If you want the shredded physique of a fighter, you’re going to have to train like one.

Thankfully this doesn’t involve getting punched in the face. (Ryan – not unless you want to…) You just have to tap in to the exact same exercises these guys use to get fighting fit.

The problem is, most fighters have a staff of trainers to coach them through every aspect of their game. Most of what you read about actual fight conditioning is crap, and it’s extremely difficult to separate the shit from the Shinola.

So how do you know the stuff we’re presenting here is authentic? Because we turned to our go-to coach when it comes to training like an MMA athlete. You already know and love his previous Bodyweight Coach guest appearances on back pain fixes — they got some of the best reader responses of anything we’ve published. But did you also know he trains pro-MMA fighters for a living? Not some amateur chump way down in the minors, but guys who compete in UFC?

That’s right, we’re talking about our buddy Eric Wong. We caught up with him a few months ago in Key West, Florida, and Adam begged him for a guest post while Ryan stood nonchalantly gazing out to sea.

Okay, that’s not true at all. Eric was happy to come back on the blog and share this stuff with all of you, and when we brought up the idea he jumped at it.

So let’s get right to the training tips…

We’ll start with what is probably the most sought after aspect of physique by both guys and gals. That’s right. We’re talking about shredded abs. A washboard. A six pack. Hell, with this exercise maybe even a twelve pack!

Here’s Eric on how to get killer abs MMA-style:

Jeez, doesn’t he make it look easy?!?

Here are the performance cues you should focus on when doing the Hand Walkout:

• start in pushup position with neutral spine, shoulders pulled down away from your ears, glutes tight, and belly button pulled in slightly
• exhale and contract your abs as you walk your hands forward — go as far as you can while maintaining a neutral spine — if you find yourself losing alignment or sagging as you walk the hands out, back off
• hold the extended position for 10 seconds
• walk your hands back in to pushup position
• if the full version is too difficult you can perform the same exercise from your knees — the same rules of alignment apply

So there you have it. A very challenging movement that will seriously improve your core stability while giving you those ripped MMA abs.

Please join us in thanking Eric for the tips. You can find more of his stuff over on his site:

===> More Of Eric’s Tips For Building A Fighter’s Physique <===

And as always, if you have questions, post ‘em to the comments and we’ll ask Eric to stop by.

Related posts:

1. Ryan’s Ninja Secrets of Flexibility
2. How To Build A One-Arm Push Up — Bodyweight Exercise For Serious Strength

Upside down
Boy, you turn me
Inside out
And round and round

Back in the day, Diana Ross turned music upside down with her Motown cool… But when it comes to bodyweight cool, handstand push ups are at the top of the heap. Few bodyweight exercises can rival its display of strength, timing, coordination and balance.

The ultimate version of the handstand push up is freestanding. But you need to have a rock solid handstand in order to be able to do it. While you’re working up to that, you can still take advantage of the amazing strength and coordination benefits of the handstand push up by doing it against a wall.

Obviously these are advanced exercises. But there’s a very accessible sequence of movements building up to a handstand push up in Bodyweight Exercise Revolution.

If you do have the strength and hand balance to start doing this exercise against the wall, you’ll be impressed with the results. And using the “palms” of your feet against the wall to help pull yourself up when you’re just getting started is a very effective strategy.

To make it even easier, you can also use a fence or low wall and actually hook your feet over it. That allows you to pull even more with your legs as you press off the ground with your arms.

Here are a few of the technical queues to remember…

• Keep your shoulder blades pulled down and back throughout
• Lower your head until you just feel the ground
• Exhale throughout the pressing portion to engage the core
• Keep your glutes, quads and core tight throughout

If you can only do a handful of presses at a time, a great training protocol to use is cluster sets. Pop up into position and do 1-2 reps below your maximum (if you can do 4 reps normally, do 2 to 3 reps). Drop back down and count to ten then get back into position and do 1 to 2 more reps. Continue that until you get to 10 reps total then rest for up to 2 minutes before starting again. Do a total of 3-6 of those cluster sets.

Let us know in the comments how you do. And please feel free to share your own handstand push up tips…

More cool bodyweight progressions <—

Related posts:

1. Advanced Bodyweight Exercise — Handstand Push Up From Crow
2. How To Build A One-Arm Push Up — Bodyweight Exercise For Serious Strength
3. Build Killer Abs with the Plank Push

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word ‘biceps’?

I think of Arnold in Commando, hefting that great big M202A1 FLASH rocket launcher onto his shoulder to let loose on the bad guys who kidnapped his daughter.

What can I say? I grew up in the 80’s. And back then I thought Alyssa Milano was kinda hot. [Adam - I still think she’s kinda hot...] When the evil Bennett kidnapped her to gain some leverage, I knew it was only a matter of time before Arnold’s camo-ed biceps would come bulging in to save the day. And I couldn’t wait to see that rotten bastard get his comeuppance — even if I didn’t know what the word meant.

