Pushing Yourself to Power

by John E Peterson

Build your maximum all-round functional strength, athletic fitness , and natural muscularity - cover blurb.

Prelude:

Ye Olde Question: Which is superior? - Bodyweight exercises or weightlifting? Truth is, both are good, but for some reason the following arguments often crop up amongst those that insist bodyweight is best.

The Animal Argument : "Look how strong Gorillas are, and they only use their bodyweight for exercise etc etc..." Oh dear. There seems to be a feeling that somehow bodyweight exercises are 'more natural and therefore better'. Use the same weird logic and go outside, sit on your bare arse all day like a Gorilla, eat plants and insects , don't drink, and see how strong it gets you. You can't train to be as strong as a Gorilla any more than you can train a tortoise to run like a lizard.

BTW - The oft-quoted story about Charles Atlas being inspired to create his exercise regime after observing lions and tigers stretching in Brooklyn Zoo is widely regarded as pure marketing hype.

The 'I can do more pullups' Argument : "I can do over thirty pull ups (or 500 bodyweight squats whatever..) and most weightlifters struggle to do ten, therefore I'm stronger blah blah..." Fair enough. But if the weightlifter asked you to lift triple bodyweight could you do it? It's horses for courses isn't it? A trip down to your local gym will probably unearth any number of aerobic gym bunnies that can do more situps than Andrei Chemerkin (Russian Superheavyweight Olympic Weightlifter) - but does that mean the gym bunnies are stronger?

The Gymnast Argument : A subsection of the 'Pullups Argument'. "weightlifters can't do handstand pushups on parallel bars etc.." Sure, gymnasts' rock and I bet Svetlana Khorkina (Russian, multi-title winning gymnast) can twirl her way round a bar, horse or mat a million times better than Bill Kazmier (American powerlifter / strongman). But who would you call if you needed a piano shifting up a flight of stairs? Come to think of it, how many bodyweight trained girls can better China's 19 year old Liu Chunhong's 152kg clean and jerk at a bodyweight of 69kg!? That's over double bodyweight, and no matter which way you cut it, the girl is super-strong.

The Historical Fighter Argument : Using anecdotal evidence of some old time boxer or wrestler who was hellishly strong but never trained with weights. Again, fair enough. There's more than enough evidence that bodyweight exercises have served athletes well over the millennia*. The counter observation would be that many, if not most, modern athletes lift weights. From athletics to football to wrestling, are all pumping iron.

Also remember that boxing or wrestling isn't a measure of pure strength. It's a rather a case of knowing how to use strength in the most efficient manner. If a wrestler is strong in the gym but lacks 'mat strength' then it's his wrestling technique that needs improving. As Pavel Tsatsouline states in The Naked Warrior, "strength is technique".

*there were plenty of old time weightlifting phenomenons too - check out Arthur Saxon (386lbs barbell lifted with one arm!) and Herman Goerner (727lbs one arm deadlift!) and see how they stack up against the bodyweight crowd!

About the author:

John E.Peterson is 52 (51 at the time of publication), in great shape and a martial artist. (He studies the controversial Russian 'art' Systema). He looks a bit like Nick Nolte, Charlie Sheen and that fella that played the patriarch in Dynasty -you know, a presidential look but with muscles. One of his hero's is Charles Atlas of comic book sand-kicked-in-face fame. Peterson has often been lauded as the new Charles Atlas.

Peterson is functionally fit - able to do an impressive number of pushups, chins, handstand pushups and also clock a very decent marathon time. He started bodyweight training after suffering from polio at a young age and apparently has never trained with weights. This makes him, unlike Atlas & Liederman, a 'pure' product of bodyweight training - conversely, you could argue, someone who doesn't have any first-hand experience with the pros and cons of weightlifting.

Good:

Old News:

Pushing Yourself to Power is a mix of old time phyical culture courses from Charles Atlas , Earle Liederman and Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning. Peterson calls this 'Transformetrics™'. The focus of this book is to provide a template for lifetime of health, strength and look good in the process. In that respect, it's very much cut from the same cloth as old school physical culture courses, which makes it a welcome contrast from the steriod pumped bodybuilder tomes that fill your typical bookshop.

The basic premise of the book is that you can achieve maximum strength and fitness through bodyweight exercises alone.

Pushing Yourself to Power is laced with personal anecdotes from Peterson's family, friends and associates. You'll learn about his mom, dad, sister, uncle Wally and people he's bumped into on holiday etc. Plus homages to his heros - a whole chapter each for Earle Liederman, Charles Atlas, Woody Strode, Rocky Marciano, Hershel Walker and Matt Furey.

