A Calisthenics Mastery Story

Amazing Mastery of the One Arm - One Leg Push-Up

Calisthenics Mastery = Superior Strength!

Adapted from Pavel @ strongfirst.com

Half a century ago, a group of high-level martial artists published a semi-fictional book Secret Fighting Arts of the World under a pen name John F. Gilbey.

One of the stories in it perfectly illustrates why calisthenics mastery is superior strength...

This ideal is a star on the horizon.

Here is the story.

The author meets a secretive martial arts master who, after a remarkable demonstration of his deadly skills, throws an unlikely challenge:

“I will promise that any trick that you can do which involves the hands or arms, I can do also.

This is the mark of a true master: not that he can do sleights that others cannot, perhaps because they have never tried, but that he can make his body do anything that someone else can do.”

Gilbey reflects:

This was a fine gesture, I thought.

Unfortunately, he was on rocky ground here. For it had long been a hobby of mine to learn any unusual and difficult gymnastic tricks that few others could perform.

Through great exertions, I have become able to do possibly the hardest three gymnastic exercises in the world. Few people can do any one of them.

So far as I know I am the only one able to do all three.

The exercises are:

1. Extended push-up from prone position, fingertips and toes stretched as far as they will go.


2. Five chin-ups on overhead bar using only one arm (I can use either arm).


3. Rafter-walk for 25 feet. Using only fingers and thumbs, grab overhead studding and supporting the weight of body, go hand after hand for the required distance.

I was tempted to go graciously without complying but I thought: he has issued the challenge.

Let’s see what he can do with it.

So, not attempting to disguise my pride, I showed the exercises.

When I was done, he commented that it was a fair exercise.

And then he did each one with an élan that I could not muster. There was no end to the man.

With mixed emotions—crestfallen that he had achieved the tests and overawed by his ability to master his body—I bade farewell to him.

I came away wiser.

---

Once you have internalized the universal principles of strength, you will be able to quickly apply them to any new strength or gymnastic skills.

The knowledge of some principles easily compensates for the ignorance of some facts.

This quote by philosopher Claude Helvétius appeared in the late Professor Yuri Verkhoshansky’s last book. It perfectly describes Naked Warrior, the book, which features only two exercises, the one-arm/one-leg pushup and the pistol.


To these two fundamentals we have added a third—the tactical pull-up—because certain strength techniques are hard to learn without a pull-up type exercise.

Not impossible—one US military special operator quickly worked up to a one-arm chin using the Naked Warrior one-arm pushup techniques—just hard.

Pavel Tsatsouline, the author of Naked Warrior, is a fitness instructor from the former Soviet Union. 

He holds a degree in Sports Science from the Physical Culture Institute in Minsk and is the founder of StrongFirst.

You can learn beginner to advanced progressions in the big three—radically improving upon the book by Pavel.


At StrongFirst, they teach the ultimate progressions of bodyweight moves, so called, bodyweight power lifts.

From Pavel:

These ultimate bodyweight moves are what Gray Cook calls “self-limiting.”

You could have poor technique and weak abs—and still improve your bench press or jerk.

Good luck cheating the one-arm/one-leg pushup!

Your legs and back could be seriously dysfunctional and heading for big hurt—yet you still could up your barbell squat through sheer will power.

The pistol will laugh at you if you try.

You could “clean” a heavy bell, bar or kettle, with the ugliest technique which could put you in a hospital.

You could never do it with the front lever.

In summary, “bodyweight powerlifts” (not just any bodyweight exercises!) enforce the high tension and perfect motor control of a strength professional.

Charles Poliquin reports how two high level gymnasts who had never touched barbells benched 350 after a couple of weeks of practice. No surprise.

In addition to the beginner to advanced progressions on the three key lifts you should learn handstand pushups, neck bridges, and core strengtheners.

In short, if approached the right way, Bodyweight Strength Training Will Make You Stronger... Much Stronger!!!

PS- Have You Read Naked Warrior- It's a great book on Bodyweight/Calisthenics Mastery... Get it HERE