T-Nation gurus, I seek thy wisdom:
I am a 10th mountain division soldier currently in Afghanistan. After being here for 6 months with a pretty decent gym following CT’s OVT workouts, we have moved to a region where coalition forces have never been before to fight the fearsome Taliban hordes…theres no buildings here, and that means no gym, and worse, no weights.
Anyone got programs I can look at to try and maintain muscle mass and continue to cut until we manage to establish a gym here in a month or two? I have been doing pushups, ab work, pull-ups, but know there must be more out there. Any help at all would be awesome, thanks in advance!
I am no guru but an ex gymnast and have been in plenty of situations where I had no access to gyms.
Pushups - the biggest problem with bodyweight exercises is people dont increase the intensity because they dont know how. Iam going to assume you do two handed pushups since I dont know how strong you are Ill give various steps to increease intensity. 1 put one hand on the floor another on something thats raised and keep your feet together. Do pushups like this until you can do at least 5 sets of 5 fairly easily.
2 stradle your legs as far as you can put one arm behind your back and do one handed pushups. If you cant do that you can either raise yourself on something while keeping your legs on the floor or you can just do the coming down motion. 3 from here you can do one handed pushups with feet closed. Ones you can do that to make it even harder raise your legs up on something. If you still want to increase further start doing planch pushups with legs tucked.
Pullups - for pullups you either add weight or take away leverage meaning attempt one handed pullups do just the coming down motion. or if you have enough space and strength, make your back parallel to the floor tuck your legs to your chest and pull (kind of like a row) the more you put your legs out and streighten them the harder it ll be.
hand stand pushups - well if you can do them against the wall to make them harder attempt free standing ones or raise your hand on something so that you can go past your hands when you press.
Squats - one legged squats put one foot out in front of you and squat all the way down, to make it easier do it next to the wall or while holding onto something. To make it harder hold something heavy with your arms while doing it this will also make it easier to balance.
Abs - if you can hang on somethign hanging leg lifts are the best simply add weight to your legs to make it harder or tuck your legs to make easier. also can be done by going into the dip position.
Here are some links:
http://www.beastskills.com/
www.dragondoor.com - the bodyweight strength section
http://www.american-gymnast.com/tt/
Hope this helps
[quote]Typhoon wrote:
I am no guru but an ex gymnast and have been in plenty of situations where I had no access to gyms.
Pushups - the biggest problem with bodyweight exercises is people dont increase the intensity because they dont know how. Iam going to assume you do two handed pushups since I dont know how strong you are Ill give various steps to increease intensity. 1 put one hand on the floor another on something thats raised and keep your feet together. Do pushups like this until you can do at least 5 sets of 5 fairly easily.
2 stradle your legs as far as you can put one arm behind your back and do one handed pushups. If you cant do that you can either raise yourself on something while keeping your legs on the floor or you can just do the coming down motion. 3 from here you can do one handed pushups with feet closed. Ones you can do that to make it even harder raise your legs up on something. If you still want to increase further start doing planch pushups with legs tucked.
Pullups - for pullups you either add weight or take away leverage meaning attempt one handed pullups do just the coming down motion. or if you have enough space and strength, make your back parallel to the floor tuck your legs to your chest and pull (kind of like a row) the more you put your legs out and streighten them the harder it ll be.
hand stand pushups - well if you can do them against the wall to make them harder attempt free standing ones or raise your hand on something so that you can go past your hands when you press.
Squats - one legged squats put one foot out in front of you and squat all the way down, to make it easier do it next to the wall or while holding onto something. To make it harder hold something heavy with your arms while doing it this will also make it easier to balance.
Abs - if you can hang on somethign hanging leg lifts are the best simply add weight to your legs to make it harder or tuck your legs to make easier. also can be done by going into the dip position.
Here are some links:
http://www.beastskills.com/
www.dragondoor.com - the bodyweight strength section
http://www.american-gymnast.com/tt/
Hope this helps[/quote]
you helped me a lot, thanks.