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Beginner's Home Workout

HomeMadeMuscle.com
Become Strong & Lean Without going to the gym
 Intro
I have wasted a lot of my youth training too much and not having a lot to show for it. Of course my goal
then as an athlete was different but I wish I had the knowledge I now have to have saved myself from
extremes and use my training hours more efficiently. If you are someone who just started training, not
knowing where to start from and the only solution you've got is a home bodyweight program I
empathize with you and that is why I created this ebook. Its purpose is to save you meaningless time and
effort from all of the misinformation out there and help you focus on the important stuff. Stick with me I
promise to give you the best quality training a coach could give his trainee.

It's simple but not easy...

Getting strong and lean is quite simple. So
simple that people miss it. Of course the
fitness industry is also to blame for this
since making something seem a lot more
complicated than it is, can serve a lot of
guys into making them seem as specialists.
This way they can sell themselves as a
figure of authority.

As you read above, i mentioned it is going to be simple but

watch out, I didn't say it's going to be easy. There is a
difference between simple and easy. How many people do
you know who get their lazy ass of the couch and actually
pursue the stuff they are talking about? People just go on
YouTube, watch at a couple of transformation videos and
then go back to their couch, order a pizza or put a bowl of
cereal and play video games.

When you want results in life, there are no secret shortcuts. You are going to have to sweat, you are going
to have to accept the fact that there are going to be days (especially in the beginning) when you will be
waking up with muscle soreness. You will have to be patient, disciplined and dedicated to your training
schedule. Once you accept this and begin training the rest will follow.
 Three reasons bodyweight programs fail people
1. Either doing too little or doing too much
From my experience, with people coming to me for exercise advice on their bodyweight program since I
started this project, two of the basic reasons why they are not progressing are the following. Either they
are doing too little or they are doing too much.

The first category usually adopts a bodybuilding philosophy in their bodyweight routine - such as
dividing workouts into back training days, chest training days and leg training days. This training
approach, training one muscle group once or twice per week, will not benefit you when applied to
bodyweight training.

The second category is usually doing too much. Not so much in terms of training volume but in exercise
variety. Doing a thousand exercises in one workout but not really going hard on any of the
important exercises won't do you any good either.

Bodyweight training in comparison with weight lifting has limitations (when it comes to variety of high
intensity exercises). Because there is a lot of extra fluff in terms of how many bodyweight exercises
there are out there ,you will have to - as Bruce Lee put it - ''absorb what is useful and discard what is
not''. You need to take advantage as much as possible of the big muscle building bodyweight exercises.

Simply put, what you need to remember is that - If an exercise is important do it three times per week. If
it's not either discard it or do it on the rest of your none training days for fun. And this also brings us to
our next point.
- If an exercise is important do it three times per week

2. Not doing the right exercises.

If you want to get strong and build muscle you have to train using your primal Movement patterns. Pull,
push and squat. If you are not doing Pull ups , Push ups, Dips and Pistol squats as a beginner in every
bodyweight workout your are training in vain. These multijoint exercises give you the best bang for your
buck and focusing on anything else will simply waste your time. The secret is to keep on doing these
exercises in every workout while keeping your rep range between 5-15 reps. And this brings us to our
last point.

- Pull ups, Push ups, Dips and squats - The big Muscle Builders

3. Too many reps!

If you want to build muscle, science has proven that an intensity between 70% and 90% is the ideal
intensity to do it with. This means that you have to use a rep range between 5-15 repetitions - no more
than that. Applying this rep range to all the big muscle builders will activate muscle fiber and trigger
anabolic hormones in the most effective way in order to build muscle and burn fat.

