Pull-Up Variations

Pull-up is a fundamental exercise that everyone should master at some point in their fitness journey. According to Heria, “Pull-ups are a calisthenics fundamental compound movement that engages your back, bicep, core, lats, and delts.” If one is able to increase his pulling game then it helps in balancing out the antagonist's muscles and gives an overall increased strength. Balancing of the antagonist's muscles means that there is a reduced chance of injuries for example, in case a person has weak antagonist muscles such as having strong frontal delt but weak rear delt, there is a high chance of having injuries and facing increased pressure on frontal delt. Pulling up will allow you to build the opposite muscles and have better overall strength.

Having read all the benefits that pullups can provide to the body, you must by now be convinced of hitting the gym with pullups but here is the deal; “Are you only having one kind of pullups for yourself?” A single kind of pullup can only target the body plane in a single dimension whereas, in order to achieve the best results, the body should be targeted along different dimensions. Do not worry, we have got your back. Chris explains 25 different pullup variations in one of his videos, these variations can easily be implemented. He also recommends incorporating at least 10 variations in everyday fitness activities.

• FRONTAL PULLUPS: ARE PERFORMED WITH THE BODY AT A 90˚ ANGLE TO THE PULLING UP BAR.

• HIGH PULL-UPS: THE BODY IS UPLIFTED AGAINST THE BAR AT LEAST TILL THE WAIST. THIS IS HIGHER THAN THE UPLIFT PRODUCED FOR A NORMAL BRIDE

• ONE ARM PULL-UPS: ARE PERFORMED WITH THE HANDS ALTERNATING BETWEEN ONE ANOTHER.

• L SIT PULLUPS: ARE PERFORMED WITH BODY SHAPED IN A L SHAPE AND SLEEPING

• SLOW PULL UP: REGULAR PULL UP WITH SPEED SLOW

• COMMANDO PULL-UPS: ARE PERFORMED WITH THE HEAD ALTERNATING BETWEEN THESE TWO

• AUSTRALIAN PULL-UPS: ARE PERFORMED BY PLACING THE BODY ON THE FLOOR, THEN MOVING UPWARD OR LIFTING FROM THE GROUND FLOOR

• ONE ARM AUSTRALIAN PULL-UPS: THE SAME AUSTRALIAN PULL-UPS RE PERFORMED WITHIN ONE ARM. THANKS <3

• NEUTRAL GRILL PULL-UPS: IN THIS KIND OF PULL-UPS BOTH HANDS HAVE AN EQUAL GRIP ON THE BAR AND THE BODY IS LIFTED AS USUAL.

• WIDE PULL-UPS: THE ARMS ARE PLACED AT A DISTANCE WIDER THAN THE SHOULDERS AND THE PULLING UP IS PERFORMED.

Tips For Bigger Shoulders

One of the easiest ways to look great in your shirts and suits is to have a yoked set of traps and round, cannonball deltoids. Unfortunately, just like with the chest, a lot of guys box themselves into a couple of movements and don’t get that full range of muscle-building motion. That’s bad news because your shoulder joint is one of the most fragile, unstable joints in the body — and constantly beating it with the same moves can leave you open to injury.

So if you’re looking to fill out those sleeves a little more without hurting yourself, these moves will be your best friends.

PROPER DELTOIDS ENGAGEMENT—USING LIGHTWEIGHT

Proper delt engagement is necessary for bigger shoulders. Many exercise routines are such that your traps end up overwhelming your movements. This is probably because you start off by lifting weights that you are not ready for or should attempt later during an exercise routine. Make sure you focus on your delts using light weights.

When you use a weight, make sure you lift it in the right way and that you activate the right muscles. Being slow while lifting the weight, and being in control of the exercise is crucial to carrying out this exercise perfectly. You should move on to heavier weights with time. But when you do, make sure you don’t assertively target a specific muscle group. This might cause a strain upon those very muscles and it might bruise, even.

Be persistent, but also careful.

PERFORM ALL DELT FUNCTIONS—TARGETING ALL THE HEADS: FRONT/ SIDE/ REAR

Stronger shoulders mean targeting all of the heads of your delt. The following three exercises will help you do just that.

Handstand Push Up: Grab on to your parallel weights and gently lower your back. Tighten your hold on the weights and then put force into your hips and core. Elevate your legs and go into the handstand position.

Be gentle with the pushups.

Face Pulls: The face pulls are relatively easy. We recommend doing Australian pull-ups. However, you can try all sorts of different grips. Be they wide, closed, shoulder-wise, or any others you can think of and can come up with—be inventive!

Delt Raise: You will need a resistance band for this. They are easily available online and on exercise equipment shops. You might already have one if you are an exercising zealot.

While stretching, make sure you get the full range of motion. And try not to tire yourself.

