TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... 3
DISCLAIMER AND LEGAL........................................................................................................4
WELCOME TO THE ALMOST NAKED ATHLETE ...................................................................... 5
THIS IS NOT MINIMALIST TRAINING.......................................................................................6
THE GOAL OF THE ALMOST NAKED ATHLETE ...................................................................... 7
EQUIPMENT THAT WILL BE USED ..........................................................................................8
TOOL #1 GYMNASTICS RINGS ............................................................................................. 11
TOOL #2 BARBELL AND PLATES .......................................................................................... 31
TOOL #3 BIG EMPTY SPACES ...............................................................................................49
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER ................................................................................................. 55
APPENDIX I STOCK ROUTINES ............................................................................................. 57
APPENDIX II ALMOST NAKED PROGRAMMING GUIDANCE ................................................. 93
APPENDIX III JUJIMUFU VS. MINIMALISM .......................................................................... 103
QUESTIONS? ...................................................................................................................... 109
CONNECT WITH ME ............................................................................................................ 110
DISCLAIMER AND LEGAL
In reading this document you, and any you teach, understand and agree to the following terms: that you/they will
not hold the author and his affiliates responsible for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special,
exemplary, punitive, or other damages, under any legal theory, arising out of or in any way relating to your use of
this document and its information, or the content, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
The author shall not be liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, financial, or commercial damages,
including, but not limited to, special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. The information contained
herein is meant to be used to educate and entertain the reader and is in no way intended to provide individual
medical advice. From time to time I endorse third-party products or programs, and often there is some
compensation or commission for that endorsement.
MEDICAL DISCLAIMER
Like almost any activity, the training techniques in this program pose some inherent risk. Before practicing the
skills described in this program, be sure not to take risks beyond your level of experience, aptitude, training, and
comfort level. It is your responsibility to assess your safety, know your limits, and obtain expert medical advice
from a qualified accredited health professional if any doubts exist. You agree to take full responsibility for your
decisions and actions.
Consultation with a doctor and/or physical fitness instructor is recommended prior to attempting these
techniques if any doubts exist. Doing so after you have had an accident would ruin the purpose of the
consultation.
All diet and supplement advice in this program is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of qualified
medical practitioners. The products, supplements, and services mentioned in this document are not intend-ed to
diagnose, treat, cure, alleviate or prevent any diseases. The statements in this document have not been reviewed
or evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The information is not a substitute for medical, psychological,
or professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All content in this document are the opinion of the author who
does not claim or profess to be a medical professional providing medical advice. Advice from your professional
medical advisor should always supersede information presented in this document.
AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER
In this program, the author recommends or endorses products or services that are not his own. If he recommends it, he has used it personally and/or continues to use it. In some cases, the author is compensated via a
commission if you decide to purchase the products or services he recommends. ALWAYS do your own due
diligence before purchasing anything.
INDEMNIFICATION
You understand and agree that you will indemnify, defend, and hold Jon Call, its creator, harmless from any
liability, loss, claim, and expense, including reasonable attorney’s fees, arising from your use of our his
program/products, or your violation of these terms and conditions. Jon Call assumes no responsibility for the
exercises, practices, or behavior of any kind, or implications of them, described herein.
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WELCOME TO THE ALMOST NAKED ATHLETE
The Almost Naked Athlete takes three of the best value tools for becoming shredded, swole,
strong or skilled and walks you through how to put them together for an effective training
program. The information focuses primarily on upper body strength and hypertrophy training,
overall athleticism, and aesthetics. This is not a week by week program; instead, it is a toolkit
with exercises, principles, stock routines, and programming guidance to put them together to
reach your goals! It is the ideal start for those wanting to start training outside of public gyms
with minimal equipment.
I trained the entire year of 2012 (26 years old) without a gym membership
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THIS IS NOT MINIMALIST TRAINING
The Almost Naked Athlete is not a text extolling the virtues of minimalism. Nor is it devised to
perpetuate any ideology involved with minimalist lifestyle trends. I need this to be clear: I AM
NOT AN ADVOCATE OF MINIMALISM. I whole-heartedly REJECT it. This renunciation is
important because I had previously adopted “minimalism” emphatically and dogmatically in
my early twenties. I took it so seriously that it damaged my relationships with others and
stunted my personal growth. More information can be found about this in Appendix III
Jujimufu vs. Minimalism.
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THE GOAL OF THE ALMOST NAKED ATHLETE
The goal of the program is not self-imposed limitation, but rather, to: “Start where you are.
Use what you have. Do what you can.” as often quoted by many quotable people. Well, almost!
You will need three tools to run this program. The tools I have selected to run this program are
of the highest value compared to their price, are readily available, culture-rich, and last a
lifetime. You should always strive to grow, which might mean your selection of equipment will
need to grow as well! I have a barn gym full of equipment now. But the story this program is
based on is where I started with my equipment collection in 2012. If I lost all my equipment in a
flood or fire and had to start over again, I would grab the tools in this program first.
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EQUIPMENT THAT WILL BE USED
You will need a pair of gymnastics rings, a barbell, and plates.
Specifically, you will need to have at least enough weight to load your barbell with 70% of your
1 rep max deadlift. So, if your 1 rep max deadlift is 365 lbs (165 kgs), then you will need 320 lbs
worth of plates (about 145 kgs). Get a pair of 55 lb plates, 45 lb plates, 35 lb plates, and 25 lb
plates so you can load each side of the barbell. (Pairs of 25 kg, 20 kg, 15 kg, 10 kg). How did I
get these numbers? A standard barbell weighs 45 lbs (20 kgs). Add up the rest, and it weighs
365 lbs. Everybody’s plate needs are different, but it’s better to have a variety of plate weights
or a lot of lighter plates than a few super heavy ones. This assortment is the best place to start.
If you are stronger, add more 55 lb plates to your collection, as they’re the most useful.
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Altogether, the cost of these tools can vary wildly. The minimum you would spend on these
tools would probably be around $200. The maximum you would pay for them all would be
about $1000. Stronger people need more weight so it will be more expensive for them. Lower
quality and used equipment cost less. Some of it works great, and some of it will not. Like
buying cars, prices vary based on many conditions.
My purchasing recommendation for gym equipment has always been get a great deal or get
the best. Stay out of the middle zone. Gym equipment lasts a lifetime and buying the best will
be a decision you’ll be glad you made if you’re serious about strength training. If you cannot
afford the best, buy used and save up $$$ until you can. I’d rather see someone buy a used
barbell that costs $20 and works “okay,” then one day upgrade to a premium bar that costs
+$300 that is a real joy to use that they’ll have forever. If you do buy something used for a great
deal, when you do “upgrade” you’ll have twice the amount of equipment too!
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TOOL #1 GYMNASTICS RINGS
I hold the gymnastics rings in very high esteem. I started training them back in 2010 when I
bought a pair online. I’d go to empty playgrounds on my work lunch break and hang them up
on swing sets or monkey bars using a step stool I kept in my car. Or I’d go to high schools with
football goal posts (American football) and hang them up on those. I like the rings because
they are portable, easy to set up, inexpensive, challenging, quick, and effective.
When I was 24 years old, I would train rings on my lunch break at work
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The most useful ring exercise for me has always been the strict ring muscle up. Getting the ring
muscle up was hard for me. It took me a few months of painful failure, but it was rewarding
when I unlocked that skill! To me, the ring muscle up is one of the best all-around exercises you
could do. The muscle up is a substantial builder of chest and shoulder muscles. It’s also an
exercise that develops a rare, valuable training quality: explosive core strength. The explosive
core strength you build with muscle ups will lend itself to phenomenal athletic carryover. Once
you begin repping out ring muscle ups, seemingly everything else will get a boost!
After only a couple of years of using rings, I had so much confidence in them that I canceled my
gym membership in January 2012! From January through October of that year, the only
exercises I did were deadlifts, overhead press with a weight I could clean from the floor (I had a
barbell in my parent’s garage), and ring exercises I trained in parks. I put on 15 lbs of lean mass
doing this. Here is the physique I built using rings for ten months, with no gym membership! It
was my best physique up to that date!
October 2012, 26 years old, 215 lbs bodyweight. And having completed
nearly 100 hard ring workouts within previous 10 months.
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2012 was my lifetime prime for my acrobatics tricks. I attribute the ring training I did as an
essential element in uniquely peaking my physique, strength, and skills altogether for that
year. The massive boost in core strength and total body coordination from the ring training
had an enormous carry over to my flips, twists, and kick skills!
All my ring workouts that year were short but frequent. I was limited to the one hour I had on
my work lunch break, but I trained them 3-4 days a week (basically every other day). They all
started with an 8-minute light warmup; then I would begin attacking muscle ups. I would do
about 6-10 sets of 2-5 muscle ups. I’d rest 2-4 minutes between sets. My primary focus was
cleanliness, speed, and aggression. I got psyched up for my muscle ups like anyone would get
psyched out for heavy deadlifts. I’d bark, grunt and yell at those empty playgrounds while
training rings. Plenty of broken ammonia ampules were left in the mulch ground! When the
quality of the reps would worsen, I’d stop doing them. Quality over quantity. In between these
sets of muscle ups, I’d try some fancy static hold of some sort such as an l-sit, meat hook, or
iron cross. After muscle ups and fancy holds, I’d pick one or two more movements and do a few
sets, such as ring chest flys or ring rows. Near the end of that year, I got my iron cross. I
wouldn’t say I “trained” the iron cross so much as I just “tried” it sometimes; it was pretty much
a brute force approach. After a couple of months of trying them now and then, I got them.
Fall 2012, with my newly acquired, self-taught iron cross
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When winter came that year, I got a new gym membership and began incorporating more
bodybuilding methodologies into my training because I was ready for something new. That’s
when I bulked up to the weight I’m at now. I’ve not trained rings with the frequency and
exclusivity since then, but I’ve kept that experience close to me. I’ll always have a pair of rings
hanging up in my gym, and I’ll always be using them for something.
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WHERE TO START WITH RING TRAINING
First, get a pair of rings. Wood or plastic? I like them both. Rings are pretty much all the same;
it doesn’t matter which brand you buy. I’ve owned my pair for over a decade now, so they last
as well.
Second, you need to find places to mount them. Playgrounds have a lot of things to hang rings.
Some trees will work well. In the house I used to rent, I had a detached garage with an attic
space: I drilled a hole in the drywall ceiling and rigged them with a wooden board I used as a
cross-member against the other wooden support boards up there. For the most part, if you’re
having trouble finding a place to mount a pair of rings, you’re either lazy or shy.
Here I am in 2017: 7 years after starting ring training - still using them!
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HOW RING TRAINING FITS INTO YOUR GOALS
Ring training carries over into nearly everything athletic because the total body strength
gained from training rings is pure magic for athletic movements. Your legs can even get burnt
up training the rings (ex: have to keep the quads and glutes super tight on chest flys). Strength
workouts on rings are usually quick yet highly effective. And anything that builds strength and
athleticism will be reliable means of physique transformation. So really, it doesn’t matter what
your goals are, because including some ring training will benefit you.
YOUTUBE: JUJIMUFU RINGS THE END OF AUGUST
YOUTUBE: JUJIMUFU RETURN OF THE RINGS
EXPLORING EXERCISE OPTIONS ON THE RINGS
The number of ring exercise options is somewhat limited, but pretty much every exercise that
you could do on the rings is worth doing. My ten favorite exercises are:
1. Strict muscle ups
2. Traditional ring support hold
3. L-sits
4. False grip pullups
5. Inverted rows (both the unilaterial and bilateral versions)
6. Flys
7. Dips
8. Pushups (Archer pushups are good too)
9. Prone support holds (top of the pushup position)
10. Levers (both front lever and back lever)
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Ring exercise difficulty can be increased by making the leveraging harder. For example, doing
ring flys or ring pushups with your feet elevated so that your head is below your feet in the
starting position will make the exercise harder.
Ring exercise difficulty can be decreased by making the leveraging easier. Setting up the rings
so that your head is above your feet at the bottom of the pushup position would make pushups
and ring flys accessible if you couldn’t otherwise do them.
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Or you could use a support structure such as using a chair to turn ring dips into ring “bench”
dips. Using support structures with rings helps change a lot of exercises to accommodate your
needs.
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You can even make some otherwise “unlocked” exercises accessible by using a band to support
yourself. The attachment of the band is achieved in different ways depending on the exercise.
Here I’m doing an iron cross with a band.
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Or you can break up an exercise into its concentric/eccentric parts. For example, for ring dips,
the eccentric part (the part of the movement when you go back down from the top) is the
hardest part. You can train the concentric part by itself to still garner some benefit from the
movement.
CLICK FOR VIDEO OF A CONCENTRIC RING DIP
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If you want to increase difficulty without changing leveraging, you can add weight by wearing a
weighted vest, or wearing a dip belt with added weight.
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A weighted vest would be necessary to make supine variations such as the inverted ring row
more challenging because a belt with attached weight would not work correctly.
These methods of changing the leverages, using bands or chairs for support, and using weight
to add resistance all multiply the possibilities for dialing in your ring training to accommodate
both your current level of fitness and athletic goals!
