Soldato
Images of items I have purchased (except trainers [no feet pics])
- Thread starter Zefan
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 1 Mar 2010
- Posts
- 6,306
They arrived! And a lot heavier and bigger than I expected lol. Perfect for progressions. Deep pike push-ups, handstand push-ups, planche push-ups, L-sits, tucked planche dips the list is endless. Never knew two parralel bars could work nearly the entire body.
Coming up next... OCUK bar wars?
Man of Honour
I said neatly! Pistol squats for lower body
Biceps, triceps, traps, all of them are worked with different moves on the bars. It's an all upper body workout. Even if you're not overloading some muscles, just movement alone builds up resistance which is enough to help them tone.
Motors meets, GD meets, photo meets and now bar meets??
Caporegime
Says nearly whole body. Clarifies that this excludes waist down.
Typical biceps brah tbh.
Typical biceps brah tbh.
Man of Honour
They're not anything new school. Parallel bars have been used for training for eons.
I got them for planche progressions as 90 degree push-ups and planche push-ups are what I'm working toward this year. It just so happens they've got a lot of use with other movements as well so will be useful for those.
Just put a stool on the feet for deep push-ups anyway, which is something you can't do on the ground, the extra movement to below the bar is great for stronger shoulders. And even without, allows greeter tricep extension once you push-up from below the bar.
Soldato
As said, no they're not whole body. Squats are nothing to do with the bars and just moving your arms does not help all the muscles in any significant way. If you said you were going to work biceps and then started doing dips I would just assume you had know idea what you were doing. Throw a chin up bar in there too 
(If you don't already have on)
I don't want to be all negative though as going through a healthy exercising phase myself, anything you can add to help is great
(If you don't already have on)I don't want to be all negative though as going through a healthy exercising phase myself, anything you can add to help is great
Caporegime
Don't be this guy, nobody likes this guy.
Man of Honour
As said, no they're not whole body. Squats are nothing to do with the bars and just moving your arms does not help all the muscles in any significant way. If you said you were going to work biceps and then started doing dips I would just assume you had know idea what you were doing. Throw a chin up bar in there too
I don't want to be all negative though as going through a healthy exercising phase myself, anything you can add to help is great
Hmm not to turn this into a workouts thread lol but I think you're mixing isolation workouts with compound. I already have a pull-up bar and still go to the gym to use some of their equipment that I don't have at home but calisthenics movements focus on multiple muscle groups with every move. The bars (whether pull-up, dip or off the ground parallel) will work the entire upper body depending on the variation and progression used for any given movement. I've been doing this for the past 10 months and have seen the results once I figured out what works for me! The core is the foundation of all of these exercises though, it gets stronger and helps stability which is the main area I'm working on to reach my goal.
Still got a lot of hard work to do but in the past 8 months have gone from ~56KG to 62KG in lean muscle once I'd found what worked for my body and should hopefully hit the 65-67KG goal by year's end.
Am already a member but I found that heavy lifting bores me. Nothing feels more tedious than racking up plates each set and then finishing with a dropset or focusing on isolation exercises. I've tried it solo and with a training partner. It's still boring for my liking whereas calisthenics is way more fun and challenging, and visually more appealing. Plus with weights you've got leg day, upper body day, bicep day etc etc. I much prefer compound as it gets your body used to working multiple muscle groups and all of them getting toned at the same rate and the same time.
Soldato
Not really. If you do a pushing exercise it wont do anything for pulling muscles, that's all. It sounds like you're doing the other stuff too, it was just a bit concerning when you said the dips and such were an all body work out. As long as you understand they really aren't and you're doing the other stuff for other things, go for it!
Nice. It's great and so motivating when you see the results. I'm trying to go the other way, so I'm cycling and (usually) replacing a meal a day with a fruit and veg smoothie, as well as cutting out some/most other sugary treats. In my first two weeks I've lost 9lbs/4kg.
Very true. I'm sure a mod will turn up soon and tell us to zip it
**EDIT** I would just throw in, you know to gain weight, the best way is heavy weights of course... if that is your main goal?
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Associate
Retro Twemco
Man of Honour
Not really. If you do a pushing exercise it wont do anything for pulling muscles, that's all. It sounds like you're doing the other stuff too, it was just a bit concerning when you said the dips and such were an all body work out. As long as you understand they really aren't and you're doing the other stuff for other things, go for it!
Nice. It's great and so motivating when you see the results. I'm trying to go the other way, so I'm cycling and (usually) replacing a meal a day with a fruit and veg smoothie, as well as cutting out some/most other sugary treats. In my first two weeks I've lost 9lbs/4kg.
Very true. I'm sure a mod will turn up soon and tell us to zip it
**EDIT** I would just throw in, you know to gain weight, the best way is heavy weights of course... if that is your main goal?
Goal isn't to gain weight as such, but gain muscle mass, which in turn is of course weight. My bodyfat % is well under 10% so all my gains are lean muscle mass growth from progressive overload exercises. Heavy weight lifting is fine but not for me really as I don't want to body build but instead get ripped/toned which is much easier for me at this bodyfat % level. I am on a rich calorie surplus and meals are typically meat, chicken and fish with rice but I can also afford to have some junk too as I burn it off quickly as well which is a bonus! There's an insta story highlight of my 2 months~ progress in just dips and dragon flags, but have also beenm doing chip/pull-ups too here and there.
My main problem is because of a very high metabolism, I can end up losing any gains as quick as I make them. So consistency in training is what I need to keep up
Soldato
Nice work. I always like to see people working hard for their goals rather than these folk that do silly diets and don't actually make any effort (this is normally to lose weight of course). Keep it up! Now lets move on
Man of Honour
Yep back on topic, I did buy something 
Associate
My new watch
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Soldato
Associate
Thank youFixed for you
Caporegime
@fadetoblack that looks really rather cool. Take it the red light is the second timer? Do more steps though you lazy devil!
Associate
Yes it is mate ps hangover and just got up that's my excuse......