muscle up

Let’s Get High! How To Do A Muscle-Up

June 13, 2017 By Danny Kavadlo 20 Comments

Danny Kavadlo Muscle Up

One of the things I love most about Progressive Calisthenics is the fact that it is a multi-faceted discipline.

You see, we human beings have a tendency to over-categorize and compartmentalize just about everything. Sadly, this can lead to an improper representation of concepts that can often be better expressed with blurred lines. In other words, not every peg fits so squarely into a hole.

An imaginary, over-lapping Venn diagram comes to my mind when I consider the virtuosity of the muscle-up. It’s a proverbial chameleon of classification. Is a muscle-up strength training or skill development? Conditioning work or muscle building? Power or control? Well, friends, the mighty muscle-up is all of the above and more!

In fact, this ultimate bar experience is the perfect fusion of raw strength and refined technique. It’s an upper body exercise that recruits full body harmony, firing up your muscles while also getting your heart racing. The muscle-up is the only upper-body move in the calisthenics kingdom that employs a push and a pull: it resembles a pull-up that transitions into a dip. But there is a lot more that goes into it. Dare with me if you will…

In The Beginning

If you consult the internet, you are sure to come across a multitude of memes portraying very fit individuals who make the muscle-up look easy. It’s not. To be clear, this is an advanced exercise and a solid foundation in the basics in necessary before exploring it.

On that note, people sometimes think there is a hidden trick or a “hack” to performing a muscle-up. There isn’t. It takes work. While the information detailed ahead will undoubtedly help your training and technique, I recommend that anybody who is serious about muscle-ups be able to a do at least 10 perfect pull-ups, 20 hanging knee raises, 20 dips and 30 push-ups before even attempting to tame this beast.

Get A Grip

Every exercise begins with our contact with the environment. In this case, the way we approach the bar is very important. To perform a muscle-up, position your hands only slightly wider than the width of your shoulders. Yes, this is narrower than you would typical place them for a pull-up. Keeping your hands closer together will help you bring the bar lower down on your body when you initiate the movement.

If you are new to muscle-ups, then use an overhand grip. (Again, this is unlike the pull-up, where beginners generally favor an underhand grip.) In fact, for many people, an exaggerated overhand grip, with the hands cocked over the bar as much as possible and the backs of the hands facing straight up at the sky, is preferable. This is sometimes referred to as a “false” grip, and can ease the transition from pulling yourself up, to pressing yourself over the bar.

Danny Kavadlo Muscle-Up 2

Breaking Down Your Muscle-Up

Pull the bar as low down on your body as you can. Get explosive! Aim to get the bar all the way down to your hips, although it will probably wind up closer to your chest. Use as much speed and force as you can muster up.

Danny Kavadlo Muscle-Up — It begins with an explosive pull. Practicing this movement pattern alone—without muscling over the bar—is a viable exercise in its own right.

At this point, press your chest forward and around the bar. Aiming to bring your elbows above your wrists will assist you in this transition. It’s also helpful to buck your hips out behind you and extend your legs out in front of you so they can act as a counterweight as you maneuver around the bar.

Now press your hands into the bar, extending your elbows and straightening your arms. You want to “dip” yourself up, while maneuvering the bar down. It is not unusual for one arm to go over before the other at first. This asymmetrical act is sometimes referred to as “chicken winging.” While it’s OK to use this avian assist in the early stages (no one’s first is the best), it is something we want to avoid as we develop more strength and skill. Ideally, over the course of time, both arms will go over together like a dip on a single, straight bar.

Once you are fully over the bar, you have completed the rep. Although advanced practitioners can train to do slow muscle-ups, generally speaking, all of these steps occur very quickly. Go for one or two reps at a time, so you can remain fresh for each attempt. Eventually, you can increase your reps.

Type Slow Negative

In addition to the above-mentioned explosive pull-ups and straight bar dips, simply practicing the lowering phase of a muscle-up can be helpful, too. Because muscle-ups have a huge neurological component, doing just half of the range of motion (the eccentric half) allows your body to rehearse how it feels spatially to do a muscle-up, without actually doing the muscle-up.

To do so, climb to the top position. You can use a step, a bench or the aid of a training partner. You can even assist yourself by jumping into it. When you’re at the top, pause and engage all the muscles in your body. Now lower yourself down as slowly as you possibly can. Hinge at the elbows and bend at the shoulders, as you lower your chest to the bar. Wring your wrists around the bar and extend your legs forward as you continue your descent. Continue all the way down until you are hanging from the bar. This type of slow, negative muscle-up will give you a taste of the movement pattern. Like all things muscle-up related, it’s harder than it may seem.