Unfortunately, most people who train with bodyweight unfortunately turn their strength workouts to
cardio workouts by doing push up sets of 30 repetitions and more. If you have reached a point in an
exercise where you can do 15 clean push ups its time to move a harder progression of the exercise not
add more reps. If you are wondering how to increase the intensity of an exercise I have included in the
last chapter of this book progressions for every exercise. Stick around long enough and you will be doing
one arm push-ups and all kinds of cool progressions in the near future ;)
- Keep it clean and stick between 5 and 15 repetitions

You might have noticed by now that I'm a fan of

Bruce Lee. What I loved most about Bruce was how
much ahead he was of his time when it came to
exercise knowledge. Even though he was a master in
everything he did, his basic conclusion always was to
perfect the basics. And that is the problem with most
people - they forget to focus on the basics until they
are close to perfect. Even nowadays when my progress
hits a plateau I know I have been neglecting something
of the basics. This is one of the most simplistic but also
greatest insights I have gained from studying Bruce
and I am eternally grateful to him for this conclusion.

Quick Summary
1. If you want to build muscle and burn fat you have to:
 Set aside all the extra junk and focus on the big muscle builders
 Do the important exercises three times per week
 Keep your reps between 5-15

2. The big muscle builders for a beginner are:

 Pull ups
 Push ups
 Pistol Squats
 Dips
 Chapter 1 - Warming Up
''If you don't have enough time to warm up you don't have enough time to workout''

- Old Saying

I always take my warm up serious, since a proper warm up has been proven to increase
performance and reduces injuries which can end up destroying results you have been
working on for months.

Dynamic Stretching
A short definition of dynamic stretching would be “stretching as you are moving”. To be
more specific dynamic stretching is an active movement of your body that brings forth a
stretch but is not held statically in the end position.

When it comes to strength training, I generally prefer dynamic stretching in combination with
warm-up sets instead of doing “traditional” type warm up routines like cardio, Cardio doesn't
really prepare you for the intensity of your workout and all the specific movement patterns
you are about to perform. Think about it, what happens during strength training is stress
being applied to specific muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints. So how would static cycling
or jogging prepare your upper body? For example, how would your shoulder area be prepared
for doing a simple push up? The only positive effect cycling or jogging would have is raising
your temperature and warming up your legs. This is not bad of course, but it is also not
enough.

Dynamic stretching on the other hand can prepare your body’s connective tissues and
muscles with targeted movements, which are more related to the movement patterns you will
perform. The areas of your body that are about to be trained become warmer and more blood
is pumped into them. This will also increase your range of motion and flexibility. Once again, I
am not saying that some jogging or cycling will hurt, but for me, doing too much cardio before
strength training takes my edge off and I end up training with less appetite and energy. If you
want to combine some traditional low cardio exercise before dynamic stretching, 5 minutes to
raise your body’s temperature are enough.

Exercises
1. Neck rolls. Standing tall and relaxed, drop the chin close to your chest and
gently roll the head toward one shoulder in a semicircular motion. Do 5 rolls in
each direction (right and left shoulder) but be careful not to leave the head fall too
far away backwards. Make slow, big and fluid movements while keeping other
muscles that aren’t directly involved in the movement (like your shoulders) relaxed.
2. Shoulder rolls. I love this exercise because my shoulders and in general the shoulder area is one
of the most easily tensed areas in our bodies nowadays, due to bad postural habits, lifestyle
and mental stress. Again standing tall and relaxed, start rotating your shoulders forwards in a big
smooth and circular motion.

Bring your shoulders up close to your ears and then back and down as low as possible. Repeat by
doing the motion backwards this time. Start slow and increase the speed a bit after 15 seconds.
Do two sets of 10 rolls with a 10-15 second rest in between.

3. Arm rotations. Start rotating your arms forward in a crossed position (right arm over left arm
and try to alternate after every rotation). Keep your elbows slightly bent using a slow tempo.
As you get used to the movements, increase the tempo a bit ( as long as it feels
comfortable). Do this for 20 seconds. Next rotate your arms forward, one at a time and each one
for 15 seconds. Last, repeat all of this again but this time rotating your arms backwards.

4. Dynamic lat stretch. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Gently start to swing arms
up and above your head and then back down all the way behind your body. Keep your elbows
slightly bended during the movement. As you feel yourself loosening up and getting warmer
try to extend the arms further in each direction. Perform this exercise twice, for 20 seconds with
a 10-15 second pause in between.
5. Dynamic chest stretch. Standing again with feet shoulder width apart, raise your arms to
chest height and start swinging them across your chest and behind your body increasing
gradually the speed a bit. Make sure you keep your arms close to chest height. Perform
10 repetitions twice with a pause of 10-15 seconds.

6. Dynamic shoulder stretch with elastic band. You can also find this exercise online called
“Shoulder dislocations” but I find that name a bit frightening. Don’t worry you aren’t going
to dislocate your shoulders (if you pay attention to my guidelines). This exercise is usually
performed with special resistance bands. If you don’t have one, just find a bicycle-wheel
inner tube that you don’t need any more. I’m sure there is one lying somewhere around
your house. If not then you can buy a cheap one for just 2 dollars instead of spending 30
dollars for a regular resistance band. I actually prefer bicycle tubes because they have the
ideal amount of elasticity, not to hard and not too soft. Many people use broomsticks
as well but I highly recommend something with elasticity to make sure you don’t injure your
shoulders.
 a. Start by holding the band about twice as wide as your shoulder width in front of you.

b. Start raising your arms up overhead. Be careful not to allow your

shoulders to shrug upwards.

c. Bring the band all the way backwards, always making sure there is enough
slack on it that allows you to do this movement without over-stressing your
shoulders.

d. As you warm up you can slowly try to decrease the width of your grip on
the band. The more you increase your flexibility in this exercise, the more you
will be able to hold a narrower grip. Just make sure you always start wide
enough and gradually decrease the width.

7. Alternating sitting toe touches . This exercise will warm up your back and open up your
hamstrings without overstretching them. From a sited position, place your feet apart - about
twice the distance of your shoulder width. Bend at the hips, and keep your spine straight and
elongated (very important). Don't round your back! If you feel too much tension in your
hamstrings bend your knees a little. From this position perform the following:

a. Extend both arms out to your side, at shoulder height and

b. rotate your trunk by bending a bit forward reaching with your arm towards the opposite
toe.
c. If you are not flexible bend your knees enough in order to touch your toes (aim for
tension not pain!)
d. Alternate sides.

Note:
If you do this exercise with bad form you can place unnecessary stress on your lower back so
pay attention to proper form.

8. Chair Squats. This is more of a warm up set but it's important in order to properly warm
up your legs. Find a chair that is not too tall. Anything below knee height will do. Place a
chair just behind you and stand in front of it. Place your feet shoulder-width apart or even a
bit wider (whatever feels more comfortable) with your toes pointing a couple degrees
outwards. Bend the knees and slowly squat towards the chair while keeping the weight on
your heels (important).

Avoid letting your knees surpass your toes. Sit on the chair for half a second and push up
again through your heals feeling at the same time the tension in your glutes. Fully extend
the legs until you're back to standing position. Repeat this for 3 sets of 5-20 repetitions.

Check out the whole video version below:

 Chapter 2 - The Program
This beginner program is divided in two phases. Phase A which is the introductory program and it's
purpose is to gradually introduce you to bodyweight. While keeping you from overloading your body at
the same time. For this reason this phase will contain only 4 basic exercises, each one strengthening a
primal movement pattern. The basic primal movement patterns are Pull, Push and Squat. To cover these
you will do 1)Pull ups and Chin ups as pulling pattern movements 2) Push ups as a pushing pattern and
3) Pistol squats (or bodyweight squats) as a squatting pattern movement. Last you will add two
supplementary exercises for your core. I say supplementary because no matter what exercise you do in
bodyweight training your core is activated to stabilize the body. This is one of the most important
benefits of bodyweight exercise.
- Your primal movement patterns are Pull, Push and squat

Phase A lasts three weeks. Because everybody differs in weight , height and strength you should find in
the right progression in every exercise, in case you cannot perform the basic form of the exercise
described. For example if you cannot do regular push ups then start with push ups on your knees and
keep the reps between 5-15 reps. Dips will not be included in phase A, but will be added in phase B so
that your shoulders can toughen up first.

