Ultimate Guide Conditioining

The Ultimate Guide to
Bodyweight
Conditioning
onditioning
By Logan Christopher
DISCLAIMER
The exercises and advice contained within this book may be too strenuous or
dangerous for some people, and the reader should consult with a physician
before engaging in them.
The author and publisher of this book are not responsible in any manner
whatsoever for any injury, which may occur through the use or misuse of the
information presented here.
"All images, unless otherwise noted, are from my private collection. They are reproduced
here under the professional practice of fair use for the purposes of historical discussion
and scholarly interpretation. All characters and images remain the property of their
respective copyright holders
The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Conditioning
All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2014 by Legendary Strength LLC.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America

Published by:
Logan Christopher
Santa Cruz, California
www.legendarystrength.com
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
The False Ideal of the Marathon Runner 2
7 Principles of Never Quit Conditioning 9
Anaerobic versus Aerobic 9
Strength & Endurance Curve 11
Full Body Exercises 13
Movement Efficiency 14
Control Your Breathing 15
Staying Fresh and Fast 17
Progressive Training 19
The Three Conditioning Sets 22
Explosive Sprint Sets 22
Short Intense Sets 23
Long Sets 23
Training Styles 24
The Benefits of Bodyweight Conditioning 27
Squats 29
Jumping 35
Jump Rope 39
Burpees 44
Running and Hill Sprints 47
Circuit Training 52
Wrap Up 55
Introduction
Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Conditioning, the fifth book in this series.
Here you’ll learn how to become a conditioning machine using just your own bodyweight
to do it.
We’ll discuss the myths behind the “standard” definition of cardio training and how there
are much better solutions out there.
Then we’ll cover the seven principles behind this system that guide you to get the best out
of your training to build crazy conditioning levels. In my years of studying many different
systems and experimenting in the gym these seven principles have helped me to build great
conditioning. By following these concepts, and the exercises and workouts built off of
them, you too can have insane conditioning levels.
From there we translate the principles into three different durations for training and several
different styles of training. These work on the different areas and different aspects of
endurance.
Lastly we show you the specific bodyweight exercises that are best for conditioning.
These include running and sprints, jumping rope, squats, jumps, burpees and other
bodyweight training circuits. Included in all these options will be exercises for anyone just
starting out, all the way up to the most elite conditioning levels. Also included here are a
number of workouts, and how you can use them progressively in your training schedule.
So let’s get started…
Copyright © 2014 Legendary Strength LLC. 1

The False Ideal of the Marathon Runner
When the average person thinks about getting into shape what does their mind
immediately go to? If I could run a marathon I would be in great shape. This seems to be
the only “way of fitness” on most people’s radar screen.
They’re not thinking:

If I could sprint a 100 meters in 8 seconds…
If I could squat double my bodyweight…
If I could swing a heavy kettlebell 100 times straight…
These never enter into the mind of the average person, yet I would argue they’re all better
indicators of overall fitness then being able to run a marathon.
Now it may come across as I despise marathons. I personally don’t have an interest in
running them, simply because I find running boring for the most part. But I recognize
there are many people, my brother included, that get great joy out of running, or other
long distance sports. I’ve run a few 10k races in my life but that’s more than enough for
me and I’ll stick to the alternatives covered in this book instead.
If you enjoy running, I don’t mean to take that away from you. Just realize that it is not
the epitome of health its been claimed to be. In fact, by running so much you may be
DECREASING your overall health and fitness. All those miles claim a price.
Let’s take a look back in time to find out how jogging and marathons became what they
are today.
Dr. Kenneth Cooper was the man largely responsible for getting people running,
swimming and biking. He released his book Aerobics in 1968. You have to understand
that at that time doctors and the majority of people didn’t believe that exercise was good
for health. That’s obvious today but it wasn’t always so and without pioneers like Cooper
it could have taken even longer.

I’m reminded of the movie Anchorman where Ron Burgundy played by Will Ferrell says:
“Veronica and I trying this new fad called uh, jogging. I believe it's jogging or yogging.
it might be a soft j. I'm not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of
time. It's supposed to be wild.”
Some of Cooper’s findings include that it really doesn’t take all that much time to become
fit in the way that boosts your health and longevity. You can go beyond this, but at that
point you may be causing more harm then good. One study in Germany found that those
people who ran more than 30 miles per week or over 5 hours per week suffered extensive
DNA damage.[1] This can be combated by taking anti-oxidants, like Vitamin E, but it
clearly shows that there can be too much. (As a side note everyone should be getting lots
of anti-oxidants either from diet or in supplement form.)
So here we have the person who basically created the running movement, coming out later
and saying that if you’re doing too much you’re doing it for reasons other than health.
Everyone has heard the stories of people dropping dead during marathons or their daily
runs. Jim Fixx, who helped popularize running with his best selling book The Complete
Book of Running died at 52 during a run.
Yet is running really bad for you in that it will cause you to die? We have to remember
that the name Marathon came from the fabled run of the Greek soldier Pheidippides, a
messenger from the Battle of Marathon, to Athens. And upon reaching his destination and
spreading the news he collapsed dead. Let’s delve into some of the research surrounding
this subject.
“When the scientists, led by Dr. Aaron Baggish, associate director of the Cardiovascular
Performance Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, looked more closely at the
marathoners’ health records, they found that those who had a heart attack or died of a
heart attack were also more likely to have had underlying heart disease. Many had
thickened heart walls, or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, in which the heart muscle
becomes enlarged and less flexible, making it harder to pump blood efficiently. And
because marathon runners tend to be older, many also had atherosclerosis, or buildup of
plaques within their heart vessel walls, which can also impede blood flow.
Either of these conditions, says Baggish, can worsen when patients take up vigorous
exercise, and put additional strain on the heart to pump blood quickly and efficiently.
Previous studies have found that marathons can lead to a increase in the enzyme
troponin, which rises when the heart is in distress and can’t get enough blood. In one
study, troponin levels of runners immediately after their race were alarmingly high, but
the boost was temporary, and the enzyme went back to normal levels three months later.
Whether or not those participants had some underlying heart weaknesses is not clear, but
Baggish notes that these heart conditions are relatively rare, and that for most people,

the benefits of exercise, including marathons, outweigh the risks. Determining whether
you have a potentially hazardous heart condition should become an important part of
preparing for long-distance running, he says, and anyone considering running in a
marathon should start with a visit to his doctor.” [2]
“A study released by the Mayo Clinic Proceedings on Monday found that extreme
exercise could possibly damage the heart, causing it to scar.
“A routine of daily physical activity can be highly effective for prevention and treatment
of many diseases, including coronary heart disease, hypertension, heart failure and
obesity,” said co-author of the study Dr. James O’Keefe in a statement.
"However, as with any pharmacologic agent, a safe upper dose limit potentially exists,
beyond which the adverse effects of physical exercise, such as musculoskeletal trauma
and cardiovascular stress, may outweigh its benefits."
Meaning excessive endurance exercise, such as running marathons or ultra-marathons,

over a long period of time could lead to heart problems.
The study found that exercising vigorously beyond 30 to 60 minutes a day can often yield
diminishing returns. Because of the potential risk, he doesn’t recommend people run
marathons or ultra-marathons – especially people older than 40.
He recommended runners should limit their distance between 2 and 4 miles per
workout, which goes against the philosophy of the millions of runners who participate
in long-distance events.” [3]
“A runner's risk of dying during or soon after the race is about .75 per 100,000 the
research found. Men were twice as likely to die as women.
"It's very dramatic when someone dies on the course, but it's not common," Julius Cuong
Pham, the study's lead author, an associate professor of emergency medicine and
anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine, said in a statement.
Pham said the benefits of marathon running include decreased risks of hypertension,
high cholesterol and diabetes. People who run regularly have been found to have lower
rates of all-cause mortality and disability.
But marathon running is not risk-free, Pham said. Studies have shown the yearly
incidence of injury in people training for marathons is as high as 90 percent.” [4]
With this research we know that running is still good for you, but if you have underlying
heart disease you should be careful. And it’s possible that the over-strain caused by
exercising too much leads to this heart disease or other form of damage. Of course it is a

dramatic thing, but you don’t hear about people dropping dead in the gym when lifting
weights do you?
Of even more interest to me is that last quote in the third excerpt. The yearly incidence of
injury in marathon training is as high as 90 percent! Injuring yourself is not good, nor
would I call it healthy. Thus from this alone I would steer clear of marathons. Much of this
has to do with overly engineered shoes, and how people run, but that’s a whole other
subject in itself.
Why is this occurring? When you’re running every single step you place down is
transmitting about 6 times your bodyweight in force up your body. Your joints and tissues
must deal with this stress. And remember that its every single step. A marathon will likely
have you somewhere in the ball park of 30000 steps. The training for this would be
hundreds of thousands.
The human body is wonderful at compensating. If you’re joints are NOT stacked up
properly, or your muscles are firing incorrectly, something else in your body will take over
the job. Unfortunately these other pieces aren’t necessarily designed for that job. While
they can handle it to some degree, thousands of repetitions from running hour after hour,
get to the point of too much and something breaks down. The sad truth is there aren’t too
many long term or long distance runners that haven’t suffered knee or back pain.
This isn’t to say that other forms of training can’t also lead to injuries. Anything can. And
it’s important to know what you’re doing to minimize the risks involved. As we’ll discuss
a favorite form of running, hill sprints, requires far less time and there is LESS impact per
step despite the intensity of the exercise.
It boils down to this. The less time you can spend on your fitness while still achieving your
body transformation, strength and health goals, the better off you’ll be. This is because
with every less rep or step you do there is less your body has to handle. Of course, then
you’ll also have the time to spend elsewhere.
Sources:
[1] http://www.researchgate.net/publication/223034537_Vitamin_E_prevents_exercise-
induced_DNA_damage
[2] http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/12/running-marathons-wont-kill-you/
[3] http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/health/Extreme-Exercise-Hurts-Heart-Study-
157060215.html
[4] http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-05-15/health/bal-marathon-low-
deaths_1_marathon-health-benefits-mortality-and-disability
Sprinter vs. Marathon Runner
Another reason to avoid running long distances is that form follows function. This means
that your body will mold to what you’re trying to accomplish. Do you really want to look

like a marathon runner? If not, then don’t train like one. Wouldn’t you rather look like a
sprinter? Not everyone would want the same muscle mass as sprinters at the highest level,
but it would take lots of effort to gain that much muscle mass. (Also, unfortunately many
sprinters at that level are also under the influence of performance enhancing drugs.)
When you run a long distance, what is the signal you are sending to your body? Think
about this for a moment.
You need to travel a long distance at an even pace. The heart and cardiovascular system
must become efficient. It works at an elevated pace. While it’s good for the heart to work,
as we’ve seen the research say, staying in this area of stress can actually do damage
because of the excessive amount of time. And this is not necessarily the good kind that
you come back from stronger, because with marathon training its typically day after day of
running, without sufficient recovery time.
I’ve heard it suggested that you should rest a day per mile you run. Obviously this
guideline is tough to follow by anyone training for long distances.
In order to make running easier to do, you need to weigh less. This means stripping away
everything the body doesn’t need, including muscle. Because running doesn’t take much
muscle the body can get rid of it. Fat will go too, to a degree, but the fuel for running is
FAT so the body will keep some around.
This gets into how the body processes different nutrients for fuel. Keeping it real simple
carbs (sugar) is burned off for shorter bursts of energy, while fat is used for longer
duration stuff. So while you may be burning more fat as a percentage while you’re in the
“cardio zone”, if you’re regularly running your body is building up its fat stores for the

next time you run. It wants to be sure to have that energy available for later. And since
you’re losing muscle mass if you’re not using it you’ll be using up less calories in your
resting state. This is why some marathon runners have been called “skinny fat”.
During exercise cortisol is released. You may have heard of this as the stress hormone.
But don’t think it is only bad, without it we wouldn’t survive. We need cortisol, just not in
the over abundance that people today have from all stressors, not just exercise. However,
running long distances gives you elevated levels of cortisol as the body is being taxed.
Three hours of running can become three hours of heavy cortisol release. Cortisol stops
the body from developing muscle, and since muscle is metabolically active it will actually
be discarded in lieu of more critical tissues and organs.
Furthermore, when cortisol is increased you’re much more likely to eat more food. You’re
likely to eat enough to re-coup what you just expended and then some. After all you have
to replenish those fat stores.
Ask yourself if this is the signal that you want to be sending to your body? Contrast that to
a sprint. It’s still running but a very different signal.
You are explosively moving at as fast of a pace as possible for a short time. The heart and
cardiovascular system needs to go into overdrive for a short time. This leads to it being
able to handle large changes in pressure and stress. It’s leads to greater heart rate
variability which is a sign of health. But at the same time it’s a shorter duration, so
although more intense, the stress is less in total quantity.
The glucose, which is stored sugars in the muscles, will be used up rapidly. The muscles
are working hard as possible in order to propel you faster. This means they’ll need to get
stronger, and likely bigger if they don’t have sufficient size already to do the job.
Cortisol may be increased a little bit, but explosive high intensity exercise increases human
growth hormone and testosterone. These hormones help you to put on muscle, increase
sex drive, and in general make you feel healthier, in both men and women. They also cause
lots of other healthful chemical changes in your body which lead to health. The biggest
factor in the aging process is normal hormone decline but this can be combated with the
right forms of exercise.
Still you’ll be tapping into your fat stores if you do more than one sprint. The truth is in a
20 minute session if you sprinted every other minute versus running the full 20 minutes at
a jogging pace you’d burn more calories by sprinting. But calories aren’t the full picture.
Much more important is this chemical signaling you provide.
This example of sprinting vs. long slow distance running is just an example. As we explore
later in this book you can achieve similar sprinting effects, in several different ways,
without running at all.

By working in shorter time frames you save time. The workouts aren’t as long plus you
don’t need even need to split up your strength and cardio if certain ways. This also means
you’re placing less of an overuse strain on your heart and body.
Plus we’ve determined that higher intensity cardio especially with a strength basis helps
you to get stronger, develop muscle, release youth and health enhancing hormones and
much more. It’s better and faster and once you start training this way you won’t ever go
back.
So now that I’ve done my best to destroy the false ideas behind traditional cardio training,
and provided research and examples on why and how there is a better way let’s start to
finally get into what to do.

7 Principles of Never Quit Conditioning
Although I love bodyweight training in all its glory, I’m not a “bodyweight only guy”.
That is the focus of this book, but its important to note that these principles work for any
kind of conditioning exercise. You’ll see these principles applied to the bodyweight
training explained here, but feel free to take and use them elsewhere as well.
1. Anaerobic versus Aerobic

First off you need to understand the difference between the anaerobic and aerobic
exercise. This is another idea behind the marathoner and the sprinter methods of training.
The word anaerobic means without oxygen. The word aerobic, with oxygen. This refers to
the process in the body, in how the muscles use oxygen, or not, to produce energy.
Anaerobic exercise produces energy without oxygen. This is done short term with intense
exercise. As the length increases intensity must go down. Along with that, you turn
towards an aerobic process. Aerobic exercise uses oxygen in the energy production
process.
It is important to note that the terms aerobic and anaerobic do not refer to your need for
oxygen in the exercises. This is quite obvious in that with anaerobic exercise you’ll be
breathing harder than with aerobic exercise.
Energy Pathways
There are actually a few different energy pathways that occur within the body that fall
under the terms anaerobic and aerobic. Here is the breakdown of what happens.
First Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) in the muscles is used up. This only lasts about 4
seconds. Then more ATP is resynthesized using Creatine Phosphate (CP) and Adenosine
Diphosphate (ADP). This continues to occur until the CP stores run out. Then Glucose is
broken down for energy in the Anaerobic Lactate System. This process produces lactate
and hydrogen ions (commonly known as lactic acid) which lead to fatigue. At this point an
oxygen debt is occurring. Trained athletes can push further. Untrained athletes may need
to stop. After about 45 seconds all ATP and CP have dropped off and Glycogen has taken
over. This runs until about two minutes where aerobic capacity starts to take over and by
four minutes has just about completely done so. Using oxygen and fuel sources from food
and stored body fat you produce more glycogen.
As you can see there is overlap between the different energy pathways. These aren’t all or
nothing categories. In fact, aerobic energy production is going on during anaerobic
exercises and vice versa. Its just the degree to which it is done that matters. This charts
shows the basics of anaerobic and aerobic breakdown by time.

• Short anaerobic - less than 25 seconds (mainly lactic)
• Medium anaerobic - 25 seconds to 60 seconds (mainly lactic)
• Long anaerobic - 60 seconds to 120 seconds (lactic +aerobic)
• Short aerobic - 2 minutes to 8 minutes (lactic/aerobic)
• Medium aerobic - 8 minutes to 30 minutes (mainly aerobic)
• Long aerobic - 30 minutes + (aerobic)
Don’t worry, knowing this level of detail isn’t necessary to become well conditioned.
The exact processes, and the science behind it, aren’t essential for you to know. Just
realize the main differences in anaerobic and aerobic exercise. We won’t be using six
different set lengths as listed here but have simplified it to three for conditioning exercises.
More details on this later.
Anaerobic Transfer
The most important fact to realize is that anaerobic ability typically transfers over to
aerobic ability. Yet, aerobic exercise does not transfer over to anaerobic ability. For
example, if you do hill sprints you will be better able to run long distances. But if you run
long distances it will not necessarily help you to sprint up hills. Anaerobic transfers over to
aerobic but not vice versa.
Looking at the pathways this may make more sense. If the body becomes more efficient at
anaerobic energy production it’s going to occur at all different levels eventually leading to
aerobic pathways. But you can skip the intensity, and go into the aerobic pathways,
without ever training anaerobic capability.
This isn’t to say that you should only train anaerobically. Depending on your goals you
need specificity in what you’re trying to accomplish. So if you need conditioning that last

longer it needs to be trained.
Therefore Never Quit Conditioning Principle #1 has us favor anaerobic exercise, yet we
also incorporate some aerobic exercise into the mix.
2. Strength & Endurance Curve

In the training world you’ve likely come across these terms before: strength, strength-
endurance and endurance. What is the difference in these? What makes something a feat of
strength versus a feat of endurance? You may think of deadlifting a heavy barbell as a feat
of strength. And a marathon would be a feat of endurance. And you would be correct. But
how would you classify 50 burpees? Strength or endurance? Or is that where the term
strength-endurance comes in?
There is a whole spectrum in between the end points of absolute strength and absolute
endurance. All these points in between will require some strength and some endurance.
How much of what will depend on the exercise and task at hand. It is not black and white
as many people try to force fit it. Instead it is a gradual curve.
The important point is that you’ll need to focus on those different points in this strength-
endurance spectrum. You want to be doing things that work strength and endurance at the
same time. There will be times when you do things on the ends of the curve as pure
strength or endurance, but most work will be somewhere in between.
Focusing on Strength Based Exercises
For the majority of conditioning exercise it is great to focus on having the strength
component with it. When you are doing exercises that have a tremendous cardio taxing
ability to it, and at the same time also straining the muscles, you are pushing the body to
its limits. You are working the body in its entirety.
If you are doing an exercise that is merely taxing your cardio then you are lacking an
important piece and not fully working the body. You aren’t getting the full benefit behind
it. This goes along with working your anaerobic capacity as mentioned before. A light jog
simply cannot test those energy pathways due to lack of intensity. The reason it lacks
intensity is the muscles don’t work all that much.
When we get to the exercises you’ll see that many combine the strength along with the
cardio. The best exercises will always do this. And if you really want to separate the most

intense exercises from those that aren’t this is one test it must pass.
However, in order to push your conditioning levels you can’t go too far in the strength
side of the curve. If you do that you will just be testing your strength levels. Once your
strength gives out you’d still have a reserve of conditioning left and may not necessarily
train that aspect sufficiently enough.
You have to play around in this spectrum in order to push different areas at different
times. This will function to raise up your strength and conditioning at the same time.
As an example, take the bodyweight squat, an excellent exercise. If a beginner starts on

these, they may find them hard in a variety of ways. A large portion of the population has
‘forgotten’ how to use these muscles and lacks the flexibility to do full squats. But beyond
that when they start with this exercise, the weakness in strength of the leg muscles is often
going to give out first. After a few reps the legs burn too much and they can’t do
anymore.
Later on as they get more experience, and it doesn’t take too much, a bodyweight squat
isn’t the most difficult of exercises. So they push up their numbers. And they can get to a
point where it’s the breathing that stops them, not the muscular fatigue.
Much further on, at a certain pace and tempo its seems that you can go on forever. It is
neither taxing enough strength or cardio wise. Having done one thousand Hindu squats
I’ve experienced this. That was a great goal to hit at that time, but if I want to continue to
raise my strength and conditioning I’d have to look elsewhere, to in some way up the
intensity of that exercise or do something different. Continuing to add reps won’t really
make me any stronger or better conditioned.
By manipulating the weight, leverage, style and many other aspects you can take more
strength or endurance and find the right mix for you. This is why you will need a multi-
prong approach to build never quit conditioning.
More Strength = Better Conditioning
The stronger you are the better endurance you’ll have as well. If you have more strength
you’ll be able to go faster and last longer. Let’s say you have a circuit with a wide range
of exercises which in general would be a test of conditioning. It includes a set of 20
pullups. If you have the strength to do those in a single set or with minimal rest, how do
you think your overall time will fare? Much better than if you only have the strength to do
two pullups at a time. That’s why I say the stronger you are the better endurance you’ll
have.
Therefore using more strength based exercises to work your conditioning (yet not going
too far into the strength zone) is Never Quit Conditioning Principle #2.

3. Full Body Exercises
When it comes to conditioning you need to use full body exercises. By using more of the
body, and requiring work from it all, full body exercises require much more effort.
Think about doing curls. By isolating the biceps this is not a conditioning exercise. It uses
only a small muscle group. Even done for high reps it will not cause much of a change in
breathing. Only if you reach a point near failure and begin to cheat (incorporating more of
the body) does it have a chance to make you breathe hard. Still the muscles fail long
before your cardio capacity does. The muscles are too small to elicit a conditioning
response.
Contrast that to power cleans. A similar looking movement in some ways to the untrained
eye, it stills brings the barbell from a hang to a cleaned position. Yet this move can use a
lot more weight as the entire body (most notably the legs and back where the majority of
the body’s muscle mass lays) is used in an effort to move the weight. It is commonly done
for low reps, but just try it for a set of twenty and see how hard you breathe.
In fact I encourage you to test this out the next time you are in a gym. Load a barbell to a
moderate weight for curls and do 20 reps with it. Note how hard you’re breathing.
Next load the barbell up for power cleans. Do 20 as quickly as you can. Notice your
breathing now. Also notice if your conditioning was what held you back from going faster
or was it your strength? We’ll cover that more when we talk about analyzing your
weaknesses later.
For a bodyweight example of this try 20 pushups versus 20 burpees and note your
breathing on this.
Any exercises that use more of the body tend to be superior for conditioning. Simply by
using more muscle they also use more conditioning. The lungs need to bring in more
oxygen. More blood flow is required. The heart must pump faster. Thus the more
movement the tougher the exercise conditioning wise. That’s what makes burpees so
tough.
Simply by bringing in more muscle mass the exercises are likely to take more anaerobic
capacity, and often times more strength, but spread throughout the body so that it doesn‘t
limit you. You see how these things are tying in together?
Never Quit Conditioning Principle #3 guides you to use full body exercises, or close to it,
for your conditioning training most of the time.

4. Movement Efficiency
What does the term movement efficiency really mean? It refers to your increasing
efficiency in all different exercises. The most important aspect of this is that it occurs in
each individual exercise. While there is some generalization of movement efficiency there
is a lot of specialization in it as well.
When a new person starts out in any training they will find they get much stronger quickly.
This occurs due to an increase in neural efficiency in the movements. They get use to, and
learn better how to do an exercise. This is the reason for the rapid gains at the start of any
training. It is not due to “actual” strength or muscle gains. Those come later.
This same effect will occur with any trainee if they begin a new exercise or workout plan.
As this always happens if often mistakenly leads people to constantly switch up their
training as movement or neural efficiency is mostly what is built, then lost, with the
constant switching.
This also occurs in conditioning exercises. You get better at the exercises, becoming more
efficient in them, allowing you to go faster, longer or heavier. And this can occur without
actually increasing your “real” conditioning capacity. While it is good to become more
efficient at movements you also want to increase your strength and endurance.
Understand that the more efficient you are, the less effort, in muscles exerting themselves,
and your energy systems working to fuel the process, that goes on. Its basically a matter
of being able to relax more into the movement which will allow you to last far longer.
For this reason you must not rely on a single exercise or workout to test your
conditioning. By doing this you have nothing to gauge it against. Your improvement could
solely be through increasing your movement efficiency and therefore not build your
conditioning. This is to be avoided.
I suppose if you have been doing a movement for a long time, and have already maximized
your technique and efficiency then this wouldn’t be the case. However, few if any people
are there, and therefore that leads me to the next main point.
This same idea also goes with the different conditioning styles (like intervals, long sets,
short sets, etc.) By only doing one style you may be neglecting not only your weak points
but becoming efficient only in that one style.
Multiple Training Methods
In order to not fall in the “movement efficiency trap” you need to do at least two, but
likely three or more different tests of your conditioning. If you just focus on one exercise
you may be becoming more efficient yet not improving your “actual” conditioning. If you
have two or more exercises, perhaps one will fall into this trap, but others will not. This

allows you to maximize your conditioning.
Better yet, by working different exercises in different styles of conditioning you will not
run into the problem. Although strength work should mostly be focused, you have more
room to vary up your conditioning exercises for this reason.
You can’t stick to a single conditioning exercise for your workouts. This is a mistake I
have fallen into in the past, especially in working with kettlebells. If you’ve ever thought
your conditioning was great but then played a sport or done another exercise which left
your gasping you have fallen in this trap.
Without the efficiency any exercise becomes harder to do. So if you do build your
conditioning using some of the exercises shown here like burpees, yet you never run, when
you do run is won’t be easy. Lacking the skill, or efficient movements patterns, for the
exercise it will become harder to move, thus take more out of you to do it. More effort
must be exerted with each step, when you’re not practiced in the movement. And this
applies to any exercise.
This could be overcome by regularly keeping some sort of running in your training at all
times. Of course this comes down to your goals. What you want to maximize, what you
what to keep decent ability in, and what you don’t care about at all.
(Remember these are general principles, and when you understand them, you can choose
when to set one aside. There is something to be said for just focusing on one thing at a
time, which is in conflict with this principle. So it may help you in doing that, but your
overall conditioning could suffer.)
Never Quit Conditioning Principle #4 guides us to understand how becoming efficient in

any movement is an important part of how great your conditioning is.
5. Control Your Breathing

This principle ties into the previous one because part of movement efficiency is about
breathing efficiency. Since breathing is actually a form of movement, these go together.
There is a big difference between breathing that is in control and breathing that is out of
control. When you are doing intense conditioning exercises you’ll need to breathe more.
You’ll need more oxygen in in order fuel your body and muscles.
If you tried to hold your breath while doing any sort of exercise eventually you’d pass out,
or just have to open your mouth and start breathing. Since you typically don’t do this in
exercise what occurs is you’re breathing pace is going to increase and it can increase
greatly.
What you want to strive for is some sort of rhythmic or “cyclical” breathing. When you

get into a rhythm, even if it’s a very fast rhythm and taking in lots of air, it is still in
control.
This rhythm, despite it’s pace, will follow in line with the exercise at hand. It may not be a
one to one (as in one breath per one rep) but it may be two to one or three to one. But
with this cycle, for every rep you do you keep the pace of the exercise and also your
breath. This is why it is called rhythmic.
This is compared to being out of control. You may be breathing a lot but this lacks control
and can be all over the place. A big breath may be followed by a small breath or vice
versa. You may hold your breath during parts of an exercise and then gasp for air in the
next. This is out of control and should be avoided.
If you can’t control your breathing, the exercise is likely too hard in one way or another. I
would also estimate that by this point you have also lost your speed as well which is
covered in the next principle.
When you have a rhythm to your breath you are better in control of your breath, your
body and your conditioning.
Plus, you may find that with rhythmic breathing you are more in the zone and focused at
the task at hand, versus just trying to get through it. The rhythm helps to focus your mind
and can get you into a meditative or flow state.
Mouth versus Nose Breathing
In your normal everyday life you want to breathe in through your nose. This is because the
nose acts as a humidifier and a filter. It will cool or warm the air before it gets to the lungs
and also filter out any harmful particles (as best as it can do).
Breathing out can be done with the nose or mouth with no negative impact either way.
But just by looking at your nose and mouth you can see that a lot more air can enter and
exit through the mouth than the two little nostrils. Therefore when you need it you will
have to revert to mouth breathing during the most intense conditioning exercise. There

simply is no other way to get in as much oxygen as you need by breathing through the
nose.
This is fine. But when you are doing less intense conditioning (usually a kind that is done
for longer durations) you may want to experiment with continuing to nose breathe on
purpose. If you can do what most people would consider intense conditioning and do it
without even opening your mouth, you are certainly demonstrating breath control, and
great conditioning.
Some even go so far as to artificially make breathing harder, by breathing through a

snorkel for instance. While this does work to make the breathing harder, I prefer to do it
naturally, and in general make the exercise more difficult.
Forcing yourself to nose breath for conditioning exercise, can be a method of training, that
builds your conditioning, and breathing efficiency, while being less physically demanding
on the body, because you can use less load, duration, or whatever, while keeping up the
difficulty.
To recap Never Quit Principle #5 shows us that to become a master of any conditioning
exercise, we must master not only the movement but our breathing along with it.
6. Staying Fresh and Fast

What I’m trying to address here is that you can build up your conditioning while staying
fresh at the same time. If these sound contradictory to you let me explain further.
When most people think of conditioning they think of doing an exercise or series of
exercises to the point where they are completely gassed, out of breath, and even to the
point of laying on the ground in order to recover. Some people take this even further,
exalting those who can push until they vomit.
Like I said, once in a while this may be good to do (not the vomit thing so much but the
other parts), in order to find your limits and push against them.
But for the most part in your training you don’t need to get to this level. While you do
have to put stress on your body in order to achieve a training effect, by constantly going
all out, you would often be doing more damage then good. It will bring down your health
and performance, in addition to leading to a higher likelihood of injury.

In your training you want to emphasize pushing the conditioning boundaries but staying
fresh at the same time. How do you do this? You do this by keeping your speed up.
Understand, once your speed starts to go down, and with conditioning exercises that is
almost always the first thing to fall, then at that point you could stop or go further. By
going further you would then get to a point of getting out of breath, of having your form
deteriorate, and of eventually having to stop.
But in training you don’t want to reach that quitting point. In fact, you don’t even want to
come close to it. You can go further and make progress each time in your workout while
maintaining speed.
With this you understand the right time to terminate a set. Never quit conditioning isn’t
just referring to having conditioning levels so great that you never have to quit. It also
refers to the fact that in your training you never reach a quitting point. Rather it is done by
choice.
So when you do terminate a set you may need a little time to catch your breath and fully
recover, but it isn’t ‘lie on the ground, gasping for air’ recovery. Since making this switch
in my training I’ve been able to do more difficult tests of endurance and be less beat up
after doing them.
There is a difference in training yourself and testing yourself. In your training you can push
the limits but not reach the limits. You can make great progress doing this regularly. This
doesn’t mean it won’t be difficult, or your body and mind wouldn’t rather quit then keep
going. But it doesn’t mean going all out, balls to the walls.
In testing yourself, you do go all out and find out just what you can do. This is essential in
competition but certainly not in your workout every single day.
It is of utmost importance to realize you can improve without going all out. You can still
build your ability while training.
One thing that is helpful in this is by following your own body’s feedback in training. This
can help in determining exercises and loads and how far you go. And your ability to
maintain speed is one signal worth listening too.
Here is an example of training versus testing. The vast majority of time I spend training is
at my home gym going in the directions I choose. But every once in a while I’ll go to a
Strongman competitions, a Crossfit workout, or some other event to test myself.
By doing something that is foreign to me in exercises used and how its structured I can try
it and see how my training has built me for this. Even though it is different I will then be
able to test my overall fitness, in both strength and conditioning.

And therein lies a problem with Crossfit in general. Every workout, of which they do
many, is a test where you’re meant to go all out. And this is one of the primary reasons
that many people get injured in doing it. (Note that this is a generalization about Crossfits.
There are exceptions but this is how many do their workouts and the results they get.)
If you are training properly, working everything, you‘ll be able to go into other people‘s
realms and perform well. Possibly even dominate. This will happen depending on how
your training is going. Then when you test you’ll do very well.
Never Quit Principle #6 helps us to understand, if you progress in your conditioning by

always going all out, you can make progress. And if you progress in your conditioning by
going faster, or lengthening how long you can go at speed, you’ve still made progress.
There’s progress either way, its just that the latter comes at a lower total cost on the body.
7. Progressive Training
If you have a goal, it can’t be generic and non-specific like I want to have great
conditioning. That’s great but there is no way to gauge it. You need to set benchmarks
which you can measure your ability against. With these you can see where you are and
how far you need to progress in order to hit your goals.
Understand that no variable exists in a vacuum. They need to be tracked in relation to the
other variables. The weight of an implement used, or in the case of bodyweight exercises,
the variation used, how many reps are done, and in what time frame.
How many sprints were done at what speed for each one? Were they all done of the same
length? What was the overall time of the workout to keep an eye on total test time?
With a circuit you need to track the exercises, load and reps of each exercise. And then
what is the time is takes to complete a circuit. This way if you increase the load on a single
exercise in the circuit it will reflect in your final time one way or another.
It should go without saying that with all these you need to keep track of your training.
This means writing it down. While some people like computer programs I have found
nothing is better then a simple spiral bound notebook. You write the date, the exercises
and all the variables needed. You do not need to go overboard with this, but do play
around and find what works for you.
Remember that what gets tracked, gets improved!
Weight
For exercises that use something beyond your own bodyweight, by adding more weight
you will make the exercise harder. Along with this is any other form of added resistance.
Changing the leverage on a bodyweight exercise doesn’t add weight necessarily so much

as it does up the intensity in other ways.
Sets
By adding extra sets you can make conditioning harder. If more sets are tagged on the end
of intervals you will be doing more. If another round is added to a circuit, or one more
station is added to a circuit, it makes it harder.
Reps
In a short set or a longer set, also in each set done in a circuit or interval, by adding reps
you are making progress. Of course this has to be measured against time as well.
Distance
In certain exercises distance can be measure. Various forms of running of course fall into
this.
If you do hill sprints, you do not need to measure the actual distance of the hill. Instead
just set a mark for what is your starting and finishing line. Always run this same distance.
And when you do use something different mark it down as such (half hill, double hill or
something to that effect).
Time
When it comes to conditioning, time is often the most used variable. And there are
different ways to use and track it.
For some exercises, like hill sprints, the faster the time the better. You want to do a single
sprint in as short a time as possible. The same holds true if you have a repetition goal like
to complete 500 burpees in as short a time as possible.
Then there is the flip side where longer times mean better conditioning. You look at the
total time you work, for instance building up to a workout for an hour straight. If you
have some sort of circuit or interval and just continue doing more, while keeping up the
pace, this adds much more volume for a period of time.
Goals
All training should have a goal. By just going through the motions, and not trying to get to
a specific point I would say you are at most 50% effective in your training. Simply by
setting a goal and going after it you’ll make better progress.
When it comes to conditioning. goals tend to come down to two different things, numbers
and time.

A number can be the number of repetitions you hit in a single set. This may be small like
10 reps of handstand pushups. It can be larger like 200 for a burpees. It can even be huge
like 1000 squats.
The number can also be for several sets. That thousand squats doesn’t necessarily need to
be done for a single set, it can be broken up into many.
Usually right along side a number goal is the time to hit it in. Hit the 200 burpees in ten
minutes. Hit the thousand squats in 30 minutes.
Sometimes people just want to go for time. Do as many burpees as possible in 20 minutes.
While this is good I suggest you do keep track to better know your numbers and make
improvement.
Remember what gets tracked gets improved!
Analyzing Your Weakness
When you have the data in front of you, it is very helpful to find what are your weak
points. This especially gets pointed out with when you “test” your conditioning.
You should be able to look at whatever you’re currently doing in your training and hold it
in light of what you’ve learned thus far. You can look at and see what your weaknesses
are. Maybe its in your plan, in your selection of exercises. Maybe you’ve found you’re in
the movement efficiency trap. Maybe you’ve discovered you’re too far on the endurance
side and not working the anaerobic capacity. Maybe you need to become more efficient in
moving or breathing to hit your goal.
Look at what you’re doing and see how you can make it better. This should all be
analyzed in light of your goals.

The Three Conditioning Sets
For my conditioning training I’ve found that breaking up all conditioning into three
different sets helped to serve as a framework for how to do the exercises. These are
Explosive Sprint, Short Intense, and Long Sets.
As you will come to see that each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages. By
working in all three areas you will build yourself up better overall, being sure to hit almost
all of the strength-endurance curve.
Not only is there the “movement efficiency trap”, but also the “conditioning length trap”.
If you only do one type of conditioning, like one of these three sets, you’ll find you aren’t
in that great of condition when you do the other kinds. Of course there is carry over,
especially from anaerobic to aerobic, but by doing some of all three, you’ll be better
prepared for anything.
1. Explosive Sprint Sets

Explosive sprint sets are exercises done with maximal speed and effort in the 15 to 30
second range.
This can be tricky to hit with bodyweight exercises. Some of the best other tool options
include heavy cleans and snatches, and odd object lifting which often all fall into this
category. The best bodyweight option is hill sprints. In fact, that may be the very best way
to train an explosive set.
Also while I’m not a fan of cardio equipment, it can easily be used for this, as it was
originally used in the Tabata Protocol. With these you can go all out for the short period
of time.

2. Short Intense Sets
What is the short intense set? It is usually a very difficult exercise. It takes great strength
and conditioning at the same time. It uses the full body in effort making it vary taxing.
I call anything from a 30 second effort to 5 minutes a short intense set. Obviously, within
that there is much difference. The difference between short intense sets and explosive sets
is that you usually will not be able to go 100% all out the entire set in these. It requires
some slowing down at the end or a proper pace throughout.
The same exercises as explosive sets can be used. They will just be dragged out a little
longer, and as already mentioned, not done at 100% speed (especially beyond the two
minute mark.)
Many of the options explored later in this book can fit into this category, when setup
properly. The classic finisher is often of this type. Using an intense exercise to ‘finish’ the
workout generally will fall into this area.
3. Long Sets
The long set, as outline here is anywhere from five minutes to an hour and if you choose
even longer. There is a big difference between a five minute set and an hour long set. We
discussed the different energy pathways, and I personally feel that after five minutes is
where the body starts to transfer over to aerobic energy pathways.
In a lot of my kettlebell training, I’ve found there is a huge difference between a five
minute set and a ten minute set. Different paces will be needed depending on the time
length you set out to hit. Doing a five minute set will have a different speed then a 15
minute set.
With the long set you can even have breaks involved. You can set a time limit and see
what you can do in that time, taking as little rest as possible. The goal would be to
eventually be able to go non-stop even for these longer periods of time.
Hundreds of squat reps falls into the longer set scheme. While a marathon run would
classify as a long set, under this definition, there are certainly other distances you could
run that also work. What is your mile time? A great mile runner will have it fall into the
short intense set. But for most it will be in this longer range. Work on that and see how
your conditioning improves.
This can also be called Steady State cardio. As you pace yourself to the point where you
are going at a steady state the entire time.

Training Styles
Along with the three sets there are a number of different ways to train and test yourself.
Intervals
An interval involves a specific period of work followed by a specific period of rest. This is
repeated a number of times. The amount of variety in here is endless.
A famous version is known as the Tabata Protocol. Created by Izumi Tabata this interval
involves work for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest. This is repeated 8 times for
a total workout of just under four minutes. Although the first couple sets are easy, 10
seconds is little rest and it starts to add up putting you in a severe oxygen debt by the end.
In it’s original form it was done on stationary bikes which was important for how they got
the results, because it required tremendous intensity. Although many trainers like to talk
about tabatas and do them with all kinds of exercises, its really not replicatable in most of
these ways. While these other workouts can still be effective, depending on the exercises
used, it may not quite allow the full true Tabata effect to come through.
Other forms of intervals can be used with any work to rest ratio. And as you improve you
can go about shortening the rest periods between sets. Sometimes even coming to the
point of eliminating rest all together. For example if you are working on burpees:
Workout 1 - 30 seconds on/30 seconds off x 10

Workout 6 - 10 minutes straight
While this may not look like much be warned it can be much harder from one workout to
the next. Not only are you increasing the time you spend working, but you are also cutting
back your rest time. Even smaller jumps could be made.
Another exercise that has a interval built in pretty much is hill sprints. More on those later.
Intervals are usually done with short intense sets mixed with some period of rest. But
there is no reason you can’t do longer sets. For example:
2 minutes on/1 minute off x 10 for a 30 minute total workout
Loose Interval
Recall what you read earlier where I talked about staying fast and fresh. If you try to

adhere to this, while doing some time defined interval, how can it be done? In most cases
you either finish the interval or you stop when you lose speed. If you can do the entire
thing (whatever the setup) without slowing down then you‘ll need to progress in your next
workout.
Enter the loose interval. In essence this really isn’t an interval, but a great training
protocol. What you do is your set, until you begin to loose speed. Stop at this point. Rest
as much as you need. This could be a short time or longer depending on your conditioning
levels and recovery ability. Then go back to the exercise. You should be able to go just as
fast and just as long as before. If your speed drops off, you either haven’t rested enough
or you should wrap it up for that exercise for the day.
Just because its loose doesn’t mean you shouldn’t track your progress. Keep track of your
reps and time for each set. You don’t need to write down how much rest you get after
each set although you can. Instead watch the total time from the first set to last for the
density of work you’ve performed. Simply by improving this you will improve.
For the reasons stated above I like to do this more for training on many exercises, and a
true interval as a test.
Circuits
Circuit training has its benefits and drawbacks. First lets details what circuit training is. A
circuit involves a number of different exercises. These are done in a circuit fashion, that is
one exercise right after another, going around all the different ‘stations’. This can be done
with just a few exercises or many. It can be done for a single round (often with 15 or more
exercises) or multiple rounds. Sometimes rest is incorporated in the circuit, after each set
or at specific times, or sometimes it is done non-stop.
Circuits are great in that you can combine what would typically be used as strength
exercises, and build great conditioning off them. A heavy deadlift is a different animal
when you do it fresh versus when you do it under cardio fatigue.
Personally, I like to keep my strength training and conditioning separate most of the time.
This may seem in contrast to what I wrote above about the strength-endurance curve, but
it really comes down to goals. In order to maximize your strength you will want to be as
fresh as possible. The same is true for cardio if you are going after a specific goal.
That being said circuits are great to test yourself on. And they can cover lots of ground
when setup right. If you are pressed on time they can hit everything real fast. Boom, bang,
done.
Non-Stop
One of my favorite methods of training is to go non-stop. There is something about doing

a longer set with no rest, no breaks that makes it much harder than everything else.
Circuits, intervals and more have stopping points. Even if it is intense you are in a sense,
getting to quit, even if just briefly.
I first got this idea from John Brookfield. Doing intervals is teaching your body to quit. Its
training to just last a certain time longer, and then you’re done. This of course is repeated
and the effort overall is quite high.
But a long non-stop set is different. You don’t quit until you are done. (Note: this doesn’t
mean done in that you can’t go further necessarily.) You have to just keep going. For
longer and longer sets this becomes a true battle of mental and physical toughness.
John Brookfield is know for his insanely long and intense conditioning workouts with his
battling ropes and all kinds of other tools too.

The Benefits of Bodyweight Conditioning
It is my opinion that while a person can get decently strong and fit with a single tool, to
really get to the top you’ll have to mix it up. For guys that only do bodyweight exercises
they are missing out on so much else. You may become a master of manipulating your
own body through time and space, but what happens we you need to manipulate
something else? So while this book is all about using bodyweight, that doesn’t mean it’s
the be-all, end-all of training.
Every training tool has its advantages and disadvantages. Certain tools are better then
others, specifically in the ways of how you use them. While just about anything can be
used for strength or conditioning, make no mistake about it, certain tools and exercises are
superior to others for certain purposes.
Remember that everything we have discussed so far applies to any form of conditioning.
With that disclaimer let’s talk about the benefits of building your conditioning with
bodyweight training.
Bodyweight exercises generally require no equipment. The exception, covered in this

book, is a jump rope. Of course, some of the other require “something” though its hard to
call it equipment exactly. For hill sprints you need a hill. For stair running you need stairs.
For running in general you’ll need somewhere to do it. Pullups aren’t really covered here
but are options in circuit training, or burpee variations, and thus a bar or something else to
pull yourself up with is needed.
Thus, in general bodyweight training is free. And for the most part they can be done
anywhere. Several of the exercises covered here require nothing more than your
bodyweight and the ground you stand on to do. Thus there is no traveling to a gym that is
necessary, and with that many excuses fly out the window.
If you’re going to move, move your body first. In general, unless someone is going for a
certain weight lifting sport, and even then in many cases, it is wise to learn to control your
body first, before adding outside loads. If you can’t control and move your own body
well, you don’t have much of a chance for doing well with other objects. Its for this reason
that everyone ought to spend some time with bodyweight training. Exactly, how much
that is will depend on you and your goals.
Karl Gotch, a huge proponent of bodyweight training, though weights should only be used
with the elderly and frail. This of course was light weights to help build up the strength so
that they could then do bodyweight exercises. Of course if you understand progressions
well enough, you can make just about any basic exercises suitable to people at any level
from the frail to the elite.
On the note of movement, bodyweight training covers some of the main movement

patterns of the human body. And some of these are optimal methods for conditioning
training. This includes squats, jumping and running. All of those are covered here in
various ways.
Also included, with burpees, is at least a partial method of getting off the ground. This
basic ability is something that any human should have, yet many lose from lack of use. And
it can also be made more complex in many ways. Check out this article for 52 additional
ideas. Going through all of these can be a conditioning workout in and of itself.
http://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/take-the-stand-up-challenge-52-ways-to-
get-up-off-the-floor
Its for these reasons, that bodyweight exercises, can help you to become “in-tune” with
your body faster and better than when working with outside objects. Its not that you can’t
otherwise, but when your body is the resistance, it typically helps to bring added
awareness.
Now that we’ve covered the principles, the benefits, and the concepts behind conditioning
training, let’s move onto the exercises themselves.

Squats
Most of the following regarding squat and jumping exercises comes from The Ultimate
Guide to Bodyweight Squats and Pistols.
http://legendarystrength.com/ultimate-guide-squats/
That book covers several things. One is how to increase your flexibility to do a full range
of motion in the squat. Another is tons of variations of the squat. And lastly how to
achieve the pistol, or one legged squat, and taking that to the next level.
The other squat training covered in there is how to build up to hundreds or thousands of
squats. This goal, with that form of training is about endurance, so that training
information is copied here. When it comes to bodyweight squats you can do any of many
different variations, but in general when going for high reps, you’ll typically do the basic
bodyweight squat or a Hindu squat. The form for those two exercises is covered here.
Basic Squat
Stand with the feet at shoulder width apart. Some people will be more comfortable a little
closer together and others a little wider. Shoulder width or just outside it will usually be
best. This gives you enough space to open up the hips. Many people end up having their
feet too narrow which stops them from descending further down.
The feet can be pointed straight ahead or just slightly outside. What does straight ahead
mean? It can be confusing because it depends on which part of the foot you're looking at
to point straight. Use the second toe, the one closest to the big toe, to point straight. So
on both of your feet these two toes would be parallel.
Here again, most people will find turning the feet slightly to the outside will assist in doing
the squat. Here you may line up the inside edges of your feet to make them parallel.
Make sure your heels stay firmly planted on the floor. This is a flat-footed squat. Coming
up on the toes will be covered later and is a different variation.
Now that you have your starting position sit back and down until your thighs are resting
on your calves. The back should be kept mostly straight. The hands and arms usually come
forward to counterbalance your weight.
Ideally, you’ll want to be able to be able to squat all the way down, that is so your thighs
touch your calves, but if you can’t get there, that doesn’t mean you can’t still train in your
range of motion to build up your conditioning. And the more you squat the more flexible
you’ll become until you reach that full range of motion.

