TWO Workouts

Chest dips are fun! But with the dips we are facing the same issues as with the pullup. You are lifting about 93% of your bodyweight which makes it too hard for beginners. You will need sufficient tricep and chest strength to be able to perform these. Normal dip progressions have you do band assisted dips, negatives or tricep bench dips. These work but they all have their downsides. Negatives are not generally good because of the increased injury risk. I would not recommend negatives for beginners since they have not been able to learn the movement pattern. Doing the movement pattern in both directions with good form and lighter load is always a safer option. Tricep bench dip is not a very good option since the positioning of the hands is behind the body and might cause shoulder pain for some. Also it does not develop the chest strength required for the chest dip. And last not everyone has a selection of bands they can attach to their dip setup. Dips are fun. But try not to fall! How t...

Strong hamstrings will help to balance your lower body. If your legs are quad dominant and your hamstrings are weak you are likely to face some issues such as knee pain and hamstring strains at some point in your life. Two most common bodyweight hamstring exercises recommended are the hamstring bridge and if you are strong enough the nordics hamstring curl. Both are great options but they have their limitations. With the regular hamstring bridges you don't get much range of motion and you are missing the full flexion of the hamstring muscles. People are instructed to lay on their back while doing these which reduces the range of motion and reduces the load on the hamstrings. The nordic hamstring curl is an advanced exercise that you rarely see anyone do with perfect form. Mostly you see negatives, modified nordic curls or assisted curls with bands. Not everyone has a place to do these since they require a special setup: a pullup bar placed on the floor level, loaded barbell, straps...

Chinups and pullups are great exercises to build your back but for most beginners they are way too difficult. This is because you are lifting most of your bodyweight which is quite a lot if you are new to strength training. Most of the progressions models out there have you do pull ups with resistance bands, negative repetitions etc. But there are some major issues with these approaches.  The problem with negative repetitions is that you don’t get to train the pulling part (concentric part) of the pullup and it's hard to accumulate enough training volume to make progress. Think about it this way: Would you bench press negatives with weight above your 1 rep max? Most certainly not since you would be literally crushed by this exercise. So i don’t see the point of risking your joint health by doing negative repetition. If you are starting out and you damage your bicep or joints doing negatives you won’t be able to train at all. So in my opinion the negative repetitions are not a good ...

Push-ups are a great tool to gain strength and size to the chest if you do the right exercises in the proper rep range. But when talking about push-up workouts you mostly see high rep work done with submaximal load leading to disappointing results. It almost seems that no one actually understands the basic loading parameters of the push-ups. What you should do instead is to work in a moderate rep range 6-12 progressing to more challenging exercises when you reach the top of that rep range. And keep the number of working sets somewhere between 8-12 sets per week. This ensures progressive overload, proper training stimulus and strength gains over time. Here I’m going to introduce a push-up progression model based on the actual load of the push-ups and calculated 1 rep max. For those who have not read the push-ups compared to bench press post check it out here: https://twoworkouts.blogspot.com/2020/09/push-ups-compared-to-bench-press-with.html There is a calculator included that lets you ...

Introduction When you try to search online for great home leg workouts with no weights what do you find? Mostly ineffective training done in circuit style fashion with exercises such as bodyweight squats and jumping lunges. Sure these workouts have millions of views and you try your best to follow along. You do the same workouts but get lackluster results. Still they have managed to develop a great pair legs but you don't. So what gives?  You thought all you needed to do was some bodyweight squats, box jumps and sprinting and you will develop some amazing wheels. Well you were fooled. Most of the bodyweight and home workout guys and girls are secretly (or openly) training their legs regularly in the gym.  It seems that you can’t build great legs with minimal equipment at all. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can train your legs effectively with bodyweight and using fairly low additional weight such as a set of adjustable dumbbells, sandbags or a weighted backpack. In th...