The workout frequency in both phases is three times per week and one day of rest minimum is required
between every workout. You can train for example on Monday- Wednesday and Friday or Tuesday -
Thursday and Saturday. I like the first example because I prefer kicking back in the weekend. The
program starts with pull ups & chin ups, doing 4 pulling sets in total. Combining these exercises in a
workout builds immense upper body strength, especially in the arm and back department.

Phase A - 3 Weeks
Rest between Rest between
Exercise Sets Reps
sets exercises

1. Pull ups 2
The Big Muscle Builders

2. Chin Ups 2
5 -15 1 MINUTE 2 MINUTES
3. Pistol Squats 4

4. Push Ups 4

5. Leg Raises 3
Core

6. Prone Cobra 3 sets of 40 - 60 seconds with 30 seconds rest

 Phase B - 8 Weeks
In phase B, now that your shoulders have toughened up a bit, we will add a new exercise - Dips. Also in
every workout of the week, there will be a difference in the exercise order. Your first week's workout
starts with pull-ups, your second workout starts with dips and your third workout of the week starts with
push-ups. This way, because you have are more rested in the beginning of the workout, you can focus
more on the exercise that is first. The reason I chose pull-ups, dips and push-ups as first exercises is
because they are three of your most important muscle building exercises. And, although pistol squats are
the fourth, because they are the only leg exercise (which means that your legs are anyway rested) it
doesn't matter if they are in the middle of your workout. Plus, this way they give your upper body has a
bit more time to recover before continuing with the other half of the workout.

Workout 1 of the week starts with Pull-ups.

Rest between Rest between

Exercise Sets Reps
sets exercises

1. Pull ups 2
The Big Muscle Builders

2. Chin Ups 2

3. Push Ups 3

4. Pistol Squats 4
5 -15 1 MINUTE 2 MINUTES
5. Dips 3

6. Leg Raises 3
Core

7. Prone Cobra 3 sets of 40 - 60 seconds with 30 seconds rest

Workout 2 starts with dips. Since this is a highly intense exercise for your shoulders, make sure
you warm them up properly.

Rest between Rest between

Exercise Sets Reps
sets exercises

1. Dips 3
The Big Muscle Builders

2. Pull ups 2

3. chin Ups 2
5 -15 1 MINUTE 2 MINUTES
4. Pistol Squats 4

5. Push Ups 3

6. Leg Raises 3
Core

7. Prone Cobra 3 sets of 40 - 60 seconds with 30 seconds rest

 The last workout of the week starts with Push-ups.

Rest between Rest between

Exercise Sets Reps
sets exercises
1. Push ups 3
The Big Muscle Builders

2. Pull ups 2

3. Chin Ups 2
5 -15 1 MINUTE 2 MINUTES
4. Pistol Squats 4

5. Dips 3

6. Leg Raises 3
Core

7. Prone Cobra 3 sets of 40 - 60 seconds with 30 seconds rest

Stick to this program for 5 weeks and I promise you results.

Enjoying the book so far? Click here to share on Facebook!

If you have any further questions feel free to contact me through the contact form on my website or by
sending me a personal message on my Facebook group after you like it.

Until then, keep on training..

Anthony Arvanitakis

Motivational Personal Trainer

Creator of HomeMadeMuscle.com

Scroll down for the exercise tutorials!

 PS: If you are interested in learning more about:
• How I achieved my whole transformation

• The nutritional advice I used

• The mental tools I used to get over my depression

• intermediate and advanced home bodyweight workouts

and a lot more checkout my new Book:

HOMEMADE MUSCLE: "All You Need is a Pull-up Bar"

A true story that will motivate you to become strong & lean without going to the gym.
 Chapter 3 - Exercise Menu
The big muscle builders, progressions for beginners and advanced variations

#1 Pull-ups - The king of upper body exercises (Lats, Arms & forearms)
I cannot think of a better exercise than pull ups to determine one’s relative upper body strength. If I
had to choose only one exercise to strengthen my upper body this one would be it. It is best if you
have a pull up bar as I mentioned previously, but you can also find other solutions to do pull ups if
you are creative enough.