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Aside from strengthening exercises, rings are the ultimate upper body stretching tool. There is
nothing better for increasing functional mobility for the upper body than a pair of rings. Here
are some stretches you can do on the rings.
This is one of my favorite stretches out of all stretches that exist. Notice how I’m only holding
onto one ring (yes, there are a lot of uses for ONE ring in both strength training and
stretching). This stretch is great for shoulders, lats, and obliques.
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I do this stretch a lot. It’s great for your hips, abdominal wall, back, and shoulders. I prefer to
spread my feet wider than shoulder-width apart on this for comfort.
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Stepping through the rings allows a lot of shoulder mobility to be accessed.
More on flexibility training (specifically flexibility training using the rings) can be found in my
book www.legendaryflexibility.com
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BEFORE DESIGNING YOUR OWN RING WORKOUT
Before you design a “ring workout routine,” it’s important to get experience setting up the
ring’s height for the different exercises and trying them. For example, for ring flys, I prefer the
rings to nearly touch the ground. Try it. If you’re not strong enough to do them that way, you
need to raise the rings so that the leverages are better for you, making the exercise accessible.
This is like finding what weights you can deadlift, squat, and bench press. Once you know your
limits, you can productively work within them. It’s also analogous to finding your machine
settings for different machines in the gym!
This will take just one session. Just “try stuff and have fun.” It’s going to be necessary to always
keep this “try stuff and have fun” approach in your ring training because more technical skills
on the rings, like the strict muscle up, will be impossible if you aren’t willing to experiment and
play.
However, at some point, it will be necessary that you start counting reps and sets. If all you’re
doing on rings is “trying stuff,” you will have a tough time tapping into a consistent state of
progressive overload. When it gets hard, you must count, so you have a number to try to beat!
That’s what’s going to get you strong!
A WORD ON THE RING MUSCLE UP
I’ve hinted at the ring muscle up a few times, and I’ve just suggested keeping a “try stuff and
have fun” approach in your ring training. To use the muscle up to build strength and boost your
athletic capacity, you first need to learn the muscle up! There is a plethora of information on
the internet on how to unlock the muscle up. I have gone ahead and created a short video
giving you some movements that helped me.
CLICK FOR VIDEO OF MUSCLE UP GUIDANCE
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HOW TO STRUCTURE A STRENGTH FOCUSED RING WORKOUT
We’re going to talk about STRENGTH here because it is the foundation of muscle growth, fatburning, and skill acquisition. Strength is the mother of all athletic biomotor qualities. Now,
remember this rule when strength training on rings: DO NOT GO TO FAILURE (YET…) It’s ok
to fail. It’s not ok to go to failure. (Yet). Look, here’s the difference:
Try 1 muscle up. Fail. Did 0 muscle ups. This is ok. You tried! Move onto a different exercise.
Do 10 ring pushups. Fail the 11th rep. This is not ok… (Until the end of the workout!)
The ideal “ring only” strength workout structure would read like this:
•
•
•
•
•
CHALK UP A LOT! Chalk is more critical for gymnastics rings exercises than barbell
exercises.
Warmup for a challenging skill (such as the muscle up) with easier exercises that
resemble some part of that skill. For the muscle up: false grip rows, pullups, supports,
and dips. DON’T GO TO FAILURE!!! Nice n’ easy. Be sure to include rest sets, even for
your warmup sets!
Once ready, try your challenge skill. Perhaps the muscle up? Let’s assume you fail. Rest
awhile. Try again. Failing it? Oops. Still can’t muscle up - time to find the next best
thing!
Add a band to assist the muscle up. Succeed 1-5 reps but stop short when more reps are
possible! Save some reps! Continue with these quality sets until they worsen. Perhaps 5
sets? To keep consistent quality, track your rest period. Likely it will be at least 3
minutes. Probably more like 4-5 minutes. Force yourself to adhere to these rest periods,
even when you’re not huffing and puffing (this is the secret of strength training.)
Move onto easier exercises like pushups and rows. Do those for a higher number of sets
to failure. Rest at least 3 minutes in between these as well.
In strength culture, this is similar to “Grease the Groove,” meaning, you’re avoiding going to
failure on the hard stuff so that you can train it more frequently and teach your body to train to
succeed instead of fail. If muscle ups are hard for you, but you can do a few, don’t do your
maximum number of reps. Spread your reps across several sets! In powerlifting culture, this
would be akin to training progressively with RPE7 or RPE8 levels of resistance (meaning you
have 2-3 reps “in the bank” every set). The only significant difference I’m adding is that I do
prefer to go to failure and “exhaust” my muscles on the easier “accessory” exercises at the end
of the workout. I find the adaptations from training these easier exercises to failure more
valuable to progressing the harder movements, than the energy I would save by stopping short
on them. We put these exercises at the end of the ring workout because the harder
movements would likely be impossible altogether if you were “pre-exhausted.” This is why you
don’t do a bunch of leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises, and stuff before going heavy on back
squats.
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PROGRESSING ON THE RINGS
One of the best things about ring training compared to weight training is that it’s one of the
rare training outlets where you can get leaner and stronger at the same time! I will never
recommend trying to get stronger, more muscular, and leaner at the same time with weightbased training because our biology doesn’t work that way. With rings, you have a form of
training at your disposal that can get you pretty darn close to getting all of that at the same
time!
As your bodyweight gets lower, rings get easier. Even 1 lb of extra bodyweight will affect you
on the rings. You can simultaneously diet down and get stronger at the same time with ring
training. This does not happen with weight training except in the obese or super novice classes
of individuals.
If you’re an intermediate or advanced strength athlete and want to experience the
encouragement of strength improvement while dieting down to single-digit body fat
percentages, the rings offer you that option. And as physique fixated athletes know, when you
get leaner, you get the "illusion" of looking more muscular.
Get onto the rings, and progress everything at the same time!
RING ROUTINES ARE IN APPENDIX I
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TOOL #2 BARBELL AND PLATES
Athletic history goes back thousands of years ago when people would sprint, wrestle, and
throw things. Still, the beginning of pure strength standardization, and the global culturation
of strength, began with the barbell: The barbell made “strength culture” mainstream.
The barbell enhanced the MEANING of physical strength by making it both relatable and
accessible. You can watch a guy in a leotard pick up a large, cumbersome rock. Maybe you’ll
clap your hands? Or you can watch Thor deadlift 500+ kg with a standardized barbell with
calibrated plates. You will clap your hands. Why? You cannot relate to the former because you
don’t know how hard it is, so it lacks meaning. The 500+ kg deadlift is meaningful to you,
though, because you’ve done deadlifts yourself, and you know what’s a lot and what isn’t!
Everyone, to some extent, has access to the barbell deadlift!
The modern barbell is nearly perfect. The major barbell exercises work all the muscles and
joints in the body and carry over to everyday movement patterns and athletic movement
patterns of almost all kinds. They can also be loaded precisely to any individual’s needs. There
are plenty of reasons why sports have all advanced in the past 100 years; the barbell was crucial
to that advancement because of how it builds strength! Nearly all professional athletes train
with barbells. Strength isn’t just about athletics and sports; it’s also about wellbeing and living
a good life! Exercising is both a privilege and hygiene. Vigorous activity is a necessary
component of optimizing mental and physical health. The barbell is just about the best way to
do it.
Then why do we not keep a barbell in our homes? You could eat all your meals outside of your
home and be well. But nobody would argue that having food and the capability to cook meals
at home would not increase your efficiency and happiness! Duh! We have kitchens so we can
eat at home! Why not have barbells so we can train at home?!
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Training at home doesn’t mean you can’t also go to a gym! It is not one or the other. You can
have both! Having both increases your efficiency and happiness. I promise it will! Starting at
home begins with the holy grail of gym equipment: the barbell and plates. And yes, there will
always be sports that do rely on great amounts of strength that seem to serve as exceptions to
the barbell standard, such as rock climbing, arm wrestling, and certain gymnastic events.
Those groups and others like them aside, if you’re not doing barbell exercises, you’re not
cultivating your maximum level of LIVING. And if you’ve never trained with a barbell and some
plates at home, you’re missing out.
My first home gym was my parent’s garage. I had a barbell and plates.
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GETTING A BARBELL AND PLATES
My first barbell is one of my most treasured possessions. When I first started working out, I
trained at a gym called PRSM Sports and Fitness. Every time I deadlifted there, I went looking
for “my barbell.” It was easy to find because it had bloodstains in the knurling from where the
bar scraped my shins (I know, inconsiderate of me). I started deadlifting in 2002 with that bar,
and the gym closed in 2009. When they went out of business, they sold off all their equipment:
I bought the bar from them.
Me posing with my barbell in 2011
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That bar has been through hell. I've thrown it off mountains, set it on fire, and have lifted with
it underwater. It still works! I love that bar. I don’t even know what brand it is or what type of
barbell it is. Whip? Tensile strength? Diameter? Bushing type? F Rating? Fuck if I know. It’s so
rusted one of the loadable sleeves doesn’t rotate anymore. And the knurling pattern is so worn
I can barely find the knurl marks. The condition the bar is in, it’s probably worth about $10. But
for me, as a sentimental piece that still functions just fine, it’s priceless. I built my entire
strength base with that one barbell. And I could build it up all over again from scratch, starting
with the condition the bar is in today! I bought the barbell before I even had plates! I didn’t buy
plates to use with it for another 3 years because I was still in the habit of going to the gym. But
the plates I eventually did end up buying, I still use every time I train!
Something you cannot do without your own barbell and plates: lift anywhere you want!
All the plates you see loaded on my bars in my training videos, those are from my original
purchase 10 years ago! (FYI, I made a lateral trade for the same exact plates with different
branding years later with a company that wanted their branding in my videos.) The barbell is
20 years old! Barbells and plates last! They were the investment that had the highest ROI
(Return on Investment) of anything else I can think of that I’ve bought in my life.
For the rest of my story, read APPENDIX III Jujimufu vs. Minimalism. But for the sake of
starting your story sooner rather than later, get a barbell and some plates! Used or new! Don’t
agonize over your options! Make it happen! You will NOT regret it!
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THE ALMOST NAKED BARBELL EXERCISES
When I worked out of my parent’s garage, these were my two lifts:
•
•
Deadlift
Standing overhead press
I did not have a power rack or squat stand in their garage. I was training with the same
limitation of being an Almost Naked athlete: no power rack or squat stand! What can we do
with a barbell and some plates, but no bench, rack, stand, or blocks to go with it?
LOTS!!!
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SO MANY DEADLIFT VARIATIONS!
The king of exercises. It does everything! And there are so many ways to do it! With just a
barbell, you’ve got conventional deadlifts, stiff leg deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, sumo
deadlifts, deficit deadlifts (you can stand on plates), snatch grip deadlifts, single-leg deadlifts,
suitcase deadlifts, grave digger deadlifts (misloaded on one side, so it’s like a heavy shovel),
Jefferson deadlifts, reeve’s deadlifts, dimel deadlifts, hack deadlifts, true Zercher deadlifts and
the Zercher squat (that starts with a deadlift). If we had bands and chains, we could use
accommodating resistance for any of these. We can also do pause deadlift variations (bring it
up to your knees, pause for 1-2 seconds, then continue). And we can do block deadlifts too (the
loaded bar is raised a few inches on wood or weight plates to make it higher.) Hopefully, I
didn’t miss any on that list! But wow, oh, wow! What a list! In fact, only a couple of these lifts
are legitimately stupid lifts. The stupidest ones are the true Zercher deadlift, which starts in the
crook of your elbows from the floor: it’s just not safe! The reeve’s deadlift is just some dumb
shit that was made up out of boredom. And the hack deadlift? It will likely ruin your knees if
you do it regularly, especially if you have developed hamstrings that force you to “buckle” your
knees forward to clear your hamstrings in the movement. *Shaking my head* *Facepalm* besides those, most of the other deadlift variations are great exercises! Even grave digger
deadlifts, if done with an optimal load imbalance (not a huge one you would do for Instagram
views), would make some sense for rotational-core-strength building.
YOUTUBE: 5 DUMB DEADLIFT VARIATIONS TO STOP WORLD HUNGER
YOUTUBE: WORLD RECORD DEADLIFTS WITH ERIC BUGENHAGEN
Given all these choices, my top three include:
•
•
•
Conventional deadlifts
Sumo deadlifts
Snatch grip deadlifts
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Ok, so tell me, with all these deadlift variations, how could you ever get bored? Not to mention
that you can program the loading parameters of these lifts in dramatically different ways! The
intensity of 3x3 reps with a 95% load on deadlift doing stop and go style (reset between reps)
and 5+ minute rest periods might give you a huge headache and wipe out your energy levels
after you finish… Great for powerlifting gains! But try 4 sets of +12 reps, with a load that you
reach failure on every set with <5 minute rest periods. Hell, try those reps Dorian Yates style
whereupon lowering the weight to the ground, you don’t touch the ground, hover above it by
an inch or cm, and then immediately do another rep. The weight doesn’t come in contact with
the ground until you finish your whole set. It doesn’t make a sound! Do 4 sets to failure of that
and see how you feel! Same exercise, completely different results! And actually, if you live on a
2nd or 3rd story apartment, this might be how you would train your deadlifts (quietly!)
