Ground Up Strength

Currently I don't have access to a dip belt so when it comes to my pullups and chinups I use the old fashioned technique of holding a dumbbell in my feet (I don't hold it with the bell up between my feet because it aggrevates my ankles, I place the handle across the top of one foot and place my other foot on top to stop it from rolling).

The other day at the gym I was doing pullups with a 45lb dumbbell and after a set this woman motions to me to take my headphones off. I originally thought she was going to complain about something I had done but she looks at me and says "you're crazy". Thinking nothing of the pullups I had just done I didn't clue in at first. Not only was she impressed at the pullups but she was also impressed by the fact I could hold a 45lb dumbbell on the top of my foot, lol.

Pistols. The mobility and stability required to do a proper pistol squat is impressive, the resistance is often overlooked. A bodyweight pistol could be argued as a skill specific show of strength, but the strength really begins when you're holding onto a couple dumbbells. Skill helps you, with strength of course, to nab the first ones but from there your skill can only increase so much until strength needs to grab the baton.

Little things like that, which are exclusive to bodyweight exercises for the most part, can become a show of strength themselves. My intention was to do some weighted pullups, not perform feats of strength. That's how I treat bodyweight exercises. I'm doing them because I find value in them. If it becomes a feat of strength, so be it, but that is not the primary goal.

BTW, my hand stand course is only 3 easy payments of $22.99. :)

Well you know what I threw around the word skill a lot as in 'motor skill' as if they were all created equally. It was a blog post after all and the more perfect you try to make one the worse it is.

But you you brought up the pistol and I mentioned pistols as being a "skill" we like but I didn't really mean to compare a pistol to a handstand pushup in terms of how one might organize skills.

Frankly I don't think pistols are a really big show of skill. They are tough as hell to get down but they really do not involve that many skills put together. I think they are a bigger show of strength and stability than "skill". I know a lot of people like to get up to calling everything they do a "skill" and yes, everything we do involves motor skills. But depending on how you classify them, all motor skills are not created equally.

I guess the way I'd describe a pistol is as a 'discrete' skill. That is it is a skill that basically is begin…end. Compare pistols to something like jumping up and down or kicking a ball to see what I mean. It's much harder to do pistols than to jump up and down or kick a ball but that does not mean it is a highly complex skill as compared to those things. It actually takes lots of practice to be able to kick a ball with precision and consistency. You couple that with upredictability like in soccer or fieldgoals in football and it becomes an open skill. Or more on the open end of things. Pistols remain a closed skill. The wind does not interfere with your pistols, lol.

Sure there are primary movement patterns that are involved in it but it is a straightforward discrete skill that is done and over very quickly. Snatch lift or a clean and jerk is much more "skillful" than a pistol even though it looks like one continuous thing.

Comparing pistols, in terms of skill, to handstand pushups, then ask yourself, is a handstand pushup a discrete skill? The answer is heck no!

Let's see, when you started pistols you could already stand on your feet. And I'll bet you you could balance on one leg pretty well too, right? Most of us can do that in kindergarten. From there the gist of it is deep knee bend…stand up. Pretty closed loop.

The handstand pushup on the other hand is a 'serial' skill. It involves a number of discrete skills together. The resources required to do one are MUCH greater. I doubt very much that the payoff is worth the resources as far as all the "superior strength" stuff is concerned. That doesn't mean they aren't worth doing but selling them based on pie in the sky claims is what I'm against.

If I thought that pistols were comparable to some of the bodyweight skills I'm talking about here I wouldn't really want trainees to do them unless they wanted to do them because they found intrinsic value in them and just wanted the challenge.

Pullups…again, not a high skill exercise.

I should point out that nothing falls wholly in one category or another. No skills are completely open or completely closed. And none are completely discrete. You could argue that weighted pistols require picking up some dumbells or kettlebells, straightening up, so on and so forth. That's silly but the point is it's really the eye of the beholder.

And there are other ways to classify motor skills.

I wasn't necessarily comparing the skill required for a pistol or pullup to the skill required for a handstand pushup. I was making a comparison of these bodyweight exercises based on their 'show of strength' and their value vs effort required. Problem is, I made it subtly.

I agree that a pistol and a pullup are not very difficult to pick up. It would certainly take more time and effort for me to perform a handstand pushup than it would to perform a pistol (pullup taking the least amount of time, lol).

In terms of bodyweight exercises, the pistol and pullup imo have more bang for their buck than a handstand pushup.

When I made my comment about pistols being arguably skill specific strength, it wasn't in response to your mention of pistols. I actually missed your mention of them and had only put them in after I wrote about pullups.

On the contrary I wasn't disagreeing with you or trying to say your were making pistols out to be some high skill thing. I absolutely agree that many WOULD classify them as a "feat". And I can understand why they would do that even if I don't really agree with it.

Then we are in agreement. :)

Bump.