Proper technique - The perfect pull up

Step 1
Place your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart on the surface you have chosen to do
your pull ups. Keep your wrists aligned with your forearms and bend your knees with your feet
crossed. You should be using an overhand grip-palms pointing outwards so that they are facing away
from you.

Step 2
You should not just be hanging on your ligaments and letting your neck sink between your shoulders. To
avoid this keep your shoulders down and chest up by depressing your shoulder blades down and
retracting them together.

Step 3
Now pull your body up by focusing on bringing your elbows to your sides and avoiding swinging
motions of your legs and pelvis. To avoid involuntary swinging brace your glutes and pull your belly
button a bit inwards prior to every pull up. Bring your body up until you pass at least the height of your
eyes. As you get stronger, focus on bringing your body higher while maintaining your elbows close to
the body for greater lat activation. I personally don’t count a pull up if it I doesn’t pass chin height.
Step 4
Lower yourself down in a slow controlled motion.

Common pull up mistakes

Mistake #1 One of the most common mistakes is a lot of swinging motion going on in the waist
and lower body area, doing a kind of cross-fit / kipping pull up. If you are not training to break a
crossfit record, then set your ego aside and focus on doing fewer reps with a proper smooth form.
This will make a tone of a difference in getting stronger, more muscular and avoiding soft tissue
injuries like tendon strains.

Mistake #2 The second most common mistake is doing pull ups in a really small range of motion.
Just lifting your body of the ground and bending your elbows is not a pull up and will deprive yourself
from many benefits of doing a normal range pull up. Doing limited range of motion pull-ups is only OK
for a beginner. Once you can do at least 5 normal range of motion repetitions, I see no reason to
continue doing small reps.

Progressions for beginners:

If you can't do pull-ups yet check out the video tutorial below or follow the steps I have written after
the video...

Dead hangs. If your forearms are too weak to sustain your body while simply hanging on a bar or
wherever you do your pull ups, then you must strengthen your forearms and your hand grip by per-
forming dead hangs (meaning just hanging on the bar). Start with 4 sets of 3-10 seconds or more
depending on your strength and as you get stronger progress to 30 seconds. Once again, don’t just
hang on your ligaments letting your head sink do the dead hangs with scapula activation and keeping
your chest up. This will also strengthen your upper back muscles as they will be contracting
(isometrically).

Negative / assisted pull up system. One of the best ways to master most bodyweight exercises is
doing negative repetitions. In case you don’t know what a negative repetition is read the following
paragraph otherwise move on to the Negative repetition progressions.
 What is a negative repetition? Every repetition has 2 basic phases. A concentric and an eccentric
phase. The eccentric phase is known as a negative phase. The concentric repetition in bodyweight
exercises refers to the pushing or pulling phase and the negative phase is the other half of the repetition
where you are lowering your body against gravity. So in a pull up the concentric phase is the pulling
up of your body and the negative phase is the lowering down of your body. In the case of push-ups
the negative phase of the repetition is the lowering down of the body and the concentric phase is
the pushing up.

Negative repetition progressions:

1. Place a steady chair that can support your weight under the pull up bar. Get on the chair and grip
the bar. Keeping the bar at chin height try to lower your body slowly (counting around 2-3 seconds)
without depending on the chair. Once you lower yourself down, use the chair again to grab the bar at
chin height and repeat. Depending on how easy the exercise is for you perform 5-12 negative
repetitions, two times, with one minute rest between each set. Once you can perform 12 repetitions
move on the next progression

2. Place the chair a bit behind the pull up bar, put one leg on the chair and pull yourself up using as
less as possible strength from your leg. Once you reach the top remove your leg from the chair
cautiously and lower your body down slowly (counting 2-3 seconds). Start again with 5-12 reps and
once you can perform two sets of twelve repetitions with one minute rest move on the next phase.

At this point, you should be able to do at least 2-3 normal pull ups. Begin the set by doing as many
normal pull ups as you can and continue with assisted pulls until you complete a total of at least 5
reps. As you grow stronger you will eventually be able to do 3 sets of 5 normal reps. Once you
achieve this just start adding more reps until you are able to do 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps. After that start
trying advanced variations. Keep in mind that performing 15 reps is a goal that takes a huge amount of
time if you focus on keeping perfect form.

Quick summary:
• Start with negatives reps
• Do as many normal pull ups as you can, combined with assisted pull ups
• Build it up to at least 3 sets of 12 good form pull ups before you move on to a more advanced
variation.

Note: Another exercise that will contribute in doing normal pull ups are the table rows. As
you grow stronger in table rows you will also get better in pull ups.

Advanced variations:
Chest height pull ups. These are my favorite pull ups and they are just like normal pull ups but
instead of raising your body until eye level with the bar, this time you will raise your body until the
bar touches height of your upper chest - just bellow your collar bone. This way you will also focus
more on you lats because the lats are fully contracted when your shoulder are drawn down and back.
Once you can perform 12-15 reps move on the next variation. Nowadays, I am going even lower
 touching the bar on my sternum which has given me great results in pulling strength.
Pull ups with legs raised. Start with bended knees (90 degrees) in front of you. As this becomes
easier extend your legs until they are parallel to the floor. Once you can perform 15 reps move on
the next variation.

This progression will also give your abs a great work out!

Weighted pull ups. Wear a weighted backpack (you can fill up your backpack with books, sandbags,
dumbbells etc). You can also buy special weighted backpacks for bodyweight exercises online.

A variation you should avoid:

A common theory is that the wider your grip is when doing pull ups, the “wider” your lats become.
In my experience, this only means a smaller range of motion and less lat activation which can lead to
injuries - like in my case, where I strained my teres major using a wide grip - a common injury in bad
form or too wide-grip pull ups.

Chin ups - The best bodyweight exercise for big guns!

I consider chin ups more as a variation of the pull up, than a different exercise. That is one of the
reasons why I categorize pull ups and chin ups as one exercise since the basic difference is the way
you grip the bar. The other two basic reasons I combine pull ups and chin ups as one exercise, are 1)
because including them as different exercises and doing too many sets of them combined in a
program can get your arms to tired for the rest of the exercises and 2) when they are combined as
one exercise they give incredible results in upper body strength and muscle development.

Chin ups use an underhand grip where your palms face inwards so that they are facing towards
yourself. The basic thing you want to keep in mind is that pull ups/chin ups both focus on the lats &
arms and combined together they will activate your upper body’s musculature in the best way
possible. Combining pull ups and chin ups, in my personal experience, is the best way to get killer
gains in the arm and back department!

Proper technique and common mistakes

Besides using an opposite - underhand grip the rest of the technique and common mistakes in chin
ups are basically the same as in pull-ups. I would advise you not to straighten your elbow joints
completely in the lowering phase while doing chin ups; keep them a bit bent. Locking-out
 (straightening) the elbows with an underhand grip puts too much stress on the elbows of many
people, including me. More on this topic in the video below.

Progressions for beginners:

Use again as in pull ups the same progressions. Once you’ll be able to do pull ups you will definitely be
able to do chin ups, since they are pretty similar and usually easier for most people. Both of them assist
each other in the beginning while you are still learning them so try to perform both.

#2 Push ups (Chest, Triceps , serratus anterior)

This is one of the most classic bodyweight exercises, although many people who train for strength
have come to underestimate them. The main reason for this is people being unaware of cheating
the exercise by using bad form. Performing a set of push-ups focusing on perfect form might have you
reevaluate your thoughts on them. Later on, instead of quit- ting on them when they become too easy
give the one-arm push up a try and you will be once again humbled by this great exercise. For others
it may be a great challenge just performing a couple of reps since a typical push up uses
approximately 65% of your total bodyweight. This can be quite challenging for many people
depending on their physical condition and weight. The great thing about push-ups is that they can be
done anywhere! In comparison with a bench press the push up also requires core stability especially
from your rectus abdominis (six-pack).