INCLUDE ISOMETRIC HOLDS—INCREASING OVERALL STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE & BUILDING MUSCLES

Isometric Holds build muscles just like repetitions do. These are recommended when you feel like your workouts aren’t as fast as they previously were and when you feel like you have slowed down. You are strongly advised to add isometric holds to your routine.

These isometric holds basically freshen up your muscles. Because the nature of these holds is different than other exercise positions and your body gets to do new moves.

The L-sit hold is something you should try. It builds strength, muscle, and your endurance. Be sure to include many other isometric holds in your workouts for quick, noticeable results.

Push-Up Variations

Pushups are a great fundamental exercise but they can only take you a little way if you keep on doing them the same way involving the same muscles. These variations will allow us to target different muscles and most importantly master the art of pushing.

SOME OF THE PUSHUPS VARIATIONS ARE:

1. ARCHER PUSHUPS:

   Involve the stretching of each arm one by one alternatively on pushing.

2. WIDE PUSHUPS:

   Involve opening the arms at an angle wider than the usual and pushing up.

3. INCLINED PUSHUPS:

   Try to position the body at an inclined angle by placing the feet on a chair and then pushing up and down.

4. FINGERTIP PUSHUPS:

   Support your bodyweight only on the tips of the fingers instead of the hands and try to push up and down.

5. PIKE PUSHUPS:

   Involve lifting up the hips to form an inverted V shape of the body. In this way, the hips are pointing the roof.

They are different than the regular pushups and make use of more muscles increasing the intensity of the activity. So if you are tired of the same regular pushups, do try some of these variations.

Tips For Bigger Biceps

Almost everybody who does strength training wants to have bigger biceps. Bigger biceps are a subconscious sign of strength. Something that could be showed off in every kind of wear as it is the simplest way one can make their muscles visible. 

GRIPS:

–Pull-Ups: Chin Ups are performed by using a bar and pulling the body towards it. To start doing chin-ups first, place your arms wide apart so there is a considerable difference between them. After about 5 reps, the hands are brought close together and the same pulling is performed. The change in distance between the shoulders targets different muscles of the biceps which in turn helps them in becoming big.

–Chin-Ups: The chin-ups are performed the same way as to pull ups except that the body is lifted till the chin. Heria performs chin-ups spacing the shoulders at three different places. The first chin-ups are carried out at the widest distance between the hands and then making it closer.

–Neutral Grip Pull-Ups: The neutral grips are carried out in the same manner as the other two. Closing the distance from wide to shoulder grip to close grip.

GOING SLOW WITH FULL RANGE OF MOTION FOR HYPERTROPHY:

Ring curls: Heria shows ring curls as an example to show full but slow and controlled motion. To perform such, the hands are gripped on the ring curls with the body straight leaning away from the curls. Now, the hands are twisted in the rings through a whole angle

Hefesto: The hefesto is a high-intensity move, it involves the use of a resistance band. To perform the hefesto, sit on a bar and put the band across through. Hold the band tightly from one side, stretch it and hold from the other end. Now move the body in a full range supporting yourself with band only.

PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD:

Progressive overload is all about adding weight to increase the pressure on your biceps. The best way to have progressive overload is to do one arm exercises. Chris does this by starting off with a two hand pull up and then shifting it to one arm and releasing down. He brings more variation by trying the crazy one arm chin ups.

These exercises target differnet angles of the body with different levels of weight or pressure. The biceps are toned to become more bigger and sexy. Bigger biceps are also trending among the movie stars and that is why everybody wants them.The following different exercises are recommended for bigger biceps:

100 Push Ups A Day

To show how to do 100 pushups a day, choose 5 different variations and performs 20 reps for each of them. Select the right pushing exercises in order to have a full chest and triceps workout and hitting all the muscles of the chest region. These exercises will engage all muscles in the upper, middle, outer and lower part of the chest.

While doing all the pushups, one must not forget the basics, the body should be in a straight line from the shoulder to the ankle, elbows bent at a 90 degrees angle upon bending and consistent motion. The various types of pushups are:

1. WEIGHTED PUSHUPS:

   Weighted pushups are performed by placing weights on the backside of the body. These pushups target the whole of the chest but particularly emphasize on the central part.

2. INCLINED PUSHUPS:

   Inclined pushups best target the upper chest. According to Heria, “Inclined pushups are a great way to get into calisthenics.” Inclined pushups also improve overall pushing and repetitions.

Inclined pushups are performed by placing the legs on a chair so they are lifted than the other body and then pushing up and down.

3. DECLINED PUSHUPS:

   On the other hand, the declined pushups are performed by placing the hands at a higher angle

4. HIGH HAND PUSHUPS:

   These pushups are great to do in the morning. In fact, Chris suggests that it should be the first thing you do in the morning. High hand pushups are performed by placing the hands at a higher position and then pushing up and down. Best target the lower chest.

5. DIAMOND PUSHUPS:

Diamond pushups are much like the regularly performed pushups except that the hands are placed near the chest instead of near the head or shoulders.