IronGarm

An e-buddy sent me this, and I was at odd with what to do yesterday, since I didn't feel like achyballin'.

So, I watched the vid, and combined some of the beginner and intermediate stuff and did it.

Took me ~29 minutes to do. Displayed my weak points....i.e. it took me 7 sets to do 30 chins with a band assisting me, but I easily and quickly did all the squatting work and most of the push up work in one set.

Pros:

1. Balanced, whole-body workout - Very effective and efficient
2. Minimal equipment (chin up bar)
3. Progressive difficulty and skill levels - Steve does a very nice job scaling this up and down. His expertise and experience shines though on this aspect.
4. Clear "progression" triggers
5. Good production

Cons:
1. Ill Advised marketing tactics (lots of hate reviews on Amazon about the title and marketing)
2. Tad expensive.

I should look at this product. The price was a put off for me.

The generic parameters are:

300 quality reps. 5 supersets (so, like 30 reps each movement)

1. chin/push up
2. squat/abs
3. inverted row/dive bomber push up
4. wide stance squatting (cossacks)/abs
5. mountain climber/squat thrust or burpee

What I liked was the progression lay out.

I liked it as well.
It's nothing earth shattering really and I didn't really learn a lot fo new stuff, though some of the push.up variations are pretty neat.

The price is pretty high but that's nothing some googling can't solve...

I feel pretty much the same as above. I like the dvd a lot and it was cool to finally have some good directions on the Iranian/half-moon pushups. I also like the one where you start in a down dog, drop the butt about 6 inches from the heels, then proceed to an upward dog. I think he called these pull throughs? Anyway, I liked the way it was laid out. Very good imo. The title is kinda ghey though.

I like the pullup rig. Is that Jeff Martone's deal?

Edit: The pull throughs are what is shown on his Maxwell Challenge on his blog.

Yes, getting the Iranian pu's down would be good; I find those confusing.

The pullthroughs are also very much like what the next to last (?) Flowfit flow is like. Or maybe it's the last one. Anyway, like a divebomber but substantially harder IMO.

We called the "iranian" push ups "Schabels" after our wrestling coach in high school

While we're on the subject, does anyone remember Maxwell's "screw" pushups, or is that another name for the Iranians? I seem to remember them from the Coach Reeve clinic I went to last(?) year.

Just think about tucking your head under your arm as you go to the side. I becomes very natural.

IIRC, Sonnon demoed them first.

Does it look anything like this?

http://maxwellsc.blogspot.com/2008/04/m ... -move.html

Shaf, so you would do 30 chins supersetted with 30 pushups before going on to 30 squats and 30 abs and so on?

Yeah.

For me it's 7-9 sets of pull ups, and 1 set of push ups. Ridiculous.

That's exactly how it would be for me too. I might have to work some 2:1 ratios.

That's the pull through or whatever he calls it. Not the half moon / Iranian pushup.

From the comments section:

What comments section? That quote sounds familiar.

Unfortunately, Indian yogi's are probably not all that super strong either. They can probably climb a rope, because that's how they earn money during the snake charming intermission.

The trouble with bodyweight routines and with the internet is that everything is out there, now. Everything.

1. The exotic and acrobatics/gymnastics based workouts are really going to be far beyond most adults means to develop, unless they come from a gymnastics background. Let's be honest here, a 220# man isn't going to develop at Iron Cross or his levers if he's never done them before. Unique exercises are either too hard for the average joe to pick up, or their value is negligible when compared to a similar, more common exercise.

2. With the easy access to more exercises than you can really work, what it ends up boiling down to is that you need to put them in some kind of order or template, and allow the synergism of the workout to exceed the sum of it's parts. I think Maxwell does it well here. Scrapper did it well with his Mod 1, and, of course, Ross Enamait did it better than everyone else in his Never Gymless.

A few worthwhile substitutions.

Renegade Rows.
Unilateral leg work.

I'm quite pleased with this. My workouts using this template are evolving towards faster times and harder movements.

Today was the combination of the hardest movements I've chosen, yet, along with the fastest time.

This is false on many levels.

1. The typical American yoga class is bullshit furniture yoga filled with inflexible and weak people but this has more to do with the typical American than the typical yogi and it is certainly not indicative of a consistent yoga practitioners.

2. Western-style yoga has already been re-invented 12 times over. What he calls for has already been in use for many years. See Bikram's. See Asthanga. See Power Yoga. See Baptiste.

3. Any serious practitioner of the above mentioned styles of yoga, which are all really Western despite any claims to the contrary, is certainly strong when it comes to bodyweight stuff.

4. Yoga has much more to offer exercise than exercise has to offer yoga.

5. By the end of this decade I predict that Maxwell will be living in the modern day version of the Manson Ranch complete with groupies and all the jerky one can eat. Some of his more recent tomes are revealing the cracks in his (mental) foundation.

Agreed!

Steve's yoga instructor is that Ukranian Andrey Lappa dude, and he explicitly stated "US yoga classes." I'm not sure what you are saying is false. He says, "US yoga classes are full of weaklings," and you say "That's false, US yoga classes are full of weaklings."

Again, I don't understand. I've seen a couple hundred Bikram practitioners now, and the only ones who can likely do a pullup are the ones who have a background with other exercise modalities. I know fewer people from the other disciplines, but I don't think they would meet Maxwell's definition of "strong" unless they are doing supplemental exercise. You mentioned your own yoga teacher wished more yogis would lift weights.

Wait, so now Western yoga classes aren't full of weaklings? Which is it?

*Sigh*

I thought I was pretty clear on this.


Maxwell’s statement was too broad. What’s typical American yoga? If I had to guess it would be some sort of quasi Hatha yoga that utilizes various props and gadgets and focuses on lots of hippy bullshit. Some one like Bikram would state that this doesn’t even remotely resemble yoga. In this “typical” class I would highly doubt than many were “flexible” as Steve states. I would say that most were both inflexible and weak. Flexibility is not the enemy of strength. I was clear on this. I would further add imbalanced. But as I had stated this has less to do with yoga and more to do with the state of Western man’s body that has been created in no small measure by sport driven exercise.

I am a Bikram’s guy but dabbled in the “power” yogas in the past and know several devoted Asthanga guys that can do one arm pushups, pull-ups and other bodyweight feats easily. I think I understand Steve’s definition of strong and most yogis would not meet his standards but so what? Most of these definitions are fairly arbitrary. Strong for what? That’s always my question. I have deadlifted over 600 pounds but was floored the first time I tried to do just the first portion of standing leg to knee for 20 seconds. I could not lock my knee out. To me strength would be defined as resistance to disease and injury. Plenty of men that we normally define as “strong” are in constant states of injury. They aren’t necessary strong in so much as they are extremely imbalanced. So in certain arbitrary movements they are several standard deviations from the mean in the positive direction but in other movements they are several deviations in the negative direction.

Of course now you’ve got me thinking. I think it would be an interesting experiment to halt the bodyweight stuff and after say a 30 day period test my self on push ups, pull-ups and bodyweight squats. I will mull this over.