Bar None

It can take a great deal of time and energy to achieve your first muscle-up, but the feeling of getting high above that bar is worth it. Take your time, respect the journey and understand that, like many great things, it will require discipline, intensity and consistency. Even after you’ve done your first muscle-up, it may be a while before you do your second. That’s ok. It’s a long road; enjoy the ride. In time, the sky’s the limit!

If you’ve experienced any breakthroughs with your muscle-up training, please let me know in the comments section below. Danny wants to hear about it! For that matter, feel free to post any questions you may have about muscle-ups. After all, we’re all a work in progress. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Keep The Dream Alive,

-DK

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Danny Kavadlo is one of the world’s leading authorities on calisthenics, nutrition and personal training. He is the author of several best-selling Dragon Door titles including G ET STRONG and STRENGTH RULES. Danny has been featured in the New York Times, Men’s Fitness, and the Huffington Post. He is a regular contributor to Bodybuilding .com and TRAIN magazine. When not working one-on-one with clients in his native New York City, Danny travels the world as a Master Instructor in Dragon Door’s internationally acclaimed Progressive Calisthenics Certification. Find out more about Danny at www.DannyTheTrainer.com

Ten Tenets of Calisthenics Skill Training

October 11, 2016 By Al Kavadlo 21 Comments

When I got into working out as a teenager, all I cared about was having a muscular looking upper-body. I wasn’t familiar with the concept of “functional fitness” and I don’t think it would have interested me much at the time anyway.

Back then I just wanted to look good with my shirt off. Doing a muscle-up or pistol squat had never even occurred to me. A lot has changed since then.

With progressive calisthenics continuing to grow in popularity every day, more people are training to learn bodyweight skills first and foremost, with muscular gains being secondary. Though training for mass, strength and skill certainly have some overlap, there are several subtle differences to keep in mind if your top priority in fitness is learning new ways to move your body.

Before getting to my advice on skill development, however, we first must define our terms. Skill training encompasses many things, including moves where precise balance is key, like the handstand or elbow lever, but it also includes exercises like the pistol squat, human flag or muscle-up, which although they require significant strength, require loads of coordination and body awareness as well. You can treat pretty much any calisthenics exercise as a skill if you approach it with a focus on movement quality, though there is undeniably more technique involved with a back lever than a basic push-up.

With that in mind, if skill is what you seek, you would do well to abide by the following ten principles:

1. Build Your Foundation
You’ve gotta crawl before you learn to walk, and you’ve gotta get good at pull-ups before attempting a muscle-up. While it can be tempting to rush ahead and try advanced exercises when you are new to calisthenics, the best way to eventually attain those skills is by building a strong foundation with the basics. Aim for double digits on classics like push-ups, hanging knee raises and squats before you worry about anything too ambitious. Advanced skills are built upon proficiency in the fundamentals.

2. Utilize an Earlier Progression
If there is an exercise that you feel is on the fringes of your skill set, the best way to work toward acquiring it is to find an earlier progression that you can manage for around 3 solid reps (or in the case of isometric holds, something you can hold for a few seconds).

If your goal is to perform a freestanding handstand, you should first get very comfortable holding one against a wall. If a full pistol squat eludes you, there are many regressions you can use, such as a bench pistol. Whatever you are working toward, there are lots of ways to assist yourself or modify the leverage to make anything more accessible. (Check out me and my brother Danny’s new book Street Workout for progressions and variations on all the major calisthenics skills.)

3. Take Long Breaks
Learning new skills is taxing on your neurological system as well as your muscles, that’s why it’s helpful to allow yourself plenty of rest between attempts. There’s no need to time your breaks or abide by any strict protocol when skill improvement/acquisition is your chief concern, however. Simply warm up, and start playing around with whatever it is you are working on, be it a backflip, muscle-up, or elbow lever.

Though it only takes a few seconds to attempt these moves, remember to take a few deep breaths between each effort and give yourself a few minutes off when you feel like you’re beginning to fatigue. Be aware that you may tire quickly when working on new skills, even if you don’t feel the same type of burn in your muscles that you are used to from more conventional set and rep protocols.

4. More Sets/Fewer Reps
Along those same lines, it’s usually best to do only a few reps at a time (or practice fairly short holds in the case of isometrics) when training new skills. For this reason, you may need to do more sets than you typically would in order to get enough total training volume into a given session. Remember, your goal is precision – as soon as you cease to be able to perform at your best, it’s time to take a breather. It’s not unusual to do 5 or more sets of a single exercise during a skill training session.