I have something completely different from either of these as well! In Appendix I, there is a
deadlift only routine that I used many times in my life: the Jujimufu Deadlift Routine. It’s a
unique use of the deadlift and works best for those that don’t have enough plates yet (you will
need a load that is only 70% of your 1 rep max deadlift to do the routine.) You could even do
the routine with many of the deadlift variations above. I’d recommend first trying it out with
the conventional deadlift and see how you like it.
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STANDING OVERHEAD PRESS WITHOUT A RACK
The standing press is a great exercise. It helped me defy my small shoulder genetics and built
them into boulders! It also carries over well to athletics since it uses every muscle in the body to
support the weight and press it! And it’s quick work: you don’t have to spend all day doing
them to get the most out of them.
How should you do them given the other limitations of being an Almost Naked athlete? You’re
obviously limited to how much you can get up from the ground since we don’t have a rack.
For most of us, we can pick up about 80% of our standing overhead press max from the ground
and clean it up to our shoulders for productive pressing work. 80% is still a very useful
percentage to build muscle and strength.
If your max shoulder press is 135 lbs (about 60 kgs), that means cleaning about 110 lbs (48 kgs)
to your shoulders. If your clean isn’t strong enough to get 80% of your max to your shoulders,
then perhaps you should work on it! You have everything you need to increase your clean! I’m
terrible at cleaning weight to my shoulders, but I can still clean enough to do sufficient pressing
work.
When I used to work out in my parent’s garage, my strict shoulder press max was about 205 lbs
(93 kgs). I chose to do sets with 155 lbs (70 kgs), which is about 75% of my 1 rep max. I’d try to
get 10 reps with this weight for 3-4 sets. I learned from doing this that you don’t need to see
increases in weight or reps week to week to see body composition improvements. My
shoulders responded even though the numbers weren’t budging. And this made me happy.
Having bigger shoulders increases your quality of life!
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FORGET THE BARBELL FLOOR PRESS
One exercise you might consider as a good option if you’re limited to a barbell and some plates
is the floor press. It seems perfect for the Almost Naked athlete! I suggest you forget about this
exercise. The floor press is best used as a tactical accessory exercise when your bench press has
stalled or when you want to maintain some poundage on your bench press, but you have a
back or shoulder problem and cannot “bench press” on a bench. It’s for “bench press guys.” I
think you’ll be very disappointed with the results from this exercise for other purposes, as I
have been. If you want bigger and stronger shoulders, stand up and press that barbell over
your head. If you want a bigger and stronger chest, do some ring muscle ups, flys, and dips;
they’re superior options compared to the floor press for these purposes. The floor press is also
an obnoxious exercise to do without a rack. Rolling the weight over your body and using your
elbows as a weight jack is ridiculous (especially as a larger human). Not to mention you can’t
even get enough weight up into this position on the exercise for maximum benefit without an
unrack from a nearby power rack! I’m not a fan of the barbell floor press. Dumbbell floor
presses, on the other hand, have their place in training outside the scope of improving bench
press poundages. But in The Almost Naked Athlete, we’re not considering the use of
dumbbells…
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BENTOVER BARBELL ROW: A POWER LIFT OR A BODY BUILDER?
If your equipment selection is limited to a barbell and some plates and some rings, then the
barbell row better be an exercise you’re doing! The barbell row and barbell deadlift have a lot in
common, but one crucial difference to keep in mind in the context of your goals is that the row
is a true stretch and contract movement, whereas the deadlift is a static contraction. Stretch
and contract movements are typically the first choices for building muscle mass. So if your goal
is a thicker, wider back, you need to prioritize rows.
A key consideration is that the row can be very exhausting. Doing too much of it will compete
for the same resources you would use for training your deadlift. As an accessory exercise to the
deadlift, you would want to put it on the same days you deadlift, after your deadlifting work is
done: I would recommend working with a rep set/rep range of 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps. If you’re
considering using it as a strength builder, consider putting it at the beginning of your training
for more sets, fewer reps, and more weight. You can try 5x5 (5 sets of 5 reps) with a very heavy
weight. For loads this heavy, you might consider a variation that involves more whole-body
movement, such as the way Cailer Woolam does his. His is almost a hybrid between a deadlift
and a bent-over row. Keep in mind if you’re programming rows this heavy, they will affect your
deadlifts in the short term because they will compete for the same resources.
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BODYBUILDING FRIENDLY BARBELL ISOLATION EXERCISES
There are a ton of “isolation” things you can do for building muscle with just a barbell and
plates. Increasing the frequency and volume of BENT OVER BARBELL ROWS is an excellent
choice.
Basic BARBELL BICEP CURLS are essential if your goal is bigger arms. A lot of us are spoiled
by “EZ-Curl” bars, and research has concluded that they are safer. The semi-supinated position
of an EZ curl bar reduces the likelihood of developing golfer’s elbow. Anyone that has curled
with an EZ curl bar even once will confirm they are more comfortable. EZ curl bar curls also hit
the brachioradialis, which is the muscle between the triceps and biceps. FYI, arm wrestler’s
arms look freakish in major part due to their ridiculous bicep brachioradialis development from
their sport. Regardless of these advantages, curling with a barbell without the angled grips is a
tried and true bicep mass builder and still works. And using a standard barbell to curl doesn’t
mean you will develop Golfer’s Elbow, you may never have a problem with it. However, you’re
limited to a 45 lb (20kg) starting weight for your curls, you cannot go lower than this with the
equipment we have here. If you cannot curl this much, you’re better off doing more
compounded exercises like rows to build your arms.
Don’t forget, you can take a barbell and put one of its ends into a corner, and then load the
other end with plates. You now have options for T-BAR ROWS, MEADOWS ROWS, VIKING
PRESSES, and even a decent LANDMINE SQUAT VARIATION. These are all semi-isolation
movements that work well with bodybuilding isolation methods. You don’t need “landmine
attachments” to do all of these.
Another thing you can do is use the plates by themselves! Holding a plate in your hand, you can
do loaded pistol squats or front delt raises. You can also stretch with a plate doing “shoulder
halos.”
Other than that, people have created countless barbell exercise variations that fit a
bodybuilder’s isolation needs. Google search for them. There are hundreds! Many are
horrendous. Many are not. The only way to find out is to try them yourself.
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WHAT ABOUT THE SQUAT? OR THE OLYMPIC LIFTS?!
Without a power rack or squat stands, what can we do if we want to squat? One underrated
option is using less weight and cleaning it up to your shoulders. When I worked out in my
parent’s garage, I did not have a squat stand, so this is what I did for front squat training. At the
time, my max front squat was probably 405 lbs (185 kgs). My clean was nowhere near this
strong. So there was a disparity between what I could front squat, and what I could get up onto
my shoulders from the floor even to begin front squatting!
However, I could consistently clean about 225 lbs (102 kgs) for front squat sets. If you are adept
at the Olympic lifts, you could no doubt do more! Speaking of the Olympic lifts (snatch & clean
and jerk): there are dozens of minor variations of these lifts! I have been coached on them a
few times, and something one of the coaches said to me stuck. I asked him, “Is there merit in
training to do the Olympic lifts, even if your form is trash and you’re just trying to get the
movement down?” and his response was something like this, “Yes. I’ve been trying to get
people to think that way about these movements. Even if you’re just stuck practicing with a
lightweight over and over trying to get the pattern down, you’re getting stronger.”You don’t
even have to do the Olympic lifts correctly, or with heavyweight to become more athletic and
stronger! Practicing them poorly can help you. Zero successful reps doesn’t mean zero results!
I can confirm this by drawing an analogy to tricking. Even if I crash or fail a skill over and over
again, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t getting closer to it or that it wasn’t building ab strength, speed,
explosiveness, etc! Why didn’t I continue with the Olympic lifts then? Because I didn’t like
them, I had never enjoyed them even when I got lucky and did some great lifts. That is a good
enough reason, and the only reason you need not to do something sometimes.
Now, back to my parent’s garage; I am not good at Olympic lifts, so the “clean” I would use to
get a bar on my shoulders in the front squat position to do some leg work was always a very
messy, ugly thing. Surprisingly, these front squat sets with only 50-60% of my 1 rep max added
value to my training, even if I was limited to how much weight I could clean from the floor.
Medium rep sets of 10 reps with this moderated load were still beneficial for maintaining some
leg mass, optimizing body composition, and building strength in my hips, knees, and lower
legs!
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You have the option of Zercher squatting too. With this movement, you’re able to work closer
to maximum load. To do this, set up for a deadlift with a slightly wider stance and grip (add 1foot width to your grip and ½ foot width to your stance). Use a hook grip on the deadlift
because the mixed grip will feel awkward. Deadlift the weight up and catch it with the tops of
your knees. When it’s rested, move your arms underneath the bar, cross them, and then
supporting the bar in the crooks of your elbows stand up. We’ve done several YouTube videos
with this exercise with our friends. It is very uncomfortable, but a real option you can use to
work your squat without a rack!
YOUTUBE: OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFER VS. ZERCHER SQUAT
YOUTUBE: WHY AREN’T YOU ZERCHER POSITIVE?
The Steinborn squat is another option. I would not use this movement myself (aside for getting
video views on Instagram), but it was invented many years ago because racks were
unavailable. It’s probably the best way to maximize the load you can achieve on a barbell back
squat without a rack of some sort.
Martins Licis (2019 World’s Strongest Man) doing a Steinborn squat with 555 lbs (252 kgs)
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BENTOVER PRESS? TURKISH GET UP?! BARBELL HIP THRUSTS?!!!!!
Seriously. If the Zercher deadlift, grave digger deadlifts, and the Steinborn squat weren’t all
weird enough, well, we still have Turkish get-ups, barbell hip thrusts, and bent presses! Still
excellent exercises, but goodness gracious! The number of uses for a barbell is absurd!
YOUTUBE: JUJIMUFU BENT PRESS – THE MANLIEST AB EXERCISE
We’re just talking about strength training uses too! What could you use a barbell and plates for
that have nothing to do with strength training? A doorstop? A coat rack? A barbell car?
If ever there was something to make a Swiss Army Knife, or even a modern cellphone, look like
it lacked in versatility, it’s the modern barbell and its plates. The options you have for building
strength are there if you have them (the barbell and plates that is!)
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GOING DOWN THE ROAD WITH YOUR BARBELL AND PLATES
You might be able to fit your bar and plates into your car (if you have a car).
If this is the case, then perhaps you can do what I’ve done: find abandoned, private cul-de-sacs
or parking lots, dump all your equipment out of your vehicle, blast some music and go wild
having a good time. Doing this has given me many views on Instagram because I was able to
make videos that were otherwise impossible in domestic or public gym settings. It’s also a
great way of getting an “untamed” workout in. You can go primal, scream, and make chalk
messes that you don’t have to clean up.
YOUTUBE: JUJIMUFU CUL-DE-SAC KING
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Also, you’d be surprised that even if people are present, they aren’t bothered by what you’re
doing. People know what barbells and rings are, they know you’re exercising, and for the most
part, they find acceptable behavior.
YOUTUBE: SUPERSETTING DEADLIFTS, BACKFLIPS, AND MUSCLE UPS!!!
In Appendix I, you can find barbell only routines, and a routine that combine barbell exercises
with ring exercises. In the next section, we’re going to discuss the third tool for the Almost
Naked Athlete: BIG EMPTY SPACES!
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TOOL #3 BIG EMPTY SPACES
The most minimal, primal, and functional exercise is sprinting for maximum speed. It’s highly
effective for body transformation and carries over well to most things athletic. The easiest way
to measure how fast you are is time and distance. Everybody has immediate access to time
measuring tools, but distance requires space: preferably big empty spaces. Big empty spaces
are found and sometimes earned. And boy, do I have some stories to tell...
When I was young and focused almost exclusively on improving my tricking skills (flip, twist,
and kick moves I do: it’s called tricking), finding gymnastics gyms with open gym time was
hard. It still is hard! Most gymnastics gyms won’t let you train unless you’re enrolled in their
group classes. If they do have open gym times, it’s usually an inconvenient time like Thursday
at 9 pm. I mean, I go to bed at 11 pm, and I don’t train without taking pre-workout stimulants.
This just doesn’t work for me.
Because of these limitations, I would always be on the lookout for big empty spaces with grass,
because practicing skills on grass is the next best thing to plyo floor in gymnastics gyms. This is
where detail orientation played advantageously for me. Training was the most important thing
to me, there was nothing worse for me than getting kicked off of a field, or showing up to use a
field I regularly used and finding tons of kids playing soccer on it. I learned quite a few tricks
during these years in how to be skilled at finding big empty spaces.
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HOW TO FIND BIG EMPTY SPACES
Before you even have a use for a space in mind, I recommend you go ahead and find some! I
believe that once you have discovered accessible spaces, you will later find uses for them. This
is sort of like putting the cart before the horse, but in this case, it works.
First, you can search on a Maps App, “field near me” or “park near me” or “playground near
me” or “track near me” and other variants. Visit them and look around. Check out the space
and the quality of the grass or concrete. See how many people are there. Note the time of day
and day of the week! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!