A typical push-up requires lifting 65% of your total bodyweight and also activates your abs!
#3 Pistol squats (whole legs)
This is probably the greatest bodyweight exercise to strengthen your legs and in comparison with
barbell exercises they don't load the back that much. Also there is a phenomenon known as the
bilateral deficit, which states that the sum of the forces produced by each leg is greater than the total
bilateral force production. This means that the overall load you can overcome with each leg in
exercises, such as the pistol squats, is higher than bilateral leg exercises, such as squats.

Also because of the balance required, your neuromuscular system is challenged in a great extent
contracting, stretching and stabilizing at the same time a big amount of muscles. Pistol squats is an
exercise that recruits your lower body’s muscles probably more effective than any other leg
exercise. If you have difficulty getting down in a deep squatting position, that probably means you
need to stretch muscles around your hips and ankles. Just getting in a deep bilateral squat position,
trying to keep balance with your arms extended in front of you or grabbing on something in the
beginning is a good exercise to stretch the muscles required to get in a deep pistol squat.

#4 Dips (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)

This is one of the greatest exercises for strengthening the chest. Find two stable and equal heighted
surfaces. The height of them should not allow your knees touch the ground, as you lower yourself
during the exercise. These surfaces can be two tables, two bar stools, a narrow staircase, two sofas,
kitchen countertops (pic. 40), etc. In case you cannot find surfaces that are exactly the same height,
add a book to even out the height, or make sure you switch sides after every set.
#5 Leg raises (Lower and Side Abs)
This is an exercise done by a lot of people in gyms, but most of them start with progressed versions of
it, activating the wrong muscles and missing out on all the benefits their abs and core can get out of it.
Everyone should start from the following two steps and only if they can perform them with perfect
form, should allow themselves move on the next progression.

Dragon Flags - Train abs Bruce Lee style

I consider this a progression of the leg raise exercise and it is the best ab exercise you can perform at
home. You see the main function of your core is to keep your body in a stiff, resisting external forces
(like someone trying to throw you down). Dragon abs besides being a badass exercise, is also one of
the best functional exercises for abdominals. Don't try to do this exercise yet. It takes a lot of work to
reach to this level. I just wanted to give you a sneak peek into what is coming in the future if you stay
focused and keep on training under my guidance.

#6 Prone Cobra (Lower Back)

This is a great exercise, especially for people who sit at desks all day, gamers, and generally those
with a sedentary lifestyle, with that type of rounded posture. If you tend to have a hyperlordotic
posture, squeeze your glutes during this exercise, this will reduce over-recruitment your low back
muscles which, in this case, are probably already too stressed. Use prolonged sets of twenty to sixty
seconds, with fifteen second rest periods.

Start with 1-3 sets and progress until you can perform 3 sets of 60 seconds.

This is a great exercise, especially for people who sit at desks all day, gamers, and generally those
with a sedentary lifestyle, with that type of rounded posture. If you tend to have a hyperlordotic
posture, squeeze your glutes during this exercise, this will reduce over-recruitment your low back
muscles which, in this case, are probably already too stressed. Use prolonged sets of twenty to sixty
seconds, with fifteen second rest periods. Start with 1-3 sets and progress until you can perform 3
sets of 60 seconds.

Proper technique
1. Lie face down on a soft surface and rest your arms at your side.
2. Lift your torso while simultaneously squeezing your shoulder blades together and externally
rotating your arms by pointing your thumbs up.
3. When you have reached the proper end position, your palms should face way from your body, your
head and neck should be in neutral alignment and your toes should be touching the ground

End notes:
Doing an exercise with good form, contrary to doing an exercise with bad form, can play a huge
role on the difficulty of it, and injury prevention. Just the feeling that you are per- forming an
exercise correctly, doesn’t always mean you actually are. It’s important to observe your form once
in a while. You can use mirrors, or ask someone experienced to spot you while exercising.
Almost every cell- phone has a camera today, so you can also use your phone or any other de-
vice available for you, and film your trainings to see how your form looks like. If you notice
mistakes, write them down and focus on them next time.

Having the perfect technique in every single rep and every single moment is not always
possible, not even by professionals.. But that doesn’t mean you should not try. As one of the
quotes I like says, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence”.

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence"

~Vince Lombardi
My latest book: Scroll below to see what people have been saying about it: