I know this isn't a bodybuilding forum(I never go on them as they tend to be filled with ego maniacs lol) but I just thought I'd share a few exercises that could add some size to your arms and shoulders while still being functional and potentially helping you training. I've been without a kickboxing club for some time now and have been slowly drifting towards the dark side and lifting weights!
Anyway i'll cut to the chase. Most guys want bigger biceps so here's the answer. Chin ups.
Yup that's it. If you are a beginner or ever intermediate lifter I frimly believe, narrow grip chin ups, palms facing in and preferably with some added weight attached yo your body, is the fastest way to get bigger guns. My kid brother, who's a classic ectomorph: lanky, skinny with bones sticking out everywhere managed to pack on an impressive amount of bicep mass from doing these twice a week. He looks like skeletor but his biceps are decent. The guy barely eats, and when he does he does so at a snails pace. If it worked for him it can work for you. I myself always include these and find them much more effetive then curls, though I do these as well. They're great for developing the biceps, back and foreamrs and will work your grip nicely too. If you can get more then 12 reps, then its time to start adding weight. I usually just stick a dumbbell between my legs but i used to put weights in an old bookbag. You can buy decent a chin up bar for relatively cheap and pick up a 5 or ten pound dumbell for when it starts getting too easy. If you have access to a gym thats even better. Just try to improve each workout, with either more weight, more reps, or more sets.
To make this exercise a bit more martial arts oriented, try lowering youself nice and slowly then exploding on the way up. This will teach your body to recruit as much force as possible in the shortest amount of time while still inducing growth. Try to keep your form as good as possible, but dont be afraid to load it up everynow and then and just go crazy and see how much you can lift for 3 reps.
If you cant do a single chin up, try this. Grab the bar, jump up and hold youself for a second before lowering youself in a controlled manner. OR get a partner to stand beneath you and hold you legs to give you a slight boost. Eventually you'll be strong enough to do it on your own. Smaller guys like me and my brother are able to do these allot easier then someone larger.
Ok so thats biceps out of the way. Next shoulders. Shoulders are a nice muscle to develop because you can see them through clothes if someone has big shoulders. For this, I recommend hand stand push ups! Yeah they are pretty advanced but i'm going to post a video showing you a progression. These are also pretty effective. When i first started training i'd do pull ups(wide grip ands facing away from my body), bench press, and the begginer variation of handstand pushups. The first thing to sprout up was my shoulders. I couldnt believe it! Here I was this skinny little kid but my shoulders looked huge! Haha they were actually still pretty tiny but compared to the rest of me they were big! I'm not going to write a whole lot about this one because Jim brassard explains it way better then I ever could in words.
So if you watched the video, I have one more exercise to add to the shoulders to help round it out and keep the shoulder healthy. There are 3 heads of the deltoid, handstand pushups work the front and to a lesser extent the side deltoid, but we need to hit the rear delt as well. Since we are talking functional exercises and i'm trying to avoid using traditional bodybuilding excersies but honestly if you want full shoulders you're going to have to try to embrace weight training at some point. I highly reccomend doing reverse flies with dumbbells. These are an isolation exersice, and I know how most people feel about isolations but hear me out. I actually used to do these at my kickboxing club, there were a few dumbells and machines that were available so i'd do some reverse flies before class and some times they were included in the cardio circuit training that wed do at the end of each class. The good thing about them is that having sore rear delts didnt really hinder my training. You do not need to use a heavy weight for these and should aim for a higher rep range. There are other more functional movements for rear deltoids but they require some equipment that you may not have access to. One of them is fat man pull ups.
dont worry its almost over, I'll just add one more thing. For triceps and chest I'd recommend parallel dips. Chances are you are allready doing a lot of pushups so I wont mention them. Just like chin ups, I recommend adding some weight as soon as you are able. I haven't pesonally found these as effective as the handstand pushups or chin ups at developing muscle but they do work pretty darn well and i've certainly seen strength gains. I think dumbell bench presses are probably more effective at building muscle in the chest but I highly doubht that they will help you in your martial arts training. Dips, since they move your body through space are much more functional. Again, go slow on the way down, and drive it up!
If you're training hard in you art, maybe just focus on one of these exercises at a time. Say you train boxing/jui jitsu,karate 3 times a week, take one day a week to do chin ups. do this for 3 weeks then switch to dips or hand stand pushups. Anyway thats my post! If any of you have any more functional exercises that you think should be added or have any comments please share. I didnt know how interested people would be in this so I only talked about the areas I think most people would like to improve. I mean come on what guy dosent want big biceps and chest?
