Historical standards make the best exercises.
For an activity to be included, it had to satisfy two requirements:
1. It had to be a workout that people could have done in some way thousands of years ago.
2. The practice had to be carried out by numerous cultures from throughout the world, independently of one another and over many generations.
These five exercises are pertinent:
1. LOADED CARRIES
Tell me you didn't get a great exercise by pushing two buckets full of rocks up a hill. Do it now for the following eight hours. The time it takes to return down the hill and grab the following two buckets is your rest period.
You'll gain a fresh perspective on exercise if you continue doing this for a few months without stopping. Become a bricklayer's or mason's assistant if you ever want to get in great condition and earn some money doing it.
Loaded carries are a great way to work on grip strength, shoulder stability, core strength, resisted breathing, balance, gait, conditioning, and other body parts.
Any implement can be used in loaded carries, but the more awkward the better. Sandbags, buckets of water, pebbles, or even another person can be used to increase the difficulty of exercises even if dumbbells and barbells are simpler to use in a gym setting.
Use a weight that most mortal men would consider to be fairly heavy, walk until you can no longer feel anything, and then stand tall like a proud warrior. Add weight the next time, and strive to surpass your time or distance.
2. THROWING PUNCHES
Hand-to-hand combat was a mainstay of military service, and considering the current popularity of sports like boxing and mixed martial arts, it is a deserving addition to the list. Punching has a visceral quality, and connecting with a punch has an even stronger visceral quality.
Even if not everyone wants to fight in a ring or an octagon, they can still practice by punching speed or heavy bags, or even by doing active shadow boxing. Train as though you'll be in a life-or-death situation. Come back with your shield or on it, as the proverbial Spartan proverb says.
A fighter would probably tell you that the legs and hips are where a tremendous punch comes from. However, many top trainers would go a step further and claim that the glutes are where punch strength originates.
To produce force through knee extension and hip external rotation and extension, make sure your leg on the punching side is firmly planted on the ground. This can mean the difference between throwing a punch that merely irritates a 12-year-old and one that can end the match in a knockout.
Work on making solid connections with your wrist locked in neutral and your knuckles flush to the bag if you have a hefty bag. Focus on getting the drive to originate from the hips and knees before completing with the arms as you deliver each blow.
Simply perform as many push-ups as you can if you don't want to punch anything.
If you have a speed bag, practice connecting with it and keeping a steady pace without falling too far behind. Don't worry too much if you don't yet have good eye-hand coordination because this is skill-based.
Shadow boxing is an alternative if you have nothing to punch. Punch as if you were attempting to make contact with something that isn't there. Try to extend your arm and quickly and carefully retract.
3. WORKING WITH ROPES
Without actively pulling, it is difficult to increase pulling strength. One of the best self-control activities is it. Either way, you have to climb the rope. You can either pull the rope and anything linked to it in your direction, or you can't.
Excellent upper-body exercise that uses a lot of leg and core power is rope climbing. Naturally, there are those people who can climb without moving their legs, and I despise them for it.
Significant grip, shoulder, back, and core strength are required. You'll need to start slowly and build up because there is a lot of technique involved. Start with a hanging pull-up on a fixed rope, or simply perform chin-ups using a variety of grips.
To obtain some of the same advantages, you can also attempt the rope-climb inverted row in a commercial gym.
With the added fun of being planted in the ground and building power via the core and legs when performed standing, rope pulling can have many of the same advantages.
Do you remember playing tug of war in PE class where the large kid served as the anchor and everyone ended up pulling, sliding, falling over, and feeling silly? The people on the winning team prevailed because they maintained their balance and continued to push, but the losers lost their balance and ended up in the muck. Balance is just as important to successful rope pulling as any aspect of strength.
You'll have to stoop down and lean back in the direction you're tugging. The lower you can get your butt to the floor, especially if it's a bigger load, the better. Your hips should be around 18 to 24 inches behind your feet.
To keep the movement coming from the upper body when pulling, adopt a hand-over-hand technique with a limited range of motion. Set your hands such that the movement is powered by your hips and legs, similar to a horizontal deadlift, if you want to use a longer range of motion.
Sleds are fantastic equipment for rope pulls. Use a rope that is as long as you can. Work on speed while being aggressive with the pulls. Depending on how much weight is on the rope, cast hell on the entire planet.
4. HEAVY ASS STANDING PUSH
One of the basic gestures used to transport objects from one place to another when they were heavier or larger than what could be carried was a heavy standing push.
The exercise is now typically performed in the gym using a sled, but if you don't have one, you can arrange to push a car around a parking lot as long as a friend is controlling the wheel and the vehicle is in neutral.
For good reason, heavy ass sled pushes (HASP) are a mainstay of many elite coaching programs in a variety of sports. Movements that are weighted eccentrically are harder on the joints than those that are just concentrically resisted.
The reciprocal unilateral movement also closely resembles most athletic movements, and the complete body tension caused by resisted breathing is excellent for improving cardiovascular endurance and work production under pressure. They are also fierce.
The walking push mechanism is really straightforward. You might adopt a straight posture with your hands, shoulders, and hips in line with one another (essentially holding an overhead position while bent forward). To lessen the strain on the low back, try to keep the foot from crossing the vertical axis of the hips and focus on gaining complete extension with each stride originating from the hips and knees. Alternatively, you might slant your torso into it by 30 or 40 degrees from the ground.
When using a commercial space, it will be far simpler to drive a sled on turf or carpet than it will be to try to do so on rubberized surface. For outside work, concrete or asphalt work well.
Try to push something up a slight incline like you're building the pyramids to earn bonus points.
5. FLOOR TO OVERHEAD PUSH
This is a well-known strength display. By lifting exceedingly heavy and uncomfortable weights above their heads, men like George Hackenschmidt, Louie Cyr, and Eugene Sandow helped to promote the art of strength.
Similar actions were taken by Greek soldiers using big rocks. Before the Russians adopted them, ancient Shaolin fighters who practiced Shi-Suo Gong, or the art of the stone padlock, employed kettlebell-like implements.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Thomas Inch would frequently press the dumbbell bearing his name with one hand. It had a 2.38-inch diameter handle and weighed 172 pounds. And who doesn't remember the Ultimate Warrior pinning Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VI?
The activity will typically start with a modified deadlift, depending on the load being lifted and whether two hands are being used or one. If you can remove the burden from your shoulders in one motion, do it. A continental lift or an atlas stone lift, however, may need you to lock onto the weight with your chest and roll it up your legs.
From there, depending on whether a leg drive is available or not, the press can either be a strict press or a jerk press. Some lifts used in sports don't involve any leg movement, like the traditional Olympic press, which was used in contests until 1972. Leg drive, however, will be required when the weight is heavy enough.
Any object may theoretically be utilized for ground-to-overhead lifts, but once more, the more uncomfortable the better: enormous rocks, loaded or partially filled kegs, heavy sandbags, etc. A difficult kettlebell or two will do for those who are more driven by commerce. Strong forms of this technique include rocking out a clean and jerk or an atlas stone lift.
