BUENO Last-callisthenics-Book-Uploaded PDF

WARNING / DISCLAIMER
This book is for reference and informational purposes only and is in no way intended as
medical counseling or medical advice. You must consult your physician prior to starting
any exercise or nutritional program especially if you have any medical condition or injury
that contraindicates physical activity. All forms of exercise pose some inherent risks. You
must take full responsibility for your safety and know their limits. Before practicing the
exercises in this book, be sure any kind of equipment or surface you train on is well-
maintained, and do not take risks beyond your level of experience, aptitude, training and
fitness. If you are taking any medications, you must talk to your physician before starting
any exercise program my Homemade Muscle workout. This publication is intended for
informational use only and I will not assume any liability or be held responsible for any
form of injury by the utilization of this information.
Copyright 2013 by Anthony Arvanitakis. All Rights Reserved http://www.homemademuscle.com/

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 6
Chapter 1 About the program 10
Chapter 2 About bodyweight exercise 13
Chapter 3 The essential 8 exercises you are going to need 15
Chapter 4 Abdominals 17
Chapter 5 Warming up 20
Chapter 6 Exercise Menu 27
Chapter 7 Static Stretching 53
Chapter 8 Training methods & programs 58
Chapter 9 Plateaus, overtraining & undertraining 69
Chapter 10 Nutrition 71
Chapter 11 Common questions 80
Chapter 12 Making exercise a lifestyle 82

INTRODUCTION
I will not to bore you with a long introduction about myself; I just
want to share the facts about me that are relevant to the training
program in this book and the proven results it has offered me and
other people to whom I have suggested it...
Many times, when I used to talk with a friend online or on the phone, telling them I just finished my
home workout routine they would be quite curious but usually thought I was probably fooling around
doing some pushups and whatnot. A couple of months later, when they saw how my body started
to change they were amazed.
All that just by training in your own home with no equipment at all? They asked... I explained to them
that my approach had nothing to do with countless complicated exercises and training methods that
required special equipment. It is about going back to the basics of bodyweight exercises, combin-
ing them with strength training principles, gaining control over your own body and finding ways to
manipulate each exercise according to your current level of strength. It is as simple as that. As a
matter of fact it is always as simple as that, when it comes to losing weight and attaining an aesthetic
physique for 99% of people. It is not the complexity of training and nutritional programs that makes it
difficult for people to accomplish their goals. It is all about finding the proper guidance and applying
continuous effort over time by using basic exercise and nutritional principles...
My accident
Some people, usually the ones who train at gyms and still dont have any results after months or
even years, have told me stuff like, I just have good genetics, therefore, I dont need to train hard
to stay/get in good shape and thats why my home-workout was so effective.
Due to an accident some years ago, my left leg was destroyed. As a result, I was in and out of
hospitals for the following five years, being operated a total of thirteen times and consuming huge
amounts of antibiotic boxes per year. All of the above combined with a stressed and depressed
mental state for so long had really taken a toll to my body. From being in a really good shape as a
competitive athlete, I ended up becoming: overweight from eating too much and too unhealthy. My
whole body looked weak, my belly was bloated from gut bacteria imbalances caused by all the anti-
biotics and I became totally out of shape and out of balance (pic. 1).
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Rising back from the ashes
Because I was always in a good shape most of my life, I got sick of watching how unhealthy I had
become in the years that followed after my accident. I decided it was time for a change. The dam-
age done to my leg from my accident was huge, and irreversible. A lot of soft tissue damage, loss
of muscle tissue, a loss of almost three inches length from my lower legs length and a lot of nerve
damage resulting in almost 50% loss of sensation bellow my knee.
Some of my doctors kept telling me not to give up on hope, every year. But after having my leg sup-
posedly fixed a couple of times, it always broke again a couple of months later. So after a total of five
years and thirteen operations, I knew it was time for a big decision - a decision that no one had really
ever offered me directly. I wasnt going to waste the rest of my life depressed, on crutches, and in
and out of hospitals having more surgeries every year. I had to cut that useless part of my body I had
been dragging for so long in order to continue my life in my own terms.
Picture 1
Even though I was always in a really good shape all my life my
body became really unhealthy just in a matter of 8-9 months.
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This was a not an easy decision, so I spent some time pondering over it ,while at the same time I fin-
ished my university studies in Sports science and Physical education; which I had quit at the time
of my accident. After that I was sure that it was the right choice to make. So I talked with my doctors
and the surgery was planned to be done in 6 months. I was in a slightly better condition at that mo-
ment, since I was exercising a bit, doing some swimming when my leg wasnt that bad and some
pull ups now and then, but I was still in bad shape (picture 2), at least, for my standards.
Picture 2
I decided that if I was going to be in a good mental state for this surgery, I was also going to be in
good physical shape. Being an athlete most of my life, I knew the importance of the body and mind
connection. A great master once said To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall
not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. - Buddha
Going to the gym at that time was not that affordable for me, plus, moving a lot was difficult since I
needed crutches most of the time, and had no personal means of transportation. So I decided I that I
would have to make the best out of the workout plan I could perform at home. Although I was really
determined, I still had my doubts on how effective it would be in comparison with a program done in
a regular gym, which was the environment I was used to in the past... So I sat down with my laptop
and made a plan. I thought of all of the best bodyweight exercises, ways to progress into the ones I
couldnt yet perform, and variations of the ones that were too easy. I thought of ways I could use stuff
like regular home furniture and backpacks and turne into exercise equipment.
After six months of hard training both my body & mind, and eating extremely healthy, all the work
paid off (picture 3c). I was feeling healthier than ever and my body was in great shape, supporting
me that way also mentally for the big challenge that I had to overcome (my amputation).
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a b c
Picture 3
Keep in mind that photos 3.a, 3.b and 3.c are not photoshoped or in a flexed state, as most of the fake
transformation pictures in other books. When it comes to these before/after photos, Im only offering
realistic ones to show the effect this program had on me. I didnt even use a professional camera
or special lightning to take these pics. In fact, most of them are just still snapshots of videos I was
making for personal use at the time, in order to observe if I was using good form while performing
exercises, to keep me motivated and to keep track of my improvement. I did not know I was going
to put all this in a book...After a whole year on my program (pic. 4) I am quite happy with my results,
yet I know that there is still a lot of room for improvement...
"To keep the body in good health

is a duty... otherwise we shall not
be able to keep our mindstrong
and clear"
- Buddha
Picture 4
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CHAPTER 1 - ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Have you seen gymnasts performing at the Olympic Games? If yes, then you must have noticed the
amazing bodies they have. All of the exercises these athletes use, are bodyweight exercises and a
lot of them can be done at your home. If the gymnast example sounds too extreme, check out the
new viral trend arising on youtube - people all over the world training only with bars and bodyweight
exercises or as they call it StreetWorkout and Calistenics. You can see really amazing physiques
on these guys which is just the result of training in their neighborhoods park. How cool is that !?
Because of my love for exercise, I have been training hard most of my life, especially after I became
thirteen and joined my hometowns rowing team. After that, I became a Flatwater-Canoe athlete (a
really brutal sport if you dont know it check it out online!) winning my countrys national games for
two years in a row, by competing in the double men canoe boat (although I owe a lot of that to my
crew & coach A.Kiligaridis). During my ten years as a competitive rower and canoeist, I had been
training using all kinds of methods including a lot of weight lifting in the gym. However, when I com-
pare all the ways I have trained in the past for strength, I have to conclude that nothing beats a good
bodyweight program. Just pick out a guy out of any gym who can easily pull his own body weight in
the lat pull-down machine and ask him to do the same repetitions on a pull up bar, or a guy who can
bench press double his bodyweight and ask him to do a one-arm push up... 99.9% of them will fail!
1.1 Advantages of training in your own home

Almost zero costs. The first and most obvious advantage of training in your home is that you dont
have to pay for gym membership or expensive equipment anymore. Homemade Muscles workouts
use only bodyweight exercises and the good thing about bodyweight exercise is that the only two
basic factors you depend on are gravity and your own bodyweight. The only equipment I advise you
to have in this book, is a pull up bar. That is because pull ups are the king of all exercises when it
comes to bodyweight training. If you think of all the money you will be saving yourself from gym
memberships just by spending 20-30 dollars for a pull up bar you will see that you are making a
wise investment. If you still arent willing to make this investment though, I still offer some possible
alternatives later on.
Saving a lot of time. The most common excuse I hear from people who dont exercise is that they
dont have time. Well, training in your own house besides saving you money also saves you a lot
of time. Think about it, if you calculate all the time you need to pack a big bag, go all the way to the
gym, change in the locker room, wait for your turn at the machines and then all of that in reverse, it
usually costs most people at least an extra hour or two. Training in the comfort of your own house
means no commuting, no need
of looking for a parking space forever and no need to unpack big bags of sweaty clothes. Once you
are done training in your home you can immediately take a nice hot shower in your own bathroom,
wear dry clothes and kickback, or do whatever else you have to do. This program requires, on aver-
age, only 3 hours out of your time per week which is time worth spending by anyone, in reward of a
healthier & stronger body.
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Letting go. One of the things I love when training in my house is that I can really let go. You can ex-
press all of the frustration and aggression that bottles up in you during the rest of the day at your
work, school or wherever. You can scream through those last reps, curse, yell and generally ex-
press whatever feeling you are going through that day or that phase of your life. Do and say what you
are feel like! (Try though not to do this late at night, you dont want your neighbor calling the police
thinking you are strangling someone!). This has a great calming affect once you finish training... It
may sound weird to some and others will totally understand what Im talking about. I consider it as a
kind of a psychosomatic catharsis... Many times training for me is more psychotherapy than exer -
cise. Just give it a try and you will understand. As I will also mention later on, general exercise has
proven results on reducing stress and improving your mental health. However, doing it this way, you
boost these benefits to a whole new level, I know this from personal experience and other athletes I
have met during my life experience I know.
1.2 Is this program for everybody?

Bodyweight training can be quite challenging especially for beginners and heavy people. That is
why every exercise in this book has progressions to help you ease into them. For each one of the
exercises I have included several progressions, starting from the easiest and progressing towards
the basic form of the exercise; plus, extra advanced variations for when you grow even stronger. So
regardless of your sex, current physical condition and your weight, this program can be applied by
anyone.
Just to be realistic and not BS you I will mention that a lot of excessive fat/weight can get in the way
of this program if you want to get fully benefited from it. Think about it, if you weigh 300 pounds and
you are trying to perform a handstand push-up it would be the equivalent of trying to push more
than 330 pounds on an overhead press machine. No matter how strong you become, it will be pretty
difficult to attain such a huge level of strength and you will be stuck in the simple progressions of
some exercises. For most it is going to be quite a struggle if not impossible to improve beyond that
point. My advice to overweight people who want to get full use of this program is to combine it with a
really good & healthy diet and get rid as much excessive fat as possible. Once your fat percentage
drops below 20% and gets closer and closer to 10% for men and 15% for women your insulin sensitiv-
ity will also improve which will help you build muscles more effectively and reduce fat storage even
faster!
Moving also to the other end of the spectrum, if you believe you are too strong for bodyweight exer-
cises, as I mentioned above, there are also advanced variations included to kick it up a notch. These
can be used also later on once you start getting stronger.
Be sure before progressing on advanced versions of the exercises that you can perform them with
the proper form and technique. In most cases, performing an exercise with good form and proper
technique conclude to you doing only half of the reps you would do with a faulty form, activating that
way - a lot more effectively - the targeted muscles and saving you from injuries.
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Great, this sounds easy Ill get in shape in no time!
Keep in mind that training at home without all the fancy gym equipment doesnt mean that its also
going to be easy. When you want results in life, there are no secret shortcuts. A exercise & health
specialist, I have high respect for - Elliot Hulse likes to quote No one can escape the law of Sow-
ing & Reaping which dictates that whatever you give, you will receive in equal fashion... So when it
comes to seeking a healthy fit body you are going to have to sweat, you are going to have to accept
the fact that there are going to be days (especially in the beginning) that you will be waking up with
muscle soreness and that you will have to be patient and dedicated to your training schedule. Once
you accept this and begin training the rest will follow.
"No one can escape the universal law of

Sowing & Reaping which dictates that whatever
you give you will receive in equal fashion..."
- Elliott Hulse
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CHAPTER 2 - ABOUT BODYWEIGHT TRAINING
I expect people to be excited when I motivate and tell them that they can get in great shape in the
comfort of their own home without spending almost any money at all... Unfortunately, most of them
just look at me in disbelief. It probably sounds too good to be true or they have tried getting in shape
trying some other promising easy home workout that didnt work.
2.1 Bodyweight exercise Vs Gym machines

Side effects of gym machines. Unfortunately, most of us have become misleaded into believing that
in order to get in shape we need all those shiny complicated machines we see in big corporate gyms
with touch screens and all sort of other gismos on them. The truth is that training with most of that
equipment leads many times to developing a dysfunctional body. Training too much with machines
overdevelops prime mover muscles relative to stabilizing muscles causing muscular imbalances
and the absence of some really important stabilizing muscle functions we need in real life. As a
result, many people overestimate their functional strength. They fool themselves into thinking that
they can still lift heavy stuff outside the gym - which are not in a fixed machine - like position - thus,
requiring a lot more stabilizer strength than they possess. So what happens in the end, is joint and
connective tissue injuries. People just lift a tool case and end up having herniated disks etc...
Advantages of Bodyweight training. On the other hand, the training method used in this book strictly
prefers bodyweight exercises. Mastering your own bodyweight requires a lot of hard work and per-
sistence. Plus, once that is achieved, bodyweight exercises also have a more impressive visual ap-
peal (they look cooler!).
Bodyweight exercises can be done almost anywhere with minimum equipment and in my opinion
they are a lot more entertaining and motivational for strength training because your goal is not just
adding an extra plate of weight every month but performing more impressive and cool variations.
Think about it, what is more impressive and fun... pushing a lot of weight on a bench press or per-
forming a one arm push up?
Bodyweight exercises improve balance, coordination, agility and kinesthetic awareness. They also
incorporate many muscle groups at once, they strengthen your connective tissues relatively to your
prime mover muscle and almost always activate your core muscles (yes including the famous Six-
pack) in order to be performed right. Having a strong core is the key for a healthy spine and is the
foundation on which you should develop your bodys extremities, not the other way around.
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Quick summary: the main advantages of bodyweight training:
Multiple muscle group activation in each exercise.

Analogous development of muscles with their connective tissues
Superior core activation in comparison with gym type machines
Balance improvement
Coordination improvement
Agility (the ability to rapidly change the bodys momentum from one direction to another)
Kinesthetic awareness (Kinesthetic awareness is your bodys knowledge of your surroundings
which you receive via the sensory receptors in your joints, muscles and skin.
After all the training systems I have tried in my life, I always conclude that bodyweight
exercise makes me the strongest...
It always comes back to bodyweight training...