For example, schools are fantastic places to find fields, tracks, and playgrounds. During the
school year, you will get kicked off the campus if you’re there while students are in class (unless
it’s a college, then you’re probably safe). However, on the weekends, these places are usually
empty and open to the public. The grounds are also often maintained by landscaping crews, so
the grass and concrete are nice and clean. I used school spaces more than almost any other
spaces! I’ve used marinas too! And church lots! And factories with lawns!
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My favorite field ever was part of a motherboard manufacturing plant in my hometown of
Huntsville, Alabama. For almost 8 years, when that plant was empty on the weekends, I would
go use it to train my acrobatics, stretch, or film tutorial videos! However, during the week, I got
kicked off by security!
Huntsville, AL – This spot has my spirit - 34.591666, -86.569539
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Churches can work too. While I’ve been kicked off of some church lawns for training on them,
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the clergy of others. I’ll never forget that day I thought I would
get kicked off another field I’d grown attached to (again!) when a guy came walking out from
the church toward me. He was the pastor there and told me to stay hydrated. He handed me a
bottle of water, and just wanted to say hi. Then he left. No strings attached, nothing but a kind,
selfless act that I’ve never forgotten.
Maybe you want a place to lift weights and need asphalt or concrete? Finding a place for this
purpose requires a little more “aimless driving” around. While living in Birmingham, Alabama, I
found a parking lot secluded behind some local university-owned science building.
Birmingham, AL - Try here - 33.430038, -86.889161
It was abandoned! But, apparently, they still paid for landscaping. Perhaps that “landscaping
service” was a line item on an accounts list the University overlooked!? Regardless, I filmed A
LOT of videos in that parking lot and had a lot of good training sessions both for tricking and
lifting weights, because the grass was always maintained. How did I find this place? I just
noticed there was nobody ever at this building I kept driving by, so I got to snooping around it
and began training in the back.
I can go on and on about my experiences with finding big empty spaces, but the important
thing is that you first find your own big empty spaces, even when you don’t have a use for them
yet.
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ONCE YOU FIND A BIG EMPTY SPACE
Once you find a space, you need to keep track of the times of day you go and what days of the
week you’re going. Note any holidays or special calendar events. You know that meme about
the guy that takes a bunch of pre-workout supps before heading to the gym, and then gets
there, and it’s closed? Yeah. That’s the feeling you’re going to get when you load up your car
full of strength training equipment and go to your favorite park, and they’re having a Memorial
Day celebration or something. Pay attention to these things, so you don’t get caught off guard.
Some of the worst times I’ve had with my training life were driving around for an hour looking
for another big empty space to train at when the one I was planning on going to was occupied
or unavailable. Once you find a space, you also need to find another space! Two big empty
spaces that you know are better than one.
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WHAT TO TRAIN IN A BIG EMPTY SPACE
Aside from the freedoms mentioned above of training untamed, you can also train speed drills
such as sprints, shuffles, skips, etc. You can do jumping exercises, or play with skills like
cartwheels or rolls. You can throw heavy things for distance. You can stretch kick up and down
the field. You can run in circles (barefoot probably). Space is a really valuable training tool. It’s
out there, it costs nothing, and all you have to do is put in the work to find it and know its
schedules.
Training outside in sunlight also gives you some of the best lighting for muscularity!
As mentioned before, most of these spaces are friendly, convenient, and advantageous for
doing gymnastics rings training because many of them have places to mount rings. This goes
for barbell training too (parking lot lunges anyone)?! Big empty spaces tie everything together
for the Almost Naked athlete. They add color and life to training that otherwise could feel
indefinitely awkward and stifled in a tiny bedroom. I worked out in my apartment dining room
for almost 3 years, a 150 square foot space, and at least 2-3 times a month, I’d take my
equipment out with me into a bigger space! I needed to do this not only to overcome space
limitations of some of the exercises I wanted to do but also to make a bunch of noise and feel
free and alive! You want to find and know big empty spaces!
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Now that you know the three tools for Almost Naked training, you need to know how to put
them together. There are stock routines in APPENDIX I to get started with a workout
immediately. Later in APPENDIX II, I provide some basic weekly programming structures to
plan ahead.
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APPENDIX I STOCK ROUTINES
Here I’ve provided 5 routines I’ve used and approved. I’ve included the following:
2 Ring only routines
2 Barbell only routines
1 Ring + Barbell routine
A DISCLAIMER is necessary to accommodate expectations: These are routines I have used or
would use. I do not create routines or programs I wouldn’t use myself. I sometimes suggest
exercises and options that I wouldn’t use myself (hack deadlift, Steinborn squat, etc.), but I do
not give routines and programs I wouldn’t use myself. Why? Because exercises don’t promise
results, that’s up to your genius in how to implement them. There is almost always a way to
make goofy exercises work! Routines, on the other hand, inherently promise results, and a bad
routine is less amenable to success based on the user’s will and experience. The bottom line is
I’m not going to tell you to do a routine I wouldn’t believe in myself. The routines detailed
below I still use for upper body strength, athleticism, and aesthetics.
There is no direct leg work in the routines except with deadlifts. This is based on my experience
training the Almost Naked way during 2012. I did not do any squats or have “leg day.” I trained
the Jujimufu Original Ring Routine, the Jujimufu Deadlift Routine, and then practiced my
acrobatic tricking in Big Empty Spaces. Any leg work I got was from jumping, kicking, flipping,
or deadlifting. My legs were not as big as they are now, but that wasn’t my goal. My goal was
to have better tricks and to have good aesthetics through strength. It was one of my best
forms.
YOUTUBE: JUJIMUFU, STILL! (2012 training compilation)
There is no leg routine here because I would not do one myself with the limitations of only
having rings and a barbell. If your goal is to grow big legs or become a powerful squatter,
you’re going to need to expand your toolbox. Start by getting a squat stand to go with your
barbell and plates.
However, when I train upper body I have, and always will use rings despite having several chest
and back machines in my gym, and a cable stack with every attachment imaginable. The rings
are still a competitive and relevant training modality for my goals. And I still like doing ring only
routines so I can enter “Ring Nirvana.” Same with a barbell: sometimes, I just want to do some
deadlifts, barbell rows, and overhead presses. These are still superior exercises today, with
great “bang for your buck,” and they stack very easily and effectively into a routine
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READING THE ROUTINES
(ALL ROUTINES ARE IN APPENDIX II)
EXERCISE GROUPING AND ORDER
Exercises are done in the order they are listed. They will be grouped as well.
A1. Exercise 1. 2 sets.
A2. Exercise 2. 2 sets.
B1. Exercise 3.
C1. Exercise 4.
In this case, you will do a set of Exercise 1, rest, and then a set of Exercise 2. You will then go
back to Exercise 1 and do another set, and then another set of Exercise 2. You will finish all sets
of exercises grouped (A1 and A2) before moving onto B1, C1, etc. You complete all sets of any
exercise grouped by letter before moving onto the next.
Some exercises in this program are SUPERSETTED: This means you will not rest between
them.
I will, from time to time, recommend the amount of rest you should have between exercises.
Use a timer to get it right. If I don’t mention the rest period, assume it’s approximately 3-5
minutes between sets.
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TWO WAYS TO USE RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion)
METHOD #1 – Effort quantified
3 sets of 5 with an RPE of 9. This means you will do 3 sets of 5 with a WEIGHT that you could
have done 6 times but no more. How did I get that number? RPE 10-9 = 1. That means RPE 9 =
1 rep in reserve. So 5 reps + 1 rep in reserve = you could’ve done 6 reps but no more.
RPE 10 = could have done no more reps. Anything to failure is RPE 10.
RPE 9 = could have done only 1 more rep.
RPE 8 = could have done just 2 more reps.
RPE 7 = could have done about 3 more reps.
Etc
Sometimes it’s hard to get the RPE correct with Method 1, you could have a difficult time
finding the right amount of weight because how we feel changes every day. Therefore, you
could use Method 2 instead:
METHOD #2 – Effort perceived
RPE can be used to rate how you felt about the exertion. Where RPE10 would be the absolute
hardest effort you could muster, any RPE less than that would be less and less difficult for you.
So, if you are doing box jumps with RPE10, that means it’s the hardest box jump you could do.
RPE9 would mean you could have jumped only a little higher. RPE8 means it was hard, but you
were not in any doubt or worried. This method of using RPE works for all exercises, whereas
Method 1 only works for some. Use either or both but use at least one when it’s called for in the
program.
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JUJIMUFU ORIGINAL RING ROUTINE
March 2012, I sprained my ankle tricking. I couldn’t jump right for 6 months. I learned a lot
from that injury, so much that many of the lessons I learned from it inspired my book
Overcoming Training Injuries (www.jujimufu.com/injury).
My Grade II Ankle Sprain. I sprained it mis landing a cheat 900 double kick.
While I was recovering from the injury, I overloaded on ring training. During July of that year, I
trained them almost every other day with this routine! The routine is based on the ring muscle
up, so if you want to try it out for yourself, you need to be either capable of ring muscle ups or
have already been training them and have become familiar with the prerequisite exercises.
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THE ROUTINE
This routine will take approximately 45-60 minutes, not counting the time it takes you to warm
up for the muscle up (which is the first exercise). When I was 26 years old, I could do this
routine in less than an hour, including the warmup. Now that I’m 34 and have more body mass,
it takes me about 90 minutes to do the full routine because the warmup takes much longer.
WARMUP #1
Do the following exercises in any order you want, in any amount you wish to. I recommend at
least 10 minutes of off and on work with these movements. The goal is to progress from a
general warmup with these exercises to a specific warmup for the muscle up.
Dynamic arm swings
These are a panacea for elbow issues and can help with the later stages of rehabilitation of
bicep tendonitis. They’re also a great warm up for everything ring related! All you have to do is
swing your arms through maximal ranges of motion around and across your body. Up and
down, back and forth, front and back, side to side. It’s a very natural, primal motion that will
benefit quickly. Start slow. Take your time speeding up the movements to maximum speed!
Ring support
The prerequisite for all ring exercises where you are “above the rings,” the ring support isn’t
just a prerequisite, though; it’s a great exercise all in itself! I prefer hanging the rings higher for
supports, so I do not have to tuck my feet behind me to clear the ground; this is a total body
stabilization effort, so once you hop up onto the rings flex everything; your core, quads, glutes,
toes, etc. Keep your arms straight and supinate your palms, so they face out in front of you.
Push down on the rings to “support” the position.
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Inverted ring row with false grip
Hang your rings at a height between your abs and chest when you stand next to them. Grab
them and drop down facing the sky. Line up your shoulders directly underneath the rings.
Don’t let your butt sag (to do that, contract your butt, push your hips through, and push your
heels into the ground). In the starting position, your hands will be in the false grip position.
Entire articles and video series have been created to explain the false grip, so for more
information on the false grip, do a quick internet search.
Ring dips
You can start with concentric ring dips if you choose.
CLICK FOR VIDEO OF A CONCENTRIC RING DIP
Eventually, you will need to begin warming up the eccentric portion of the movement, even if
you’re not dipping back up in one motion. The eccentric portion of the ring dip is the hard part
of doing dips on the rings, so it’s going to be something you want to improve!
Ring stretches of your choice
Since the rings hang freely and have a multitude of angles and heights to work from, you can
dial into your exact needs. I encourage you to “just stretch” any way that feels right for YOU.
WARMUP #2
Muscle up specific warmup
After WARMUP #1, the general warmup, begin putting your intention into getting all the
pieces of a ring muscle up operating. Once it starts working, you can transition seamlessly into
the working sets.
CLICK FOR VIDEO OF MUSCLE UP GUIDANCE
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WORKING SETS
A1. Muscle ups – 30 minutes of focused effort
Set a timer for 30 minutes, and then begin focusing on quality sets with an RPE of 8. This
means that you are keeping roughly 2 reps “in the bank” every set. Don’t go to failure. If you
fail, that’s ok, but failing is different than “going to failure.” The best way to ensure success in
your efforts is to use a timer to strictly enforce rest sets of +3 minutes. If you can do muscle
ups, do a set with 1-2 reps left in the tank, then rest for AT LEAST 3 minutes. Continue until 30
minutes has passed. If you cannot do muscle ups, find a prerequisite drill, and focus on quality
efforts.
CLICK FOR VIDEO OF MUSCLE UP GUIDANCE
A1. Advanced static hold – optional
In between sets of these muscle ups, you can do as I did and try advanced static holds such as
levers, l-sits, planches, meat hooks, and even iron crosses. This is precisely how I got my iron
cross originally. I just tried it here and there in between sets of muscle ups. I brute-forced it
occasionally for months until it just happened.
B1. Muscle ups – 1 epic set to failure
Up to this point you’ve been conservative with RPE 8 sets; you were not going to failure! You
still have something left in you at this time. Now is the time to do a burnout. Get amped up on
a big whiff of ammonia smelling salts, turn up the volume of your current hype up song, yell an
explicative or two, and go to failure on 1 epic set of muscle ups. RPE10! You should be able to
do 2 or more reps than your highest rep set in A1.
C1. Auxiliary ring exercise of your choice - 3 sets to failure
Good options include chest flys, ring rows, ring dips, or supports. I usually opted for chest flys
because the other motions are stimulated in muscle ups (a row, dip, and support are all
involved in a muscle up). Do 3 sets of your choice to failure with at least 3 minutes of rest.
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DISCUSSION
This routine is a brief blaster. If it feels too short, you can add extra auxiliary exercises at the
end, or do it more frequently. In 2012 I trained this routine almost every other day for a large
stretch of the year. I put on 15 lbs of mass! Bodyweight exercises don’t build muscle? Horseshit.
Go hard, frequently on the rings and eat for muscle growth, you’ll see a change.
No gym, no problem! Just get me a pair of rings!
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RING ONLY PUSH/PULL HYPERTROPHY
The truth is, if size is the prize you're after, rings are a horrible choice. Yes, I did mention that I
put on muscle during the year I prioritized them. Still, muscle gain was a bonus, I was training
them specifically for strength and athletic carryover. This is why you won’t see any
recreational, amateur, or pro bodybuilders using rings for almost any reason. A pec fly machine
is a superior choice for growing chest mass compared to a pair of rings because you can focus
all your attention on the muscle, instead of struggling to perform the movement.
Still, if you’re going to train for hypertrophy Almost Naked with a bare-bones selection of
equipment, you will have to work with what you got. In this case, rings are what we got, (and a
barbell if you’re following the theme of this program). The rings have some key exercises that
you can do on them that you cannot do with a barbell. Later, I’ve provided a routine that
combines both rings and a barbell, but this one uses only the rings for the goal of gaining mass.
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THE ROUTINE
Look at most bodybuilding (hypertrophy) routines, and you will find they have more sets and
reps than most strength based training methodologies. They also have intensification methods
that take you “beyond failure.” I’ve found this style of training essential for maximizing muscle
growth. Thus, in this routine, the sets and reps of the ring exercises are higher. The exercises
are set up so that they are mechanically easier; this gets you focusing on the muscle working,
rather than struggling to perform the movement. The muscle groups are also done in a specific
sequence: PULL FIRST, PUSH SECOND.
WARMUP
A1. Hangs – 2 minutes total broken up into as many hangs as you want
Just hang from the rings and allow gravity to stretch you. You could do 12 sets of 10 seconds,
or 4 sets of 30 seconds, or the whole 2 minutes all at once. Do it however you like. I prefer using
straps so I can focus on the stretch, and not worry about my grip.
B1. Ring stretching of your choice – 3 sets of 1 minute of improvised stretching
Since the rings hang freely and have a multitude of angles and heights to work from, you can
dial into your exact needs. I encourage you to “just stretch” any way that feels right for YOU.
C1. Supports – 3 sets of up to 10 seconds per support
Hop up on the rings, elbows straight, palms forward, hands in, and maintain this position!
D1. Inverted rows – 3 sets of 25% of your repetition maximum
If the maximum number of inverted ring rows you can do is 20, you will be doing sets of 5. Do
the first set slow and smooth, and gradually increase the concentric speed of the row until it’s
explosive. Rest at least 1 minute between these sets.
C1. Ring pullups – 3 sets of 25% of your repetition maximum
If the maximum number of ring pull-ups you can do is 12, you will be doing sets of 3. Do the
first set slow and smooth, and gradually increase the concentric speed of the repetitions. Rest
at least 1 minute between sets.
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WORKING SETS (PART 1 – PULL)
A1. Ring pullups time attack – 12 minutes AMRAP
Set a timer for 12 minutes and do as many reps as you can broke up into as many sets as you
wish. The strategy you will want to use for this effort is to AVOID FAILURE on your sets. You
will be able to get more reps if you keep a few reps in the tank every set. As you close in on
your last 2 minutes, you can start hammering the pullups to failure “rest-pause” style; this
means you go to failure, wait a few seconds, and do another rep, and continue one or two reps
to failure until the full 12 minutes is up. Your goal is maximum # of reps and a pump. If you use
the strategy I outlined, you will achieve both.
B1. Inverted ring rows – 3 sets to failure
Hang your rings at a height between your abs and chest when you stand next to them. Grab
them and drop down facing the sky. Line up your shoulders directly underneath the rings.
Don’t let your butt sag (to do that, contract your butt, push your hips through, and push your
heels into the ground). In the starting position, your hands will be neutral or pronated. As you
row yourself up, turn your hands into a more supinated position; this increases the range of
motion and increases the exercise efficacy. This is easily one of my favorite back exercises - the
pumps, the carryover, the feeling - I love these. Go to failure on each set here. The number of
repetitions will decrease set to set. For example, when I did this routine, I did 20 reps the first
set, 15 the second set, and 12 the third set. Expect your repetitions to decrease set to set too.
Rest 4 minutes between sets.
C1. Scarecrows / Rear delt flys with rings – 3 sets to failure
CLICK FOR VIDEO EXAMPLE
This is one of my favorite rear delt exercises. I prefer doing it with a long pair of straps, but
rings work similarly. If possible, set the anchor point approximately 3 feet above your head
level. Any lower or higher, and it will be awkward. Move the rings anchor points (where the
straps wrap around whatever you have them hanging from) close together, so they are
touching. The rings should touch each other when they hang when you have them set
correctly. I prefer to have them hang at approximately waist height. Grab the rings, step back,
keep your feet together, lean back, and with your arms straightened pull your hands back, and
your body forward. It’s called a “scarecrow” because your arms are raised laterally to the side
like a scarecrow! Rest 3 minutes between sets.
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INTRA-WARMUP
Now that the pulling part of the workout is complete, it’s time to get ready for some chest flys
and pushing motions. Do this quick warmup to catch your breath and prime the muscles you
haven’t been using. Take your time, this intra-warmup also serves as a rest period extension.
A1. Concentric ring dips – 3 sets of 5 reps
CLICK FOR VIDEO OF A CONCENTRIC RING DIP
Start with your feet on the ground, get your shoulders, and elbows into a comfortable position
to dip. After you push up, drop back down to your feet quickly. Don’t dip back down.
B1. Ring pushups – 3 sets of 5-10 reps
Adjust the rings down until they nearly touch the ground. Get into a pushup position with your
hands grasping the rings. Ring pushups have quite a few “motion options” when you do them.
Explore the movement and do what feels productive.
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WORKING SETS (PART 2 – PUSH)
D1. Ring flys with a height you can do 12-16 reps – 3 sets to failure
Lower the rings to just above the ground. Step out past the ring’s anchor points to do your
repetitions to decrease the difficulty. Find the best position for sets of 12-16 reps to failure; do
3 sets in this rep range. Rest up to 5 minutes between sets.
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E1. Ring pushups with a height you can do 20 reps – 3 sets to failure
If you want to stimulate more chest, bow the rings out (almost like a half fly) during your
repetitions. If you want to get the triceps kicking, keep the rings closer to your body and try a
neutral grip (almost like a dip). Whatever variation of pushups you choose to do, set the rings
into a position where you can do approximately 20 reps to reach failure for that variation. Do 3
sets to failure with this rep approximation - 3 minutes of rest.
F1. Ring supports – 2 sets to failure
The ring support exercise stimulates your chest, and they’re a fantastic finisher for a ring
workout with motions like pushups and flys. Do 2 sets to failure (hold as long as you can). Rest
at least 3 minutes between your sets. Try to exceed your time on your 2nd set since you have a
target to shoot for after timing your 1st set!
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DISCUSSION
Since every ring exercise stimulates multiple muscle groups (ring exercises are super
compound exercises), it is challenging to apply supersets because you’re too exhausted
between exercises: the second exercise in a ring superset is always short-changed.
Because ring exercises are not conveniently loadable by added weight like free weight and
machine-based exercises, rings are mostly impervious to dropsets. To perform dropsets on
rings without added weight, you have to adjust the height of the rings to change leverages,
which is usually not quick enough to attain the purpose of a dropset.
Cheat reps? Pre-exhaust? Partials? Rings don’t really work with the wonderful intensification
methods that bodybuilders can use with machine and free weight training.
The best intensification method for rings is “rest-pause,” which is when you train to failure, rest
a few seconds, and do another rep, continually, until you've gone beyond failure. If you want to
continue using the rings for muscle growth, keep rest-pause in your toolbox of tricks; it’s about
all you have to intensify your sets.
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JUJIMUFU DEADLIFTING ROUTINE
If your equipment selection is limited to a barbell and a pair of rings, then the deadlift will
become one of your primary training focuses. So much so, that I’d recommend considering
incorporating a deadlift only workout into your weekly programming. This routine is a deadlift
only routine, and it was initially published on my website on May 1st, 2014. The original write
up can be found at: https://jujimufu.com/deadlifting-the-jujimufu-way/
I’ve also done a full YouTube video of this routine.
YOUTUBE: JUJIMUFU DEADLIFTING ROUTINE
Many specifics in the original routine are modified here in The Almost Naked Athlete to make
the routine more accessible, but the specifics that matter most are not modified.
WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT THIS ROUTINE?
This is a deadlifting workout that is designed to carry over to other athletic goals without
fatiguing you so much that it interferes with the practice of those athletics. If you always
program your deadlifting like a powerlifter, even though you’re not competing in powerlifting
and perhaps have other athletic goals, then you will run into troubles (nervous system fatigue
accumulation that hinders your other workouts). Deadlifting will toast you and can quickly
begin interfering with your other workouts if you get good at it. The better you are at
deadlifting, the worse this problem becomes. Why? Because a proficient deadlifter can
accumulate a significant amount of long-lasting fatigue from even one deadlifting training
session! A novice who is just not as strong at this movement, will not encounter this problem:
Who knew that deadlifting 3x your bodyweight was harder on your body than deadlifting 1.75x
your bodyweight? Jeeze, would’ve never guessed that! LOL! This routine takes this issue into
consideration with unique solutions.
Therefore, this routine isn’t as fatiguing as a typical “go heavy or die” deadlifting approach, you
can do more reps, more sets, and increase the frequency of your deadlifting. If your deadlifting
form needs improvement, this routine will help you accumulate more quality volume to clean it
up so you can get super-heavy again with improved technicals.
Follow the instructions carefully for this routine, because the details are very particular, and
they matter a lot to make it work correctly.
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THE ROUTINE
This deadlift routine takes about an hour to complete. No special warm up or accessory
exercises.
THE WARMUP
Notice I said no “special” warm up exercises. You still need to warmup! With what?
DEADLIFTS!
A1. Deadlifts (double overhand grip)
Load up the bar with approximately 30% of your reliable 1 rep max (not your PR – Personal
Record). My reliable 1 rep max is about 585 lbs, whereas my all time PR is 666 lbs. Deadlifting
my PR is a seasonal event that requires peaking hard. There is a great disparity between my PR
and what I can reliably deadlift throughout the year. I can pull 585 lbs most days of the week
during most months of the year. So, I would start with 175 lbs or less on the bar, which is about
30% of 585 lbs.
After the weight is loaded, do up to 5 sets of 3-8 repetitions. Treat this weight like it’s heavier
than it really is. No, really, step up to it and imagine you’re about to pull something that makes
you nervous without having warmed up. This is what good warm up sets are made of! It’s
essential you rest for at least 1-2 minutes between these warm up sets. I prefer to rest even
longer: up to 3 minutes.
B1. Deadlifts (double overhand grip)
After about 10-15 minutes doing A1. Deadlifts, begin loading more weight onto the bar.
Continue increasing the weight with generous weight jumps, but conservative repetitions. DO
NOT GO TO FAILURE! Do 1-5 reps per set and rest 2-3 minutes between sets until you’re at
your working weight of 70-80% of your reliable 1 rep max mixed/hook grip deadlift.
Remember, though, every deadlift you do in this routine is with the double overhand grip.
We’re only basing our percentages off of our mixed/hook grips; we're not using those grips.
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WORKING SETS
A1. Deadlifts (double overhand)
70-80% of your reliable 1 rep max mixed/hook grip
3-6 reps of 7-12 sets
Use the double overhand grip with no straps. Don't use a hook grip. You will notice this will
make your 70%-80% of your mixed grip max more difficult. Stop and go deadlifts only, this
means the weight rests when it comes back to the floor. Do not do touch and go, which would
be what you do when you lower the weight and bounce back up into another rep. 3-6 “stop and
go” repetitions for 7-12 sets at this weight will be “kinda” hard. Realistically you should have
about 4-5 reps in the tank on a top set somewhere in the middle of these sets. What I mean is,
you could probably go berserk and do +10 reps for one set, but then you’d be screwed and
wouldn’t be able to do the prescribed number of sets! But that’s neither here nor there, no top
sets today.
What’s going to make this hard is two things: 1) your grip strength will be given a challenge. 2)
your rest sets must be limited to 3:30. Okay, now we're’ talking! Yep, on set #8, you’re going to
wonder if you want to go to 12 sets!
I’d recommend terminating each set when your rep quality drops so you can get more quality
work and sets. If you can’t even get 3 reps after your third set, you went too heavy. I’d
recommend first increasing the rest period to see if that solves the problem. If that doesn’t
solve the problem, then you’re going to have to lower the weight so you can get at least 3
repetitions on your sets.
