Hello fellow nerds

[Ali H]

My name is Ali, i am 22, male. 59 kg, 5'8". 

I am really skinny as you might have guessed by my weight. 

 

My goal is to get a healthy body both physically and mentally. And while working towards it i want to achieve at least 65 kg weight(6 kg muscle mass), a good physique(who doesn't ), and master some calisthenics move. 

 

My preferred training method is bodyweight, i have trained with weights and bodyweight both and found that i really like the later, i am open to adding weights in bodyweight routine though. Have trained for only 2 months so am not really a beginner but i still suck at push ups. I have problem gaining weight but all info i find online is for losing weight.

 

Looking forward to make some friends here and learn lots from veterans.

 

[Guzzi]

Hey, welcome on board!  I thought I would share this article with you as it addresses exactly what you are talking about.  It does talk about barbell work, but keep reading and you will find bodyweight exercise advice too....

 

Quote

Long story short: Yes, you can get bigger and stronger doing exclusively body weight exercises. Take a look at any olympic male gymnast: he is jacked, with giant muscles, all built with body weight exercises.

HOWEVER, it requires a very specific type of training regiment to see those results.

When you can do more than 12 reps of an exercise, you are not building strength or size, you’re building muscular endurance.  So, doing 100 push ups in a row will not build muscle and size efficiently; instead you’re just becoming really efficient at doing lots of pushups.
 

Think of it this way: If just doing more of something made you bigger, then it would be marathon runners that look jacked, not sprinters. It turns out that it comes down to the INTENSITY of the exercise and power required to complete the activity.

The challenge with body weight exercises is that, just like with strength training above, you need to consistently increase the difficulty in order for your muscles to adapt. Because you can’t “add weight” to a body weight exercise to make it tougher, you need to increase the difficulty of the movement itself.

 

[The Shadow]

Hello Ali,

While I see that Guzzi has beaten me to showing you the article, I wanted to say hello anyway, and congratulate you on your choice to join the rebellion! I am relatively new here myself. I fell in love with the NF Bodyweight workouts, and have been a major fan of all bodyweight exercises since. The only advice I can give you as to improving your pushups is to... do pushups. It sucks, I know. But it works. When I started back in December, I could only do two, then rest, then two more. Now I can do 5 in a row, and I've even managed to do 10 in a row once or twice. I found this article really helpful, and I hope you do as well. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to PM me, or just reply to this. 

 

Best of luck!

-The Shadow