5. Video Your Workouts
Taking a video of your training session isn’t just for showing off on YouTube. You can learn a lot by watching yourself try new things. You may find that what you think you are doing and what you are actually doing are two very different things. Watching a video of yourself can help you stay objective and find ways to fix your form. Reviewing your video in between efforts can also give you something to do while you’re taking those long rest breaks.

6. Don’t Bite Off Too Much
You can’t learn to do everything at once. Movers who have a large arsenal of skills have gradually acquired new ones little by little over many years. Focus on one or two new things at a time, while keeping your other exercises and skills in maintenance mode. Sometimes when you hit a plateau with one skill, you can shift your focus to something else, and eventually return to the previous skill with renewed focus and greater experience.

7. Avoid Failure
If your primary concern is gaining muscle mass, it may be best to push to the point of absolute fatigue, as this will pump as much blood into the muscles as possible. Conventional wisdom is that “the pump” can help facilitate muscular growth.

When learning new skills is your primary concern, however, it’s best to avoid muscular failure. You want to be as fresh as you can for each effort, so you can get the greatest yields for your time. It’s best to keep a little bit in the tank to avoid burnout when working on new skills.

8. Find Training Partners
We all must walk this path for ourselves, but along the way others can offer guidance and inspiration. If you have the opportunity to work out with friends or attend a workshop – take it. The collective energy that happens when you get a group of calisthenics fanatics together is something that must be felt in order to be understood. Whether it’s through organizing a meet-up with your buddies at a local park, or coming to a Progressive Calisthenics Certification Workshop, there’s no better motivation than the energy and encouragement of your peers.

9. Be Patient
Many people underestimate how long it can take to learn a new move, then get frustrated and give up because it’s not happening quickly enough. Accept that some days will be better than others, and that you may get frustrated at times. This is okay. There is no true “mastery” in fitness, so aim to keep the beginner’s mind: Instead of focusing on the goal, focus on the process; instead of setting deadlines, set intentions. Patience is the key to unlocking advanced calisthenics skills.

10. Stay Consistent
The secret to fitness is not in any specific exercise, or sequence of exercises. It’s not in any particular set and rep scheme, and it’s not in any particular tool or apparatus. It’s not about periodization, core stabilization or muscle confusion. Those things may play a role, but the real secret to fitness is consistency. Because without consistency, none of those other details mean anything. If you want to improve your calisthenics skills, you’ve got to stay the course and keep practicing. You will learn more from your own trials and errors than from anything else. Enjoy the journey and embrace each step in your progression.

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Al Kavadlo is the lead instructor for Dragon Door’s Progressive Calisthenics Certification and the author of several best-selling books, including Street Workout and Pushing The Limits. For more information visit www.AlKavadlo.com.

PCC Holland: A Gathering of Awesomeness

September 15, 2015 By Silvio Bauer 9 Comments

Danny Silvio Al Kavaldo Holland PCC 2015

I’m still hung over. Not from having one too many—mind you other than maybe one too many muscle-ups.

This whole past weekend, I was on a constant dopamine rush. I took a little trip to the beautiful city of Haarlem, which is a half hour bus ride away from Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

From the time I stepped onto the airplane up until this moment, I’ve been maintaining a sheepish grin on my face.

All this happiness bursting out of me came from attending the Holland PCC . Not only was it a thrill to meet the PCC team for this workshop (Lead Instructor Al Kavadlo, Master Instructor Danny Kavadlo, and Instructor Grace Kavadlo) but also to be around so many like-minded fitness freaks.

Pull Ups At Holland PCC 2015

Once the whole crew and attendees gathered in a circle to introduce themselves, you could almost feel the room vibrating with all the positive energy everybody brought with them. With the first of many of Al’s signature “HEY, hey, heys” of this weekend, the group started to become a little family of fitness weirdos.

It was a blast to see everybody bringing their unique expertise to the table. I met attendees from all over the world (one person came all the way from Taiwan)! We had engineers, IT professionals, personal trainers, physical therapists, CEOs, martial artists, Street Workout World Cup participants, and many more. This is the kind of group you can’t replicate, which is part of the reason why this PCC workshop was such a unique experience.

Al and Danny Demo Shrimp Squats Holland 2015

No matter where you come from, or your occupation, I can basically guarantee you’ll hit several PRs during a weekend like this. If it’s a new move that you’re trying for the first time, or one you’ve worked on for a while and now finally “get it”, you will push your physical limit on a weekend like this.

My own favorite PR was the mighty muscle-up. I’ve worked on this one for quite some time. But up until this weekend, the muscle-up was an elusive skill for me. I could do it on a good day when I was fresh but it wasn’t pretty when I got over the bar most of the time. After some cues from Al and Danny, it finally “clicked” with me. I got over the bar every single time I tried it. Afterwards, I had the urge to do muscle-ups throughout the weekend just to make sure I hadn’t lost it!