Anyway i'll cut to the chase. Most guys want bigger biceps so here's the answer. Chin ups.
Yup that's it. If you are a beginner or ever intermediate lifter I frimly believe, narrow grip chin ups, palms facing in and preferably with some added weight attached yo your body, is the fastest way to get bigger guns. My kid brother, who's a classic ectomorph: lanky, skinny with bones sticking out everywhere managed to pack on an impressive amount of bicep mass from doing these twice a week. He looks like skeletor but his biceps are decent. The guy barely eats, and when he does he does so at a snails pace. If it worked for him it can work for you. I myself always include these and find them much more effetive then curls, though I do these as well. They're great for developing the biceps, back and foreamrs and will work your grip nicely too. If you can get more then 12 reps, then its time to start adding weight. I usually just stick a dumbbell between my legs but i used to put weights in an old bookbag. You can buy decent a chin up bar for relatively cheap and pick up a 5 or ten pound dumbell for when it starts getting too easy. If you have access to a gym thats even better. Just try to improve each workout, with either more weight, more reps, or more sets.
To make this exercise a bit more martial arts oriented, try lowering youself nice and slowly then exploding on the way up. This will teach your body to recruit as much force as possible in the shortest amount of time while still inducing growth. Try to keep your form as good as possible, but dont be afraid to load it up everynow and then and just go crazy and see how much you can lift for 3 reps.
If you cant do a single chin up, try this. Grab the bar, jump up and hold youself for a second before lowering youself in a controlled manner. OR get a partner to stand beneath you and hold you legs to give you a slight boost. Eventually you'll be strong enough to do it on your own. Smaller guys like me and my brother are able to do these allot easier then someone larger.
Ok so thats biceps out of the way. Next shoulders. Shoulders are a nice muscle to develop because you can see them through clothes if someone has big shoulders. For this, I recommend hand stand push ups! Yeah they are pretty advanced but i'm going to post a video showing you a progression. These are also pretty effective. When i first started training i'd do pull ups(wide grip ands facing away from my body), bench press, and the begginer variation of handstand pushups. The first thing to sprout up was my shoulders. I couldnt believe it! Here I was this skinny little kid but my shoulders looked huge! Haha they were actually still pretty tiny but compared to the rest of me they were big! I'm not going to write a whole lot about this one because Jim brassard explains it way better then I ever could in words.
So if you watched the video, I have one more exercise to add to the shoulders to help round it out and keep the shoulder healthy. There are 3 heads of the deltoid, handstand pushups work the front and to a lesser extent the side deltoid, but we need to hit the rear delt as well. Since we are talking functional exercises and i'm trying to avoid using traditional bodybuilding excersies but honestly if you want full shoulders you're going to have to try to embrace weight training at some point. I highly reccomend doing reverse flies with dumbbells. These are an isolation exersice, and I know how most people feel about isolations but hear me out. I actually used to do these at my kickboxing club, there were a few dumbells and machines that were available so i'd do some reverse flies before class and some times they were included in the cardio circuit training that wed do at the end of each class. The good thing about them is that having sore rear delts didnt really hinder my training. You do not need to use a heavy weight for these and should aim for a higher rep range. There are other more functional movements for rear deltoids but they require some equipment that you may not have access to. One of them is fat man pull ups.
dont worry its almost over, I'll just add one more thing. For triceps and chest I'd recommend parallel dips. Chances are you are allready doing a lot of pushups so I wont mention them. Just like chin ups, I recommend adding some weight as soon as you are able. I haven't pesonally found these as effective as the handstand pushups or chin ups at developing muscle but they do work pretty darn well and i've certainly seen strength gains. I think dumbell bench presses are probably more effective at building muscle in the chest but I highly doubht that they will help you in your martial arts training. Dips, since they move your body through space are much more functional. Again, go slow on the way down, and drive it up!
If you're training hard in you art, maybe just focus on one of these exercises at a time. Say you train boxing/jui jitsu,karate 3 times a week, take one day a week to do chin ups. do this for 3 weeks then switch to dips or hand stand pushups. Anyway thats my post! If any of you have any more functional exercises that you think should be added or have any comments please share. I didnt know how interested people would be in this so I only talked about the areas I think most people would like to improve. I mean come on what guy dosent want big biceps and chest?