Finally, I recommend using bumper plates so you can minimize the eccentric portion of the lift.
With bumpers, you can fall from the top and let the weight hit the floor hard. Gently touching
the weight back to the floor with iron plate weights is fatiguing and unnecessary, in my
opinion, for athletic carryover, so preferentially use bumper plates.
A2. That’s it!
That’s it. After all these deadlifts, you are done. No accessories!
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DISCUSSION
Dialing in the specifics of this routine can take a few tries, but once you get it right, you’ll know.
Pay attention to the rest period, the amount of chalk you use (use a lot of chalk!), and how
you’re doing the movement. When you deadlift this way, you’ll find you usually have a little
more in you than you think you do.
This is a very refreshing way of deadlifting. You’ll get stronger on the lift and begin to love the
lift again if you’ve been hating it because your expectations are capped by your grip and 80%
max load. You’ll feel good the next day, and you’ll have resources to put towards other things
you need to train. Also, you can do this routine up to 3 times per week if you want! I have, and
the results were wonderful.
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DEADLIFTS AND OVERHEAD PRESS
This routine has a more conventional approach to programming the deadlift than the Jujimufu
Deadlifting Routine. You will have time to get another exercise in the cue. What should we do
with our spare time? Overhead press. The overhead press simply rules. It is a whole-body
strengthener, carries over to athletics wonderfully, and will blow your shoulders up. I love it, I
always have, and I’ve always done a lot of it.
With such a simple selection, you might wonder if this is like “Crossfit?” It’s not. This is heavier
work, does not include complexes based on modified Olympic lifts, and the rest periods are
long. Typical CrossFit workouts are 15-45 minutes. This workout will take you about 90
minutes.
There have been periods of my life where all my workouts were 1-3 compound exercises tops,
with seemingly no accessories or high rep sets. Try it today, try it tomorrow, try it another day
this week and see if this simplified form of strength training is right for you.
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THE ROUTINE
In this routine, you have a brutal top set on the deadlift, and on the shoulder press you’ll be
push pressing your way beyond failure to the finishing line. This is the epitome of making the
most out of the humble barbell. I would do this particular workout no more than 3 times per
month myself.
WARMUP
Like the Jujimufu Deadlifting Routine, we’re going to keep the warm up simple.
A1. Deadlifts with mixed grip, hook grip, or straps
Load up the bar with approximately 30% of your reliable 1 rep max (not your PR – Personal
Record). My reliable 1 rep max is about 585 lbs, whereas my all time PR is 666 lbs. Deadlifting
my PR is a seasonal event that requires peaking hard. There is a great disparity between my PR
and what I can reliably deadlift throughout the year. I can pull 585 lbs most days of the week
during most months of the year. So, I would start with 175 lbs or less on the bar, which is about
30% of 585 lbs.
After the weight is loaded, do up to 5 sets of 3-8 repetitions. Treat this weight like it’s heavier
than it really is. No, really, step up to it and imagine you’re about to pull something that makes
you nervous without having warmed up. This is what good warm up sets are made of! It’s
essential you rest for at least 1-2 minutes between these warm up sets. I prefer to rest even
longer: up to 3 minutes.
After several sets with your first weight, begin making weight jumps. Continue increasing the
weight with generous weight jumps, but conservative repetitions. DO NOT GO TO FAILURE!
Do 1-5 reps per set and rest 2-3 minutes between sets until you’re doing single reps between
90%-95% of your reliable 1 rep max.
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WORKING SETS
A1. Deadlift top set with mixed grip, hook grip, or straps – 1 set
A top set in powerlifting is the first (and often only) working set of your workout, and it is so
challenging you can’t do it more than once. Your warm up prepares you for it, and now it’s time
to do it.
Get to a heavy weight you would typically do something like heavy 3x3 or 5x3 with. Okay, now
do that weight like.. 8 times or something crazy like that! Blow your load. Puke. Cry. Lay down
and look at the sky. This set is so intense you will need 10 minutes for your voice to recover so
you can talk at a normal decibel level. If you can do this set twice, you didn’t push it hard
enough. These are the sets you post on Instagram. These are the sets people invented
ammonia smelling salts for - turn up the music volume level so high only for this 1 minute
because otherwise, someone will call the police!
Top sets are how people get away with training an exercise or strength movement only once a
week. It’s pretty much the opposite of the approach I outlined in the Jujimufu Deadlifting
Routine. Now that you’re done with this 1 set, we’re going to deadlift some more!
B1. Deadlift back off sets – 3 sets of 85% of your top set for 5 reps
Before doing this, rest up to 10 minutes after your top set. Now, take 85% of your top set, not
the 1 rep max you used to calculate your top set. So, if your reliable, “everyday 1 rep max” for
deadlift was 585 lbs, your top set was 555 for 8+ reps, then your back off sets would be 85% of
555 lbs, or about 470 lbs. Do 3 sets of 5 with this. Rest up to 5 minutes between these sets.
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C1. Strict barbell shoulder press intra-warmup – 3 sets of <5 reps at 40-50% of your max
Now it’s time to strip the weight on the barbell down to about 40-50% of your standing
shoulder press max. Begin picking it up, cleaning it to your shoulders, and doing warm up sets
of less than 5 reps. Rest and catch your breath between these sets, because you’ll still be tired
from deadlifts. By the time you start your first working set, you’ll be ok.
D1. Strict barbell shoulder press – 2 sets to failure with approximately 70% of your max
These are strict presses. Isolate the push without using leg drive! With this weight, you should
be able to do roughly 10 reps on your first set. On the 2nd set, you will not be able to do as
many reps as the first set because you’ll be fatigued. Rest 5 minutes between these sets and
before the next exercise.
E1. Barbell shoulder press – 1 set to failure followed immediately by push presses
This is the last set of the workout. It’s the same thing as D1, except when you can’t do any
more strict reps, you’re going to start using leg drive to “push press” the weight overhead. You
should be able to achieve an extra 3 reps at least using this method. Go all out! Remember to
keep your glutes engaged and your core tight to protect your lower back!
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DISCUSSION
This type of training will increase strength and work capacity, and help break down mental
barriers for both beginners and advanced athletes. However, in the long term, everyone will
need to cycle in more accessory work to shore up weak points. Everyone has weak points, and
everyone is at any given time, developing them if they aren’t working to prevent them. You
can achieve balance by implementing routines like this with accessory work and programming
periodization in the long term: both of which can be facilitated by getting a gym membership
or acquiring more equipment to meet these needs.
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BARBELL AND RING POWER PUSH/PULL
Finally, we can get to a routine that combines both the rings and the barbell! This multiplies
the possibilities of what you can do. This routine incorporates strength training influence into
specific exercise selections in the workout, but then will switch to hypertrophy focused
exercise selections and programming. The routine starts with pulling exercises and ends with
pushing exercises. The focus is kept on the upper body.
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THE ROUTINE
This routine, like the Ring only push/pull hypertrophy workout, starts with pulling and ends
with pushing. The reason that workout and this one are sequenced in that way is because
pushing work always benefits from prior posterior chain activation, whereas the reverse is not
always true. Try it yourself: get a lat pump and do some bench press: you will feel some power
happening. Do some bench press and then do some heavy rows: nothing. This is based on my
own experience and has been confirmed with everyone I’ve ever trained with.
THE WARMUP
A1. Ring hangs 3 sets of 30 seconds
You can use wrist straps if you wish to save your grip. I do not want your grip getting taxed
before the workout begins. Hang and stretch out your spine, lats, and shoulders.
B1. Ring support 3 sets of up to 10 seconds
Keep your arms straight and supinate your palms, so they face out in front of you. Push down
on the rings to “support” the position.
B2. Inverted ring rows 3 sets of 25% of your repetition max
Hang your rings at a height between your abs and chest when you stand next to them. Grab
them and drop down facing the sky. Line up your shoulders directly underneath the rings.
Don’t let your butt sag (to do that, contract your butt, push your hips through, and push your
heels into the ground). In the starting position, your hands will be neutral or pronated. As you
row yourself up, turn your hands into a more supinated position; this increases the range of
motion and increases the exercise efficacy.
B3. Pushups 3 sets of up to 10 reps
Wow! Pushups!
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C1. Bentover barbell row with pronated grip
This is your warm up for your first working set of the work out. Grab slightly wider than your
conventional deadlift grip. Pronated grip means your palms face down. Bend down, keep your
back flat, slight bend in the knees, and row the barbell up to right around your belly button or
below it.
WORKING SETS (PART 1 – PULL)
A1. Bentover barbell row with pronated grip - 2 sets of 6-8 reps
These are meant to be done with heavy weight. You may use a little “Body English”
(momentum) to get the weight up. These are borderline “cheat rows.” DO NOT touch the
ground with the weight between reps, let it drop to right above the floor, pause, and then do
your next repetition. This will be hard work to keep it from touching the ground between reps.
Rest 5 minutes between sets.
B1. Bentover barbell row with underhand grip – 2 sets of 12-18 reps
Now that we’re done stroking our ego (and hopefully maximizing strength gains), it’s time to
switch to the bodybuilder version of this exercise. Whereas the pronated grip has better
carryover to athletics, in my opinion, the underhanded (supinated) grip is superior for really
tapping into a hypertrophy response. You may want to narrow your grip a smidge compared to
the pronated grip version. Reduce the weight so you can achieve 12-18 full repetitions. On
these repetitions, do not pause at the bottom near the floor, keep the weight pumping up and
down. If anything, pause at the TOP of the movement at the full contraction. If you do these
correctly, you will get a back pump. Rest 4 minutes between sets.
C1. Inverted ring row – 3 sets to failure
Hang your rings at a height between your abs and chest when you stand next to them. Grab
them and drop down facing the sky. Line up your shoulders directly underneath the rings.
Don’t let your butt sag (to do that, contract your butt, push your hips through, and push your
heels into the ground). In the starting position, your hands will be neutral or pronated. As you
row yourself up, turn your hands into a more supinated position; this increases the range of
motion and increases the exercise efficacy. This is easily one of my favorite back exercises - the
pumps, the carryover, the feeling - I love these. Go to failure on each set here. The number of
repetitions will decrease set to set. For example, on your first set if you manage 10 reps, you
probably won’t manage 10 reps again on your second set. Rest 3-4 minutes between sets.
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INTRA-WARMUP (10 minutes total)
Set a timer for 10 minutes and cycle between these exercises. Keep both the weight and the
reps low at first and begin ramping it up as your 10 minutes begins to end.
A1. Ring flys
Set the height of the rings, and position yourself in a way where the leveraging gives you the
ability to do a few reps easily. Don’t approach failure. We’re just warming up!
A2. Barbell shoulder press
I like to warm up with about 40% of my 1 rep max on this. Whatever weight is comfortable for
you, load it on, clean that weight to your shoulders, and start strict pressing it overhead. Don’t
do too many reps, save some energy! We’re just warming up!
WORKING SETS (PART 2 – PUSH)
D1. Ring flys – 3 sets with 6-10 reps reaching failure
Set the height of the rings and position yourself in a way where the leveraging allows you to
complete at least 6 reps, but no more than 10 clean reps on your first set. There are ways to
manipulate the resistance so the exercise is easier, which include stepping out past the rings,
so your shoulders are not directly underneath the anchor point, and raising the rings a little
higher than directly above the ground (not too high or the exercise motion won’t work
correctly). To make it harder, set your feet up on a chair, so your head is lower than your feet
when you fly. Successive sets will have fewer reps as you fatigue. Rest 4 minutes between sets.
E1. Barbell shoulder press – 2 sets with 10-14 reps reaching failure
To achieve this rep range, you’ll likely be at about 70% of your max. Go to failure with it. Rest 4
minutes between these and the ring dips.
E2. Ring dips – 2 sets to failure with just your bodyweight
By this point, you’ll be pretty tired. This exercise is going to get the “shit end of the stick,” as
the saying goes. You won’t be able to do very well on it, but that’s what happens when you put
yet another compound exercise at the end of a workout that consisted of almost nothing but
compound exercises. When I did this routine, I was at about 50% rep capacity on these dips. If
you have trouble doing ring dips, you might consider concentric only ring dips or chair ring dips
with your feet resting on a chair in front. Or a band to support you and accommodate the
resistance. Rest 4 minutes between these and the barbell shoulder presses.
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DISCUSSION
This routine can be unforgiving. It’s just a bunch of hard compound movements, so would you
expect it to be easy? I wouldn’t. When you create your own ring + barbell routines, you will run
into difficulties coming up with functional routines. Yes, I did say that combining the ring
exercises and barbell exercises multiplies the possibilities of using either alone, but it was a lie.
LOL. The reality is, all ring exercises are hard, and most barbell exercises you would do without
benches, racks, and stands are also hard. All compound exercises, in general, are hard. When
you are limited to hard exercises, there is only so much you can do with routine construction.
Still, if you’re trying hard on the exercises that are inherently hard, you’re going to get
somewhere. This is where routine simplicity is key, because if you try to complicate a routine
with nothing but hard exercises, you can create trouble. Simple does not mean easy. You will
need to be serious about adhering to proper rest periods. Note that every rest period for every
exercise in this routine was well thought out and trialed by me and others. Without the proper
amount of rest, your reps will suffer from lack of recovery between sets. With too much rest,
the routine will drag on and you’ll run out of steam when you enter the last exercise or two.
Don’t get distracted by your phone. Breathe! Get the parameters right!
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BONUS! THE LITVINOV WORKOUT!
This one is not my own. I’m referencing one of my favorite workout articles ever written. The
URL is here:
https://www.t-nation.com/training/litvinov-workout
To quote Dan John, the author of the article:
“It's truly a simple workout. Litvinov, a 5' 10", 196-pound hammer thrower, did the
following training session:
Eight reps of front squats with 405 pounds, immediately followed by a 75-second 400meter run. Repeat this little combination for a total of three times and go home.”
Read it a few more times to let it sink in. It’s incredible. It’s simple. And it’s almost unbelievable
that anyone could do this. This was back in the early 1980s too! To emulate this workout, you
would drag some squat stands out to a 400-meter track, front squat for high reps, and then
sprint the 400 meters. You just need weights and a big open space! Okay, wait a sec! Can you
imagine running 400 meters as fast as possible after front squatting that much?! If there were
ever a training effort that would make you puke your guts out, that would be it.
I don’t know about you, but the Litvinov workout inspires me. As of writing this, it’s on my
bucket list.
A1. Front squats – 3 sets of 8 reps RPE9-10 (right up to failure)
A2. 400 meter sprint – 3 sets as fast as possible
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APPENDIX II ALMOST NAKED PROGRAMMING GUIDANCE
I want to introduce you to two overlooked, underestimated, old-school tried and true
programming methods that work exceedingly well for the intensive, compound exercise
training routines presented here. They fit right in with the Almost Naked approach.
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PROGRAMMING METHOD #1 – Every Other Day (EOD)
The most common type of training questions any successful athlete will get is “How many days
a week do you train? How long do you train?” Most powerlifters and strongmen I know train 4
days per week for 2-3 hours at a time. Most bodybuilders I know train 4-5 days per week for 2-3
hours at a time (not including cardio). I know highly technical athletes like rock climbers, ninjas,
and movement specialists like trampoline athletes who train for longer sessions, such as up to
6-8 hours a day. Their skills take an extraordinary amount of “low-level learning time” – stuff
that’s kind of like learning to juggle balls: it isn’t as tiring as power moves, but it takes more
actual practice time. Depending on where these technical athletes are in their career dictates
how many days these technical athletes devote to training.
I know the best in the world in various sports, and these are my own observations. Yes, there
are many more sports, many more examples, and many outliers, but these are the trends I
noticed. The time spent “training” depends on the training type, as well as the age of the
athlete and where they currently are in their evolution. Yes! Training frequency, amounts,
modalities, philosophies blah blah blah all must change to accommodate where an athlete is in
their development! Younger athletes can get away with more frequent training. They need
more frequent training to become the best! Gymnastics is a great place to find this happening:
older competitive gymnasts train less volume and less frequently than younger, up-andcomers. Yet, in their youth, they trained like these younger athletes themselves! Where you
are in your training lifetime changes “how much” training is best. Seasons, setbacks, you name
it! The sum amount is highly variable! The same athlete’s answers to “how many days, how
much time, how many reps/sets” changes month by month, year by year.
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In my youth, I could trick “hard” 3 days a week, and that was the frequency I made the most
progress with. Also, I made more progress cycling in periods where I did only that (no weight
training). Now, my optimal frequency is tricking “hard” every 5th day. I cannot do it 3 days a
week anymore, even if it was all I did: I’m older and heavier.
The other part to consider is that as you get more skilled, you can cause an enormous amount
of fatigue from 1 training session. Yes, fucking up your body with hard training is something
you get better at with time. This means you might train less often as you get better! The
strongest I have ever gotten in my life was doing a powerlifting program with 4 workouts per
week and 3 full rest days with no other training types. The most muscular and best I’ve ever
looked was training 5 days per week on average with a basic bodybuilding split with tons of
isolation work.
Now that we’ve looked at differences between everyone and everything, we’re going to look
for similarities, because that’s where our best answer is likely going to be.
The one thing all the best athletes have in common, including me, is that they DO NOT train
every day. I did that for my entire year of 2018, and it was the worst training experiment I’ve
run. I wrote a book about it called Train365: www.jujimufu.com/train365. Every successful
athlete will gravitate towards taking at least 1-2 full days off per week by default. Notice, I said,
“at least.” That’s a minimum! And notice, I said, “by default.” This does not mean there aren’t
periods of the year where they don’t train every day for a week straight. HOWEVER, we are
talking about defaults for the ELITE: Athlete’s gifted with a capacity to endure superhuman
amounts of anything in their sport.
Do you really think it’s smart to base what you do precisely off of them? It’s more worthwhile
to compare your needs to those doing the same thing. It's a bad idea to look to a tri-athlete or
a pro bodybuilder for training frequency answers when you are a recreational fitness enthusiast
looking to get stronger and build muscle with a pair of rings and a barbell with weight in your
garage. Keep it relative.
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The word “training” and what counts as “training” is also a very annoying thing we can’t
overlook. That’s the elephant in the room. Does warm up time count? How about pre-warm up
warm ups? How about activation work? Walking on a treadmill after meals? Rowing for 10
minutes on a rowing machine on your off day in between bouts of answering e-mails?! If you’re
interested in exploring the meaning of training (what even counts as training?) and the
frequency, volume, intensity, and mindset that goes into “how much” of it – then my book
Train365 is a must because it’s 100s of pages of me agonizing over this question while enduring
the crisis that was training for 365 days in a row!
I think there is an enormous benefit in retooling your curiosity for training frequency from a
model of inspiration and emulation (how much did Arnold train?! That much! OK ME TOO
LOLOLOL!) to determining what’s THE LEAST amount of “training” you can get away with
while still improving. Everyone is always piling on more and more stuff. Why? Figure out how
little you can get away with to even get results, build off of that!!! It’s easier to add more later
than to overcome injury or burn out!
Instead of wondering “how often do we do this stuff,” we need to ask, “what’s the least often I
can do of this stuff to see gains?” We do not know the answer to that question, but I am
confident I know the best starting point. For the type of strength, hypertrophy, skill training
in The Almost Naked Athlete, the best starting point for programming this type of training is to
train EVERY OTHER DAY (EOD).
EOD is amazing. It’s the best overall. It’s my favorite. I always gravitate back to it, and I often
reflect on why I changed things and didn’t stick with it longer? It’s near and dear to my heart,
and I've had so much success with it. It will also help you strike a balance between training and
life. It’s also the closest thing to an average training amount between the athletes we
previously considered.
Here’s how you know EOD is working. You look forward to training, and you can typically train
over 2 hours at a time. Then you look forward to taking the following day off, working on other
projects important to you, refueling with healthy meals, having time to make food in advance,
napping, ice bathing, and relaxing. Then, when you’re recovered, you can go back and train
hard again for hours, picking up where you left off! You rarely dread training, you look forward
to it, as you also always look forward to your day off! Since the other is always right around the
corner (literally, every other day), you end up pretty damn happy.
EOD doesn’t work forever, though. And that’s why we need one more programming method
to round it out: the back off week.
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PROGRAMMING METHOD #2 – BACK OFF WEEK
Fatigue masks fitness, and any of us who train regularly accumulate fatigue over time. It’s
impossible not to accumulate fatigue. You can manipulate volume/intensity/frequency, rotate
exercises, and muck around with percentages and RPEs all you want. Still, none of that is going
to prevent fatigue accumulation for those who train regularly. If we never eliminate this
accumulated fatigue, we end up spinning our wheels and never actualizing our true skill level.
Or we go through a slump! If there is a significant amount of fatigue accumulated, we’re
eventually forced to take time off: we get sick, develop an overuse injury, or even a trauma
injury.
Our intuitive responses to the warning signs of accumulated fatigue are 1) Sprinkle an
additional day off here and there, 2) Try to work through it, or 3) Change the way we train but
continue training hard while blaming the type of training we’ve been doing as the “wrong”
thing or something.
None of these responses to accumulated fatigue fix the problem because they do not respect
the cyclic nature of everything we do. Recovery from training isn’t merely based on 24-hour
cycles or 3-7 day microcycles; for intermediate and advanced athletes, recovery is also based
on mesocycles and macrocycles of weeks to months or more! This is why just taking an extra
day off doesn’t do jack shit if you’ve been training regularly for more than a couple years. Why
do most professional athletes have off SEASONS!? Entire SEASONS where everything is
flipped around and turned upside down. There is a reason for that!
We want to control these cycles and give our bodies the chance to remove the long term
accumulated fatigue baggage and actualize the hard work we do. The best way to do it is by
giving it a consolidated period where the training load is reduced: a week off (also called a
deload).
It doesn’t have to be a week exactly. I recommend 5-15 days. And it doesn’t have to be
completely off: you can still train with a reduced workload as an option, or you can do nothing.
I suggest you try different ways of deloading, so you have an experience bank to use for future
deloads. Deloading is something you need to get used to doing, and something you need to
perfect. I can’t imagine not doing it myself now, especially after training everyday of the year in
2018!
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BACK OFF WEEK WITH WORK LOAD REDUCTION (RELOAD)
Some have nicknamed this method “reloading” - Some people like this style of deload because
it stimulates active recovery processes and keeps you in the habit of showing up and putting in
work. Here's how to do it: cut the volume and intensity down to 60% on all exercises except
your warm up exercises for your training sessions. If you've been deadlifting 5 sets of 3 reps of
200 kgs for your workouts, during your deload week, you will do 3 sets of 2 reps with 120 kgs
instead. Pretty easy math. The workouts feel comfortable and pointless. For skill-based
training, you would do what you usually would do to work up to your top skills, but then you
just stop and leave. The warm ups you do for your training is all you do for the entire reload. If
it feels weird to do that, it's because it's supposed to feel weird.
For a novice who has difficulties maintaining a training habit consistently week to week, the
reload is a good strategy for deloading. Because for these individuals, the "training habit"
needs to continue getting stronger. This style of deload is also typically the only one
competitive athletes use. It's critical these athletes do not "check out" mentally the week or
two before a competition. Meanwhile, they still need to remove their accumulated fatigue to
reveal all the hard work they've done preparing for the competition. The reload keeps them
vigilant before the competition while allowing their body to fully recover.
Overall, I find this type of deload tough to do correctly for non-competitive intermediate and
elite athletes, especially if these individuals do not have coaches guiding them through optimal
reductions. Since they're much more likely to incur significant amounts of fatigue from a single
training session compared to a novice, it's easy for them to get overzealous and overdo it. They
can ruin an entire deload with one workout or even one set! What was supposed to be 60%
intensity can turn into “oh man I feel great let’s PR!” and then the entire deload gets trashed.
Unless I have an actual competition coming up, I rarely use this style of deloading. Being able
to mentally “check out” is what I look forward to most when I back off. I’ve been training for 21
years of my life nonstop; it took an enormous amount of resources, time, and effort to build
“Jujimufu,” and it takes a lot to maintain it. I don’t like living my entire year in a chronic
“training tunnel” where everything I do revolves around training success. The reload keeps me
in that tunnel, when I really need to GTFO of the tunnel. Therefore, I mostly go with the next
strategy.
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BACK OFF WEEK WITH NO LOAD
Don’t train. Sure, go for walks, throw a frisbee, whatever. Still, the point is that you’re
supposed to be allowing your body time to remove accumulating fatigue. If your activity seems
to help refresh and restore you, enjoy, but be wary of getting carried away on one of your
mountain hikes during your back-off week. Don’t let it turn into a 3-hour march up and down
numerous trails while forgetting to bring food with you; that’s not helping you recover. I have
two anecdotal stories to support the no-load deload method.
First story, my first powerlifting meet in September 2011. It was a deadlift only meet. When I
registered for the meet, the guy that took my registration wanted to give me some advice. He
was a jacked old guy, so, of course, his opinion mattered to me. He said, “Don’t touch any
weights for the whole week up to the meet.” PSHHH!!!! I totally am not doing that! I guess he
wasn’t jacked enough for me to listen to him! Because I spent every day up to the meet doing
active “rest,” and “light” bodybuilding workouts to “drive nutrients into the muscles” and
“export waste products!” LOL. Well, the day of the meet came, and I bombed my opener of
495 lbs, and then failed it twice more. I was embarrassed. It depressed me too. I did not do
anything for almost a week after that meet. Then, after all of this, I went into my garage and
pulled 540 lbs off the ground for a gigantic PR. Well, it looks like his advice worked! (A week
too late, though!)
Second story, the first time I ever pulled over 600 lbs on the deadlift, I was sick with the
Norovirus for the whole week before I did it! The Norovirus was really bad. What an evil little
virus it was. I was puking so hard the first night I popped a rib out of place. Then I had some
violent diarrhea. I could barely keep food in my system. All I did was eat Macaroni and cheese
and drink Gatorade while watching Dr. Phil on TV. I felt awful! It dragged on for a week! When I
recovered, the first workout back was a light bodybuilding workout in the gym. I took a day off,
and the next workout, I shattered my best deadlift and felt unstoppable! Woohoo! I think the
carb-loading had something to do with it too, or Dr. Phil. ;-)
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1 WEEK OR 2 WEEKS? 5-15 DAYS? HOW LONG?