A video posted by Silvio (@neatstrength) on Sep 11, 2015 at 8:10am PDT

Not only did Al, Danny, and Grace do a fantastic job by providing helpful cues and tips, they managed to add significant value to everybody’s life just by sharing their humble and simplistic approach to calisthenics. You know these guys know their trade the moment they start to speak to a group. They are attentive speakers and involve everybody during a talk or a demonstration. I was more than impressed by how they skillfully managed to simultaneously tame and energize this group of fitness enthusiasts.

Special thanks goes to John Du Cane for making these events possible and to our host Martijn Bos and his wicked crew from Trainingscentrum Helena for their generous hospitality.

The PCC Instructor Manual, shirt, and certificate made up only a small portion of the things I took home with me. I formed new friendships, gained new insights for training people and I took home a bucket full of new skills and life experiences. I’m absolutely certain that every single one of my co-attendees feels the same way.

PCC Group Photo Holland 2015

I’m grateful to be part of the PCC family and I look forward to welcoming new members to the clan!

-Silvio

Silvio Bauer, PCC Instructor, is an engineer by trade and a passionate minimalist training enthusiast. He writes about his training approach over at his website NeatStrength.com. You can follow him on facebook.com/neatstrength or on instagram.com/neatstrength/.

10 Hot Bodyweight Exercises You Should Be Training

September 10, 2013 By Alex Zinchenko 39 Comments

Ok, so you got serious about this “progressive calisthenics” thing. And now your head explodes from endless dilemmas: should you train this or that? What’s better: the planche or the one-arm push-up? Should you be working on one-arm chin-up or front lever pull-ups? Possibilities are limitless while our resources are definitely limited. You can’t think “screw it”, and train with every technique at once. You must choose something if you want to make any meaningful progress. So what should you choose? Let me give you 10 hot calisthenics exercises you should spend time training (in no particular order).

1. Handstand

If you don’t train this exercise you are missing out big time. This would be my number one priority. Why the handstand? Well, if you can stand on your legs, shouldn’t you be able to stand on hands? Not convinced? Ok, then here is what I can tell you from experience. The handstand develops your upper body like nothing else. There’s simply no substitution. It makes your shoulders and arms more stable and robust. You’ll definitely feel the newly gained strength and stability in all other pushing movements. For example, all my training clients benefited from implementing handstand training into their routines and increased their pushing numbers (some of them had a 20% increase, which is great, in my opinion). Anyway, no matter what your goal, you should strive to learn the handstand as soon as possible. And, of course, it looks awesome. If you are struggling to learn the skill here are 10 tips that will help you.

2. Handstand Push-Ups

I differentiate handstand push-ups into two types:

Wall-Assisted Handstand Push-Ups [WA HSPU]
Free-Standing Handstand Push-Ups [FS HSPU]

They are two quite different things. When we are talking about WA HSPUs we are talking about an almost purely strength move. Balance is not an issue here, while FS HSPUs will require decent balance and stability as well as proficiency in the handstand. No matter what you prefer, it is good idea to train both. Once you get good at them you can increase difficulty in one of these ways:

Increase range of motion;
Add a weighted vest;
Move to one arm work.

Ideally, you should end with weighted full ROM one-arm handstand push-up.

3. Chin-Ups/Pull-Ups/One-Arm Chin-Up

Everybody knows these exercises. You can call them whatever you want, but you can’t deny the fact that chin-up is one of the best lat and biceps builders known to man (if not the best). It is an essential pulling movement pattern and it should be practiced a lot. I won’t get deep into details here, but for the regular chin-ups your main technique points are:

Back should be arched
Shoulder blades together
Chin up until chest touches the bar

Also it would be a good idea to practice chin-ups on different apparatus. Do them on bars, monkey bars, rings, towels etc. This will add spice to your training.

Another interesting thought would be to perform them every day (of course, assuming you can do at least 10-12). Try doing 30-50 Chin-Ups total (in as many sets as needed) every day for the next 3-4 weeks and you can be amazed with your new set of guns and barn door back.

When you are able to perform at least 15 chin-ups it will be a good time to slowly introduce one-arm chin-up work. My main tip would be to get into it very slowly. You don’t want to experience intolerable elbow pain, right? Anyway, I believe that the one-arm chin-up is definitely an exercise you need to master someday.

4. Pistol

You can’t ignore your leg training unless you desire that set of toothpicks you can often see in commercial gyms. There is an exercise that can help you not to look that stupid. It is one-legged squat a.k.a. the “pistol”. You know that it works your legs from all angles and pretty well. But there’s a problem with the pistol. Once you can do 10 reps in the exercise it becomes more endurance oriented rather than strength. What to do in such situation? The simplest solution is to add weight. A weighted vest should be ideal. If you don’t have one then you can use a backpack. Here’s the article on how to do it. Also you can use kettlebells, a sandbag, or a barbell. If you have nothing you can grab a stranger (girl, preferably) and put him/her on your shoulders for added resistance.

But what to do if you have nothing at hand, there are no people around and you feel unstoppable urge to train your legs? You can combine pistols with jumps. Try to jump onto a platform from the bottom of the pistol position. Or you can try broad jumps in pistol position. Use your imagination.

5. Planche/Planche Push-Ups

The planche is another awesome gymnastic position/move you can effectively implement in your training routine. Is it essential? Probably not. But it is a very good test of your straight arm scapular strength. It works your delts, upper chest, lats and biceps quite decently. Also it’s a staggering sight to see a human being holding their body parallel to the ground on straight hands.

Here are a couple of tips:

Most people don’t have the necessary flexibility in the wrists so it will be a good idea to turn your hands a bit sideways.
Always perform this skill with your elbows locked. Otherwise, it is not a planche.
Don’t overdo it. If you want to train it more than two times per week don’t go even close to failure. Otherwise, you’ll feel very annoying pain in your forearms.

Once you master the specific planche position it is good idea to try push-ups in it. For example, once you can hold an advanced tuck planche for at least 10 seconds you can try to add push-ups in this position.

6. Front Lever

The front lever is another useful skill in our arsenal. It works arms and back while torching your core. Many people think that it is easy. Obviously, they are fooling themselves. You’ll need lots of time to master the skill especially if you are 80+ kg and tall.

Again, as with the planche you want to keep your elbows locked. And also you don’t want to overdo it for the same reasons.

A good tip for mastering the front lever is to use a “false grip” while performing it. More on this later in the article.

7. Human Flag

Everybody loves the human flag. It’s a core killer as well as test of upper body strength and stability. There are lots of tutorials on the human flag out there. What can I add? Here are couple of thoughts:

Don’t start training the human flag before the handstand is mastered.
Learn the human flag on Swedish bars first (or use some kind of ladder). Then move to pole version.

8. Push-Ups/One-Arm Push-Up

What’s so hot about push-ups? Not much. Purely the fact that they lead to the one-arm push-up. And the one-armer is hot by any stretch of the imagination.

A lot can be said about this move but I’ll concentrate on technique points. For me a one-arm push-up “counts” only if:

feet are not wider shoulder width;
shoulders are parallel to the ground;
body is perfectly straight looking from the side;
twist of the body is MINIMAL looking from the top.

You may ask: “is it even possible?” Yes, it is. But it will require lots of patience and hard work to achieve. Maybe even more than any other complex bodyweight skill. If you need some more inspiration here you can find 10 tips for mastering the Perfect One-Arm Push-Up.

9. Back Lever

The back lever is not a very hard skill but it is essential for learning the planche. Also there are lots of other skills that use this position so it will be smart to spend some time learning it. The most important thing I’d like to share with you is what to do when the back lever is mastered. The most basic thing you can do is to learn Back lever pull outs. You get into the inverted hang position, then lower down into the back lever position, hold it for a second and pull yourself back into inverted hang. Repeat for desired amount of reps.

10. Muscle-Up

I can’t leave this article without mentioning the muscle-up. You can hear or read different things about this skill. Some people say that it is essential and you should master it as soon as possible. Others (usually brainwashed with modern bodybuilding) argue saying that it’s useless because you combine pulling and pushing. They state that you can’t load the pulling and pushing pattern as much as you could if you split them.

Nevertheless, I believe that muscle-up is one of the skills you must learn. And I’m talking about controlled muscle-up here, not the kipping one.

There are two points I’d like you to concentrate on:

Use a “false grip”—with the thumbs over the bar, rather than wrapped around it. Watch some videos on YouTube on this subject. One exercise that will help you here is false grip chin-ups.
The main struggle is the transition part. There are three exercises that will help: Russian dips, chest-over-bar pull-ups (pull yourself very high) and muscle-up negatives.

It’s beyond the scope of this article to explain these exercises in detail, but if you want me to explain them just leave a comment and I’ll try to make it happen.

Another interesting thing about the muscle-up is that ring muscle-ups are actually easier than bar muscle-ups. Why? Due to the fact that you can pull the rings to sides during the transition phase.

Closing Thoughts

Of course, you’ll need much more than this article to create a reasonable program. My goal was to show you what exercises would develop your body and what you should focus on while programming your training. What now? You must absorb the knowledge and use it. Thanks for reading.

