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Archives for April 2015

PCC Italy – A “Penne” for my Thoughts

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PCCItalyGroup1

In the last year, I’ve had the opportunity to assist at 4 PCC events throughout the US and Europe. Attendees often come in feeling like they’re the only ones in their town practicing Progressive Calisthenics, but leave knowing they’ve found a community of people to which they now belong.

Ever since I attended my first PCC workshop exactly one year ago, I’ve felt my confidence skyrocket. Though my self image has improved, the way I approach training myself and my clients has transformed even more. PCC makes you see the world as your playground and reminds you that anyone can train ANYWHERE! There is something truly liberating about having that realization, because it constantly encourages you to push your own limits.

Some of the moves we teach at PCC are not for the faint of heart, but you’ll feel empowered with the encouragement of everyone else in attendance to at least give it a shot. Sometimes you even surprise yourself!

MuscleUp2

People who aren’t trainers also leave knowing that something in them has changed. They’ve allowed themselves to be courageous, to go into the unknown, ready to succeed, or fail – and not worrying – because they’ve earned the confidence to try.

I’ve seen everyone from fitness trainers and martial artists, to computer programmers and accountants smash the Century test. Though on Day 1 some have assumed they would humbly fail, the collective energy of the group takes over. No matter how large or small, passing the Century is achievable for anyone willing to put in the work.

PCCItaly3

There’s nothing dogmatic about the way the Kavadlo bros present their workshop, which is part of what makes it so appealing. Everyone from Crossfitters to pole dancers can relate to the curriculum. The brothers make it a point not to knock any other fitness modality in favor of bodyweight training.

In fact, the Kavadlos encourage people to move in whatever way makes them feel best. They emphasize the fact that there are no special hacks, tricks, or programs that can magically make you get the muscle-up, pistol squat or neck bridge, but they provide the guidance and encouragement to help you achieve new skills.

Al and Danny will make you an offer you cannot refuse: Trust in yourself, practice, and the rest will follow.

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The looks on some of the attendees faces were priceless while succeeding at a move they thought perhaps they would be unable to do. At PCC, blowing your own mind is a constant theme.

I remember one attendee mentioning to me the day after the abs module, that he’d had a dream about how he could get one of the moves and wanted to try it once more. Using the techniques discussed on the previous day – and the power of the PCC – he totally scored! The dragon flag was his!

DragonFlag5

Since this was an international PCC, I went in thinking that language might be a barrier in teaching, but as the weekend wore on, I realized that calisthenics is a language unto itself. Having to demonstrate and teach each other with fewer words only made our bond stronger. By day two, connections were formed that made perfect strangers seem as if they had been life-long friends. The passion for calisthenics is the “glue” that brings us together.

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When I think back to my initial post-PCC experience, I remember having such a strong desire to search for bar parks in my area with the eagerness to start a calisthenics class shortly after. PCC ignites a fire in people that enthuses them about their training and makes them want to share the experience with others. The number of PRs at this workshop was staggering. Day 1 of PCC Italy was una maravilla! PRs on muscle-ups (including my own) as well as something completely unheard of in all of the PCC events thus far: 2 people achieved their first ONE ARM CHIN-UP!!

AlOneArmFlexHang7

Progressive Calisthenics compliments all other expressions of fitness. Different ways of achieving the same thing – getting stronger using minimalist equipment: your body, the floor, and a basic bar. Since I’ve been practicing, I feel more comfortable being myself. I’ve even found myself wearing less make-up when going out!

If the name Convict Conditioning sounds intimidating to you, you have not met the same classy calisthenics gentlemen I have trained with at every one of these events. These guys will help you out anytime, and are more than happy to give you any assist and cheer you on – nothing like the dudes who hang out at those other bars!

Miracles happen when the collective energy at these workshops uplifts the rest of the group.

The legacy of PCC Italy will be a “pizza” history!

PCCItalyGroup8

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Grace Menendez, PCC, HKC is a personal trainer and group exercise instructor located in New York City. She is a columnist for Bodybuilding.com and can be seen in several Dragon Door books, including Coach Wade’s Explosive Calisthenics. For more information about Grace, check out her website, www.DieselGrace.com

PCC Germany: Rock You Like A Hurricane

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Danny At PCC Germany 2015

Here I am. Munich’s second Progressive Calisthenics Certification workshop. It seems like only moments ago, my brother and PCC Lead Instructor Al Kavadlo and I traveled to KRABA, one of the most spectacular training facilities in the world, to deliver Germany’s first ever PCC. Well, history repeats itself and our second event in “The Fatherland” proved to be just as awe-inspiring as the first.

Bodyweight enthusiasts, professional trainers, students of movement and teachers of strength came together to change the world… one pull-up at a time! PCC is never your typical certification. Our group was hungry and focused, eager yet humble. Not to mention passionate. My kinda people!

PCC Germany 2015 Group Photo

This crew came from far and wide. Bodyweight beasts from nine countries in all were represented: In addition to Deutschland and the United States, those in attendance hailed from Switzerland, Austria, Spain, France and Croatia. There were even participants who traveled from Egypt and Abu Dhabi! This event may have been the greatest calisthenics cultural mecca I’ve ever personally witnessed—the experience of a lifetime! Highlights included over 25% of PCC attendees executing a muscle-up for the first time!

Muscle Up PR at Germany PCC

If you think that’s amazing, then how about this? 24 out of 26 achieved their first clutch flag; we even had some first press flags! And that was just Day One! The following days saw record numbers of L-sits, dragon flags and pistol squats. There were even a few gecko bridges in the mix!

Gecko Bridge Germany PCC

History was made and personal bests were shattered again and again –but the solidarity amongst us was the most amazing thing of all.

There’s no one like the PCC candidate. It’s a very special person to forgo the tired, beaten path of modern, conventional fitness and aspire to inspire (and perspire) in the wild bodyweight kingdom. No equipment ­– just us! It’s time to accept that this new breed of fitness professionals is here to stay. The winds of change, if you will.

Scorpion At Germany PCC

Al and I are keeping busy. PCC makes its debut in Italy this weekend. May and June sees the PCC coming to Dallas, New York City and the then back to Europe for the UK’s first PCC. I can’t wait to see YOU there!

Keep the dream alive.

-DK

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Danny Kavadlo is one of the world’s foremost authorities on calisthenics, nutrition and personal training. He is the author of the Dragon Door titles Diamond-Cut Abs and Everybody Needs Training. Danny is known for his minimalist philosophy, simple approach and motivational talents.

A true in-person experience, Danny is a Master Instructor for Dragon Door’s Progressive Calisthenics Certification. He has been featured in the NY Times, TRAIN, Men’s Fitness and is a regular contributor to Bodybuilding.com. Learn more about Danny at www.DannyTheTrainer.com

Crow Pose and Beyond

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Grace Menendez Crow
Before I ever considered becoming a personal trainer, one of my earliest fitness breakthroughs was the first time I achieved a crow pose in yoga class. It blew my mind! Before then I had assumed hand balancing was reserved for gymnasts and acrobats. As far as I was concerned, it was not appropriate for me and my fitness goals. Man, was I wrong! After that yoga class, I felt inspired to improve my crow practice and learn more about the world of hand balancing.

Adding this powerful pose to your routine has more benefits than just showing-off. Crow pose strengthens your entire upper body, including your shoulders, arms, and even your abs. It can be a great way to train your brain, too!  If you have ever attempted to hold a crow pose for even a few seconds, you can attest to how much focus and concentration is involved in the process.

Crow-gressive Calisthenics
Like all bodyweight skills, you can vary the intensity of the crow pose in several ways to make the move more accessible to beginners, or challenge even the most advanced hand balancers.

Though the general idea remains the same – using the backs of your arms to support your lower body while you balance on your hands – there are a lot of subtleties that are often overlooked when learning how to perform the crow pose.

Before you begin, I suggest doing a few wrist rolls as well as opening and closing your hands and fingers as a warm-up. Placing your entire body weight on the smaller muscles of the wrists and hands can be pretty intense. Ease into your practice, listen to your body, and let’s have fun with the crow pose!

Froggy Bottom
The earliest progression toward the crow is what is sometimes known as a frog stand. Start in a deep squat position and place your hands on the floor in front of your feet. Your arms should be inside your legs with elbows pressing into your inner thighs. Keep your hand placement fairly wide when starting out.

From here, begin to bend your elbows to around 90 degrees as you tip forward, lifting your feet off the ground. You can also ease into it by lifting one foot off the floor at a time. Focus on keeping your chest lifted and squeezing your thighs into your arms as you attempt to balance. The more contact you have between your arms and legs, the easier it will be to balance. Think about looking in front of your hands rather than in between them. It can also be helpful to place a pillow or mat in front of your hands in case you are afraid of falling.

If you are finding it difficult to lift off, I suggest elevating your feet on a low platform with your hands on the ground to allow more clearance. I’ve also coached people into finding the balance by starting from a tripod position with their head on the floor and pushing off the mat back into frog stand.

Al Kavadlo Frog Stand

Crow Up
Once you’ve got the hang of the beginner version, you can try placing your hands in a narrower position to begin working toward minimizing the contact between your arms and legs. For this variation, which we can call a full crow, only your knees will be on the backs of your arms, instead of your inner thighs. You should also start working toward reducing the amount of flexion at your elbows. Point your toes and squeeze your thighs together to help generate enough muscle tension to allow you to balance. Remember to keep your eyes focused on a spot a few inches ahead of your hands to help you counter-balance.

Al Kavadlo Crow

Let It Crane
The next step in the series is what’s sometimes known as the crane pose. This variation may take a while to build up to as it requires serious strength, intense focus and extreme wrist flexibility. However, if you’ve been “milking” the earlier steps, you will eventually conquer this pose. For the crane variation, there is little bend at all in the arms, and the knees are placed further up the backs of the triceps, until they are practically in the armpits.

Start in the same squat position as before, only this time your arms will be locked. Stand on your toes and lift your hips high as you lean forward, bending your knees in towards your armpits (or as high as you can place them on the backs of your arms). Point your toes in towards each other as you tense your midsection and attempt to balance. Keep your gaze a few inches inches in front of your hands and lift your heels toward your butt. Focus on utilizing your abdominal strength to keep your hips nice and high.

AlKavadlo Crane Stand

And Beyond…
The above variations will give you plenty to practice in order to tighten up your hand-balancing game. However, there are still more progressions that you can work on to make even the advanced crane seem tame. You can practice the crow on your fingertips, with your hands reversed, or even on the backs of your hands! You can also work on single-leg variations. No matter where you fall in the crow continuum, you can always find a variant that will challenge and excite you.

Grace Menendez Crow Variations

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Grace Kavadlo, PCC, HKC is a personal trainer and group exercise instructor located in New York City. She is a columnist for Bodybuilding.com and can be seen in several Dragon Door books, including Coach Wade’s Explosive Calisthenics. For more information about Grace, check out her website, www.DieselGrace.com

Strength Cycling for Continuous Improvement

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Juan De Jesus Human Flag

Though progressive calisthenics training brings plenty of benefits, ranging from increased flexibility, control, and of course, strength, your body perceives it as a stress. As such, the body builds resistance toward it, which manifests in you getting stronger. Twenty push-ups today might force an adaptation, but twenty push-ups a month later might not.

One way to continue getting stronger on a consistent basis is to pick harder exercises as time goes by (you could begin with band-assisted pull-ups, then full pull-ups, then clapping pull-ups, etc), or by adding reps to your sets (do 3 sets of 30 squats today, 3 sets of 32 next time, etc). Most calisthenics trainers will recommend these two main variables in order to make their workouts harder and induce an adaptation.

At some point, however, our recovery cannot keep up with our want for reps or added difficulty. We’ve all been there: you were supposed to do 15 hanging leg raises today (couple more than last time), but you just could not go past 12. So what do you do?

If you can’t make the reps in one set, I propose simply adding more sets. Look at this cycle:

Juan De Jesus Calisthenics Chart

This is actually a personal example of a 7-week cycle I did with one-arm push-ups. I was only able to manage 3 reps in one set before week 1. Clearly, with such a hard exercise, doing 3 sets and adding reps on a weekly basis would burn me out incredibly fast. So instead, I chose sets of one less rep (sets of 2 reps), and did more and more sets each session! By the time week 3 rolls, doing sets of 3 is actually quite easy (you’ve gotten very strong after a 9 sets of 2!), so you cut the sets down, and begin doing sets of 3. Then add more sets. Repeat as necessary. Deload when you’re feeling fatigued.

I’ve actually started using this template for many of my exercises, and with amazing results! In 6 weeks, I was able to move my handstand push-ups from 4 rep-max (RM) to a 7 RM. For those math geeks out there (like myself), consider a 4RM is about 90% of a 1RM while a 7 RM is close to 82% of a 1RM. So the ratio of your new 1RM to your old 1 RM is of 0.9/0.82 = 1.10. You could say this is akin to boosting your 1RM in a barbell lift by 10% in a measly 6 weeks!

Juan De Jesus Handstand

I obtained a similar result by making my 3RM with one-arm pushups into a 6 RM in 7 weeks. I attribute these exceptional improvements to two main things. First, every session is somehow a bit harder than the one before. (As I mentioned before, your body sees training as a stress. In order to cause strength gains on a weekly basis, you need to train hard, rest well, and make the next session a bit harder somehow.)

Second, because I expect to build up to high volume with many sets, my choice of reps-per-set is conservative at the beginning. So for the first four weeks or so of these cycles, I stay away from failure and really get to concentrate on tension, technique and form. When the cycle gets tough and your sets are much closer to failure, you’ll find strength coming out of nowhere because you built up this foundation at the beginning of the cycle.

Once you’re satisfied with your max, switch to a harder exercise. This is a vital part of progressive calisthenics!

Juan De Jesus One Arm Chin

Note that the idea of adding sets instead of reps in order to get stronger is incredibly flexible. It is more suited towards max-strength exercises (one where you could perform 3-8 RMs) since adding reps on a weekly basis to the sets can be quite difficult when the exercise is so tough. But it certainly does not have to be twice a week as I’ve chosen to do. A routine that works an exercise 3-4 times a week would also work well. Here, you might prefer to just do 1 more set than the session before until you feel confident enough to increase the amount of reps on each set. Then you’d decrease the sets, do sets of more reps, and build back up.

To the beginner student of calisthenics, it is certainly advisable to stick to a few sets, concentrate on form, add reps, and switch to a harder exercise once you’ve squeezed all the strength gains possible from your previous exercise. However, the more seasoned calisthenics enthusiast might need one more tool in order to burst through plateaus. I’ve certainly needed it myself when I find my reps just won’t climb no matter how hard I push. At that point, manipulating the amount of sets might be exactly what you need to bring about continuous strength improvements.

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Juan De Jesus is a Sophomore at MIT studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His enthusiasm for bodyweight and minimalist training was born in high school with his workout club Body Strength by Calisthenics (BSC) and has stayed with him ever since.