Breathing
For bodyweight squats the breathing typically takes on what is known as anatomical
breathing. That is as you squat down you exhale and as you raise up you inhale. This is the
natural breathing method for the squat because as you squat down your torso will have
less room for the lungs. When you stand up you're expanded, so the lungs have more
room.
If you're starting out and feel you need more stability you can breath in as you lower
down. This can help to create pressure in your torso which will allow you to be more
stable and strong. Its useful to do this if you haven't squatted in years and are first getting
into this training.
Of course, as soon as possible move into the anatomical style. This will also allow you to
gain flexibility as you won't be tensed up from breathing in. Anatomical breathing is also
best for endurance.
When you're working to improve your endurance, having a rhythmic breathing style is key.
Breathing in and out in a relaxed manner, the same for each rep, will allow you to go for
long periods of time.

Hindu Squat
This is one of the major variations to play with. Whereas the basic squat we covered has
you squatting flat footed, the main difference here is that as you squat down you raise up
onto the balls of you feet. This will target the quads more, plus additional calf work, then
a flat footed squat.
In addition, this move is done with a cyclical breathing and rowing motion of the arms. At
the top position you start with your arms straight out in front of you. Breathe in as you
pull your arms to your chest. Raise up on your toes as you squat down and bring your
hands to the floor. Explosively blow out the air at the bottom as you swing your arms up
and come to standing. Repeat.
Strive to maintain a straight and upright back. It is natural to lean forward a little as you
do this movement especially at speed, but the classic move has you having as upright a
back as possible. This move can be done for very high reps.

Training for 100 Squats in One Set
A great benchmark to go for is to do 100 bodyweight squats in a single set. This requires
both leg strength and endurance. You might be amazed to know there's many otherwise
strong and muscular people that would fail at this test, due to their lack on conditioning.
If you're doing a full range of motion this will be harder than someone who stops at
parallel. That's because you're doing more work. If you haven't built up the flexibility
doing squats at your current range of motion will help and there is additional flexibility
training you can do to help.
Building up to 100 reps straight can be as simple as adding more volume over time in a
few different ways.
Let's say you start off and the best you can do in a single set is 30 reps. For this training
plan you're going to work squats three times a week. Try to do each set with about 2
minutes of rest between them.
Workout 1
3 sets of 20
Workout 2
4 sets of 20
Workout 3
5 sets of 20
Workout 4
3 sets of 25
Workout 5
4 sets of 25
Workout 6
5 sets of 25
Workout 7
3 sets of 30
Workout 8
4 sets of 30
Workout 9
5 sets of 30

I think you get the point so far. This double system of progression has you increasing sets
and then reps a little at a time from workout to workout. You likely could continue like
this for sometime.
Once you build up to sets of 50 in these workouts I think you'd find that you're ready for
the challenge. Take an extra day or two off for more rest. Then with a little mental
toughness push yourself for a new max. If you make it congratulations. If not, just
continue working a little more and you'll get there soon enough.
Training for Hundreds or Thousands of Reps
I first got into serious bodyweight training from Matt Furey, one of the biggest proponents
of the Hindu squat. He set a benchmark for people to achieve of 500 of these squats
within 15 minutes. Working in a similar way to what was outlined in the earlier section
will work, but I wanted to offer a few more tips.
I encourage you to not just work with one variation of the squat. Work with several
variations and you'll have greater well rounded development. For instance the Hindu
squats work the quads more, whereas flat footed squats will develop your hips. But if
you're doing lots of reps of all different kinds it will add up to you being able to do a lot in
one set and style when you choose to go for it.
When it comes to bodyweight squats once you get to a certain level of strength and
endurance you can always do one more. Its more a matter of mental toughness than
strength or endurance once you're here. Your muscles may burn, and you may be very
sore the next day, but you can choose to keep going. Here the difficulty of one rep is less
than is basically recovered in the time to do it, thus you can keep going.
A goal of 500 can be fun to shoot for but its not necessary. Once you can do 200 straight I
would work on building the intensity of the movement, in our case move onto tougher
conditioning exercises. Although these high reps are a great starting point, like I said your
endurance and strength gets to a point where you need more of a challenge, and endless
reps isn't the most useful. Beyond this point you won't see increases in your strength and
performance, at least I didn't.
Here is what noted strongman and author Earle E. Liederman said on the subject in his
book Endurance, “Without a definite objective I am sure that between one hundred and
two hundred deep knee bends would give you sufficient endurance in the muscles of your
thighs for all ordinary demands of daily life or emergencies.”
Still for those that want to go further here's one thing that worked really well for me.
At one point in time I built up to doing 1000 reps straight on Hindu squats. This was part
of what I called the Ultimate Royal Court Challenge, which also included a 10 minute
wrestlers bridge hold and 250 Hindu pushups all back to back.

In training for this I never did more than 500 Hindu Squats at one time. But I did do two
things that really helped.
Spread volume throughout your day.
Try doing sets of 100 (or 25, 50 or 65, etc. depending on your level) throughout the day.
Any one set won't be that hard but together you're building up to lots of volume. I
recommend different variations for the sets but half of them should be the kind you're
shooting for in your one long set.
Do it everyday.
I went through a week straight doing 500 Hindu squats every single day. The first couple
days I was sore afterward but by the end I wasn't sore at all from this workload. By doing
this, when I went for 1000 it was just a matter of keeping it up. The endurance was there,
it was just mental toughness. Perhaps you can try sets of 125 each day and then set a new
record for yourself of 250 after you take a day or two off.
*****
Therefore, which training set length you use with bodyweight squats primarily depends on
your current strength and conditioning. For beginners squats may be an explosive set or a
short intense set. And as you improve you’ll take it into the range of the long set. There
the bodyweight squat will remain, unless you do some variation of it that dramatically
ramps of the intensity (like the jumps and burpees covered in the next sections). So while
it is good for that, to continue to progress, working the explosive and short intense sets,
you’ll have to turn to other exercises.
That’s for straight sets and all kinds of intervals. Bodyweight squats are great to include in
any form of circuit training so they’ll be discussed a bit further in that section.

Jumping
In a squat you have to propel your bodyweight upwards overcoming gravity. A jump
requires even more force as you have to lift off the ground. The higher, or further you
jump, the more force you must use. This increase in power generation requires more
muscular force. And it can dramatically ramp up the conditioning effect too, especially
when its repeated for reps. The following exercises are jump variations. When the squat
becomes fairly easy as a conditioning exercise, this is a great place to move into.
Jumping Squats
When you're jumping you normally don't descend into a full squat. You won't jump as high
as if you only do a partial squat. But for the sake of this exercise to train the legs more
explosively we will use a full squat. This also ups the conditioning effect.
Take a normal flat footed squat position. Go into a full squat. From the bottom accelerate
as fast as you can. You want to start jumping from the bottom and not only be explosive
at the top.
You can work on doing the biggest jumps you can, or just get a moderate height and
going for reps. You'll quickly find out how much tougher any jumping makes your
cardiovascular system work.

Hindu Jumper Squat
The Hindu Jumper Squat is a bit more difficult than the regular Hindu Squat. Here when
you explode upwards with your arms and legs you'll also jump forward about a foot. Then
as you breathe in and row your arms back you jump back and descend into the squat. This
requires a little more strength, but is primarily for wind. As its not a big jump its not a
huge change in difficulty but it does ramp it up to a degree.
Its hard to see the dynamic nature of this exercise in a picture but its only a slight jump
forwards and back with each rep.

Box Jump
Here we get a measurable progressive component that can be used with jumping. You can
setup boxes to any height. Just make sure they're a stable surface that can handle your
weight.
There are two variations. You can do a full squat which will be harder, or just jump onto
the box as you normally would.
For a normal jump here is the basic form. Squat slightly, no more than a quarter of the
way as you aggressively push your hips back. Your arms will also swing down. Swing
your arms forward as you snap the hips and jump off the ground.
You can also descend into a full squat as described earlier.
To become even better at jumping work on how you land. Surprisingly enough this will
improve how far and high you can jump.
There are two variations. You can focus just on jumping upwards and then step down
with each rep. You can also jump off the box. This second variation places more impact
on the joints which you must be aware of. But since it will allow you to move faster it can
increase the conditioning effect too.