That action hero stuff is fine for the Governator. He’s a one-man wrecking crew! But what about us mere mortals who want to increase the size and manly shape of our arms?

Jeez, we’re glad you asked that question…

Adam’s awfully pleased with his pipes — you should see the loving glances he casts at them whenever he lifts something heavy. I’d almost call it “preening” if that wasn’t such an effeminate term… [Adam - Jealous anyone…?]

So yeah, Adam really likes to work his arms <ahem> and he’s filmed a cool bicep routine that’ll stretch your shirtsleeves to the max. Check it out:

The resistance bands he’s using are from www.mygyminabag.com.

These are the performance cues to keep in mind:

• Anchor your resistance bands behind and below you
• Grab the handle in a hammer grip
• Palm up as soon as you start to feel tension
• Keep your palm rotated at the top of the movement

This variation works two of the functions of your biceps: elbow flexion and supination (turning the palm up towards the ceiling). It’s a double dose of goodness that’ll put the “shape” in shape-ly and some meat on your chicken wings.

Have fun! And let us know how you did in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Build Killer Abs with the Plank Push
2. How To Build A One-Arm Push Up — Bodyweight Exercise For Serious Strength
3. Build Shoulder Strength And Size With Chains

Female fitness sensation Flavia Del Monte is back to talk about bodyweight squats. This is a simple but incredibly effective exercise for women who want to round out the development of their derrière and create sleek, healthy looking legs.

In case you missed Flavia’s previous guest appearances, check out Push Ups For Women and Pull Ups For Women. They were both huge hits in BodyweightCoach Land!

A lot of women are scared of muscle, so they focus mostly on cardio. But it’s muscle which gives form to those key body parts that define your “shape”. And the glutes (the butt muscles) are a perfect example. You can whittle away at fat until Ryan takes his final sip of gin (Adam – yeah, as if that’ll ever happen), but you still won’t achieve that round feminine derrière unless you’ve got the right muscular development to support it.

One of the best exercises to build a beautiful butt is the squat. And the best place to start learning perfect squat technique is with the bodyweight version. Squats, when done right, provide incredible recruitment of the glutes and hamstrings (the back of the leg) while also putting the quadriceps to work (the front of the leg). This means great overall leg development in one tight little package!

Let’s take a look…

Thanks Flavia!

Here are the key cues for squats:

• Start by sending your butt back (break at the waist)
• Then bend at the knees to drop your butt back and down towards the ground
• Keep your weight on your heels
• Keep your spine long and your low back neutral
• Go as low as you can while keeping spine long
• Keep your chest up and eyes forward
• Drive through the heels to come back to standing

Once you’re comfortable with bodyweight squats, you can work them into your training in many different ways. Try doing them super slow — 5 seconds down and 5 seconds up — to promote “the burn” and increase the amount of fat burning growth hormone you release during your workout. You can do super fast bodyweight squats (with good technique) to increase your fast twitch muscle fiber recruitment. This will increase insulin sensitivity and help you shuttle more fuel to muscles and less to fat. You can also use them as active rest between sets of other bodyweight exercises like push ups, v-ups, pull ups and any other “-ups” you can think of.

What about weight? Sure! By all means add weight to your squats once you master the movement. You can hold weights by your side for dumbbell squats or progress onto barbell squats. Taking the time to master the basics of the squat will pay off in spades. This is truly a universal human movement. We were made to squat — you just have to look at kids in a playground for proof…

Do you perform enough squats in your training? What’s YOUR tight tush secret? What’s your favourite lower body exercise? Let us know in the comments below. And if you have any questions for Flavia, she’ll be keeping an eye on the comments too.

Get more Female Specific training ideas <— click here

Related posts:

1. Bodyweight Squats – Ultimate Bodyweight Exercise For Legs
2. Bulgarian Split Squats and Smitty’s Sneaky “Deficit” Method
3. Ninja Wrist Secret for Desk Jockeys

Flavia’s guest video on push ups for girls was a huge hit. So this week our women’s fitness expert is back with her take on the benefits of pull ups for women. She also discusses how to do both chin ups and pull ups properly. If you can’t pull yourself up to the bar yet, you might want to check out our post on assisted pull ups.

Perhaps the nicest fringe benefit of pull ups for women is how smashing you’ll look in an open backed evening gown. Pull up movements do a great job of toning and building the muscles of the upper back and rear part of the shoulders. Don’t worry, you won’t get “bulky.” But you will build a beautiful shape that guys will drool over when you let your upper back show. (we speak from experience… )

The other selling point for including pull ups in your training is the nice tapered effect you’ll get. By toning the lats, you’ll make the waist look smaller. This creates beautiful lines and a very proportionate physique that’ll look great in tighter cloths or in your swimsuit.