Nothing Peterson presents is new, and he's upfront about that. You can find all the info in other books or online - check out Harry Wong's Dynamic Strength Book for isometrics, Sandowplus for the Atlas and Liederman stuff.

Dands and Bethaks aka 'Hindu pushups' and 'Hindu Squats' have been long documented - they even get a mention in Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do. ( Peterson renames these as 'Furey Push ups' and 'Furey Squats' - after Matt Furey who appropriated them from Karl Gotch )

But so what if it's not new? Most training books are rehashes or compilations of techniques and knowledge. As compilations go it's good.

DVR + DSR :

DSR and DVR are mainstays of his book.

For an example of DVR, see "Tiger Moves" - no don't chortle. DVR stuff taken from Kenpo master John McSweeney - You claw, pull and squeeze thin air like a tiger - rargh! Posing or muscle control has a long history in physical culture. Old timers, the original cross-trainers, would mix up weights, gymnastics, iso's and posing to achieve a physical balance.

Putting It Together:

You are encouraged to work out everyday, and you can split the workout into segments and do a few minutes here and there. And for some of you, that may be perfect. There are no set routines, it's up to you. If you're thinking that's a bit willy nilly then it's because Peterson believes that no-one knows your own body like yourself. His has a point, sort of. That's great if you are confident about knowing your own body (and arguably, at that point, you may not need this or any book) - But what about beginners or intermediates? They may be left scratching their heads about exactly how much to do and when.

Does it Work?:

The basic exercises undoubtedly do, especially if you are new to training. Squats, chins, pushups. Fine. You can get yourself in great shape using the bodyweight only. No arguments.

DSR and DVR? I'm sceptical - it's not that they are useless, (For maintaining, rehab or slowing down the muscle atrophy DSR & DVR work just fine.) - it's that IMO, they work less well than other methods.

One of the main drawbacks is that it's difficult to measure progression and as we all know, progression is the true key to strength/size gains. For example, with a barbell, you stick another half a kilo on and you know you have gained in strength - you can log every poundage gain and chart your progress. With DVR and DSR it's far less tangible. More hit and miss. eg. What do you write in a training log? "Today I squeezed a little bit harder than yesterday"?

There's also not the load bearing you get with weights (arguably a good thing), and with DVR there's no tension in the negative half of the repetition. Many people believe the lowering of a weight under tension (negatives aka eccentric contraction) to be the most productive part of a rep.

Peterson claims that bodyweight exercises can build as much strength and mass as using weights. Think about it, if bodyweight are truly superior why do athletes, weightlifters, wrestlers, bodybuilders etc still use weights?

Beginners to training will no doubt have some success. Newbies can pretty much gain on anything. But intermediate to advanced trainees may gain little in the way of strength or size. (Endurance is another matter). Do you think Powerlifting Champ, Ed Coan would increase his totals significantly by ditching his usual routines for a bodyweight regime?

Again, even with the basic stuff like pushups, squats and chins, progression is an issue. There are 2 main ways to progress. Add reps or add weight (or extra resistance via elastics):

"Endless pushups....are great maybe for general fitness or endurance, but of little value in building real strength"- Christopher Sommers, Gymnastics Coach. Quoted fromPavel Tsatsouline's The Naked Warrior.

Oh by the way, Charles Atlas lifted weights, so did Liederman and so did The Great Gama. And come to think of it, so did Furey. None of these gentlemen are products of pure bodyweight training.

"what many do not know is that Atlas was a product of weight training and not from the system he sold.." - from A Century of Muscles by David Gentle, Physical Culture author and historian.

"As was the custom in those days of mail order muscle, whilst the vast majority strength athletes had developed their own physiques and power via training with weights, they sold less expensive apparatus to the general public or in the example of Charles Atlas with no equipment at all..." - from Apollon by David Gentle

"Charles Atlas, "The World's Most Perfectly Developed Man," whose physical culture ads appears in hundreds of magazines and newspapers over the above slogan. Has been ordered by the United States government to cease and desist from misleading representations of his course or the results to be obtained from following the instructions given." quoted from Fortune Magazine and archived by NaturalStrength.

Weightlifting = Bad?

Peterson does have a downer on weight training, believing it to be unnecessary and dangerous. You could be forgiven for wondering if taking advice about weightlifting from someone who's never actually done any is akin to getting singing lessons from Milli Vanilli.

Anyway, so weightlifting is dangerous...lets see shall we? Dangerous compared to what? - runners are always getting injured (which in fairness, Peterson recognises), gymnasts ditto, footballers, tennis players, even cricketers and golfers! All without a barbell in sight. Up and down the country people are knackering their backs every weekend doing gardening! Is weightlifting any more dangerous than those activities?

