do more than waddling to the squat rack, doing 3 reps and waddling to sit back down.

Keep in chin-ups, dips, and single leg movements to stay in balance. You don’t have to go crazy to the point of it interfering with your regular lifting, just sprinkle them in “for completion” or just as assistance exercises if you have any weak spots.

One example of this is using a chin-up. It has no direct same movement with the barbell (unless you maybe count a barbell row), but it helps balance out your upper body from all the pressing you’re probably doing and even help make them stronger.

Step 5: Research Programming That Fits You

There are as many programs for calisthenics as there are humans in the world (maybe). My best recommendation is to just find one that fits you.

• If you only want to do bodyweight workouts, do them a few days per week.

• If you want to master a new progression, do 21 reps per day or something like Grease the Groove (doing half the reps you could do sprinkled through the day).

• Do them twice per week after your main lifting sessions.

Use The Gym That Stays With You

There’s a new meme that provides both tough love and solid life advice:

“Just go to the gym.”

Yes, the gym is a wonderful place. Everyone is in there trying to improve, so you’re encouraged to do the same.

But if someone really doesn’t have the time to go, is intimidated to go or doesn’t want to dish out the gym fees, then there are still no excuses for getting stronger.

Again, I know there’s the argument of whether a 300lbs bench or a bunch of dips is stronger, but I think it’s just splitting hairs. Watch someone do 100 pullups in a row or free standing handstands and tell me they’re not a strong person.

Now for all my 40 and above people:

There really are no excuses.

I understand that life is a lot different for you now because responsibilities have formed, but your body is literally right under your nose. If all you did was wake up 30 minutes early and do 2-3 sets of 2 bodyweight movements per day (check out Convict Conditioning for that program), then you can make huge changes in your strength, physique and health.

That’s about 1/4 the time you’d spend on social media anyway.

Now it’s time to put that time to good use.

Thanks for reading! As always if you have any questions feel free to respond to this newsletter or you can fill out this questionnaire.