Different types of exercises bring different types of results. That’s obvious.
So if you’re looking for unconventional results (and let’s be honest, conventional results aren’t that impressive) than you have to do unconventional exercises.
In the new Strengthen Your Structure course there are five groups of exercises.
Partials and Supports
I group these together although there are some differences, they are fairly close. In my opinion there is no better way to build stronger bones, tendons and ligaments. Why? Because you do a limited range of motion, or even none at all, and your structure, the various connective tissues, work to support the massive load. In the beginning you may only be able to work with twice your bodyweight, but you’ll probably be surprised at how fast you improve when working on these.
Not only are these exercises different, but it is fun when you can add 50 or 100 lbs. to the bar from workout to workout.
Walking Exercises
These provide some of the best “structure” training. Why? Because you work your stability and mobility at the same time. You have to learn to move under control while supporting a weight. It can be a heavy weight which is definitely challenging. It can be a relatively light weight, but this can be even tougher but upping the intensity of how you move, putting it in a bad leverage position, like overhead, or just going for a longer distance and time.
Seriously if you wanted to work your entire body in just a short amount of time, just one walking exercise could do the trick. These are under-rated as a group. And you can do a whole lot more than just walking you can do.
Barbell Leverage Exercises
The barbell is a tool made to be lifted. This is in contrast to odd objects which aren’t. But if you put the barbell in one hand, you’ve turned its length against you. Do this with a couple different exercises and you can build a powerful structure. These lifts like the getup with a barbell can be very fun to train. Like the walking exercises there is some coordination and mobility involved along with the strength.
Holding At Arms Length
This group of exercises, also called Muscling Out Weights, isn’t used much, but was an old favorite of many oldtime strongmen. While these target primarily your shoulders they build crazy strength there because of the bad leverage. There’s lot of small differences in how you do these that make big impacts on how tough they are.
Bodyweight Leverage Supports
I wanted to include some bodyweight exercises in this course so that having equipment wasn’t necessarily. You definitely need the right tools for the job, but here you’re using leverage and your own bodyweight to build your structure. The key in these is using your body as one unit. Through the progression of exercises you open yourself up more, literally, to find when your body can’t hold it. By adding these into your training you’ll have greater control of your body, getting it to work in a coordinated manner, whether doing bodyweight or lifting feats.
The cool thing is you can just pick one of these and ADD it to your training to get the benefits.
Structure training isn’t really meant to be complete training by itself, but can be bolted on top of your current program. Just a little of this training can go a long way.