Peterson himself runs marathons, practises martial arts and hang-glides - all sports where injury is common.

"Like the martial arts, rugby also has a injury rate of about one per 50 hours of individual participation, although rugby injuries probably tend to be more catastrophic. In contrast, several other sports are significantly safer. For example, basketball has one injury per 100 hours, running involves one per 200-400 hours, squash has one per 1000 hours, tennis yields one every 1400 hours, and weight training's wounding rate is just one per 8000 hours or less." - From A Comparison of Male and Female Injury Incidence in Martial Arts Training, ' Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, vol. 26 1994

So according to the research above, by doing martial arts you are 160 times more likely to get injured than weight training and if you run then you're 40 times more likely to get injured.

The high rep 'hindu squats' that are the basis of many bodyweight workouts have earned themselves a cult following - and yet it's widespread knowledge that Indian wrestlers suffered from horrendous knee problems partly due to the wear and tear caused or exacerbated by the daily volume of squatting.

*Excessive squats are known to aggravate or cause Chrondromalacia (commonly known as Runners' Knee) - where the patella's cartilage wears away, often making a grinding sound when you squat and pain around the knee cap*

What about Hindu Pushups?

"Based on anatomy, the Hindu-push-ups, by virtue of their range of motion, have the potential to produce rotator cuff/impingement type problems, as the rotator cuff tendons pass through the space between the humerus and the acromion (the arm bone and the shoulder blade, which form part of the shoulder joint).This does not mean that every person who does them will have pain, but I definitely think that they have the potential to cause problems. " - Dr Tamir Katz, author TBK Fitness

The wrestler's back bridge avocated in Pushing Yourself to Power is also is not without injury risk - specifically to neck. Obviously the bridge an essential part of a wrestler's training but it serves to put risk factor of weightlifting into perspective.

Weightlifting is commonly prescribed by sports therapists, chiropractors, strength & conditioning coaches to their athletes for injury prevention and rehabilitation as well as the obvious performance benefits.

So of course there are risks of injury with weightlifting, sloppy technique, too much weight, overtraining etc can often cause problems. But this must be put into perspective with other sports where injury is just as common.

Diet

The diet info in Pushing Yourself to Power is basically taken from Clarence Bass's book 'Ripped'. It's a pretty sensible 15%fat-15%protein-70%carb diet. It's probably a little old fashioned now, as many diet writers tend to favour lower percentages of carbs. Bear in mind there's no universally accepted balance. Barry Sears, author of The Zone recommends a 30Fat-30Protein-40Carb diet for maximum performance. Ross Enamait recommends 10Fat-30Protein-60carb diet in his Underground Warrior Fitness book...and so on.

Jesus Christ

John Peterson was raised a Christian Fundamentalist, and his faith flavours the entire book. You even get a a section called "How to Become Spiritually Energized and Grounded". It's a peculiar little addition - it seems at bit strange to pop in a 'God section' in fitness book, particularly Peterson's bitter story of how someone badmouthed him and then later got hauled up for fraud. It's like buying a diet book and finding a chapter on achieving a sixpack via Allah. Oh hang on a minute - the last page of the book features an ad for almost exactly that - a book that claims 'the power of God' will help people who struggle with their weight and fitness. Hopefully God will have some time left after sorting out tubby westerners to solve the death and famine in Sudan & Bangladesh.

"there are many people who would do themselves, God, and the people whom they preach a big favour if they just shut up". - John Peterson.

Mr Nice Guy:

From reading his book and forum, Peterson seems like a very decent bloke. He aways credits his influences and with typical class he says that Ross Enamait's Underground Guide to Warrior Fitness is "the most comprehensive and best book I have ever seen on the science of Sports Conditioning specifically as it applies to Martial Artists of all types..."

Bottom Line:

For the majority of SFUK readers Pushing Yourself to Power probably isn't for you. Peterson himself endorses Enamait for MMAers.

For those of you who have drifted onto this page via a search engine and are looking for a decent, safe, no-weights workout book, this may be just the ticket.

Will it "Build your maximum all-round functional strength"? Nope. But ....

If your joints are beat up from other forms of training, maybe it's worth a shot. If you're not bothered how much weight you can hoist overhead, or how many rounds you last in the ring but are more concerned getting or staying in good enough shape to keep you active in your later years then take a look at this book. PYTP is not a fighters' conditioning book, it's more of a guide to staying functionally fit into old age. And for this it's to be applauded.

Postscript: So which is superior? - Bodyweight exercises or weightlifting? Answer again. Neither. BOTH are tried and tested. Don't be an exercise Luddite - use any tool at your disposal for greater gains :)

SFUK links:

Bodyweight Exercises: