Add these exhilarating new twists to your favorite gym routine and unleash your true strength! These exercises will ramp up your gains while expanding your functional toolset of impressive bodyweight skills.

The L-sit

This killer core exercise (shown above) is one of the most popular core strength moves out there! In fact, the L-sit position is so effective at building strength through the abs, legs, chest, and arms, that even advanced athletes use it throughout their entire careers as a way to maintain their basic strength.

Perform it anywhere. The L-sit is simple. Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Place your hands next to your hips, squeeze every muscle in your body, push down through the floor, and lift your hips and legs off the ground! The aim is to keep your legs firmly engaged while you lift them off of the floor. How long can you hold?!? Aim for 30 seconds.

Not quite getting it? Try to do your L-Sit between two chairs with bent knees to make it a little easier while still targeting your core.

Firing on all cylinders but there’s still no liftoff? Use the GymnasticBodies Foundation Series to strengthen your abs and hip flexors with dozens of progressions that will build and lead to a perfect L-sit!

Press Handstand Prep: The Tiptoe Press

“Press handstands are the most perfect of all Gymnastic Strength Training^TM exercises; strength, mobility, balance, and agility all rolled into a single movement.” -Coach Christopher Sommer

Ready to start preparing for one of the coolest GST^TM exercise out there? Let’s do it. Start in a plank position (video above) with your elbows straight and shoulders directly over your wrists. Keep your hands and elbows in place and straight as you walk your feet towards your hands. Tiptoe your feet closer to your hands by pushing down into the floor, taking as much weight off of your feet as possible. The more weight you can put into your hands, by pushing down into the floor, the better.

Hints: If you are having trouble walking your feet close to your hands, get a good stretch in for your hamstrings with the GB Stretch Series. If you are finding it difficult to press down into the ground during this exercise, the GB Handstand Series will take you through every step to develop this skills.

Through the pursuit of handstand and press handstand mastery, you will develop mobile, strong shoulders, wrists, traps, forearms, hips and abs. Essentially, your entire body gets a major workout each time you train your handstands.  

Arch-up

By now your hamstrings are probably feeling it from all that stretching. Phew! Let’s switch things up by building some strength through your lower back, glutes, and hamstrings with arch-ups. You’ll want a backstrap for this one.  Place the belt on your hips as you face away from the wall or support. Keep your knees straight and begin folding your torso over the strap. Engage your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back to bring your body back up.

Execution Tip: Remember to arch big (look up at the ceiling) each time and feel your back open up! Lower with control and repeat for 15 repetitions. 

Alternative to Strap: You can also have a partner hold your legs and feet steady as you fold over a box or bench. Clasp your hands behind your head and pull with your legs to raise your torso up as high as you can.

Pseudo Planche Pushups

Alright, we’re headed back to the plank position (photo below). Once you’ve found your solid plank with shoulders over wrist and feet and knees together, you're going to lean forward slightly. Your long-term goal is to lean forward until your hands are under your hips. Now, maintaining that forward lean, perform a push-up. Make sure your chest touches the ground and your hands stay in line with your hips! Push for a strong 10 repetitions.

L-Chin Hang

This one is simple: all you need is a pull-up bar. We have to warn you that you will feel it… well... everywhere. Grab the bar with your palms facing you (supinated grip) pull up until your chin is high above the bar. Stay in this engaged chin up hold position and bring it back to that L-sit position by lifting your legs so they are parallel to the floor. Squeeze your abs and fight to keep your feet in line with your hips.

Hang tight and see if you can keep your grip for 30 seconds.

Tip: Couldn’t quite hang for all 30 seconds? The GB Training is designed to ramp up your forearm strength and prepare you for insane pull-up progressions just like this one.

Stimulate your next gym workout and begin developing remarkable strength with these 5 impressive GST exercises, straight out of the GymnasticBodies Online Courses!