Like the training frequency question, this is highly dependent on dozens of factors. I
mentioned 5-15 days, and I stick by that answer. It depends on the degree of fatigue, and that’s
difficult to measure. Common sense suggests that the longer and harder your training block,
the longer and more recovery work you will need to remove the fatigue baggage.
FWIW, a minimum training block for me would be 2-3 weeks. And so, nothing less than 5 days
just doesn’t count as a deload, in my opinion. Any more than 15 days is almost always going to
come with some degree of detraining. Detraining isn’t as bad as it sounds. It’s incredible how
fast you can bounce back after an overly extended break if you have a few years of consistent
training experience behind you. “Muscle Memory” is real. If the long term “training habit” is
developed, I’d rather risk overshooting the deload than undershooting it.
One more important thing about deloads and taking time off is this: typically, your first few
workouts back will not feel great. The rewards of the time off typically announce themselves
after you’re a few training sessions back into the swing of things. Don’t get pissed if your first
workout after all that rest sucks, as that’s usually what happens. This is why when you do a
reload (explained above), it usually ends up being a 2-week deal. The first week is a volume
reduction where intensity is kept high. The second week is a volume/intensity reduction where
the workouts feel like going through the motions. A complete deload with no training involves
none of that! You don't do any training for the entire deload! For what it’s worth, I prefer to
back off with virtually no load except fun and brief, cardiovascular activities. Then I’ll have a
few shitty workouts when I start back up and let my body autoregulate the rest until I have
great workouts again. If I’ve overshot the deload, I might have more than just a few shitty
workouts. Still, at least I’ll have thoroughly enjoyed my time off and made the most of it
without trying to worry about “when am I going to train today?!”
Whatever method you choose, make sure you choose at least one of them! And make sure
it’s at least 5 days!
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PUTTING EOD TRAINING AND BACK OFF WEEKS TOGETHER
Now that I’ve briefed you on these two powerful training programming methods, put them
together! If you like the Almost Naked routines, do one every other day for 4-5 weeks. Strive to
increase work capacity, loads, and skills as you get more sessions in during your work period.
Then, when you’re beginning to be aware of fatigue accumulation, push it deeper for another
2-3 workouts and then back off.
This is important: when you feel like it’s the right time to take the week off, you're usually 1
week too early. Keep going hard for one more week to shock the body before you really do
take that time off. Then 5-15 days off with reloading workouts or nothing at all! Rinse, repeat!
Simple, effective, enjoyable.
I think you’ll really like this. But remember, no one way of training lasts forever. Things change,
you must change things. You might need to go to a 4 day a week split or incorporate more
conditioning periodically for seasonal goals. WHO KNOWS?!! THAT’S YOUR JOB TO FIND
OUT!
Finally, remember, the goal with The Almost Naked Athlete isn’t self-limitation to an arbitrary
selection of training tools. It is merely a simple framework to build off of. This means you
shouldn’t limit yourself to EOD training and the same type of deload every time you deload.
Specializing requires more attention to detail, better exercise selection, and better equipment.
Breaking plateaus means coming up with novel solutions and smart scheduling, but sometimes
it just means you gotta work harder. Don’t become attached to the idea of less for the sake of
“less.” Less is not more, despite what the common saying of “Less is more” suggests. It’s 100%
not true. I lived my life with the “less is more” attitude for two years when I went through a
minimalist phase. That story is in Appendix III.
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APPENDIX III JUJIMUFU VS. MINIMALISM
I mentioned at the beginning that this was NOT a minimalist program. I do not endorse
arbitrarily limiting the tools you use to build your body to a pair of rings and a barbell with
plates because of an ideology that has nothing to do with physical strength! I think
you should strive to expand your toolbox. Honestly, my life is better now that I have a Pitshark
belt squat, a chest fly machine, and a Safety Squat bar in my gym. Things can absolutely be
sources of happiness, despite what a kooky pseudo-spiritual ideology like minimalism would
have to say otherwise. Look, I’ve been on the deep end of being a cultish minimalist, and I can
tell you it sucks. Here is the story of why I am against the ideology of minimalism, and why I
think you should not just rely on your rings and barbell to satisfy your physical exercise needs
for the rest of your life…
For two years of my life, between 2009 and 2011, I became increasingly consumed with the
minimalist ideology to the point I became ineffective. Looking back now, the only plausible
reason I can ascertain for this happening to me was that I was scared. (When many people get
sucked into cults and ideologies, the roots are often fear.) What do I mean by ineffective and
scared? First, let me tell you how serious I took minimalism.
During that time, I competed with myself and others to see how few possessions I could own.
Yes, I was a “competitive minimalist.” That in itself is a huge problem. I had gotten the # of my
possessions down to less than 100… And I included typical redundant items in that list.
1 coffee mug was 1 possession.
1 charging cable was 1 possession.
2 paper clips were 2 more possessions.
That’s a count of 4. Now add in underwear, socks, spoons, notebooks, and then you’ll wonder
how the fuck I got down to less than 100. (Well, 100 possessions that were my own, not shared
such as a toilet, refrigerator, microwave, etc.) But I did. I got below 100 items.
My room was empty. I cut all my hair off because hair was not minimal enough (I have no
pictures of me being bald during these years, unfortunately). I threw away all my books,
including dozens of philosophy books I had written extensive notes in the margins with
highlights; this is the one collection of possessions I miss the most. I also considered throwing
away all of my journals with thousands of handwritten pages. Thankfully, I couldn’t sum up the
“strength” to do that! I agonized over how to get rid of 1 more possession, 1 day at a time.
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I SPENT $1200 ON BUMPER PLATES
The first thing that snapped me out of this depressing, awkward spiral into madness was
purchasing $1200 worth of bumper plates online! These are the same plates I own and use
today, though I’ve made a lateral trade for new, different branded ones of the same build. Still!
Same purchase. I bought these bumper plates for two reasons.
1. Because my friend Antoine Vaillant (IFBB Pro, check him out) was going to visit me from
Canada. (We met online in 2002 and have been friends since.) We were going to meet up again
for a week and we needed weights to make outdoor lifting videos, which we did!
YOUTUBE: NSIV THE VIDEO ANTOINE AND I MADE IN 2011
2. The other reason I purchased the plates was that with that much weight and a barbell (and
the pair of rings I had), I would be able to cancel my gym membership and just use these items
to train. This would save me money in the long run and allow me to train in new spaces.
The important thing here is that I was counting coffee mugs and paper clips and looking for
ways to be free of the “weight” and possession of physical things, but then I turned around and
spent $1200 on a quarter metric ton of literal “weight.” Despite being brainwashed by
minimalism bloggers and having my values challenged, deep down inside, I knew and felt that
physical strength and creativity (video creation) were more valuable to me than owning less for
the sake of owning less. The next thing that snapped me of my minimalist muddle was a
conversation I had with Antoine while he visited.
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THE CONVERSATION THAT ENDED MY MINIMALISM MADNESS
During Antoine’s visit, I remember a conversation we had while I was filling up my car with
gasoline. I was telling him all the things I wanted to do, and what kind of things I wanted to
achieve (goals and dreams sort of stuff), but I was explaining to him why I couldn’t do them and
that I needed more time before I pursued them. I used phrases like, “It’s just not the right time
yet.” Or “I’m not ready yet.” Or “I just need a few more years.” I kept making excuses. Antoine
didn’t have much to say in response, except for shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Ok.”
Saying these things out loud to someone I looked up to, I experienced one of the worst feelings
I’ve ever felt: I felt small. Like, really small. I finally realized what I had been doing for the past
two years as a “minimalist”: I WASN’T DOING ANYTHING TO MOVE ME TOWARDS WHAT I
WANTED OUT OF LIFE! INSTEAD, I WAS COUNTING THE NUMBER OF COFFEE MUGS I HAD
AND COUNTING DOWN DAYS WHILE I WAITED FOR THE FUTURE!
Antoine, on the other hand, wasn’t waiting around speculating about future happy days. He
was doing everything he could NOW, so there was nothing left to be ashamed for not doing.
He was not procrastinating with his life; he was creating it.
I realized minimizing my possessions to some ludicrously low number was my “in the
meantime preoccupation” that I took up while I procrastinated from doing the things I needed
to really do to become the person I really wanted to become. I stopped believing what I said
after that conversation with Antoine. I didn’t need to wait. I needed to face my fears and get
started!
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WHAT WAS I SCARED OF?
All sorts of things! I was scared of losing money. I was scared of losing things; I was scared of
being hindered by having too many things. I was scared of losing my job. I was scared of being
alone, even though I pushed my family away. I was scared of being forgotten even though I
stopped posting videos on the internet. I was scared of getting kicked out of my parent’s
house, or never being able to move out of my parent’s house! I was scared of being humiliated,
of being vulnerable, of never amounting to anything ever again. I was scared of depending on
others! I was scared of a lot of things! Minimalism distracted me from facing these numerous
and mostly unfounded fears. It shrunk my focus to tiny objects in a book bag or in my desk
drawer, rather than the big picture of my life, and what it would really take to become what I
wanted to become!
I wasn’t aware that purchasing a barbell and plates was an essential step at overcoming my
fears, and a re-acknowledgment of something that actually made my life better: CREATIVITY
THROUGH PHYSICAL STRENGTH. With my own barbell and plates, creative possibilities were
exponentially multiplied! I could take the barbell and plates to big empty spaces and feel free,
and make different kinds of videos. I could design new training routines and schedules that
were not subjected to the schedule and limitations of public facilities. I could yell and make
chalk messes in my parent’s garage, I could train when I wanted, and how I wanted!
Pretty soon, I stopped worrying about things so much, and I stopped counting down days into
the future! I started creating it! I grew my hair back out, started creating and posting videos
again online, made new friends, launched a business, and now I’m on the path I want to be on.
I’m now living today for today, and not for a “someday.” I overcame my fear by channeling my
creativity through a barbell, and that made me what I am.
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ALMOST NAKED, BUT NOT FOR LONG
At the beginning of this program, I stated that the goal of The Almost Naked Athlete is
“not self-imposed limitation, but rather, to: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do
what you can.” as often quoted by many quotable people. Well, almost!”
“ALMOST!” is the keyword in that statement I made. You don’t need every thing, but you
need some things. Living without a single piece of clothing is possible, but the small leap from
being naked all the time to having even just one outfit is the difference between being able to
participate in society or not! Just as living without a single training tool is possible, but the
small leap from having nothing to even having 1 of the tools in this program, or a gym
membership, is the difference between being merely fit and being an actual athlete.
It’s a fact that I would not have been able to make a living “being me,” as I do now, without
purchasing rings and a barbell with plates 10 years ago. Dozens of creative, viral videos, and
hundreds of other videos that define my style and my life, and have opened all the doors I
needed to do what I do today, have all depended on me owning those tools. But since then,
I’ve accumulated more things, and I like the results.
Of course, results will vary. But the simple tools and framework provided in this document is
the most “minimal” starting point I would consider now. Time to build! Time to grow! Who
knows where you will go!?
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FOOTNOTE ABOUT COVID-19
This document was released 2020, when COVID-19 caused a worldwide pandemic; gyms
across the world were closed for months. I watched influencers capitalize on the panic by
quickly selling ridiculous home workout routines that they didn’t actually ever do, or would
ever use themselves, to panicked individuals who depended on their gym memberships to
train.
When this happened, the first thing I said publicly was to get a pair of rings and a barbell with
weights if your gym closed. I said this because I lived it 8 years ago when I canceled my gym
membership for the entire year of 2012 and trained with nothing but the rings and barbell I
had. I knew how to do it because I did it! It was real advice from one of the best experiences of
my life. There will always be a need for this information whether there is a global crisis like
COVID-19 or a personal one like I experienced with minimalism.
Many people followed my advice and bought rings and a barbell. Others said they couldn’t
afford anything. Some borrowed equipment. Some snuck into gyms. Some did pushups and
squatted their couch. Others counted down the days, waiting until they could work out again
while doing nothing. Ten years down the road, who knows where these different people will
be? Their reaction reveals their values and their attitudes toward hardship. I have my guesses,
but I’d never guess that almost 10 years ago, when I decided to train the way I did that year
2012, it would have had such a positive impact on my future.
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QUESTIONS?
If you have questions about the program, feel free to e-mail me acrobolix@gmail.com. Be sure
to include your order # as well from when you purchased the program because I’m not going to
give you guidance regarding the program if you stole it. LOL. Thanks!
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CONNECT WITH ME
www.jujimufu.com
www.youtube.com/jujimufu
www.instagram.com/jujimufu
Also SPECIAL THANKS to my illustrator Sebastián Franchini for giving this program some life
with his cover artwork and sketches. You can check him out here:
https://www.artstation.com/zebes
https://www.instagram.com/sebazebes
For any kind of art commissions, you can contact Sebastián here zebes.art@gmail.com
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