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CHAPTER 3 - THE 8 ESSENTIAL EXERCISES
Bruce Lee said that simplicity is the key to brilliance. This principle can be applied almost every-
where in life, including exercise. Sculpting a lean muscular and symmetrical physique is something
I consider a form of art. What I like the most about this fact is that if you know how to handle the
right tools it can be a form of art mastered by anyone. This art-form may seem really complicated,
especially if you enter a huge gym for the first time and become overwhelmed by the sheer volume
of exercise equipment. And if you are new to exercise as well, it will be really intimidating. The fact
is that movement and exercise quality is a lot more important that quantity.
During my journey of getting stronger, I tried most of the bodyweight exercises that exist (and trust
me, there are countless of them) but after a lot of experiment I concluded thatI only need to use and
try to master 8 of them in order to get as strong as possible andattain an aesthetic physique. After
doing some research on bodyweight exercise books I realized that all of them offer an endess list of
exercises and mastering them would take a lifetime... After all, not everyone wants and can afford
to train all day like a professional athlete just to look and feel good.
Sometimes less is more. The 8 exercises I have chosen will train all of your bodys muscles effi-
ciently and in symmetry. They resemble some of our most primal movement patterns which highly
stimulate our neuromuscular system and strengthen our bodys prime mover muscles in balance
with our core, joints, ligaments and tendons. Trust me, if you conquer every variation of the exer-
cises in this book you will have greater relative body strength than 99% of all people around you.
3.1 Primal movement patterns

When I mention the term primal movement patterns, I mean movements which were important for
survival before man stopped living in the wild. Think about it, if you lived in the wild, would bicep
curls serve in any important movements? Not really...On the other hand, you would definitely have
to climb up high surfaces which would require pulling yourself up in all kinds of different angles,
according to the terrain around you.
Once you pull yourself up until chest height when climbing a surface, the next thing you have to do
is to push yourself up in order to get on it which resembles the movement in dips and push-ups.
Living in the wild would also require you to press heavy stuff above your head; for example, in order
to build a roof for a shelter. A movement like that would require the same muscles that you use in
handstand push-ups. Even just for simple tasks - like, going to the bathroom - you would have to
get in a deep squat position every single day (pistol squats anyone?).
And last but most important of all, to perform every single one of these moves efficiently, you would
have to have a strong core. No, our ancestors did not train their abs and low back muscles because
all these muscles never atrophied in the first place. These muscles always worked in perfect coor-
dination with the rest of their body during all the movements I mentioned above.
15
Unfortunately, our lifestyle has deeply weakened and de-trained these muscles, making us forget
how to turn them on in harmony with the rest of our body when needed. Using leg raises, prone co-
bras and all of the exercises in this book with good form will help you re-establish the relationship
between your core and the rest of the body. All the above are the 8 exercises that you will use in
this program and they are the only ones you need to strengthen your whole body with.
"simplicity is the key to brilliance"

- bruce lee
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CHAPTER 4 - ABDOMINALS
I devoted a whole chapter on this topic simply because people tend to be obsessed with this specific
muscle group... Since the abdominals are part of a bigger unit - which is the core - I will also men-
tion some stuff about the core in general. First, lets start with two of the most common myths when
it comes to abdominal training...
4.1 Abdominal Myths

Although these myths are starting to become outdated in the fitness industry, I feel its important to
make sure that everybody who reads this book knows basic principles and facts about abdominal
and core exercise in order to understand the program fully.
1. Doing hundreds of abdominal exercise repetitions every day wont help you build a strong ribbed
stomach! Your abs are anatomically just as any other muscle. They are a striated, skeletal muscle
group which means that you dont need to train them more than three times a week and use a rep
range of 6-15 repetitions per set, just as any other muscle. Overtraining your abs as many people
do, can only cause muscle imbalances and encourage bad posture.
2. Abdominal exercises burn fat around your stomach! There is no direct metabolic pathway from
your abdominal musculature to the fat tissue surrounding it. In order to burn fat and convert it to
energy, your body must first send the fat to your liver where it will be broken down to fatty acids.
Only then it will be send to your abdominals for fuel! This fat comes from all over your body, not
one specific place. Gender, age and genetics are responsible for which areas are going to be more
preferred as fat sources. For example if you are the chicken-leg body type while you are doing ab
crunches your body may be burning more fat from your legs!
In conclusion if you want a better looking stomach, first of all you have to get rid of the fat around
your stomach and although strength exercise can help you achieve that, your diet will play the big-
gest role in revealing your abs once they are strengthened. That is why they say abs are made in the
kitchen... Your abs may be even stronger than Bruce Lees but if you never burn the fat around them
they will never be visible.
Another factor you should keep in mind is your genetics, some people just have a harder time get-
ting a ribbed stomach because they tend to store more fat around the stomach due to their body type.
If you belong in this group of people then unfortunately you need to have greater patience.
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4.2 The big crunch
Most of the people and even some experts say that the basic function of the abdominal muscles
is movement production. A lot of research done in abdominal anatomy & kinesiology shows that
a significant role of the rectus abdominus (specifically the lower area) and the external obliques
is actually preventing motion and keeping our lumbopelvic region more stable. This means that
instead on doing hundreds of crunches as most people do, focusing more on Leg raising type of
exercises (like the ones in this book) is a more functional approach to abdominal conditioning. If you
are watching your diet, then doing the leg raising exercises I demonstrate in this program and tak-
ing into account the abdominal activation required in many other of the bodyweight exercises, its
enough abdominal work to get a good looking flat and ripped stomach.
Typical floor crunches train mostly the upper part of your rectus abodminus, which many of the
times is already too tight due to bad postural habits like being most of the day slouched in a chair
staring at a computer monitor. If you see a typical over-developed guy in the gym or most of todays
bodybuilders you will observe in most cases the classic protruding belly syndrome accompanied
with an excessive lumbar lordosis. If you have ever studied the great Paul Chek he calls it the Donald
Duck posture which is an easy way to remember and identify it. This type of posture besides being
totally unaesthetic can lead to serious problems like low back pain.
4.3 The most important abdominal you never hear about

In many exercises, you will notice me mentioning that you should pull your belly button
inwards. The reason I ask you to do that is to activate transverse abdominus (TVA).
The TVA is your deepest abdominal muscle - some even call it Gods natural weight belt. Imagine
it as an inner corset that begins from the lower part of your spine and wraps around your
stomach. Every time you pull your belly inwards you contract the TVA muscle concentrically
(reducing its size) and in combination with engaging your pelvic floor - the sling if you may call it of
your genital mus-cles which is spanning the area underneath the pelvis you also tighten the base
of your core which will help tighten your abs from all angles.
A simple way to activate the pelvic floor is to think of the musle activation you would use to pause
urination (no need to exaggerate this contraction just turn the muscles on).Give it a try and you will
notice your pelvic floor muscles turning on. If stabilization of your legs is also required, then brac-
ing your glutes in combination with all the above will help create rigidity and stiffness around the
midsection.
In a functional body this contraction is automatic when needed. You can notice this in healthy chil-
dren who perform certain movements where the transversus abdominal is required by the pulling
in of the belly button. For example when they jump vertically they do this in order to protect their
spine from the impact on landing.
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Because of bad habits and other reasons (surgeries, wearing typical weight belts etc) in a lot of
people this muscle doesnt function properly and may even shut down completely through time. The
de-training of that muscle can be one of the factors leading to the beer-type loose belly a lot of peo-
ple have and it is not just a cause of being overweight and bloated. Check out old bodybuilders like
Arnold Schwarzenegger and observe the amazing V-shape physique he had. The main reason for
that was that they trained a lot their TVA. An interesting fact is that Arnolds coach - Vince Gironda
who was and still is considered one of the most famous bodybuilding coaches, was totally against
ab crunching! So give special attention to the exercise guidelines I give in abdominal and other ex-
ercises making sure to perform them properly. Correct activation of the TVA muscle will strengthen
your core, protect your spine and give your stomach a more aestheticflat
V look.
Chapter quick summary: Strengthening your lower rectus abdominus and external obliques with
the exercises shown in this book will train your abs functionally, will prevent you from having a Don-
ald duck type posture and in combination with a proper diet and the rest of the bodyweight program,
it will help you achieve a flat ripped and Vshape stomach.
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CHAPTER 5 - WARMING UP
I always take my warm up serious, since a proper warm up has been proven to increase perfor-
mance and reduces injuries which can end up destroying results you have been working on for
months. I divide my warm up in two parts: A) Dynamic stretching and B) Warm-up sets.
5.1 Part A - Dynamic Stretching

A short definition of dynamic stretching would be stretching as you are moving. To be more spe-
cific dynamic stretching is an active movement of your body that brings forth a stretch but is not held
statically in the end position.
When it comes to strength training, I generally prefer dynamic stretching in combination with warm-
up sets instead of doing traditional type warm up routines like jogging or static cycling, which dont
really prepare you for the intensity of your workout and all the specific movement patterns you are
about to perform. Think about it simply... What happens during strength training is stress being
applied to specific muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints. So how would static cycling or jogging
prepare your upper body? For example, how would your shoulder area be prepared for doing a sim-
ple push up? The only positive effect cycling or jogging would have is raising your temperature and
warming up your legs. This is not bad of course, but it is also not enough.
Dynamic stretching on the other hand can prepare your bodys connective tissues and muscles by
performing targeted movements which are more related to the movement patterns you will perform.
The areas of your body that are about to be trained become warmer and more blood is pumped into
them. This will also increase your range of motion and flexibility which will be needed to perform
your workouts exercises. Once again, I am not saying that some jogging or cycling will hurt, but for
me, doing too much cardio before strength training takes my edge off and I end up training with less
appetite and energy. If you want to combine some traditional low cardio exercise before dynamic
stretching, 5 minutes to raise your bodys temperature are enough.
Dynamic stretching routine
1. Neck rolls. Standing tall and relaxed, drop the chin close to your chest and gently roll the head
toward one shoulder in a semicircular motion. Do 5 rolls in each direction (right and left shoulder)
but be careful not to leave the head fall too far backwards. Make slow, big and fluid movements
(pic. 5) while keeping relaxed other muscles that arent directly involved in the movement (like your
shoulders).
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2. Shoulder rolls. Shoulder dynamic stretches are quite important because the shoulder area is
one of the most easily tensed areas in our bodies nowadays, due to bad postural habits, lifestyle
and mental stress. Again standing tall and relaxed, start rotating your shoulders forwards in a big
smooth, circular motion.
Picture 5
Bring your shoulders up close to your ears (pic. 6a) and then back and down as low as possible (pic.
6b). Repeat by doing the motion backwards this time. Start slow and increase the speed a bit after
15 seconds. Do a total of 10 rolls two times with a 10-15 second rest in between.
Picture 6a Picture 6b
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3. Arm rotations. Start rotating your arms forward in a crossed position (right arm over left arm and
try to alternate after every rotation) with your elbows slightly bent using a slow tempo (pic. 7a,b). As
you get used to the movements, increase the tempo a bit as long as it feels comfortable. Do this for
20 seconds. Next rotate forward your arms, one at a time and each one for 15 seconds. Last, repeat
all of this again but this time rotating your arms backwards.
4. Dynamic lat stretch. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Gently start to swing arms up
and above your head (pic. 8a) and then back down all the way behind your body (pic. 8b). Keep your
elbows slightly bended during the movement. As you feel yourself loosening and getting warmer try
to extend the arms further in each direction. Perform this exercise twice for 20 seconds with a 10-15
second pause in between.
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5. Dynamic chest stretch. Standing again with feet shoulder width apart, raise arms to chest height.
Start swinging them across your chest (pic 9a) and behind your body (pic 9b) increasing gradually
the speed a bit. Make sure you keep your arms close to chest height. Perform 10 repetitions twice
with a pause of 10-15 seconds.
6. Shoulder dynamic stretch with elastic band. You can also find these as Shoulder dislocations
around the web but dont worry you arent actually going to dislocate your shoulders. It is just the
name of the exercise. This exercise is normally done with a stretching rubber band or if you dont
have one just find a bicycle-wheel inner tube that you dont need any more, Im sure there is one
lying somewhere around you. If not then you can buy a really cheap one for just 2 dollars instead of
spending 30 dollars for a regular stretching band. I actually prefer bicycle tubes because they have
the ideal amount of elasticity, not to hard and not too soft. Many people use also broomsticks but I
highly recommend something with elasticity to make sure you dont injure your shoulders.
How to do the exercise
a. Start by holding the band about twice as wide as your shoulder width in front of you.
b. Start raising your arms up overhead while being careful not to allow your shoulders to shrug
upwards (pic. 10a).
c. Bring the band all the way backwards, always making sure there is enough slack on it to allow you
to do this movement without over-stressing your shoulders. (pic. 10b)
d. As you warm up you can slowly try to decrease the width of your grip on the band. The more you
increase your flexibility in this exercise, the more you will be able to hold a nar rower grip. Just
make sure you always start wide enough and gradually decrease the width.
23
7. Static butt kicks. This exercise is performed just as the name implies - by trying to kick your butt
with your feet. This is accomplished by jogging in a static position and raising your heels one at a
time towards your glutes (pic. 11). Do 24 of these (12 for each foot), rest for 15-20 seconds and repeat.
8. Knee raises. To do the knee-raise dynamic stretch, step forward with your left leg and raise your
right knee towards your chest (pic. 12). Wrap your hands or arms around the shin and pull the knee
gently close to your chest. Hold for a split second and then step forward with the right leg and repeat
by hugging the left knee. As your legs warm up start performing the exercise a bit more dynami-
cally. Again do 24 of these (12 for each foot) rest for 15-20 seconds and repeat.
Picture 11 Picture 12
24
5.2 Part B - Warm up sets
The second part of the warm up consists of warm up sets - meaning sets that focus only on prepar-
ing your muscles for your work-out, without experiencing any great amount of fatigue. Start with 2
sets of pushups, one set of pull ups & chin ups and 3 sets of double legged squats (go as deep as
comfortable). For those who have reached the intermediate program and have conquered or are
able to do the first two progressions of handstand push-ups (check out chapter 6 later) add also two
sets of handstands on the wall for an amount of time that feels comfortable. Using these 5 exercises
is a really efficient way to complete warming up your whole body since they activate all your muscle
groups. To be a bit more specific, the intensity of these sets should not fatigue your muscles that
much but give enough of a neuromuscular stimulus to prepare yourself for the work-out. Do 35-45%
of the total amount of reps you do in your normal sets or do more reps but using an easier progres-
sion (I will offer progressions in every exercise later on). Always start with the exercise that is the
easiest for you, I prefer starting always with push-ups.
25
The general sensation we ought to have after completing an efficient warm up should consist of the
following basic points:
Feeling our muscles stimulated enough and fully energized but not fatigued
Enough freedom of movement in our joints and muscles to perform all the
exercises your program consists of.
A raise of temperature just enough to cause mild perspiration.
Some people due to genetics require raising their temperature in huge amounts in order
to sweat. In case you belong to that category dont consider the last point mandatory.
A good warm-up, especially before strength training, is extremely important. Remember, it is far
better to spend 15 minutes warming up every time instead of training for months and watch all your
results go down the drain, just because you skipped warm-up once and got injured.
"If you do not have enough time to

warm up correctly, you do not have
enough time to train"
- old saying
26
CHAPTER 6 - EXERCISE MENU
As I mentioned previously, you are only going to need eight exercises to get in shape with the Home-
Made Muscle workout. Keep in mind that everyone of is different... Weight, height, sex, level of
strength and other variables play an important role in bodyweight training, so not everyone can start
these exercises from the same progression. The beginner progressions are given in order - starting
from the easiest and moving on to the more difficult ones. During your first week, experiment with
the progressions in every exercise and find one suitable for you to begin with. By a suitable progres-
sion I mean one in which you can perform at least 2 sets of minimum 5-6 reps. Once you find the ap-
propriate starting point, I suggest waiting until the recommended number of reps can be performed
with good form before moving on.
#1 Pull-ups - The king of upper body exercises

TARGETED MUSCLE AREA: LATS
SECONDARY MUSCLES: FOREARMS, BICEPS
I cannot think of a better exercise than pull ups to determine ones relative upper body strength. If
I had to choose only one exercise to strengthen my upper body this one would be it. It is best if you
have a pull up bar as I mentioned previously, but you can also find other solutions to do pull ups if
you are creative enough.
Some pull up bar alternatives
Pull ups on an indoor staircase. (pic.13). Although this is a good solution when you have a similar
staircase in your house, there are also some disadvantages like the fact the grip is a lot more dif-
ficult, so it is not recommended for beginners.
Picture 13 27
Pull ups on a door frame. Once again the grip difficulty is the disadvantage in this alternative but it
can also be an advantage in strengthening your grip and forearm muscles later on. An ideal door
frame for pull ups is a wide transom type door frame (pic.14) which is the one I used when I didnt
want to spend money on a regular bar.
Picture 14
The second way is to use the door itself. (pic 15a,b). If you use the door itself, you will want to put
something soft on the edge you will be hanging off like a towel, or wearing some gloves to avoid a
painful grip. Also wedge something under the door like a few books or magazines to close the space
and avoid busting the doors hinges! Make sure you do pull ups on a solid door that can sustain your
weight so you dont end up injuring yourself and breaking your houses doors!
28
If your house has an attic it is possible that there is a steady beam you can hang on and do pull ups.
Wear some gloves for a better grip and to avoid splinters.
Clothsline supports. Maybe your yard has one solid enough, this is also a good alternative for a pull
up bar.
Depending on the space you have around you there are countless possibilities just become crea-
tive and you will find a solution!
Proper technique - The perfect pull up
Step 1
Place your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart on the surface you have chosen to do
your pull ups. Keep your wrists aligned with your forearms and bend your knees with your feet
crossed (pic. 16). You should be using an overhand grip-palms pointing outwards so that they are
facing away from you.
Step 2
You should not just be hanging on your ligaments and letting your neck sink between your shoulders
(pic. 17a). To avoid this keep your shoulders down and chest up by depressing your shoulder blades
down and retracting them together (17b).
Picture 17a (wrong starting position) Picture 17b (correct starting position)
Picture 16
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Step 3
Now pull your body up by focusing on bringing your elbows to your sides and avoiding swinging mo-
tions of your legs and pelvis. To avoid involuntary swinging motions brace your glutes and pull your
belly button a bit inwards prior to every pull up. Bring your body up until you pass at least the height
of your eyes. As you get stronger, focus on bringing your body higher while maintaining your elbows
close to the body for greater lat activation. I personally dont count a pull up if it I doesnt pass chin
height.
Step 4
Lower yourself down in a slow controlled motion.
Common pull up mistakes
Mistake #1 One of the most common mistakes is a lot of swinging motion in the waist and lower
body area, doing a kind of cross-fit / kipping pull up. If you are not training to break a cross-fit re-
cord, then set your ego aside and focus on doing fewer reps with a proper smooth form. This will
make a tone of a difference in getting stronger, more muscular and avoiding soft tissue injuries like
tendon strains.
Mistake #2 The second most common mistake is doing pull ups in a really small range of motion.
Just lifting your body of the ground and bending your elbows is not a pull up and will deprive yourself
from many benefits of doing a normal range pull up. Doing limited range of motion pull-ups is only
OK for a beginner. Once you can do at least 5 normal range of motion repetitions, I see no reason to
continue doing small reps.
Progressions for beginners:

Dead hangs. If your forearms are too weak to sustain your body while simply hanging on a bar or
wherever you do your pull ups, then you must strengthen your forearms and your hand grip by per-
forming dead hangs (meaning just hanging on the bar). Start with 4 sets of 3-10 seconds or more
depending on your strength and as you get stronger progress to 30 seconds. Once again, dont just
hang on your ligaments letting your head sink (pic. 16a), do the dead hangs with scapula activation
and keeping your chest up (pic. 16b). This will also strengthen your upper back muscles as they will
be contracting (isometrically).
Negative / assisted pull up system. One of the best ways to master most bodyweight exercises is
doing negative repetitions. In case you dont know what a negative repetition is read the following
paragraph otherwise move on to the Negative repetition progressions.
30
What is a negative repetition? Every repetition has 2 basic phases. A concentric and an eccentric
phase which is more known as a negative phase. The concentric repetition in bodyweight exercises
refers to the pushing or pulling phase and the negative phase is the other half of the repetition where
you are lowering your body against gravity. So in a pull up the concentric phase is the pulling up of
your body and the negative phase is the lowering down of your body. In the case of push-ups the
negative phase of the repetition is the lowering down of the body and the concentric phase is the
pushing up.
Negative repetition progressions:

1. Place a steady chair that can support your weight under the pull up bar. Get on the chair and grip
the bar. Keeping the bar at chin height try to lower your body slowly (counting around 2-3 seconds)
without depending on the chair. Once you lower yourself down, use the chair again to grab the bar at
chin height and repeat. Depending on how easy the exercise is for you perform 5-12 negative repeti-
tions, two times, with one minute rest between each set. Once you can perform 12 repetitions move
on the next progression.
2. Place the chair a bit behind the pull up bar, put one leg on the chair and pull yourself up using as
less as possible strength from your leg. Once you reach the top remove your leg from the chair cau-
tiously and lower your body down slowly (counting 2-3 seconds). Start again with 5-12 reps and once
you can perform 2 sets of 12 repetitions with 1 minute rest move on the next phase.
3. At this point, you should be able to do at least 2-3 normal pull ups. Begin the set by doing as many
normal pull ups as you can and continue with assisted pulls until you complete a total of at least
5 reps. As you grow stronger you will eventually be able to do 3 sets of 5 normal reps. Once you
achieve this just start adding more reps until you are able to do 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps. After that start
trying advanced variations. Keep in mind that performing 15 reps is a goal that takes a huge amount
of time if you focus on keeping perfect form.
Quick summary:
Start with negatives reps
Do as many normal pull ups as you can, combined with assisted pull ups
Build it up to at least 3 sets of 12 good form pull ups before you move on to a more advanced
variation.
Note: Another exercise that will contribute in doing normal pull ups are the table rows.
As you grow stronger in table rows you will also get better in pull ups.
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Advanced variations:
Chest height pull ups. These are my favorite pull ups and they are just like normal pull ups but in-
stead raising your body until eye level with the bar, this time you will raise your body until the bar
touches height of your upper chest - just bellow your collar bone. This way you will also focus more
on you lats because the lats are fully contracted when your shoulder are drawn down and back. Once
you can perform 12-15 reps move on the next variation. Nowdays, I am going even lower touching
the bar on my sternum which has given me great results in pulling strength.
Pull ups with legs raised. Start with bended knees (90 degrees) in front of you. As this becomes
easier extend your legs until they are parallel to the floor. Once you can perform 15 reps move on
the next variation.
This progression will also give your abs a great work out!
Weighted pull ups. Wear a weighted backpack (you can fill up your backpack with books, sandbags,
dumbbells etc). You can also buy special weighted backpacks for bodyweight exercises online.
A variation you should avoid:

A common theory is that the wider your grip is when doing pull ups, the wider your lats become.
In my experience, this only means a smaller range of motion and less lat activation which can lead
to injuries - like in my case, where I strained my teres major using a wide grip - a common injury in
bad form or too wide-grip pull ups.
Chin ups - The best bodyweight exercise for big guns!

TARGETED MUSCLE AREA: LATS, BICEPS
SECONDARY MUSCLES: FOREARM FLEXORS
I consider chin ups more as a variation of the pull up, than a different exercise and that is one of the
reasons why I categorize pull ups and chin ups as one exercise in my programs on chapter 8; since
the basic difference is the way you grip the bar. The other two basic reasons I combine pull ups and
chin ups as one exercise, are: a) because including them as different exercises and doing too many
sets of them combined in a program can get your arms to tired for the rest of the exercises and b)
when they are combined as one exercise they give incredible results in upper body strength and
muscle development.
32
Chin ups use an underhand grip where your palms face inwards so that they are facing towards
yourself. Although pull ups and chin ups focus more on your lats and biceps they also strengthen
your forearm flexors, the trapezius (upper back muscle), the infraspinatus muscle (a muscle on the
outside part of your shoulder blades) and even turn on your the pectoralis major (chest) and external
obliques (side abs). The biggest difference between pull ups and chin ups shown in a electromyo-
graphic study in 2010 was that chin-ups activated in a greater extent the bicep and the pectoralis
major muscle (chest) in comparison to pull ups which activated a bit more the lower trapezius. The
coolest finding of this study is that chin ups even activate your chest muscles up to 57%.
You dont have to remember all the above details,of course... I was just trying to prove you how many
muscles get involved in bodyweight exercises. The basic thing you want to keep in mind is that pull
ups/chin ups both focus on the lats & arms and combined together in one exercise they will activate
your upper bodys musculature in a great extent. Combining pull ups and chin ups, in my personal
experience, is the best way to get killer gains in the arm and back department!
Proper technique and common mistakes
Besides using an opposite - underhand grip (pic 18a) the rest of the technique and common mis-
takes are basically the same as in pull-ups. I would advice you though not to straighten your elbow
joints completely in the lowering phase and keeping them a bit bent as in the bicep isolation chin-
ups variation. Locking-out (straightening) the elbows with an underhand grip puts too much stress
on the elbows of many people, including me.
Picture 18a Picture 18b 33

Use again as in pull ups the same progressions. Once youll be able to do pull ups you will definitely
be able to do chin ups, since they are pretty similar and they are usually easier for most people. Both
of them assist each other in the beginning while learning them so try to perform both.
You can again use all the variations used in pull ups, plus, the following one if you want to isolate
your biceps more:
Bicep isolation chin ups. If you want to focus more on your biceps reduce the distance between your
hands to half your shoulder width. Pull yourself only up to eye level with the bar and then slowly
lower yourself ending the negative phase, without extending your elbows fully but keeping them a
bit bent so you keep the tension on your biceps. From this position, pull yourself up again. During
this variation focus on the contraction of your biceps especially during the concentric phase (pulling
up). This is the greatest bodyweight exercise for building big guns!
#2 Push ups
TARGETED MUSCLE AREA: CHEST & TRICEPS
SECONDARY MUSCLES USED: SERRATUS ANTERIOR
This is one of the most classic bodyweight exercises, although many people who train for strength
have come to underestimate them. The main reason many underestimate push-ups is because
without being aware of it they cheat the exercise by using bad form. Performing a set of push-ups
focusing on perfect form might have you reevaluate your thoughts on them. Later on, instead of quit-
ting on them when they become too easy give the one-arm push up a try and you will be once again
humbled by this great exercise. For others it may be a great challenge just performing a couple
of reps since a typical push up uses approximately 65% of your total bodyweight. This can be quite
challenging for many people depending on their physical condition and weight. The great thing about
push-ups is that they can be done anywhere! In comparison with a bench press the push up also
requires core stability especially from your rectus abdominis (six-pack).
A typical push-up requires lifting 65% of your total bodyweight and also activates your abs!
34
Proper technique - The perfect push up
1. Starting position. Keeping your fingers spread, place your hands slightly wider than shoulder
width apart, next to the middle of your chest. Your legs should be next to each other or you can cross
them keeping one on top of the other and alternating the leg on top after every set. Keeping legs,
waist, shoulders and head aligned you will properly activate chest, triceps and abdominals (pic.19).
Picture 19
2. Performing the push-up. Pull your belly button inwards prior to lowering your body. As you lower
yourself keep your elbows close to your torso by pointing them back. This is really important for a
balanced tricep - chest activation. If your elbows flare outside your body, you neglect your chest in
a great extent. Once you are slightly above the floor, press yourself back up. Personally, I like to
slightly touch my chest on the ground without resting on it though.
Common mistakes
Mistake #1 - Neck & head alignment. Keep your neck and head aligned with your torso. Many people
tend to pull their heads upwards. This is usually combined with shrugging the shoulders which is
the second most common mistake. You can see a combination of bad head alignment and shrugged
shoulders in the following picture (pic.20).
Mistake #2 - Shoulder shrugging. A lot of people raise their shoulders towards their ears which
besides encouraging poor posture and neck tension problems, also forces the triceps to work more
and the chest less. This can be often caused by placing your arms too high above your shoulders.
35
Mistake #3 - Letting your hips sink. By letting your hips sink (pic. 21) you take the abs out of the
equation. This either means you are cheating the exercise by reducing the range of motion to do
more reps or that you are not ready yet for normal push-ups and you have to take a step backwards
by doing an easier progression. Planks, which are described further on, are also a great exercise
for this problem.

Incline push-ups. When it comes to mastering a classic push-up I dont agree on starting with the
typical push-ups on knees progression. The reason is that by depending on your knees you shut
down your core. It is better to start with incline push-ups keeping your core always integrated into
the exercise. Choose a height that will challenge you but will also allow you to do at least 5-6 reps.
Place your arms for example on a bed or a chair and perform the exercise just as like you would if
you were doing normal push-ups. As you get stronger and reach 15 reps start lowering the height.
Planks. If your arms are strong enough to support your body but your waist keeps on sinking towards
the floor every time you try to do a push up, then planks are a great exercise to develop core stability
for push-ups. Simply get in a push-up position and place your forearms on the ground instead of
only your palms. Your elbows should line up just bellow your shoulders. To prevent your waist from
sinking, squeeze your glutes and activate your core by pulling you belly button a bit inwards. Your
body should be in a straight strong line from head to your toes - just like a regular plank. Start with
10-20 seconds depending on your strength and build it up to 45 seconds. You can also use a crossed
leg position but make sure again you alternate the above leg between sets (pic. 22)
36 Picture 22
Deep push-ups. Use two even elevated surfaces to place your hands on in order to bring your chest
deeper toward the ground while lowering your body. Use something like thick books, printing paper
stacks, bricks, whatever you can find available. Another solution is using three chairs one for each
arm and one for your feet (pic. 23a,b). If you have sensitive shoulders then it is better to avoid this
exercise.
Ball push-ups. Find a football, a basketball or any ball of a similar size and use it to balance one of
your arms (pic. 24). Due to the unstable surface of the ball the side thats depending on it, will get
more stimulated or get as it is called a proprioceptive response, which increases neuromuscular
activation for stability. Make sure to alternate hands. Later on, you can use two balls for both hands.
Picture 24
37
Diamond push-up. The only different thing with a diamond push up is hand positioning (pic. 25).
Assume a normal push-up position but now place your hands next to each other with the tips of
your index fingers and thumbs touching to form the shape of a diamond. Now just lower yourself
down and push yourself up just as in a regular pushup. This variation focuses more on your triceps
instead of your chest.
Picture 25
One arm push-ups! The one arm push up is a really hardcore bodyweight exercise. This exercise
requires extreme arm, chest, shoulder and core strength & stability. The difference in this variation
is that your working-hand is more in the middle bellow your chest and you start with your legs in a
more wide comfortable position (pic 26a,b).Your free arm can rest on your lower back or on the back
of your thigh.
38
Progressions for the one-arm push-up:
One-arm incline push-up. Find a height challenging enough that allows you to do around 5-8 reps
and build them up to 12. Once you can do 12 reps of incline waist height push-ups, move to the next
progression.
Chair-Assisted push-ups. Find a short chair/stool or any kind of stable surface that is not higher
than knee height (pic. 27a). Assume a push-up position but place one arm extended with your palm
on the stool (if it is too difficult to have your arm extended, you can bend it a bit in the beginning.)
As you lower yourself (pic. 27b), put as much pressure as needed on the extended hand to make
the movement smooth. Once you can do 12-15 reps, start working on normal one-arm push-ups.
At this point you should be able to do 1-3 reps with your feet in a comfortable wide position.
#3 Inverted Rows
MUSCLE AREA TARGETED: MIDDLE BACK (TRAPEZIUS)
SECONDARY MUSCLES: LOWER BACK (LATS)
Although pull ups and chin ups are great for strengthening your back muscles, their disadvantage
is that they focus more on the lower part of your back (lats) neglecting your trapezius muscle which
is the muscle between your shoulder blades. Inverted rows if done right; will focus on that area and
will support you on building a strong symmetrical back.
Equipment required
Find two stable surfaces (such as two tables) of equal height. The height of them should be a bit
more than your arms reach so you dont restrict your movement when lowering your body during
the exercise. Now place on the surfaces some kind of rod. For example, you can use a crutch which
is what I used (pic 28a,b), your pull up bar, a weight bar in case you have one available, a pipe, a
strong curtain rod etc. Just make sure that that whatever you use, is strong enough to sustain your
weight.
39
Proper technique
Lie beneath the rod so that your chest is directly under it and grab it placing your hands shoulder-
width apart using an overhand grip (pic. 28a). It is important to keep your body aligned during this
exercise. Prior to pulling yourself up activate your core by pulling your belly button a bit inwards and
squeeze your glutes, this will help keep your thighs, pelvis and upper body in alignment. When you
pull yourself upwards, make sure that you bring your chest as close as possible to the rod and keep
your head in alignment with the rest of the body (pic 28b).
Important tip: In order to properly activate the correct muscles in this exercise, it is essential to fo-
cus on bringing your shoulder blades as close as possible to each other as your reach the top height
of every rep. If you dont focus on this scapular retraction you will just activate your lats and arms
therefore neglecting your upper back muscles.
Progression for beginners:

Do the exercise with knees bent at about 90 degrees and by placing your feet flat on the floor. If the
exercise is still too difficult either try resting your back on the floor for three seconds after every rep.
Progressions for advanced:

Legs raised. Raise your legs higher using a chair or a stool (pic. 29).
Paused reps. When you reach maximum height remain there for 3 seconds (pic. 29) focusing on
squeezing your shoulder blades together. This will add a great isometric contraction on your upper
back. If 3 seconds are too long start with 1 second and build it up to 3.
One leg. Use one leg to balance your lower body while keeping the other leg extended just above the
floor. Again this will also activate more your core, glutes and hamstring muscles.
40
Swiss bal. Place a Swiss ball or a basket ball(s) underneath your feet (pic. 30). This will also activate
more your core, glutes and hamstring muscles.
#4 Handstand push-ups
TARGETED MUSCLE AREA: SHOULDERS
SECONDARY MUSCLES: TRICEPS
This is the best exercise to strengthen the antagonistic muscles of pull ups and my second favorite
body-weight exercise after pull ups. The reason I love handstand pushups is because in my opinion
it is the most demanding bodyweight exercise of all. It requires tremendous relative upper body
strength, balance and kinesthesia due to your bodys reversed position. Neglecting this exercise and
overloading you shoulder joint long-term with pull ups/chin ups can lead to shoulder issues.
Proper technique
1. Place your hands approximately 1 foot away from the wall (this may vary a bit depending on your
height), have your hands a bit wider than shoulder width, your fingers spread and parallel to each
other. Position your feet just as a 100 meter sprinter would in a starting position, one leg close to
your body and one a bit more far away. Usually placing your kick/strong leg closer to your body is
more comfortable.
2. Kick up with the leg closer to your body into a handstand. Remember to maintain your fingers
spread out and once you touch the wall keep your back slightly arched and slowly bend your knees
approximately 90 degrees leaning on the wall (pic. 31a) either with the upper half of your foots sole
or just the toes, whatever feels more comfortable.
41
3. Engage your core muscles and carefully lower yourself down (pic. 31b) and press yourself up.
Remember this is a really difficult exercise; personally it took me 5 months of consistent training to
conquer 8 good form reps.

1. Pike push-ups. Begin from a push-up position and bend your waist, lifting your hips up and com-
ing toward your toes so that your body forms upside-down V. The distance between feet and
hands should be almost as long as your legs length (pic. 32). Bend your elbows to lower your head
toward your hands and press back up. Work your strength up to 15 reps before moving on to the
next pro-gression.
2. Elevated pike push-ups. Elevate your legs using a chair/stool (pic. 33)
42
3. Handstand balance against the wall. If you have never practiced the handstand position before,
work on the handstand stance against a wall without doing any push-ups until you feel really confi-
dent in this position (pic. 34). You should be able to hold a handstand against the wall for at least 10
seconds before moving on the next progression. Activating your core by pulling your belly button a
bit inwards and bracing your glutes helps in keeping your lower and upper body connected and rigid.
Picture 34
4. Negative handstand push-ups. Perform negative reps until you can perform 5 of them. To do this,
kick up in the handstand stance, lower your body slowly down, bring your feet right back down and
repeat. Having a pillow bellow your head is recommended. I suggest not more than 8 reps, because
kicking up in the handstand position consequently more than 5 reps might get you a bit dizzy.
5. 50% range of motion. Perform half repetitions until you can perform 12 reps. Placing a couple of
pillows below your head to know when you reach the appropriate height is quite helpful. After being
able to do 12 reps of 50% range of motion (rom) you should be able to do at least 2-4 normal reps.
Start combining them with 50% rom reps in order to do one set of 5-6 reps (full + 50% rom). As you
get stronger you will reach a point where you can do 5-6 reps of full rom.
6. Hand placement. Having your palms parallel to each other is going to be really difficult in the
beginning. An easier hand placement to start with is: fingers spread as before, but thumbs pointing
towards each other, so that the extension of them and your indexes form an imaginative triangle.
43
Go deeper. One way to do this without any extra equipment, is by turning your head a bit backwards
and bringing your nose close to the floor (pic. 35a). You can also increase the range of motion by
placing your hands on elevated surfaces such as bricks, books (pic. 35b) etc... Start increasing
the height gradually though, because even a slight increase such as an inch in the beginning
makes a huge difference to the intensity of the exercise.
Contradictions: This exercise puts also a lot of pressure on your shoulders so dont try this if you
have shoulder issues. Also, because it requires your legs to be elevated and causes blood to rush
to your head I would not recommend it to people with high blood pressure or those who get dizzy
easily.
#5 Pistol squats
TARGETED MUSCLES: QUADRICEPS, GLUTES
SECONDARY MUSCLES: HAMSTRINGS, CALVES
This is probably the greatest bodyweight exercise to strengthen your legs and in comparison with
barbell exercises which apply extra axial loading on your body it is usually safer for your lower back.
Also there is a phenomenon known as the bilateral deficit, which states that the sum of the forces
produced by each leg is greater than the total bilateral force production. This means that the overall
load you can overcome with each leg in exercises, such as the pistol squats, is higher than bilateral
leg exercises, such as squats.
Also because of the balance required, your neuromuscular system is challenged in a great extent
contracting, stretching and stabilizing at the same time a big amount of muscles. Pistol squats is an
exercise that recruits your lower bodys muscles probably more effective than any other leg exer-
cise.
44
If you have difficulty getting down in a deep squatting position, that probably means you need to
stretch muscles around your hips and ankles. Just getting in a deep bilateral squat position, trying
to keep balance with your arms extended in front of you or grabbing on something in the beginning
is a good exercise to stretch the muscles required to get in a deep pistol squat.
Pistol-squat proper technique
Stand on one leg straight, with the other leg out in front of you just above the floor. Slowly lower
yourself as if you want to sit in a very low chair and focus on keeping most of you weight on your
heel. As you lower yourself down start extending your arms in front of you to counterbalance the
weight shift towards the back, and always maintain the foot you are leaning on, flat to the ground. At
the bottom position (pic. 36), your hamstrings & glutes will be resting on your calf. Next, get back up
to the starting position. Core activation is also important in this exercise. As your knee starts to bend
slowly inhale and draw your belly button inwards. The drawing should match the intensity of the
exercise. Once you pass the bottom sticking point of the exercise gradually exhale through pursed
lips. That is one rep. Mastering pistol squats is really challenging for most people, so, be patient!
Picture 36

Bilateral bodyweight deep squat. In order to do a pistol squat, first of all, you should to do regular
bilateral deep squats. If you are unable to balance yourself when reaching to the bottom with your
arms extended in front of you, try holding two big bottles of water (1,5-2 liters), on each hand to use
as counterbalance. Even though this might sound more difficult than the normal version of the ex-
ercise it actually makes it easier by creating a helpful counterbalance and improving your stability.
Start at the standing position with the bottles on your sides and as you start lowering you body, raise
your arms to shoulder height.
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Sitting Pistol Squats. Sit yourself on a chair using a pistol squat (pic. 37). Keep your arms also ex-
tended straight in front of you at shoulder height. To get up again lean your weight a bit forward and
push yourself upwards.
Chair assisted pistol squats. Have a steady surface about knee height next to the leg you are go-
ing to extend, (if you feel this height is too low for you can use a higher surface about waist height).
You can use a sofa, a chair, a table, a stool (pic. 38) whatever you find most convenient. Lower your
body down and come up again using the surface to balance and push yourself upwards. As you get
stronger, use the surface more for balance and less to push on. Once you dont need to push at all
on it, move on to the next progression.
Picture 38
Picture 37
Counterbalanced Pistol squats. If you cant progress yet to a normal pistol squat because you are
unable to balance yourself when reaching to the bottom position due to the weight shift dragging
you back, try holding again two big bottles of water (1,5 - 2 liters), on each hand to use as
counterbal-ance. I remind you, that even though this might sound more difficult than the normal
version of the exercise, it actually makes it easier by creating a helpful counterbalance improving
that way your stability. Start at the standing position with the bottles on your sides and as you
lower you body start raising your arms to shoulder height (pic. 39).
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Picture 39
Keeping your arms closer to the body. This way, you have to recruit a lot more stabilizing muscles
to keep the weight from pulling you back.
Pistol squats with calve raise. At the end of every repetition as your body is ascending to complete
the rep, instead of finishing flat on your foot, continue to rise your body by doing a calve raise on your
toes. This requires a great amount of muscle coordination, balance and concentration which leads
to a great contraction of your calves.
Paused Reps. Pausing on each rep at the bottom takes out the suspension movement reflex occur-
ring when you approach the lowest point of the squat, which makes the exercise a lot more difficult.
Note: Avoid letting your knee move out too far away from your toes. Keeping the knee aligned with
the second toe is a good general rule of thumb. However, there are some people anatomically built
with shins that are too big in analogy with their thighs, so in that case it may be normal to move a bit
away from their toes.
#6 Dips
TARGETED MUSCLE AREAS: CHEST
SECONDARY MUSCLES: TRICEPS, SHOULDERS
This is one of the greatest exercises for strengthening the chest. Find two stable and equal heighted
surfaces. The height of them should not allow your knees touch the ground, as you lower yourself
during the exercise. These surfaces can be two tables, two bar stools, a narrow staircase, two sofas,
kitchen countertops (pic. 40), etc. In case you cannot find surfaces that are exactly the same height,
add a book to even out the height, or make sure you switch sides after every set.
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Proper technique
Place your palms on the surfaces, shoulder-width apart or a bit wider if you want to target more your
chest. Be careful not to go to wide - you can hurt your shoulders. Assume the starting position by
leaning on your palms with your knees bend and feet crossed (pic. 40a). Smoothly, lower your body
and lean a bit forward to put more pressure on your chest. When you reach 90 degrees of elbow
flexion (pic. 40b), push yourself back up, keeping your body as stable as possible during every rep.

Negative reps. Start with negative repetitions (just the lowering phase) and once you can complete
12 reps, move on the next progression.
50% range of motion. Perform dips doing half or 4of the range of motion (rom). Lower your body
halfway down and go up again. Once you can do 12 repetitions, move on.
Combine 50% rom reps and full rom reps. By now you should be able to do at least 2-4 full range of
motion dips. Start with as many full rom dips you can do and complete the rest of the set with 50%
rom. As you get stronger, try doing more full rom reps.
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Weighted dips. Fill a backpack with some extra weight. Add heavy books, sand bags or whatever
you have available and wear it on your back.
Concentration dips. Focus on one arm at a time using the other hand as less as possible.
Legs raised. Perform the exercise raising your knees close to your chest. This way the exercise will
become more demanding by placing more stress on your triceps, your shoulders, which have to
work harder to stabilize your body and your abdominals. As you get stronger at this variation, you
can start extending your legs further away.
#7 Leg raises
TARGETED MUSCLES: LOWER ABDOMINALS
SECONDARY MUSCLES: EXTERNAL OBLIQUES
Supine Leg raises. This is an exercise done by a lot of people in gyms, but most of them start with
progressed versions of it, activating the wrong muscles and missing out on all the benefits their abs
and core can get out of it. Everyone should start from the following two steps and only if they can
perform them with perfect form, should allow themselves move on the next progression.
a. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Place your fingers bellow your
back just under your belly button. Raise your legs up until the knees are pointing towards the ceiling.
Roll your pelvis back until you feel your low back lightly pressing on your fingers. From this starting
position (pic. 41) lower your legs to the floor, without releasing the pressure on your fingers by arch-
ing your back. If your back begins to arch, stop and return your legs to the starting position.
b. As you grow stronger through time, start extending your legs without letting your back arch and
stick off your fingers.
Picture 41
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Hanging leg raises with knees bent. This is a great exercise for your abs (plus, they look cooler that
regular ab crunches!). To do the exercise, you should first perfect the supine leg raises and be able
to keep a dead hang with an overhand grip on a bar (or whatever surface you will be using) for at
least 30 seconds. You should be using your abs to initiate the movement and not just swing your legs
in the air. To do this, you should focus on the following two steps:
1. Start position: Grab the bar or whatever it is that you are going to be hanging off, and posteriorly
tilt your pelvis flattening this way your spine.
2. Pull your belly button in prior to raising your legs and bring your knees to the chest, maintaining
the posterior tilt at all time (pic. 42)
Picture 42
Hanging leg raises. Legs extended. Following the previous steps and as you get stronger, start ex-
tending your legs.
Important tip: Make sure that as you raise your legs, the spine never goes into lordosis. This can
lead to less abdominal activation, over recruitment of the wrong muscles (iliopsoas, hip flexors) and
back pain. Remember to always have control of the movement. Avoid swinging / jerking your body
up, down, forth and back. Your upper body should be as stable as possible.
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One arm hanging raises. Using one arm to hang, perform leg raises in the same fashion. Keep your
other hand extended at shoulder height and move it sideways to balance yourself (pic. 43) This is
quite a difficult progression and takes a lot of time to be mastered and performed smoothly. It re-
quires a lot of grip-strength so you may need to add some one arm dead hangs in your program to
have adequate strength to perform the exercise. Adding 3 sets of one arm dead hangs in the end of
your workouts for approximately 1-3 months until you can keep a one arm dead hang for 30 seconds
straight does the trick. This variation hits a bit more your side abdominals.
Picture 43
#8 Prone Cobra
MUSCLES USED: LOW BACK MUSCLES (ERECTOR SPINAE)
SECONDARY MUSCLES: SCAPULA RETRACTORS, POSTERIOR DELTOIDS
This is a great exercise, especially for people who sit at desks all day, gamers, and generally those
with a sedentary lifestyle, with that type of rounded posture. If you tend to have a hyperlordotic
posture, squeeze your glutes during this exercise, this will reduce over-recruitment your low back
muscles which, in this case, are probably already too stressed. Use prolonged sets of twenty to sixty
seconds, with fifteen second rest periods. Start with 1-3 sets and progress until you can perform 3
sets of 60 seconds.
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Proper technique
1. Lie face down on a soft surface and rest your arms at your side.
2. Lift your torso while simultaneously squeezing your shoulder blades together and externally
rotating your arms by pointing your thumbs up.
3. When you have reached the proper end position, your palms should face way from your body, your
head and neck should be in neutral alignment and your toes should be touching the ground (pic. 44)
Picture 44
Chapter End notes: Doing an exercise with good form, contrary to doing an exercise with bad form,
can play a huge role on the difficulty of it, and injury prevention. Just the feeling that you are per-
forming an exercise correctly, doesnt always mean you actually are. Its important to observe your
form once in a while. You can use mirrors, or ask someone experienced to spot you while exercis-
ing. Almost every cell-phone has a camera today, so you can also use your phone or any other de-
vice available for you, and film your trainings to see how your form looks like. If you notice mistakes,
write them down and focus on them next time.
Having the perfect technique in every single rep and every single moment is not always possible,
not even by professionals.. But that doesnt mean you should not try. As one of the quotes I like says,
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.
"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase

perfection we can catch excellence"
- Vince Lombardi
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CHAPTER 7 - STATIC STRETCHING
Static stretching is quite a dark and controversial area in the exercise community. Every decade, if
not less, opinions change but as with most controversial things in life, I believe you should first listen
to different opinions - and after experimenting with them - make your own conclusions. Most people
are bored of stretching... And those who hate stretching the most usually have the worst flexibility.
I used to belong to that category but once I experienced all the benefits static stretching provides
to my body, I started appreciating it. Stretching can help you be more efficient in your workouts
and prevent injuries. They will keep your musculature more balanced and improve your movement
quality. I know, a lot of you dont have the mood or time to stretch your entire body every day but
dont worry, you can still get many benefits from just doing 10-15 minutes of strategic static stretch-
ing per day, as long as you do it at least 4 days per week.
Personally, I like to practice strategic static stretching before dynamic stretching when I train, and
also at days when Im very stressed physically and/or mentally, I add another session before I go to
sleep, which helps my body calm down.
7.1 Strategic static stretching

There is a tendency for people in the fitness industry, especially in areas like yoga to over-stretch
the body. This is not as productive as some of these people may think and can even lead to injuries.
Depending on our lifestyle and genetics, all of us have smaller or bigger muscle imbalances. These
imbalances lead to phasic and tonic muscles.
Tonic muscles tend to be short and tight, whereas phasic muscles mostly tend to be weak and
elongated. For this reason, it is really important to focus on stretching your tonic muscles and avoid
stretching muscles that are already too loose. Typically, your tonic muscles will be the ones that feel
really tight when you stretch; muscles you use predominately in everyday life, and also muscles that
tighten up quite easy when you are stressed or have bad posture. For example, muscles around
your neck. There might not only be specific muscle groups but also specific sides of the muscles
groups. For instance, your right hamstring may be tighter than your left; in this case you should even
up the flexibility of your hamstrings by focusing more on the tight one. I recommend that you do a
full body stretch session, noting down which muscles felt the tightest. These areas of your body that
feel tight during the day just by doing regular stuff, should be your main priority in static stretching.
These are some examples of typical tonic muscles in many people:

Upper trapezius - Superficial muscles on the back of your neck
Pectoral muscles - Chest muscles, especially in people with rounded shoulders.
Hamstrings and hip flexors - Common in people who sit all day
Gastrocnemeus and soleus muscles - Your calve muscles
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Personally, I try to do the following 6 stretches before I start warming up for my training sessions.
They focus on all of the muscles that tend to tighten up a lot from the strength exercises I use, and
the muscles that tighten up from sitting a lot on a desk. Stretch in every exercise for 20 - 30 seconds
and repeat it one or two more times depending on how you feel.
7.2 My personal stretching routine

1. Doorway chest & shoulder stretch. Stand under the middle of a doorway with one foot straddling
the threshold and your hands gripping the inside of the doorway, on each side. Shift your weight on
the forward foot until you feel a pull in your shoulders and chest (pic. 45). Keep your hands at chest
height first to focus more on the chest. After that, place your hands just above your shoulders height
to focus more on your anterior deltoids (front part of the shoulder). To isolate arms separately, face
your body a bit towards the opposite side of the arm you want to focus on.
2. Shoulder dislocations. This exercise is explained in detail in the warming up chapter and is a
dynamic stretch. However, I like to include it in my static stretching routine as well, because it helps
release a lot of tension around the neck area (pic. 46).
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3. Neck stretching on a chair. The musculature around our neck is one of our most sensitive areas.
These muscles are also called stress-muscles due to the fact that whenever people get stressed,
they tend to fire up, stiffen and also be the cause for headaches. Observe yourself when you are
typing on your computer on a busy day or even when you are washing the dishes having stressful
thoughts flying around your head. You can notice many times your neck musculature stiffening up
while doing the easiestt daily tasks that require no use of these muscles. Long term stiffness in this
area can cause all sorts of problems which can get worse with exercise if you dont learn to relax
them. Dealing with a lot of tightness around the neck myself, I have found the following exercises to
be the most efficient to loosen up these muscles.
Body positioning. To begin with, sit in your chair with good posture, spine elongated, and chest out. If
you tend to have rounded shoulders perform a shoulder roll backwards with both of your shoulders
while you gently slide your shoulder blades down along your spine. This will help keep your chest
open and is in general a good exercise to perform whenever you feel your shoulders hunched. Try to
remain in this position relaxed. Reach down on the right side and grab the bottom of the seat with
your right hand (pic.47a).
Now follow the next three steps:

a. Tuck in your chin.
b. Tilt your head bringing your left ear towards your left shoulder until your feel a bit tightness on
the right side of your neck.
c. Lean your body towards the left side, keeping your right shoulder down and stable by holding the
seat underneath you as described in body positioning (pic 47a,b).
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A lot of people tend to pull their head with their other hand to increase the intensity of the exercise
but if you maintain proper posture in this exercise, that will not be required. Your neck has some
really sensitive muscles, so avoid pulling your head that way and putting excessive force in these
stretches, especially in the beginning. In situations when you feel specific smaller muscles tight on
one side of your neck and you need to isolate them, you can do the following variations as well:
If you want to isolate the upper trapezius after tucking in your chin down and tilting your head to-
wards the side you are stretching, turn your head a bit towards the same direction before you lean
your body to initiate the stretch.
To isolate the levator scapula after tucking your chin down and tilting your head away, turn your
head towards the opposite side you are going to lean to. Take into account that sometimes just
stretching these muscles wont be enough. It is really important to develop daily awareness of these
muscles and prevent them from tightening during the day due to stress and neurotic holding pat-
terns you have developed over time, in all sorts of different physical and psychological situations.
4. Desk stretch for lats and chest. You can use your desk, a windowsill, a kitchen counter or any kind
of ledge about waist height. Sit on your knees, bend over and place your hands on the surface just
a bit wider than shoulder width. Gently lower your torso until you feel the stretch on your lats and
chest (pic 48). You can also isolate one arm at a time.
5. Hamstring stretch with bike tube. Using again the bike tube, an elastic band, or even a wide belt,
lie on your back, keep your left leg on the floor and bend your right leg so that your foot rests flat on
the floor. Loop your elastic band around the upper part of your right foot, holding onto an end of the
band with each hand. Straighten your knee and pull the leg slowly towards your chest (pic. 49). You
will feel in a stretch in the whole back area of your right leg. Pull your leg really slow so you dont end
up straining your hamstrings or anything else. Do the same for the other leg. This stretch is ideal for
people with a sedentary life style where these muscles tend to be quite tight.
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6. Hip flexor stretch. Lay face down on the floor, with your hands placed outside the top of your
shoulders. Bring one right leg up and close to your body by bending the knee and let the left leg rest
on your thigh relaxed, without squeezing your left glute (pic. 49a, b). Imagine that your left leg is
para-lyzed and anchored on the ground. Now pull yourself towards the front using your hands,
without moving your left leg until you feel a stretch in the hip flexor area of the left side. Repeat for
the other leg as well. Do this 2-3 times for every leg, keeping the stretch from 20-30 seconds.
Picture 50a
Picture 50b
Try to get into your stretching routine for a week or two, even if you are utterly bored of it.
Later on you will notice the benefits and it will become a pleasant habit.
"The chains of habit are generally too small to

be felt until they are too strong to be broken"
- Samuel Johnson
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CHAPTER 8 - TRAINING METHODS & PROGRAMS
8.1 Basics
My general guideline for amateurs, who dont want to follow a specific training program, is to start
using the exercises by doing sets of 5-6 reps from the progression that is appropriate for them, and
once they reach 12-15 reps, they can continue with a more difficult progression or an advanced vari-
ation. Focus first on learning how to do pull ups & chin ups, pistol squats, push-ups, inverted rows,
leg raises and the prone cobra. Later on, slowly introduce dips and handstand push-ups in your
personal exercise plan. If you reach such a high level that 15 reps of the most advanced variation is
not enough for you, then you can always manipulate the exercises tempo for example working in a
1-1-3 tempo (read more about this in paragraph 8.5).
Mind over muscle. If you are a rookie in bodyweight training, the first 1 month it is really important
to focus on proper form until it becomes automatic. Focus more on quality and training frequency
instead on intensity. Especially in the beginning, it is not only your muscles that have to get stronger
and bigger in order to perform more reps, but you also have to improve your neuromuscular con-
nections, meaning that you have to get used to the exercise technique and proper activation of the
muscles.
How much should it burn? After training for a month, you should start getting more serious if you
want to grow stronger. You will have to experience discomfort; there is no other way around it, no
tricks... You will have to struggle and feel that burning sensation in your muscles when you are at
the end of the set. These feelings should become your friends and reminders that you are doing it
right. You should realize that when you are doing strength training, you are not building muscle;
in fact, you are destroying muscle tissue. The objective is to destroy enough muscle cells during a
workout so that you stimulate your body to rebuild bigger, stronger and thicker muscles until your
next workout.
Be careful though, experiencing the discomfort mentioned above should not be misunderstood with
pain in your joints, ligaments, tendons or sharp muscle pain. Whenever you experience that kind of
pain, stop training immediately and if the pain insists go see a specialist.
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8.2 The beginners program
This program is for those who cannot yet do basic important exercises like pull ups. Handstand
push-ups and dips will be left out at the moment and will be included later on, once you have a more
solid strength foundation. My experience has shown me that this is also best for avoiding injuries by
overloading your joints and tendons. Your program will consist of two phases. Phase A is introduc-
tory; it lasts 2 weeks and will ease you smoothly into the program. Phase B will be completed once
you can do at least one set of 5 good form pull ups and one set of 15 pushups.
Phase A - Introduction phase. This is a full body workout program, meaning that you will train your
whole body in every workout. Always perform the exercises in the order shown in the tables. The
workout frequency is two times within a week keeping a minimum of three days rest between each
workout. i.e, you can train on Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Friday. You will perform 2
sets per exercise with 1-2 minutes rest between each set, depending on how you are feeling. After
completing all the sets of an exercise, you should rest for 2-3 minutes before proceeding to the next
exercise.
The goal of these first two weeks is to get used to the exercises, focusing on starting to learn them
with good form. The training frequency is small, so you have enough time to rest and avoid training
too sore, since its normal to get quite sore as a complete beginner or someone who hasnt trained
in a long time. You will perform 2-3 sets with 2 minutes rest between each set in every exercise. Af-
ter completing both sets of an exercise you should rest for 2 minutes before proceeding to the next.
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Certainly, if this is your first time doing these kind of exercises, in most cases, you wont be able to
start doing normal pull ups, pistol squats etc so start in every exercise from the easiest progres-
sion and see which one is ideal for you to perform at least 5 reps. As you get stronger increase the
repetitions gradually to 12-15 for your upper body and 5-5 for lower (squats) and then move on the
next progression.
About the Prone cobra. Since this is an isometric exercise (meaning there is no joint movement),
there are no repetitions so you have to count the time under tension of this exercise with a watch.
The sets are not specific because there are no movement progressions in this exercise. Aim for two
and if you can do more go up to four.
Phase B - Moving on phase B. the basic difference is one additional training session per week.
Spread your workouts during the week so they are done in none consecutive days. Train either on
Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Depending on the exercise,
you will perform 2-5 sets with one minute rest between each set. After completing all the sets of an
exercise, you should rest for two minutes before proceeding to the next one.
Note: As I previously said, do not train to failure your first month, just focus on perfect form. Being
completely new in bodyweight exercises will provide enough of a stimulus for your neuromuscular
system to improve and will save you from potential injuries. At the end of each set of every exercise
you should feel like you can do at least 1-2 more reps...
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8.3 Intermediate program - Pull & Push
Once you complete the beginners program or training with bodyweight programs and you are able
to do 5 pull ups and 15 push-ups with good form, you can begin the intermediate program. This pro-
gram is based on the classic Pull/Push system. In short a Pull/Push training system contains two
types of workouts, each one usually performed twice a week. The first one is a pull workout where
the exercises used are pullingpattern exercises. The second type is a push workout in which the ex-
ercises are pushing-pattern ones. You will also add handstand push-ups and dips in your program,
now that you have the appropriate strength foundation.
Why Pull & Push? There is a reason why old classic training systems like Pull/Push continue to be
popular and used for many decades; the reason is they offer guaranteed results. The basic benefit
of this system, at this phase, is that it allows you to focus a lot on specific exercises by doing more
sets in comparison with a full body program. This way, you will get more reps in difficult exercises,
like pull ups. Also you will be able to learn new exercises more easily, like handstand push-ups
for example. The handstand push-ups are quite demanding and take a lot of time/effort to be con-
quered. Another advantage of this program is that you can train four times a week, thus increasing
your metabolism more frequently, burning more calories and fat which will help you get rid of any
unnecessary weight that might be keeping you back from practicing difficult bodyweight exercises.
Benefits of the Pull/Push system in short:

Avoiding the risk of injury
Proven effectiveness
Ideal for learning new bodyweight exercises
Good for weight loss
The Pull & Push routine. Your weekly routine will contain 2 pull workouts and 2 push workouts. Your
program will start with a pull day and the next day will be a push day. Next you will take a day off,
and after that you will repeat the first two days. After that take two days off and you have completed a
weekly cycle. The following are two examples of weekly pull/push schedules. Example A is ideal for
people who prefer to work out during the week and like to have a more relaxed weekend. Example
B is for the ones who prefer to train on weekends, having more free time during the week.
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On your pull days, you are going to do 3 exercises: Pull ups & Chin ups, Inverted rows and Leg
raises. Focus on doing your sets with good form and give the last set of every exercise all youve got.
The resting period between each set is 2 minutes. Im not that interested in you having short resting
periods in this phase as in the rest of the programs. Focus on performing many reps and getting
stronger in all the exercises you lack in.
Push day. Your push days consist of 3 push exercises: Push-ups, Handstand push-ups, Pistol
squats, Dips and the Prone cobra as a finisher exercise, which will also help reverse posture side
effects you might have from all the pushing pattern exercises this day contains. The push-up sets in
the beginning serve more of a shoulder warming-up purpose for the handstand push-ups .You will
not go hard on them but instead you will do 4 easy sets. By easy sets I mean just doing enough reps
to get some blood flowing into your muscles and feeling some resistance but not feeling fatigue by
the end of each set. If you are not sure how many reps you need to do take the amount of pushups
you would normally do and reduce it by 30% of the total reps. So, for example, if you would normally
do 10 reps do 7 instead. In the rest exercises focus on doing many reps (always maintaining good
form) and take big resting periods from 2-3 minutes until you feel ready to hit the next set.
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Deloading week. Due to the frequency of this training system and the all compound exercises used,
you may end up overtaxing your neuromuscular system. Because of that, I highly recommend once
every 3 months you have a deloading week. This means that you will reduce the training volume into
half by doing only one pull day and one push day spreading them two days apart.
Prerequisites for moving on the next phase. You can progress to the basic program once you can
perform one set, with good form of the following exercises:
12 pull ups
12 dips
5 handstand push-ups
Note: You dont need to be able to perform these consecutively, take as much time as you need
between the exercises. Reaching this level depends on a lot of parameters (age, weight, sex the
physical condition your were in before you begin etc...). Keep in mind that it will usually take any-
where from 6 up 18 months, so just enjoy your journey of getting stronger without feeling stressed
if progress takes time.
8.4 Basic Program

First of all, if you started from the beginners phase and have come this far, congratulations! I know
it takes a lot of hard work to perform exercises such as the handstand push-ups and others, if you
have never done them before in your life. When it comes to bodyweight training, I have found that
once you have reached a good level of relative strength; full body routines are the most suitable and
effective programs in building a healthy, strong, symmetrical and ripped body. I am not saying that
training more will either get you better or worse results. I have experienced great results also by
training more than this, but always at times when I didnt have anything else important to do, having
all the time in the world to have an ideal stress-free recovery...
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Today almost everyones life demands a big amount of energy and time, leaving all kinds of physi-
cal and psychological stress on our body. Whether you are a student or a family-guy, your physical
recovery is not always optimal since it will be frequently hindered by bad sleep quality, psychological
stress, bad food choices and other bad lifestyle habits. We all know that in some periods of our life
these simply are inevitable.
Draining out every single last drop of energy by over-training can do more bad than good to som
ones health. That is the main reason I consider this basic program as the ideal long term training
frequency for 95% of people.
Full body program benefits. One thing I personally like about full body trainings is that you can
attack every training with your batteries charged, since there is always at least a day of rest in
between every session. Other benefits of full body training are:
It is less boring. It is less possible that you will get bored with the frequency of this program.
Free time. You have more free time on your resting days.
Ideal for training only with compound movements. It is ideal for the number and type of exercises
used in this program.
Enough time to rest properly. Your muscle and nervous system function together as a one. Its like
electricity and magnetism, you cant have the one without the other. So whenever you apply stress
on your muscles you also apply stress on your nervous system whether you are doing pull ups or
pistol squats. When youre stimulating your neuromuscular system day after day, eventually it be-
comes fatigued and the overall amount of reps you can perform on a daily basis really takes a hit.
With this full body program, you can train all your body 3 times per week and give it enough time to
recover fully, every seven days for at least 4-6 months of continual training.
Simple Scheduling. If you miss training for whatever the reason that may be, you can simply wait
until the next opportunity and youll still be hitting all your exercises and muscle groups. When you
are doing a split program if you miss out a workout, you mess up the whole training schedule for
the rest of the week.
Push yourself to the limits. Once you reach the basic program, you will have matured enough to
know how to force your body to its limits in every training without injuring or overtraining yourself.
Obviously, it isnt always possible to train to failure in every set of every exercise, every single day.
But pushing yourself to the limits in the last set and last 1-2 reps of the exercise is important if you
want to avoid plateaus.
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Basic program routine. The basic program consists of 3 training sessions per week. Besides leg
raises and the prone cobra, the rest of the exercises in all three sessions are pretty much the same
with slight differences in the order they are placed in and the total amount of sets they
consist of.
The most demanding exercicses in this program, for the majority of people are Pull ups, Handstand
push-ups, Dips and Pistol squats. That is why the first three of them are placed in the beginning
of one workout once every week. This way you can hit them hard with your neuromuscular system
fresh & energized, improving your form and adding more reps to them. As for pistol squats, since
they are a lower body exercise, they are placed in the middle of every routine so you are not too
drained and they can give your upper body a bit more time to recover before continuing with the rest
of the upper body exercises.
You will notice that there are some differences in the total amount of sets - in different exercises
- from session to session. That is done for two reasons. Number one is that there is always some
extra volume in the first exercise of each workout for the reasons mentioned in the previous para-
graph. Number two is a decrease in sets of some other exercises that come later on in each training
session. This is because the big common muscle groups that get stimulated in the first exercise, will
remain a bit fatigued.
The first workout of the week starts with pull ups & chin ups doing 6 sets in total. Combining these
exercises together builds immense upper body strength, especially in the arm and back depart-
ment. For reasons mentioned in chapter 6 I organize them always together as one exercise.
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Workout 2 starts with handstand push-ups. Since this is a highly intense and your beginner exercise
this day, make sure you warm up your shoulders quite well. Handstands on the wall and pike push-
up warm up sets are ideal to prepare for this performance.
The last workout of the week starts with dips which is one of the best bodyweight exercises for the
chest. This is the last day of the week, so dont be afraid to push yourself a bit more. There will be
plenty of time to recover the next two resting days.
If you want to focus even more on one of the three most demanding exercises (pull-ups & chin ups,
handstand push-ups or dips) you can place the day that the exercise is most dominant (meaning first
in order) at the beginning of the week. This way your batteries will be fully charged after a two-day
rest and you will be able to put more effort in it.
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8.5 How to get big with bodyweight exercises
In order to get a more big and swollen look in bodyweight training, you have to manipulate the tempo
of your repetitions and the duration of resting periods between sets using bodybuilding/hypertrophy
variables. You need to train your muscles to store more muscle glycogen by performing slow tempo
reps and keep short resting periods between sets (40 - 60 seconds). Muscle glycogen is the fuel your
muscle uses and its the main reason why bodybuilders get that pumped-up look. In order to pro-
duce this hypertrophy effect on your muscles, your sets should last from 30 seconds minimum up
to 60 seconds. The exact total time under pressure varies depending on your genetics (predominant
types of muscle fiber etc). Using a 1-1-3 tempo per set with each set lasting around fifty seconds is
one of the best ways to stimulate hypertrophy (muscle size).
What is a 1-1-3 tempo? When I say use a 1-1-3 tempo, I mean that the positive phase of your repeti-
tion should last 1 second, the transitional phase again one second and the negative phase should
last 3 seconds (look at chapter 6 if you dont remember what a negative and a positive phase is).
For example, in order to do a pull up this way pull yourself up normally (counting approximately 1
second), when your body reaches maximum height, stay there for 1 second again and perform the
lowering of the body (negative phase) in a real slow tempo, counting 3 seconds. In order to do a
push-exercise, like a dip, lower yourself in a slow tempo counting 3 seconds, stay on the bottom for
one second and push yourself back up in 1 second again.
Quick summary: For optimal hypertrophy I recommend you use a rep range of 8-12 reps, keeping
your sets duration always around 50 seconds (10 seconds) and keeping short resting periods from
40 - 60 seconds. In the table bellow there are three examples of hypertrophy training.
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If you are a fan of the bodybuilding-swollen physique, you are skinny and you want to boost a bit
your self-confidence; I suggest that you first achieve 12 reps of good form in every exercise before
you start applying bodybuilding tempos and rep ranges. In the beginning, no matter how you train,
strength training will always produce muscle growth especially if you are a guy...
The importance of food in hypertrophy. Something I couldnt avoid stressing enough for the skinny
guys out there is that being in a caloric surplus is essential if you want to gain size in hypertrophy
training. If you are eating only enough for your bodys basics needs, your muscle growth will be
hindered severely. If you are a healthy individual , I would recommend that you calculate your daily
caloric needs and add another 300-400 extra calories per day.
Calculating your daily caloric needs is easy, just go online, Google something like daily calorie
intake calculator bodybuilding and you will find many calorie calculators on popular bodybuilding
websites for free.
Chapter endnote: Dont get caught up in trying to perform extreme variations and moving on too
quick to the next training phase. Enjoy your journey of getting stronger and have patience. The fact
alone that you have submitted yourself in such a demanding program, is a huge win. As the wise
Lao Tsu said, A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
"A journey of a thousand miles

must begin with a single step"
- Lao Tzu
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CHAPTER 9 - PLATEAUS, OVERTRAINING & UNDERTRAINING
The three basic reasons that cause plateaus in strength training are the following: 1. you may be
training too hard 2. you are not training hard enough and 3) your lifestyle is getting in the way... The
following tips will help you prevent these scenarios.
Tip 1 - Keeping notes. If you want to keep improving and getting stronger it is crucial to take notes
during your workout (or after, if your memory is better than mine). I know it sounds kinda boring but
it only takes a couple of minutes or even less in every workout.
There are 3 important things you should always write down:

1. Failing from your first set means you are overdoing it and you have to either reduce the repetitions
or move to an easier progression.
2. Pain or annoyance during an exercise should be also something you have to note down. If its
a slight annoyance then consider laying off the exercise/s in which the pain occurred. If its much
more serious and insists then you should go see a specialist.
3. If you start to feel that the amount of reps you are using is too easy and doesnt challenge you
enough note it also down so you can experiment adding an extra 1-2 reps next time.
Psychosomatic factors - Are you too stressed or/and depressed? You must appreciate the fact that
you muscles grow while you are resting. Two really important factors to take under consideration
for a proper recovery in strength development, are: 1. your sleeping quality and 2. Physical & mental
relaxation during the day when you are not training. When you are too stressed mentally for long
periods of time your bodys capability to build muscle optimally will be hindered. Your body will be
constantly producing stress related hormones, like cortisol, which reduce the production of op-
posite anabolic hormones (Testosterone, Growth Hormone etc) that help your body recuperate and
build stronger muscles. You may think, ok, this is all good but I cannot command my mind not to be
stressed or depressed, can I? This brings me to my next tip.
Meditation and exercise against stress and depression. There have been actual studies proving
that exercise in combination with meditation and a little bit of sun exposure, work better than anti-
depressant drugs! Personally, besides exercising, I also meditate every day which has made a huge
difference in my stress levels and has improved the quality of my thoughts, making me a more
positive person. Meditation has been clinically proven to have the following effects on our health and
mind:
Reduces blood pressure
Stress reduction
Improves creativity
Improves sleep quality
Strengthens the immune system
Makes us react more calm in stressful situations
Helps against premature aging
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Improves concentration
and more
The type of meditation that works for me is mindfulness meditation but there are many types of
meditation out there, each one suitable for everyones idiosyncrasies. Here are some different forms
of meditation:
Mindfulness
Bioenergetics and dancing meditation
Sound meditation
Body awareness meditation
Breath Awareness Meditation
Chanting meditation
And the list goes on
If you are interested, just find a good book on the type of meditation that seems most appealing to
you and begin practicing every day. Even as little as 15 minutes a day can make a difference!
Sleep quality and quantity. Our DNA hasnt changed much the last 10.000 years and that means that
our biological clock works optimally in the same natural rhythms as our ancient ancestors. Our
bodies are programmed to sleep according to the circadian cycle which basically means that we are
programmed to sleep when there is darkness and wake up when there is light. After reading a lot
of studies on sleep quality, I would recommend having a general rule of thumb - not going to bed
any later than 23:00 and not to get up earlier than 06:00. Also, make sure you arent eating heavy
meals 3 hours prior to your bed time. Bad sleeping quality will mess your bodys optimal hormone
regulation and especially the production of anabolic hormones, like growth hormones which are
crucial for muscular growth and regeneration. The amount of sleep varies usually from person to
person, according to age and lifestyle but for adults, it is somewhere between 7-9 hours. My opinion
is that you should try to always lay in bed for a minimum of 8 hours no matter if you feel sleepy or
not. Studies have shown that there might even be a connection of bad sleep with diabetes, obesity
and depression.
Sunlight. Many people suffer from symptoms of seasonal affective disorder during the winter
months. This is closely correlated with lack of sunlight exposure. Sunlight exposure can benefit
mood by boosting levels of key hormones and also by producing vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced in
the liver and kidneys from precursor chemicals that are synthesized in the skin, when UV rays from
the sun shine on it. Know that plateaus will always occur, it is inevitable. It is also natural though,
since overcoming them is what always adds an extra level of strength to your body.
"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else.
It will spread into your work and into your life.There are no limits. There are
only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them"
- Bruce Lee
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CHAPTER 10 - NUTRITION
Not all diets work for everyone and thats because we all have our own bio-chemical individuality.
Not everybody has exactly the same metabolic rate, water content, oxygen carrying capacity of the
blood and all other kinds of genetic predispositions. The diet of primitive Eskimos for example, was
based 80% on animal fat and they had almost zero heart-issues. So even though an Asian person
might do well in a vegetarian diet, a primitive Eskimo would be probably sick in a matter of months
or even weeks! Long story short, we are all simply different...
Some diets work good for some people but less good for others. After studying a lot about nutrition
I know that it can be a really frustrating subject to research... Everyday new diets arise, nutrition
specialists change their opinions daily, and people get even more obese. Nowadays, statistics show
that even though more people are on more diets than ever, we are also fatter than ever!
The truth about fat loss. If you only care about controlling your weight, then the solution is pretty
simple. In case you are a healthy individual who doesnt have adrenal fatigue and their hormones
are in balance, then losing weight is strictly a matter of calories in and calories out. Your body burns
a specific amount of calories every day, which you can easily calculate if you go online. If you are not
familiar with calorie calculators, just Google something like free daily calorie intake calculator and
you will find many calorie calculators for free. After that, it is just a matter of counting your calories
every day. If you want to lose weight you have to be on a caloric deficit and if you want to gain weight,
you have to be on a caloric surplus.
There even was an experiment done by a nutritionist who got 90% of his calories from chips, biscuits
and other sugary stuff like that in combination with some veggies a protein shake and a multivitamin
for two months. The results? He lost 27 pounds and his blood work even improved! Of course we
dont know what the long term health effects of that diet would be, but in my opinion, in the best case
scenario you would probably develop at least one chronic disease (such as diabetes) after some
years...
The exceptions. The only diets that might have a slight benefit over the general rule of caloric intake,
are high protein diets and fasting related diets. High protein diets have a slight benefit due to the fact
that protein is a macronutrient that has a bigger thermogenic effect on your body. The reason for
that is that breaking protein down (protein catabolism) into amino acids and other simple derivative
compounds, requires more energy from your body.
Still, high protein diets are not ideal for everyone for health reasons related to their genetics. Some
people like Asians, tend to do OK on a vegetarian diet, while others, lik north Europeans, need at
least some meat in their diet. As for fasting diets, it is believed that they do have a metabolic adva
tage mainly due to the hormonal manipulation, but the scientific data is still incomplete to specify
how big that advantage is since in the end the human body tends to balance out in a great extent
most of these fluctuations.
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The main point here is that no matter what diet you do, if your daily calories overextend your daily
caloric needs, you will without a doubt gain fat after a certain point... Of course the media, doctors,
and other health specialists who want to promote their new groundbreaking diet books and other
products, will try to mislead you. The fact though is when you are trying to lose weight, the truth is as
simple as doing some calorie-math. No matter what you hear all the serious and unbiased scientific
research backs this up.
What should I do then? Find the diet that works best for YOU. Just because a friend of yours may
thrive on the Warrior diet or the Paleo diet for instance; this doesnt always mean it will also work
for you. Find a diet that suits your own lifestyle, covers your personal needs in nutrients, and try to
eat primarily real food that agrees with your body.
If you are wondering what real food is, dont worry. It is a reasonable question since our societies
have deteriorated to such an extent today where recognizing real food isnt always easy for many
people... By real food, I mean food that is as less chemically processed as possible. A product that
is the end result of sun, air, water and earth, or in other words if you cant kill it, grow it out of the
earth or pick it off a tree then dont eat it! Take an apple for example it grew on a tree which grew
out of the earth using water, sun and air. On the other hand a typical ice cream can be made with
none of the above in a laboratory!
For example instead of eating cereal full of sugar have something more natural like oatmeal or even
better have some buckwheat or quinoa. Avoid trans fats (fried food, biscquits etc) and eat healthy
fats like nuts, fish, eggs...
Even real food though sometimes can cause problems to your health so I would advise you to ex-
periment with food elimination of common food allergens such as wheat and dairy to see how you
feel after a month. Most of the people who have food intolerances dont even know it!
My last and most important point is to stop seeing your diet as an arduous process that only makes
you hungry in order to lose weight. The word diet comes from the Greek word dieta () which
means way of living. The only way that you will able to control your weight in long term is if you
turn your diet into a long lasting lifestyle that vitalizes you, keeps your mind clear, keeps you healthy,
doesnt make you over-weight and as a result of all the above makes you happy.
Doing extreme/express diets every year for a couple of weeks to lose rapidly weight only puts stress
on your body and mind, messes up your metabolism and usually leads to regaining the weight you
lost quite soon again. Seeking constantly instant pleasure in junk food may make you feel better
temporary but always has a larger negative impact on your physical and mental health in the long
run. If you understand all the above then you will know that putting the effort to create a proper and
organized diet on a weekly basis is the smart thing to do (plus it saves you more time)...
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In summary a good diet should be a long lasting lifestyle that:
Vitalizes you
Keeps your mind clear
Keeps you healthy
Keeps your bodyweight in balance
And as a result of all the above makes you happy
What works for me - Intermittent Fasting (IF). Because I tend to get lazy when it comes to counting
calories, the best way for me to control my weight and for my body to function optimally is Intermit-
tent Fasting (IF).
I know fasting may sound a bit scary at first if you are not familiar with this diet but dont be afraid;
you dont have to wonder around the desert of Jerusalem for 40 days like Jesus in order to fast.
Intermittent fasting consists of two phases which take place on a daily base: 1. a fasting phase and
2. an eating phase. The only important thing to watch when you are doing intermittent fasting is to
remain hydrated in the fasting phase, and get all of the calories you need daily in the rest of the eat-
ing phase. If you think about it, we all fast intermittently at night when we sleep, the only thing that
changes usually in IF is that you fast for a couple of hours more after you wake up. Thinking of IF in
the beginning as just skipping breakfast makes it easier for you mentally, instead of using the term
fasting which may have a more frightful effect on your mind.
In order to fast intermittently, you eat every day your last meal 3-4 hours before you go to bed. I pe
sonally eat my last meal around 7 - 8pm since I sleep at 11pm. After fasting for 16 hours (during
which you have to make sure to drink enough water to stay hydrated) you can have your first meal
the next day around 11am - 12pm. So, in total, you fast every day somewhere between 15 and 16
hours which is the ideal amount of fasting hours in IF. I try not to go beyond 16 hours, because that
way I dont have enough time to fulfill my caloric needs without compromising my energy levels by
overeating during the rest of day.
During the fasting phase (8pm 12pm the next day) I always take care to drink a lot of water, which
is important, especially in the morning hours and during my workout, since I train in a fasted state.
Other than water, you can also have coffee and tea as long as they contain no sugar.
As with every diet, there is going to be a brief adaptation phase in the beginning for everyone. But
after a 3-7 days tops, most people start noticing the benefits of this way of eating such as improved
energy levels, mental clarity (especially in the morning fasted hours) and improved productivity in
strength exercise. If you find it too difficult to start immediately fasting for 16 hours, you can start
progressively with 12 hours and add one hour every one or two days until you reach 15-16 hours.
Personally, giving my body a break from eating, helps me function better, especially during the fast-
ing phase in which I having increased energy levels and can also concentrate more effectively on
my everydays tasks. One of the reasons this happens as believed by authors of fasting diets, is that
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your body gets a break from digesting food all the time and your nervous system can focus more
on the rest of your bodys voluntary (e.g. concentration) and involuntary (e.g. energy levels & liver
detoxification) tasks.
Breakfast - Not really the most important meal of the day... For some of you who stay updated with
the latest studies in nutrition, this wont be something new to you. For others, it may even sound
crazy... But I have been told all my life by parents, doctors and tv commercials that breakfast is this
most important meal of the day, you will think...
The outdated logic about breakfast you have been brainwashed into while growing up. When you
havent eaten anything for a whole night your body needs immediately a breakfast rich in carbs to
have energy for the rest of the days mental and physical tasks. Not eating breakfast will damage
your metabolism, make you fat, decrease your energy, cause world war 3 (black humor) and other
horrible stuff... The truth is simple, think about it from an evolutionary point. Did our hunter and
gatherer ancestors who lived in the wild for hundreds and thousands of years, had food available
to them the moment they woke up? The answer is no of course. They had to hunt or at least go out
and wonder in the wild to gather it... We might not live as hunters and gatherers anymore but the
modern lifestyle which includes a breakfast as an important meal started probably a couple of hun-
dreds of years ago. In a species that is around earth for a couple of hundred thousands of years,
thats quite a small amount of time...
Reality and science behind breakfast. In typical healthy individuals, cortisol levels peak every morn-
ing after a good night sleep for about an hour to ninety minutes after you wake up. This normal spike
of cortisol helps break down your body fat by increasing the release of fatty acids being burned for
energy. Some of you might ask yourselves wont Cortisol also break down muscle? Here is where
growth hormone comes to the rescue. Another thing that happens in the morning, is the release of
a hormone called Ghrelin. Ghrelin, besides making you feel hungry in the morning, also stimulates
the release of Growth Hormone which also stimulates fat burn and doesnt allow your body to burn
muscle tissue.
When you start consuming big sugary bowls of cereal and in general, foods rich in carbs in the
morning, you spike up your insulin which shut downs the production of all the hormones associated
with fat burn I mentioned above.
Most people, once they get used to it, function a lot better without breakfast since beside the fat burn-
ing benefits, they also notice their energy levels sky-rocket! The reason for that is after having fasted
for about 8-10 hours in your sleep when you wake up your body turns on your sympathetic nervous
system which is basically your fight or flight mode. When you eat a breakfast rich in carbs, insulin
production increases and you over-stimulate your opposite-parasympathetic mode which in simple
words means you start feeling lazy and sleepy. Thats the main reason that so many people feel
sleepy in the morning hours at work and need a liter of coffee to get by these heavy hours.
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If you belong to that small amount of people who dont function well when skipping breakfast, try
starting your day with a meal high in protein like an omelet which wont spike your insulin that much.
Exercise and IF. I have done my best workouts during a fasted state. Besides feeling really good
during working out in a fasted state, training this way is the best way I have found to stay lean. Most
of you have heard that eating many small frequent meals speeds up your metabolism and does all
kinds of magical things... The truth is that this is just a myth and studies have disproven it. We have
become so brainwashed today when it comes to food, that we are afraid to stay unfed for even a
couple of hours believing that that will screw up our metabolism or burn all our muscles. To tell you
the truth, I was also a bit like that but then I read books, like Orie Hofmeklers book The warrior
diet, Jason Ferrugias The renegade diet and Eat stop eat by Brad Pilon which totally changed
my perspective on nutrition and broadened my research on nutrition.
The human body is an amazing organic machine and wouldnt have survived hundreds of thousands
of years in the wild if it suffered such consequences when it stayed unfed for a little bit more than 15
hours. Do you think your cavemen ancestors had a fridge in his cave where they could go and have
a snack whenever they felt they had the munchies?
So, if you feel good about training on a fasted state, you can train ideally just before you break your
fast. Once you are done with training, jump on the first meal of the day. Also, having a cup of coffee
before exercise will help a bit with fat burn due to its thermogenic effect.
IF for fat loss. If you want to lose a big amount of fat, then you will have to modify IF a little bit.
Although I would advise you to start first with regular IF and only if it doesnt have such great results
or if you reach a plateau after a certain point, you go try this approach. In order to make sure that
you are not exceeding your daily caloric intake, stay away from carbs during the day until you have
your main meal at dinner. During the day, eat vegetables, fruits and food with healthy fats and rich
in protein like meat, eggs, yogurts, kefir, cottage cheese etc... When eating meat during the day, go
for easily digestive meat sources, such as fish and poultry.
At the end of the day, help yourself with a fulfilling meal containing vegetables, carbs and protein.
Start with the vegetables which will aid your digestion later on (your stomach digests in layers) and
continue with protein leaving your carbs last. Leaving your carbs for the end of the meal is a smart
way to avoid overeating because by eating first food rich in protein, will help you reach satiety faster.
Knowing that you will end your day with a satisfying meal and no carb restrictions, is going to make
it a lot easier to stay disciplined until your main course, which you can enjoy at the end of your day.
That way, you will feel satisfied and relaxed (this also due to the serotonin response to carbs) which
is the perfect state to digest properly a nice, fulfilling meal. Also, avoid drinking anything with your
meal since fluids dilute the stomachs digestive acids and disrupt the digestive process. Wait for at
least half an hour after which you can have a glass of water or a nice cup of tea that aids digestion,
i.g, linden tea. Diets that keep you continuously eating small meals, fail because they keep people
feeling unfulfilled the whole time.
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Example of IF diet plan I followed for fat loss (low budget)
1st Meal at 12pm: Salad with olive oil, 5 cooked eggs (including the yolks) with butter.
2nd Meal 2pm: 2-3 servings of fruit with 1 handfuls of nuts.
3rd Meal 4pm: One big cup of yogurt with honey.
4th Meal 7pm: One big meal - veggies, one protein source (usually meat)
and 1-3 servings of carbs (1-2 servings on none training days and 2-3 on training days).
Dont you burn muscles if you fast? Although I answered this question in a small extent above, I will
reissue it for those who still have their doubts. Dont worry if you have a good fulfilling meal before
you start fasting; you can last a lot more than 16 hours on a fasted state in order for your livers
glycogen stores to run out and start muscle breakdown to fuel you.. If you want to be 100% sure that
youre on the safe side, then I would not recommend prolonging your fasts the days you train for
more than 18 hours. The only thing your muscles may lose during a fast is water, and that will be
replenished after you have a meal rich in carbohydrates.
Quick summary: Because I dont like to bullshit people, Ill tell you that there still isnt enough scien-
tific data to conclude if IF has such a metabolic advantage due to the hormone manipulation as most
of the authors of IF related books claim so. What I know, is that it works amazingly for me and many
other people I know, and see on the internet.
One thing I know for sure is that its ideal for people who cant handle eating small meals and need
big meals to fill satisfied. If you cant handle small meals and they make you even hungrier as they
do to me this is probably an ideal diet for you. Eating all of your food during a specific time frame
helps you also not fixate and get obsessed over food during the whole day. It fits most peoples life-
style since most are quite busy in the early hours of the day and not bothering with food at that time
saves them also a lot of time.
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In summary about IF:
What is IF?
1. Eat a fulfilling meal 3-4 hours before bed time
2. After that fast for 16 hours during which it is important to stay hydrated (drink a lot of water)
3. Once you break your fast, you have an 8 hour window to consume the amount of calories you need.
Basic Benefits of fasting:

Increased fat burning
Increased production of Growth Hormone in the morning hours(GH hormone plays a really
important role in building muscle).
Increased IGF (insulin-like growth factor). This is a hormone responsible for muscle growth,
tissue repair and fat burning. Bodybuilders inject synthetic IGF to get big and ripped!
Increased energy levels
Some of the people I wouldnt recommend fasting are the following:

Kids whose bodies are still developing
Special groups of population with health issues
People with really high metabolic rates who are trying to build muscle or highly competitive
athletes who need big amounts of calories to sustain their weight.
People, especially women who still dont feel that good after a week of trying this way of eating.
The truth about supplements. Almost all supplements promise extreme results, by misleading and
brainwashing many people in the exercise-fitness community. What you have to know is that if your
diet and our lifestyle are perfect, you will get zero benefits out of supplements. Just to be clear I am
not anti-supplement. I just find it too boring to deal with supplements in my daily schedule because
I just prefer eating and spending money on real food (despite all that I have studied supplements
quite a lot).
For example, take a look at protein supplements which are probably the most popular supplements
today. In my knowledge, there isnt a single proper/unbiased scientific study proving any benefits in
building muscle more optimally (that is, of course, if you have a proper diet as I mentioned above). I
will mention some examples of bad lifestyles, diets which would probably require from someone to
supplement his diet just so you can see both ends of the spectrum.
Example 1: If you live in a country with limited sun exposure and your work most of the weeks
daylight hours has you sitting in an office cubicle, then supplementing your diet with vitamin D
would benefit you.
Example 2 : If you are vegan then protein supplements would benefit you.
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Example 3: If you cant eat for a big amount of time after your training session, especially if you
have trained fasted then again a protein supplement would benefit you.
So my advice is to find the weak links in your lifestyle and diet and if you cannot fix them naturally,
ask a specialist to give you some advice on how to cover these needs. Dont forget though, supple-
ments are not magical and wont give you extra results, especially if you dont train hard enough.
As a matter of fact, a poor diet with a good training program will give you greater results than the
perfect diet in combination with the finest powder and pill supplements.
Getting rid of junk food addiction. When we eat junk food - meaning highly processed foods with
no nutritional value; we trick our taste buds into thinking that nutrition has arrived. When the food
reaches our intestinal receptors they find minimum to almost zero nutrition, so they send a mes-
sage back to your brain saying there not enough nutrition here. So the appestat (the part of your
brain that triggers satiety) sends a message to keep eating until we get the required nutritional value
our body needs. In simple words, eating all these junk-food carbohydrate and sugar based meals
on a long-term, can destroy your self-control and discipline by making you overeat, thus making it
really difficult to regulate your diet. A study done on mice showed that sugar can be as addictive as
cocaine!
So even though one ball of ice-cream isnt going to make you fat, it is what follows long term that
will lead you there. Eventually most of us end up losing control. Its like telling an alcoholic to have
just one drink, it aint gonna work! My opinion is that if your goal is to lose excess fat, you have to
stop consuming bad quality food cold turkey. Only when you have achieved your goal start allow-
ing yourself some cheat meals once in a while and find an ideal frequency of cheat meals you
can handle without getting hooked back again to bad habits.
Make real food tasteful again. If you are like me, then you love your junk food and if you have been
eating junk food too much and for too long, healthy food wont probably have an appealing taste to
you. Although my body tolerated huge amounts of junk food during my twenties, especially in my
university years, as I grow older towards my thirties, I have noticed that junk food has all sort of
negative effects on my body. By that I mean skin problems, decreased energy, nausea and Im sure
they would cause all sorts of other long term issues I wouldnt have yet noticed, had I not reduced
them into a great extend. I will not go deep into all the health issues that junk food causes, such as
coronary disease, premature aging etc, but I am going to share my solutions to get rid of junk food
addiction! The basic solution for this is to re-train yourself to enjoy real food. Our taste buds evolve
and can weaken over time. This is most evident when comparing taste buds of children versus those
of the elderly. Children have super sensitive taste buds. For example, their heightened taste sense
allows them to taste the bitterness in vegetables more than their parents cannot. On the other end
of the spectrum, elderly persons lose much of their sense of taste as they get older. Most of us have
lost the capacity to enjoy the subtle taste of real food, which is easy to change if you have the ap-
propriate self-discipline.
78
Eat all the healthy stuff at the beginning of the day. The biggest amount of time most of us spend
without eating anything, is before we have the first meal of the day, after our night sleep. Due to
this fact our taste buds will appear to be more sensitive, making for instance fruits appear sweeter
and most vegetables appear more tasteful. Avoid drinking sugar added beverages in the morning
(or even better always) and start your day with a big fruit salad and some nuts. Even though I al-
ways considered fruits quite boring, eating this way (especially after a fasting period of 13-16 hours)
makes my fruit salads one of my favorite meals.
Eliminate sugary beverages and sweets from your diet. Eliminate beverages, such as sodas, pre-
packed juices and all types of chemically sweetened products. You might think why even eliminate
boxed juice? Pre-packing juice significantly reduces vitamins, minerals and their naturally occur-
ring alkaline properties so you end up basically drinking water, dead enzymes and fructose which
in this case is almost the same thing with normal sugar. Follow these basic steps and in a matter
of three weeks, real food is going to taste significantly better. After that, you may start introducing
natural sweeteners in regulation to your diet, only if you need to make some natural foods taste bet-
ter. For example, you can start adding honey to your yogurt, and stevia to tea and coffee.
"To eat is a necessity,

but to eat intelligently is an art"
- La Rochefoucauld
79
CHAPTER 11 - COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROGRAM
11.1 Dont you need to isolate certain muscles in order for them to grow?
A lot you, while reading this book, will wonder if you can really focus on small muscles, like your
triceps and biceps by performing compound bodyweight training without using specific isolation
exercises, such as extensions and bicep curls. The answer is, yes, it can be done and judging by my
experience, even more effectively. My arms, for example, are not that bad and they look a lot more
pumped and jacked than people I know who spend countless hours and even years in the gym,
doing bicep curls and tricep extensions. So lets take a little moment to examine the science be-
hind compound VS isolation exercises. Not only do compound exercises target a greater portion of
muscle fibers, they also cause greater release of anabolic hormones in body, such as testosterone
and growth hormone. These two hormones are the most important ones when it comes to building
muscle. Some people in the gym may also tell you that you have to train these types of muscle in
different angles in order to shape them better but the truth is that the shape of your muscles is 99%
defined by your genetic predisposition.
11.2 Can you train all your muscle groups with body-weight exercises?
Not only is the answer to this question affirmative but in my opinion, besides targeting all your
muscle groups, bodyweight exercises are the best way to train your upper body in balance and sym-
metry. Lets see in detail how every part of your body is highly stimulated through the 8 essential
exercises of this book. Starting from top to bottom:
Shoulders - Handstand push ups

Chest - Dips and Push-ups
Upper back - Inverted Rows
Arms - Chin ups & Handstand push-ups
(basically all upper body exercises offer a great stimulus to your arms in this program
but these are the top 2).
Lower back (lats and erector spinae) - Pull ups, prone cobras
Abdominals (rectus abdominus & external obliques) - Leg raises
Glutes, thighs and calves - Pistol squats.
Your calves may not get activated that much in the typical pistol squat but once you progress
to the pistol squat with a calve raise you will also start getting a more targeted calve workout.
11.3 Dont you need cardio in order to burn fat?

Anytime you enter a gym, you will notice treadmills, step machines, stationary bikes, elliptical ma-
chines and all kind of other cardio equipment occupied by people wanting to burn some fat or an
extra piece of cheesecake they ate late at night. But you will also notice months later, that the same
people will be on the same machines, still struggling without any result. Why is that? Well, as in-
creasingly shown through the last years, studies and specialists conclude that cardio has been over-
rated and nowadays everyone working in the fitness industry has begun to realize that. People may
80
keep training on stationary bicycles, looking like they are preparing for Le tour de France without
having the desired results. Lets see why that is...
Cardio burns more fat - Myth busted! This outdated opinion was based on the fact that low intensity
cardio utilizes more efficiently energy from your bodys fat storage, meaning, you burn fat faster in
comparison to strength training. That may have some truth in it but the total amount of calories and
fat burned long term is a lot smaller than most people think, and actually less in comparison with
strength training!
For example, 40 minutes of slow jogging on a treadmill burns around 240 calories which may sur-
prise you since thats only the equivalent of one piece of chocolate cake or a piece of pizza! Forty
minutes of cardio in comparison with forty minutes of strength training - may burn slightly more
calories during the training session (even so, not always!). However, because strength training in-
creases your metabolism even after your training session has ended, it is superior for fat burn...This
after-burn effect that occurs in your body is caused by muscle tissue repair and can last 14 hours
and more (depending on the intensity of your training)!
The second benefit of strength training, when it comes to fat loss, is that as you gradually start
building muscle and your metabolism will speed up because muscle tissue is a lot more active in
comparison with fat. This causes your body to burn more calories even in a resting state. Long story
short - there are two really important benefits of strength training in comparison with low intensity
cardio, when it comes to fat loss are:
Increased post-workout metabolic effect.
Increased resting metabolism due to more muscle tissue.
Strength is the foundation from which all forms of athletic movement become possible. A solid
strength foundation should be, in my opinion, the first and most important element in someones
exercise program.
Just so I do not get misunderstood, I will highlight that I dont mean cardio is completely useless.
However, if you are going to invest your time only in one form of exercise and your main goal is to
get stronger and leaner, then strength training is without a doubt, the way to go!
If you have more free time, then strength training combined with low or high intensity cardio 2-3
times per week, will give you the best results. Just make sure you dont overdo it, because pr longed
cardio sessions can hinder muscle growth. I have done a lot of running in my youth on the moun-
tains of North Greece and I know that this type of cardio - meaning running outside in nature has
another great effect on your health. Running outside in nature after a stressful day can be the best
tool to heal your soul. I know one part of that is endorphins produced by our body but there is also
something else. A more primitive feeling of release, freedom and coming in contact with nature...
Do this always when it feels natural and dont force yourself because its healthy for you.
81
CHAPTER 12 - MAKING EXERCISE A LIFE-LASTING RELATIONSHIP
The biggest percentage of people who want a good physique but never attain it, fail because they
always find excuses on the way. When I was developing this homeworkout program I had a severely
fractured leg which means, I had to train for most of the time with full leg casts, special fracture
boots and crutches. Of course I do not recommend people recovering from bone fractures training
hardcore with bodyweight exercises. My point here is that if you want to get into shape, you have to
stop finding excuses!
This photo is not so clear but thats me doing chin ups

on a door-frame with a full leg cast on my left leg
Common reasons people quit on their training and how to avoid them
Limited time. On average, this program takes 3 hours per week out of your time. A week has 168
hours, so training 3 hours per week means you have to spend less than 2% of your week in order
to accomplish your goals. I believe anybody can sacrifice that amount of time in order to feel better
mentally, get in shape, feel healthier and have a beautiful physique.
82
Fear of failure. Sometimes, we just make up excuses to avoid chasing our goals because we are
afraid. This fear may be conscious or subconscious but it is there and its usually the fear of failure.
Many times, we are too scared that we will put time and effort in something that has no guarantee
of success. A lot of people take this even a step further and fail in their minds before even trying.
Fear is nothing we should run away from though. Fear is a natural human emotion and its not bad
to have it. On the contrary, fear is a good sign; it means you are getting out of your comfort zone and
thats the only place you can find room for improvement.
Accept your fears but dont be a coward...

An evil deadly sin. Sloth is the fifth of the seven deadly sins in Christian religion, and even though I
am not religious, I greatly appreciate the wisdom that the 7 deadly sins offer. Sloth - meaning lazi-
ness - is another great enemy everyone faces when they set a goal, and especially when it comes
to exercise. We even make fake excuses to cover our indolence, despite being aware of what were
capable of, but still, we are too lazy and overwhelmed by all the effort we need to put into it. We are
too attached to immediate gratification in favor of long term growth. Unfortunately, nothing in life
worth attaining comes quick and effortless...
If you commonly face laziness during the beginning of this path, a good advice is to block these feel-
ings and just focus on warming up and preparing for the program. Act mechanically, like a robot,
dont think, just do. Once you get over the warming up part of the program I guarantee you that you
will complete the rest of it without a lot of mental effort; feeling really good about yourself in the end
of your workout.
Taking a break - Stay in shape with 30 minutes per week. Even if you develop a really passionate
relationship with exercise, there will always be periods in your life when you wont want to exercise
at all. As with any long-term relationship, passion always comes and goes through time. During
dark periods when you feel you have no flame in your heart for training, it is quite easy to just let go
and see all your hard work disappear. This is quite easy to happen since it takes less than forty days
for most people.
When people experience these periods of not wanting to train, they usually do one of the following
two mistakes:
a) they push themselves to train as hard as they always train ending up resenting exercise.
b) they instantly quit for good and rarely do they start working out again.
83
The best strategy during dark times is to train just enough to maintain your condition without focus-
ing on any improvement, and reaching your personal best records. The following training plan con-
tains two fifteen minute training sessions that will help you stay in shape during those times. Even
at our darkest hours, I think we can all force ourselves to train 30 minutes a week.
Perform each exercise by doing the same reps you perform in your normal program.
"You don't develop courage by being happy

in your relationships everyday.
You develop it by surviving difficult times
and challenging adversity"
- Epicurus
84
CHAPTER 13 - FINAL THOUGHTS
I am not going to be obsolete or arrogant and tell you your bicep wont grow with bicep curls or go-
ing to the gym doesnt give results just because I want to promote my program and my way as the
only way, that would be a whole load of BS... What I know is that the workout plan in this book is the
best way I have experienced when it comes to growing stronger, after having tried most systems of
strength training.
Dont fool yourselves though; if you do this program with no devotion and zeal then do not expect
your body to change after a certain point. You will see some results in the first months but after that
your body will just get comfortable and stop improving just as with any other strength training pro-
gram. If you are just looking to build an athletic physique that is totally fine, of course. Once that is
accomplished, you can just do the conditioning program I have offered you and retain those results
without a really big effort.
Fire in your heart and a hint of Madness in your mind
But if you want to achieve more than that, you need to hit your workouts with fire in your heart and a
hint of madness in your mind. Only then will you be able to break plateaus and keep getting strong-
er. I believe that cultivating a strong and healthy body should be our way of showing gratitude for this
amazing vehicle we were given to experience life from the universe, God, the collective conscious-
ness, or by the astounding result of evolutional coincidences through billions of years. No matter
what call it, doesnt really make any difference... Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, said It is
a disgrace for someone to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is
capable, which is one of my favorite quotes!
Time flies faster than we realize and one day, it will be too late to make a difference. So stop disre-
specting your body, get off the couch and start strengthening both your body and mind! There is only
one thing that can get between you and your aspirations, and that is yourself.
If you are having a really good day, use that positive energy and let it charge your workout. If you are
having bad days, then think of it as psychotherapy. If you are too angry, use the anger to fuel your
body through those difficult last reps.
Consistence is whats going to make your muscles grow steadily over time... There are no magic
pills (at least not any that wont damage your health) or diet plans. These are only supplementary
stuff and they wont mean a thing if you dont apply the basics of working hard with dedication and
pushing yourself outside your comfort zone.
85
There will always be excuses and problems in the way of whatever you want to accomplish in life.
Today even though I have a prosthetic leg my passion for exercise is stronger than ever.
Look at your problems as interesting challenges life offers you to make things more interesting! A
life with no challenges is a boring life after all. You can either let them wear you down or make you
stronger. You can let them be the reason you quit or the reason you feel a bit more proud once you
achieve...
Remember that the only person you should try to impress is yourself. That is the only way to never
run out of motivation - Try to impress others and you will always end up disappointed.
"No man has the right to be an amateur

in the matter of physical training.
It is a shame for a man to grow old
without seeing the beauty and strength
of which his body is capable"
- Socrates
86
If you found this eBook helpful and feel that you
would like to give something back to help me
improve my project feel free to donate Here!
SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HomeMadeMuscles?feature=mhee
LIKE MY FACEBOOK PAGE:
https://www.facebook.com/HomeMadeMuscles
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Ro for the e-book design
Elijah Kay for most of the photography of the book
Lela Bedukadze for proofreading the book
My personal doctor V.M de Jong and all the rest of the doctors
at the AMC hospital of Amsterdam in Netherlands for their
support and professionalism.

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Copyright 2013 by Anthony Arvanitakis. All Rights Reserved http://www.homemademuscle.com/

Copyright 2013 by Anthony Arvanitakis. All Rights Reserved http://www.homemademuscle.com/

"To keep the body in good health

1.1 Advantages of training in your own home

1.2 Is this program for everybody?

"No one can escape the universal law of

2.1 Bodyweight exercise Vs Gym machines

Multiple muscle group activation in each exercise.

It always comes back to bodyweight training...

3.1 Primal movement patterns

"simplicity is the key to brilliance"

4.1 Abdominal Myths

4.3 The most important abdominal you never hear about

5.1 Part A - Dynamic Stretching

Dynamic stretching routine

How to do the exercise

"If you do not have enough time to

#1 Pull-ups - The king of upper body exercises

Some pull up bar alternatives

Picture 15a Picture 15b

Proper technique - The perfect pull up

Common pull up mistakes

Progressions for beginners:

Negative repetition progressions:

A variation you should avoid:

Chin ups - The best bodyweight exercise for big guns!

Proper technique and common mistakes

Picture 18a Picture 18b 33

Progressions for beginners:

Picture 23a Picture 23b

Picture 26a Picture 26b

Picture 27a Picture 27b

Picture 28a Picture 28b

Progression for beginners:

Progressions for advanced:

Picture 31a Picture 31b

Progressions for beginners:

Picture 35a Picture 35b

Pistol-squat proper technique

Progressions for beginners:

Picture 40a Picture 40b

Progressions for beginners:

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase

7.1 Strategic static stretching

These are some examples of typical tonic muscles in many people:

7.2 My personal stretching routine

Now follow the next three steps:

Picture 47a Picture 47b

"The chains of habit are generally too small to

Benefits of the Pull/Push system in short:

8.4 Basic Program

"A journey of a thousand miles

There are 3 important things you should always write down:

2nd Meal 2pm: 2-3 servings of fruit with 1 handfuls of nuts.

3rd Meal 4pm: One big cup of yogurt with honey.

Basic Benefits of fasting:

Some of the people I wouldnt recommend fasting are the following:

"To eat is a necessity,

Shoulders - Handstand push ups

11.3 Dont you need cardio in order to burn fat?

This photo is not so clear but thats me doing chin ups

Accept your fears but dont be a coward...