But enough talk, let’s hear what Flavia has to say…

Wow, see what I mean. Flavia’s upper back development is phenomenal. And you can imagine what she’d look like in open backed evening attire. ¡Ay, caramba!

In the video, Flavia demonstrated both chin ups and pull ups. Chin ups are done with your palms facing you and involve the biceps muscles to a greater degree, making it an easier option to start with. Pull ups are done with the palms facing away, isolating the back muscles to a greater extent and making it a more challenging option.

But as Flavia pointed out, you can use assistance from a training parter to help get you started. Simply have your partner cup their hands under the tops of your feet and press into your partners hand as much as needed as you pull the bar towards your upper chest. You can also do [band assisted pull ups].

Finally, here are a few extra cues that may help…

• Think of pulling the bar DOWN towards your upper chest
• Imagine driving your elbows down towards the ground
• Keep your abs and butt tight throughout the movement
• Exhale throughout the pulling portion of the exercise

So gals, if you’d like to create a sleek looking midsection and an upper back to drool over, start incorporating both pull ups and chin ups into your routine. If you have any questions for Flavia, drop them into the comments. Also, if you have your own pull up tricks for women, share those too. Look forward to hearing from you!

Get more Female Specific training ideas <— click here

Related posts:

1. Pull Up Technique Tips
2. Rub One Out: Foam Roller Massage for the Upper Back
3. Build Shoulder Strength And Size With Chains

We’re back with another delicious smoothie, straight from Adam’s kitchen — and straight from the pages of Dave Ruel’s Metabolic Cooking. Like all of Dave’s recipes, this smooooooth operator is designed to support your fat loss efforts while accelerating your progress.

If you missed our last smoothie episode, check out the Cinnamon Chai Latte! It was an absolute delight. And the Thermoccino is no different. But what really sets today’s recipe apart is the fact that it was created by none other than Adam himself. [there he goes massaging his ego again.... -ryan] Dave and his Metabolic Cooking co-author Karine were so impressed that they stopped the presses on their soon to be released product so they could add this Thermoccino to the smoothie section.

It’s no coincidence that Adam chose coffee as the anchor for his new creation. Most of you know by now that he’s fought a long running battle with bread addiction [thanks to me for keeping ya informed! -ryan]. But you may not know that he’s also addicted to coffee. He figures everyone has to have a few vices, so he embraces his espresso addiction with open arms… And Ryan shuts up about it so Adam will turn a blind eye to the occasional gin martini. It’s a fine balance. Much like health and fitness, come to think of it…

Anyway, without further digression… we bring you the Thermoccino:

Karine "The Lean Kitchen Queen"

Adam’s glad we invited Karine to be in this video. And not just because she’s so easy to look at. She also makes him feel slightly “less short”. But we really should have asked her to stand between Dave and Adam to avoid any direct comparison with Dave’s towering height. Oh, and we should have made Karine talk more. What an adorable accent!

If you missed the ingredients, here they are again:

• 1 shot espresso or 1/2 cup brewed strong coffee
• 4 ice cubes
• 1/4 cup greek yogurt
• pinch of cinnamon
• stevia to taste (Adam likes a lot…)
• Scoop vanilla protein powder

Mix it all together in a blender and serve. It’s Metabolicious!

Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments section. Oh, and feel free to share your own brilliant smoothie concoctions, we’d love to try them.

No related posts.

Should women do push ups? Our short answer is… of course!

Our female clients have sculpted beautiful feminine looking arms, shoulders and chests by including push up variations in their workout program. And they don’t just outperform many of the men in their lives… They look smashing in a sleeveless gown too!

But we could tell you that until we’re blue in the face and you still might not believe us. Why? Because we have different naughty bits and that apparently kills our credibility.

[voice from another room: he means “because we’re guys”!]

Instead of telling you how girls should train, we decided to ask female fitness expert Flavia Del Monte to weigh in on the subject.

Here’s what she had to say…

Hah! And there you have it, straight from the source. And holy crap, did you see the arms and shoulders on Flavia??? Did she look great in that sleeveless top or what? Did she look anything less than feminine and fantastic? That is what push ups will do for you.

Here’s a summary of the main points Flavia gave for perfect push ups (guys, you can benefit from these too…).

• Keep your shoulders over your hands
• Tighten the core
• Get a nice straight line from head to foot (or to knee)
• Lower to the ground under control
• Press off the ground forcefully

What if you can’t do a push up yet? No worries. You can work with the starter version. WE would never call it a “girl’s push up” — but Flavia did… All the same cues apply as the regular push up, but you’re contacting the ground with your knees instead of your feet.

And what if you’re an old pro at the push up? Flav has you covered. Try the “walking” version. It’s a great core builder, and it adds variety and interest to your workout. As you reach the top position in your press, shimmy the hand and foot on one side of your body over a few inches. Then bring the opposite hand and foot along too so that you end up back in your perfect starting position, but a few inches over from where you began.

So what are you waiting for? Get to work!

Ladies, do you do push ups? If yes, what sort of results are you getting? If no, are you going to try them now? Let us know in the comments. We’ll ask Flav to drop by and answer any questions you might have.

Enjoy your next push up workout!

Get more Female Specific training ideas <— click here

Related posts:

1. Unique Dumbbell Exercises For Smokin’ Shoulders

The Rocca Press is one of our staple exercises when it comes to sculpting impressive shoulders with bodyweight training only. Take a look…

As you can see, the Rocca looks a lot like doing a “shoulder press”, but upside down and using your body weight for resistance instead of using weights. You can change the amount of resistance by changing the angle of your body. Bringing your hands up off the ground using a prop will make it easier. Raising your feet onto a box, or even placing them against a wall, will increase the resistance.

Here are a few of the fine points of the Rocca press:

• Start in a push up position and press the butt towards the sky
• Drop your head down until your ears are by your biceps
• Your hands, head and hips should form one straight line
• Lower the top of your head to the ground between your hands
• The head slides along the straight line from hands to hips

There you go, everything you need to build great shoulders, anywhere, anytime! Let’s be clear though. When it comes to getting hyooge, bodyweight training is NOT your tool of choice. For that, you’ll have to hit the gym — no two ways around it. But if you want that lean, sleek, muscular look — kinda like a male gymnast — bodyweight training has you covered.

Have you tried the Rocca? If not, give it a try now and let us know what you think…

Related posts:

1. Advanced Bodyweight Exercise — Handstand Push Up From Crow
2. Unique Dumbbell Exercises For Smokin’ Shoulders
3. Bodyweight Squats – Ultimate Bodyweight Exercise For Legs

There’s no disputing the popularity of Starbucks. And there’s certainly no end to the mind boggling array of fancy flavours and twists you can put in your coffee or tea.

To be honest, it all kinda baffles me. I go in there and order either a tall Americano — three quarters full (which for some strange reason always seems to confuse the average barrista) — or a grande extra large cappuccino.

But Ryan’s another story. I’m usually a little embarrassed to order his drinks actually. Little twists of this and dollops of that make me feel a bit uncomfortable about my masculinity. But anyhow…

My buddy Dave Ruel and his girlfriend Karine were staying at my place last weekend, and I gotta say that he won me over with his Cinnamon Chai Latte Smoothie. I’d still never order anything that sounded remotely like that in public. But in the comfort of my own home, I can admit that it was delicious. Actually, it was Metabolicious.

Why “metabolicious”? Because it was assembled using healthy ingredients that were chosen for their fat burning properties. It’s kinda like having your cake and eating it too — but without getting fat. (Never mind, that analogy totally didn’t work — you can see why Ryan’s the writer…)

At any rate, the point is that you have to try this smoothie recipe.

Oh, and we’ll be back with another smoothie video next week. But this time it’s for a recipe that I (yes, I) came up with. It was so darn good that Dave made a last minute edit to his new cookbook just so he could include it!!

Stay tuned for the Thermo-Ccino Smoothie recipe next week!

Related posts:

1. The Thermoccino Smoothie From Metabolic Cooking

Modern life has declared war on your back.

Okay, I admit that may sound a bit dramatic. But we do spend more and more of our time hunched over a desk, slouched in front of a TV screen, or bent double in a half-sized economy class seat. Live for too long in that position, and over the course of months and years your body stiffens up and remains that way.

The natural counter to constant forward flexion is to bend in the opposite direction. But be careful! Performed incorrectly, backbends can result in injury. Done properly, they’re a great health-promoting exercise.

We receive a lot of questions about backbends here on the blog. And so we flipped through the BodyweightCoach rolodex (does anyone even have those anymore???) and brought in our resident yoga expert to put the question to rest once and for all.

Kris Fondran is an exercise physiologist and certified yoga instructor, and she’s put together a safe, incremental progression that you can use to work up to full bridge or wheel pose.

If you follow her cues, you can be sure that the next time the boss asks you to bend over backwards, you’ll do so with ease.

Once again, your progression is:

1. Simple back bend
2. Cobra pose
3. Shoulder pose

Each movement has several important performance cues associated with it, so be sure to study the video closely before you attempt these movements.

And as always, post any questions in the comment section and we’ll ask Kris to stop by and answer them.

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Rub One Out: Foam Roller Massage for the Upper Back