Upper body:

Benchpress 2/3 my weight (more eventually)
Pushups
General upperbody calisthenics
Neck strengthening


Lower body:
Squats with a Swiss ball
Lunges against the wall
General lower body calisthenics
Bridges

Result:

More strength
Better proprioception (spatial perception)

Then:

Find a judoka who is familiar with Lebellian grappling who is situated where I live.

Sounds terrible. no deadlifts, what's with the squats witha swiss ball? no real posterior chain work (besides squats), no core work, yup, sounds terrible to me. how often are you intending to do this? What I would do if you're interested in building both endurance in and strength in the weight room is split it up between two full body days.
Day 1 (Strength):
bench
deadlift
lunges
saxon side bends
pullup

Day 2 (endurance):
Dips or diamond pushups for reps
Squats or lower body calistenics
Hypers or revers hypers for reps
Situps
Seated rows for reps

Week 2:
Day 1 (endurance) -
Pushups (any variant will work, either regular or hindu, or diamond, or whatever)
Hypers or reverse hypers
lunge or lunge variant (bodyweight)
Situps
Pullups

Day 2 (Strength) -
Dips
Squats
Stiff legged Deadlift
Ab wheel Rollouts
Bent over rows

Get it? Personally I've always advocated that most people just forget about endurance in the weight room and gain the endurance through SPP and GPP for their sport. So if you're doing burpee intervals (and other GPP) and doing a lot of rolling (and other SPP) you'll get all the endurance you should need and can focus on strength and power in the weight room (which would look more like a ME and DE westside Split)

Also, there is another way to attack endurance. High sets and low reps, however this can stack on a lot of volume for a neopyte lifter and lead to overtraining if you're not careful. doing 20 sets of 1 rep, 15 sets of 2 reps, or 12 sets of 3 reps with 10, 20, and 30 seconds rest between sets respectively can be very demanding on your endurance (think circuit training without the disgrace of circuits) and allow you to use more significant weights.

Your speaking privileges have been revoked Urban. If you ever say the words "Ab wheel rollouts" or "side bends" in a thread I read again, I'll flip out and kill your village.

Also, especially for people who are working on their movements patterns and/or have range of motion limitations (which I believe Angry Spastic does.... some kind of disability, right?), then swiss ball squats are EXCELLENT.

One thing AS, can you be more specific on your routine, such as exactly what General upper and lower body calisthenics are?

Listening to you guys talk about routines is like listening to the cast from Queer Eye discuss cheese and wine.


"Ab wheel rollouts are SO last year"

"Oh I know! And I'll tell you what, it's not only my deadlifts that are stiff! Titter titter!"

"Oooh you are bad!"

"I know!"

What I mean by general upper and lower body calisthenics is windmilling the arms etc. and miscellaneous stretches, nothing specific. Same with lower body. I just adapt Qi Gong training from when I used to do it (after all, Qi Gong is just calisthenics)

Your speaking privileges have been revoked Urban. If you ever say the words "Ab wheel rollouts" or "side bends" in a thread I read again, I'll flip out and kill your village. Luckily I have no village. Look, I dunno what you're beef with rollouts and SAXON side bends (http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459681) is, but they're both great exercises for your core. I dunno anything about spastic's disabilities cause he didn't mention them, so I reccomended an appropriate routine based on what I saw.

Saxon bends seem good for body building, but I'm interested in strength, especially upper body.

P.S. TaeBo Master, " calisthenics" can be defined as " gymnastic exercises to increase strength and ease of movement"

Saxon bends seem good for body building, but I'm interested in strength, especially upper body. I'LL BE GOD DAMNED IF I CAN FIND A SILLIER SENTENCE THAN THAT! SWEET MERRCIFUL CHRIST WAS THAT INCORRECT IN ALL OF IT'S IMPLICATIONS. First, look at the author, not the site. Second, read the article: "A strong set of abs is arguably the cornerstone of all athletic functions"

"Sorry, but there are no shortcuts to great abs. If you want them, you need to develop core torso power that'll improve performance in every element of your day-to-day life, not to mention improve athletic performance."

"Now, if all you want is the look of a hard midsection, fine. Combine this style of training with the right dietary habits and you'll get the look you're after. But as a nice side effect, you'll also develop a functional, injury proofing set of abs to go along with that "look.""

I'm not going to continue to pull quotes out of the article because, well... Why bother. He Says three times in just those quotes that the exercises are for function, then he talks about how to get a six pack: SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH WHEN YOU'RE AT THE TABLE (sure he says it in a more civil manner, something about dietary habits) and spends the whole article talking about strength training not bodybuilding or dieting to get your abs to show. How you can confuse this with bodybuilding, I have no Idea.

Third, the article was published during the old T-Mag. And frankly the old t-mag is better than the new t-mag bodybuilding thinktank garbage. The archives and atomic dog are really the only things worth your time on that site any more. The eight keys to strength are on there (dave tate is NOT a bodybuilder), numerous articles by john davies (kinda fadish guy, but he's a strength coach for football teams, not a bodybuilder), chad waterbury, and numerous other STRENGTH ATHLETES.

So maybe you should do a little more research before you fucking throw out a phenomenal core exercise like saxon side bends. How about full contact twists, or any of the other exercises on there, are THEY strictly bodybuilding exercises?

ok, one more quote for the road: "Now when I say "basic," I should probably note that these lifts were popular when lifting had a more direct carryover to real world needs. Tiny waists borne of starvation did nothing if you had to bale hay or lift heavy objects."

Thanks for putting words in my mouth Urban. I never said that those exercises were bodybuilding exercises. And I DEFINITELY never said that core strength wasn't important. Core strength is absolutely the most important aspect of strength training. My beef is twofold.

1) Those PARTICULAR exercises are NOT as functional as they would seem. Combine that with the fact that ab rolling exercises have a significant risk of lower back injury, and there are dozens of core exercises I would choose over ab rolling and side bends.

2) There's a LOT more to the core than just the abs. The Rectus Abdominis (external ab muscle) and the external obliques are the most visible muscles, true. But as far as core strength and power production, they're probably also the least important core muscles.

Listening to you guys talk about routines is like listening to the cast from Queer Eye discuss cheese and wine.



Watch a lot of that, do ya? ;)