My wife and I were discussing the subject of body weight training earlier this week. She’s teaching more classes at the local gym, and is considering incorporating some bodyweight based strength-training into her yoga classes. While yoga and Pilates are based heavily on core exercises, primarily through ab workouts, transverse abdominal exercises, and balance poses, she’s wondering whether it was really possible to make progress using bodyweight training in place of free weights. I made a few suggestions, but she still seemed skeptical. We left it at that. So, then I encountered the Bar-Barians, over at The Fitness Black Book, the timing couldn’t have been better. If you don’t believe its possible to become extremely fit using just body weight exercises, you should check out the following video of one of their workouts.
The group was founded by two guys in Brooklyn (Jude and Zeph), and has expanded to include a total of 5 men who form the Bar-Core. This core group of guys promote and rank members according to their skill level. Levels are as follows: Bar-Pledge, Bar-Candidate, Bar-Baron, and Bar-Elite. Requirements to achieve the level of Bar-Baron are as follows:
- 40 Dips (parallel bar)
- 20 Pull ups
- 50 Push ups
- 5 Muscle ups, within 6 minutes
Quite frankly, I had never seen a “Muscle Up.” If you want to see one of these in action, watch the following video…
The workouts look to me to be heavily influenced by men’s gymnastics, and if you don’t believe those guys are strong, try doing an iron cross. I can’t. In fact, trying to do one would probably tear my shoulders out of their sockets. The Bar-Barians are in tremendous physical condition. Watching some of their workouts has re-motivated me to achieve my goal of 12 pull ups. Right now, on a good day, I can just squeeze out seven! Twenty seems a long, long way away… But everyone has to start somewhere.
The thing is, these guys are about more than tremendous physical conditioning. They’re about finding ways to push through life’s challenges. You can find out more about them at the Bar-Barians website.
Hey Greg
If anyone ever wanted proof of the immense strength, fitness and conditioning gains from bodyweight workouts then that video is it! The strength that gymgoers develop with free weights just cannot compare to what those bar-barians are capable of.
I’m stuck at 10 pull-ups at the moment, just got to put more time into it I guess but this has inspired me!
Really great post!
I know exactly what you mean. Right now I can squeeze out 7 on a good day. But that’s better than I could manage earlier this year.
I’ve always been impressed by Bar-barians and Bartendaz and the like. However, one should point out their exercises, as fun as they are, completely skip out training the leg muscles. For an all-body workout they should throw in some pistol squats and the like, otherwise they’ll be forced to wear jeans all summer long
LOL! You’re exactly right about. Forgetting to work your legs is a pretty common slip-up among guys.
If they worked out their leg muscles they’d be adding extra weight to their bodies and will probably hinder their max reps a bit. I would love to see how many pull ups I can do if I weighed 150 pounds and had chicken legs. I feel like I’m pretty strong for my 6 foot 215 pound frame. But I struggle at the pull up bars and can only muster about 8 of them. My friend is about 40 pounds lighter than me and can do about 15. I’d like to see how he’d manage with a 40 pound book bag on his back.
You’re right about that. I struggle with pull ups as well, and I’ve been trying to improve on them for the last year. I’m at 8 right now, and hoped to reach 12 by year’s end. Doubt that’ll happen this year. Maybe next…
A friend of mine wants to by weights from the super of our building but I told him to screw that and come to the park with me and do bodyweight excercises. You really don’t need weights to get in shape. A couple of bars and a lot of dedication is all you need. I understand where he’s coming from because he’s very overweight and probably can’t even do 10 push ups and would feel embarrased especially with people watching. But I started not being able to do one pull up and now I’m up to 9 adding a rep per set week or so. I still need to lose 20 pounds of body fat but i’m still doing pushups pull ups and dips every day. I can only imagine how many more I’ll be able to do once I reach my ideal weight. Almost there baby, almost there.