If you have a fitness-obsessed friend, you can do a good thing and share this article with him or her.

Play rough!

Alex Zinchenko

P.S. If you have any thoughts regarding the topic, let’s chat in comments.

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It is a pleasure for the PCC to present Alex Zinchenko—the Ukraine’s hottest personal trainer! Alex is a strength addict, coach and author of the Rough Strength blog, where he shares his crazy ideas regarding training and nutrition. He is honest as toothache, straightforward like a train and dares to believe that heavy calisthenics, kettlebell and sandbag training along with intermittent fasting can deliver you all the results you want.

Erwan Le Corre talks Bodyweight, Part II

August 6, 2013 By Paul "Coach" Wade 10 Comments

Erwan Le Corre is the founder of MovNat.

Erwan Le Corre is an icon in the fitness world. He is considered by many to be the modern-day inheritor of the French tradition of physical education (and that’s quite a compliment when you consider that the French created parkour, free running, and effectively invented the modern military “assault course”). Erwan is the founder of MovNat—an astonishing physical education and fitness system based on comprehensive movement abilities. There are many coaches who try to imitate what he does, but for people who have seen him in action—or learned from him—there will only ever be one Erwan Le Corre!

Paul “Coach” Wade (author of Convict Conditioning) recently got the chance to ask Erwan his opinion on all things bodyweight, on behalf of the PCC community. In Part I of this interview, Erwan shared his thoughts on his heroes, the thinking behind MovNat, and bodyweight efficiency.

In this second and final part of this interview, Erwan opens up about his status as “World’s Fittest Man,” his favorite bodyweight exercises, and performing sit-ups over an eight-lane superhighway!

Paul Wade: Erwan, what are your favorite bodyweight movements?

Erwan Le Corre: Probably the “muscle-up” (this name is just SO weird, what does that mean exactly?!) simply because it is such an explosive movement that demands power but also coordination and balance. It is also adaptable to different environments, not just gymnastic rings, you can do it on a tree branch, a platform, a cable or rope etc…you’re looking up and the next second you’re looking down from an elevated place. To many people it is an inapproachable feat but when you’ve trained to make it almost effortless it’s such a bliss.

But that’s thinking “bodyweight movement” for strength. You know, holding a simple deep squat, and be super relaxed in that position and hold it for a long time, this is maybe the simplest, most enjoyable human movement and position of all. How many people out there can fully squat and hold it minutes in a perfectly relaxed state? There is more to a functional, competent body than just the impressive stuff that demands strength or power.

Al Kavadlo is a master of the muscle-up!

Paul Wade: Actually, “muscle-up” still seems like a strange name to me—in jail, these were called “sentry pull-ups,” which kinda makes a little more sense!

Do you use progressions in your teaching? (For example, beginning with easier push-ups on the knees, and moving to one-arm push-ups.) If so, could you give us an example?

Erwan Le Corre: Of course! Do you seriously think I’d take a completely deconditioned person (I call them “zoo-humans”) in the woods and say, have them walk in balance across a fallen tree trunk above a raging river? That would be criminal! Where should people start? They start not in natural, unpredictable and complex environments but in controlled, or at least managed environments that are predictable and safe. Or else you don’t have a coaching and physical education system, you have no system and you’re a jackass.

So I place a 2×4 wood beam on the ground and voila, here you go, you’ve got an environment with basic, entry level of complexity but that does challenge the beginner. It demands not just “balance” but “balancing skills” and you start practicing safely and progressively that way. Another example, before you train muscle-ups you train explosive pull-ups, before you train explosive pull-ups you train regular pull-ups, before you train regular pull-ups you train a variety of hangs and hanging traverses (the “side-swing traverse”) etc…

The priority is always the establishment of movement quality and efficiency through technical work. Then you gradually increase volume, intensity and complexity. Gray Cook puts it simply like this, “First move well, then move often.” In most cases motor-skills and conditioning will develop symbiotically. Depending on the movement, and/or the environment complexity, a physical action may demand more motor-control, or more strength and conditioning. I’ve addressed this earlier but I like to hammer it because it is so important. So the way you train sometimes involves both aspects, or may dissociate them. I’ve seen guys who could do tons of pull-ups but were unable to climb on top of the horizontal bar, I mean even after trying a few times. No amount of general conditioning can compensate for a lack of motor-control and technical skill. An hour later they could climb on top 6 different ways after learning the techniques.

I also have seen guys who could do tons of pull-ups unable to climb a horizontal bar even with technical instruction, do you know why? Because the bar was too thick, smooth and slippery for them and they couldn’t hang to it very long, let alone attempting to just pull themselves up, as they simply didn’t have the necessary grip strength to do so. You’re only as strong as your weakest link, and not amount of technical instruction will compensate for a lack specific conditioning or strength. And if you want to know, all these guys were highly trained CrossFitters. Take the test I mentioned above and see how it goes. If it doesn’t go as well as you thought it would, you have two options:

– re-assess the way you train (and maybe the reason you train), and modify your training regimen consequently. Maybe take a MovNat course or certification workshop.

– just forget about it and get back to your routine.

Paul Wade: Erwan, so far I am surprised by how much your thinking has in common with what I would call the “old school calisthenics” approach to training—you make a throwaway comment “you are only as strong as your weakest link,” but very few people will realize how important that understanding really is.

What’s your personal training regime like now, in brief? How many days per week?

Erwan Le Corre: I rely on my intuition. Not everyone is endowed with good intuition about themselves, their body and what’s the best way to train, I am fortunate that I’ve got a lot of experience and I know myself well, I have explored many training modalities and mastered a few. I’m also opportunistic. If I am somewhere with water I might swim, if I’m in a gym my training will be slightly different, or in nature, or at a martial art academy, depending on what a particular place has to offer. Personally, routines are not my cup of tea, but this being said routines and programs are very important for beginners, or when you have a very specific objective, like an event you want to participate in and you want to kick ass, or at least survive. Programming IS part of MovNat. It’s just that at the moment, my training doesn’t follow a particular structure. It’s free, intuitive and opportunistic, and I am mostly maintaining a decent general level of skills and conditioning. It can change tomorrow and I can decide to structure my training again, with particular goals. There’s no rule. I also want to say that it is very important to manage health for longevity.

Bodyweight-based training can be opportunistic—use whatever is around you to build your skills and abilities.

There’s only so much your body can take. Aging is real. You can’t prevent it, but you can decide how fast it goes, and avoid poor lifestyle choices that make you age even faster. Overtraining and under-recovery participate in aging faster, including uncomfortable symptoms such as joint pain etc…At almost 42 I am fortunate that I experience so far very limited symptoms like that, and it has to do with the way I train, in term of movement quality but also the way I treat my body overall. If I were to tell you I train X number of days a week, or X number of hours, or X number of sets and reps, does it actually mean something THAT objective? What is the quality of each movement performed? At what intensity? How prepared is my body? How do I recover? How do I treat myself? You know the latter questions only seem more subjective, but IMO they are actually more objective than any indication of numbers. The body doesn’t know anything about numbers. It only knows about movement patterns and sensations. How you FEEL should be your number one indicator or adequate training and practice. Feel amazing and don’t settle for less. You’ve got one life. At the end of your journey you will have forgotten all the details and numbers of your programs. But you will never forget how they made you feel.

Paul Wade: An amazing attitude—a lot of advanced guys think the same way.

Guys like Demenÿ and Hébert believed that an athlete should have mastery of their body in any environment—underwater, on rough terrain, even high above the ground. You are known for having performed some very unusual feats in this tradition. (For example, Erwan famously had a sit-up competition with Jean Haberey, while both men were hanging from a bridge over an eight-lane superhighway!) Could you tell us some of the thinking behind this please?

Erwan Le Corre: I think lots of people lack motivation to exercise because the purpose behind it is either unclear or too superficial. It can be unclear when you’re aiming at general aspects of “fitness” but without ever really assessing their transferability to real use. Because of this vagueness, you need to focus on something that is more tangible to you, like number of sets and reps. That may be rational in some way, but your mind needs something more substantial and real to be really excited. My mind at least, and that which of people who train with us. Superficial goals like a better looking body are legit, but they are not deeply satisfying.

So I’m not saying that having specific goals that can be measured is unimportant, it actually is very important for a number of reasons, such as assessing progress, the effectiveness of a program and motivation for instance. All I am saying is that when there’s a truly practical goal in mind, let’s say I’m going be able to carry somebody on my back a whole mile, or I am going to train to hold my breath 3 minutes straight so I could dive and rescue someone if needed, or I will become fast at running so I could escape a threatening situation swiftly…you see, these are practical goals. The indications of the one mile firefighter carry or the 3 minutes breath hold only matter because the objectives are practical performance, but if you remove that and just look at “one mile” or “3 minutes” then it doesn’t mean much anymore.

The practical goals go beyond the current perception of what is “functional.” You step on a bosu and do rotational lunges and that’s functional. Fair enough. But what actual practical physical action are you performing? If it is not clear in your mind what you’re trying to replicate, then you might get bored very soon because it won’t click in the back of your head. Practical goals give you, and your training, a deeper sense of purpose, that increases and maintains your drive to exercise hard and consistently. Because you want to acquire real-world physical competency, or to maintain it. You want to know what you are capable of, what you are made of. There’s a sense of reality and realism that is undeniable. You can walk the streets with the self-confidence of a person who knows they won’t be completely helpless to themselves and others if a difficult situation arises. Be useful, know you are. This is a great feeling!

Paul Wade: What, in your opinion, is the biggest barrier to fitness in the modern age?

Erwan Le Corre: Mentalities. There are gyms everywhere, parks everywhere, nature, cities. There are millions of fitness videos online for people who seek motivation, and books or trainers for those who seek knowledge or guidance. But the sad reality is that the average Joe and Jane are real “zoo-humans.” Why on Earth would they even want to move or exercise? Why such a physical punishment when you can be comfy at home and hide your physical suffering with pills and entertainment? Comfort is weakening, but people seem happy to be soft, they joke about it, every TV commercial makes people laugh about useless, helpless human beings who are completely disempowered. There’s a global culture of voluntary disempowerment. It is both a mass-condition and a mass-conditioning.

Bodyweight fitness is about more than strength and huge muscles. How is your running? Your climbing, your swimming?

Change this mentality and you will have legions of people who realize that exercising, especially moving in natural ways, is not a chore, not a punishment, not an option, but an expression of their most beautiful human nature. It belongs to all of us regardless of what makes us different. It has the potential to bring us all together. I want to awake in a world crowded with self-actualized, self-empowered individuals. Instead I wake up in a world crowded with dormant minds and lazy, soft bodies. The people who train physically and want to stay healthy and strong within a society that is sick and weak are modern heroes. They may not want to be part of an elite, but in some way they are. But my point is the opposite of trying to create elites. It is rather that everyone would be liberated and empowered. I have created MovNat with this vision in mind. It is quite the romantic, utopian and delusional vision, yet I am innocent enough to believe a change will take place. In my inner world, the change is taking place NOW.

Paul Wade: Wise words, my man. Are there any long-standing myths about strength and fitness training you would like to see vanish from the face of the earth?

Erwan Le Corre: Probably the idea that all there is to fitness and building a body is to grow bigger muscles. It is not really a myth but an overwhelmingly common perception. There is more to building a body than building muscles, and there is more to building a human being than building its body. To me fitness is the level of your energy at every level, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. This is old school, in the sense that the ancient Greeks thought like that, all the main pioneers of physical education in Europe all thought like that. They didn’t seclude themselves to a purely physical realm. They wanted people to be whole. The mainstream, commercial fitness industry has absolutely no interest in you thinking like that. You don’t make much money on self-actualized people, that’s why.

Paul Wade: You have been called The World’s Fittest Man due to your wide-range of abilities. Any final tips from the World’s Fittest Man?

Erwan Le Corre: This is one of the myths you were mentioning earlier and that needs to be debunked. Christopher McDougall, NYT Best-seller author for “Born To Run” has written in a article he wrote for Men’s Health a few years ago that I may rank as one of the fittest men on the planet. Well, it all depends on what criteria. Few people, I admit, are able to follow me in my “world” and keep up with every type of physical challenge they could encounter, on any terrain. I’ve met many inspiring specialized athletes that all could kick my ass in their specific field of predilection. I’ve met guys who are generalists, like high level CrossFitters, but who forget that reality is specific and that specific training is required for every aspect of competency you want to be ready for. But don’t be mistaken. I couldn’t care less about competition and rankings. I’m not here to prove anything, but to embody my philosophy and spread the MovNat system. All I hope is that MovNat will produce many “fittest guy on Earth.” Most importantly, just train smart and hard and become YOUR fittest, this is what truly matters. The rest is just ego. Don’t neglect areas of your physical competence and potential and leave them under-developed. It’s really a loss for yourself. Become the fittest you can be in all areas of natural human movement is probably the best tip I can share.

MovNat students learn to use their bodies in different environments—not just in an air-conditioned gym!

Paul Wade: Erwan, you are a phenomenal example of natural fitness! Thanks for your time.

Erwan Le Corre: Compliment taken. You’re not bad yourself! Resiliency is a beautiful thing. I want to tell people this: whatever you thought or told yourself you were, whatever you are or were told you are, it doesn’t matter anymore the moment you decide to redefine and remodel yourself into the most self-actualized person you can. ON YOUR OWN TERMS. Because if you can’t empower yourself…who will?

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Erwan Le Corre is the founder of MovNat. To find out more about his training approach, head on over to http://www.movnat.com/.

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Paul “Coach” Wade is the author of five Convict Conditioning DVD/manual programs. Click here for more information about Paul Wade, and here for more information on Convict Conditioning DVD’s and books available for purchase from the publisher.