Jumping Lunge
To start with, from a normal standing position, step one foot forward, with a larger than
normal step. This forward foot will be flat footed. Bend the leg as the other foot stays in
place but raises up onto the ball of the foot. For the jumping lunge you’ll not want to
touch your knee to the ground but keep it hovering over it an inch or two. This is the
place you jump to from each side. Explosively jump upwards then switch the front leg to
the back and the back to the front. Make it even harder by jumping high with each jump.
While simple in execution this is a phenomenal conditioning exercise.
Training with Jumps
Various jumping exercises can cover all of the different forms of conditioning.
For explosive sets do just a few maximum height jumps in a row. For short intense sets do
moderate jumping reps for the time duration. For long sets do an easy jump for longer
periods of time. Remember to strive for rhythmic breathing.
Since explosive power is quick to run out, especially when down maximally or even
moderately, jumps work great in an interval style. The same with circuits. Any circuit can
be made into a much more difficult “cardio” circuit by adding some jumps into it,
especially if they’re near maximal jumps. It doesn’t take many of those to get you
breathing hard.
To really build your conditioning ability, try some long sets with jumps. I personally like to
use box jumps because it gives you a specific mark to shoot for. If you’re just jumping
into the air as the set goes on you’ll lose steam and the jumps will get shorter and shorter.
With a box you have to clear a certain height, or you don’t. The feedback is immediate.

Jump Rope
I was hesitant to include jump rope in here. Not cause its not a great conditioning
exercise, but that it largely lacks a muscular component, as was discussed in the principles
section. But I’ve decided it was still worth including.
Still the jump rope can be used in a progressive manner in several different ways. Most
people will outgrow the single jump in its conditioning effect but you can use many other
variations to up the intensity.
Any jump rope can be used but there are a few things you may want to work with. The
first and most important is that the jump rope is the right size for you. If you have one that
is too short then it will impact your ability to smoothly jump.
To determine the right size jump rope for you stand on its center. The handles should
reach up to your armpits. But they shouldn’t go above your shoulders.
Another way to tell is that when you jump with the rope it should touch the floor
(obviously not excessively). But if its only going through the air its too short for you.
As a general guideline you can use this chart:
Rope Length Height of Jumper

6ft Under 4'0"
7ft 4'0" to 4'9"
8ft 4'10" to 5'3"
9ft 5'4" to 5'10"
10ft 5'11" to 6'5"
11ft 6'6" +

In addition there are different types of jump ropes. There are clothe ropes, beaded ropes
and plastic/vinyl styles. Some are designed for speed and others are weighted. Which is
best? As with anything there are benefits and drawbacks to each.
Speed ropes are the primary type of rope that is used. Typically very light in nature, and as
the name implies, these allow you to go fast. This is the type of rope you want as you add
intensity and complexity to your jumps.
A weighted rope has more weight to it in both the handles and the rope. This can take
some more strength to manipulate and spin through the air, but overall won’t be quite the
strength challenge, compared to most other exercises. Still it can be useful to change up
your training and get a slightly more strengthening effect.
If you’re going to buy one rope, I would recommend a speed rope. But if you’re going to
get two get both a speed and a weighted rope. This allows more variation in your
workouts in addition to time, reps and styles.
Single Jump
Grab the rope in both hands with the rope behind your feet. Using your hands and arms
you’ll swing it overhead and as it comes in front of you, you’ll make a slight jump,
typically just using the calves to skip up and down, as the rope scrapes the floor under
your feet. Repeat for as many reps as you want.
Occasionally you’ll miss the jump and the rope will hit your feet. Did I mention its good to
wear shoes because the rope can hurt when moving fast? Then just step over the rope and
re-start.
When going at speed all the motion in the rope is generated by a small movement from the
hands and wrists. The arms don’t need to be involved. Also the jump is done as small as
possible, just with the feet, calves and ankles, with no bend in the knees, for efficiency.
Side to Side
Jump to the left and right slightly with each jump
Front to Back
Jump to the front and back slightly with each jump
Cross Feet
Cross your feet with each jump alternating which foot is forward with each jump or
staying in one position for many skips.

Heel to Toe
Jump on your heels then on your toes alternating with each jump. Or spend multiple jumps
on just the heels.
Backwards
Swing the rope in the opposite direction for each jump. All variations can be done in this
manner.
Footwork Jumps
This basic variation has your running in place rather than jumping. Thus each foot
alternates which one is on the ground and what is in the air, while the rope skips under
you with each step. This has been a favorite of boxers for a long time to build up foot
speed and coordination.
This can be done in variations that include high knees, butt kicks and more. Also try
sprinting forward and covering distance like this.
Crossovers or Criss-Cross
The crossover involves your arms crossing each other while you jump, which in turn
causes the rope to cross over. This typically done in an alternating manner, meaning a
jump with the ropes in normal position by your side, then crossover, then back to normal
and so on. As you do this your arms are moving in a figure 8 pattern.
Side Swing
Instead of starting with the rope behind you, you can swing it to the side of your body
with both hands and then open it up to begin jumping. This side swing can also be used
during a set, sort of like a rest, or a transition to other movements.
One Foot
Jump on one foot while holding the other in the air either in front of you or behind. This
can be made more complicating by adding some of the other styles into it as well, like
front to back, side to side, criss-crossing and more.
Double Unders
The double under is where the conditioning typically gets ramped up by a big amount. All
the other variations here will increase it a little, but especially when starting out, this move
is significantly harder. The reason for that is you must swing the rope in two revolutions

while you do a single jump. In the beginning, this means a big jump. As you get better at it
the jump can become more skilled and efficient and take less of a jump.
When starting out with this do a few normal rope skips then jump higher and whip the
rope around twice as fast as you can. Then return to single jumps before going for you
next double under. To progress work to one single skip alternating with the double under.
Once this is efficient you can string multiple double unders together.
Of course, triple unders are a possibility. Some people have even built up to five, aka the
quintuple under.
More Advanced Variations
If you want to take jump roping even further you can. There are far more complex skills
than what is shown here. This dives further into the realm of skill training, rather than just
conditioning (although that gets built up too). To explore this realm I recommend you
check out jump rope superstar Buddy Lee. Here’s a video showcasing some of his skills:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKIRfOktoZg
Workouts and Training the Jump Rope
We’ve covered lots of variations, so now let’s talk about putting them all together into
your training. With the jump rope, depending on what style you use, you can work all the
different forms of conditioning training.
The most basic is the long set. This is often done just with the single jump or normal rope
skip, although any variation can be used. Set a time limit, say 10, 15 or even longer and
continue to jump that entire time. If you can go the whole time without a single mistake
great, but if you do miss a jump, just resume once again without pause.
Another way to achieve the same thing is to set a rep count goal like 1000, 5000, 10000
or whatever you choose.
To work with short intense sets you’ll need to choose a variation that it harder. Going as
fast a possible like in footwork variations can fit for this. Once again, you can choose a rep
or a time goal to shoot for. This can be done in a one off set, or various types of intervals.
For the explosive set, the double unders (and triple unders once you’re good at those) are
going to be your best bet. When you first start out with these you’ll be highly inefficient at
the movement, which makes them just like doing sprints. Try to string 50 together in a
row and you’ll see just how hard it can be.
And of course, jumping rope in its many variations can be incorporated into any kind of
circuit.

Here’s an example of how you might progress overtime with a few different methods and
styles.
Single jump for 1 minute x 10

Single jump for 2 minutes x 5
Single jump for 10 minutes straight
1000 single jumps

1000 crossover jumps
1000 front to back jumps
1000 one foot jumps
1000 double unders
Double Under x 50 total reps (one rep at a time, as many sets as needed.)
Double Under x 10 with as many altenating single jumps as necessary. Do 5 total sets
with unbroken 10 reps.
Double Under x 10 with a single altenating single jump between reps. Do 5 total sets
with unbroken 10 double unders reps.
Double Under x 10 back to back reps. Do 5 total sets with unbroken 10 double unders
reps.
Double Under x 50 straight.

Burpees
Burpees, also known as sprawls, squats thrusts, down-ups, eight count bodybuilders and
more, come in as many forms as they do names. The basics of this exercise is to go from a
standing position to a squat. From there you jump out into the top of a pushup position
and then reverse it back to the start. We’ll go into more details on this basic movement
and then a few variations to complicate it.
This isn’t a hugely muscular move but it is one that can jack up your cardio very quickly.
This is because just about every piece of your body is moving, usually very quickly and
sometimes in an explosive manner.
Basic Burpee
The squat that is used in a burpee isn’t quite the same as a normal bodyweight squat.
Instead of it all be driven by the legs there is a lot of forward lean as the hands reach to the
ground. Once the hands are on the ground you’re able to support your weight as you
shoot your legs back into the top of the pushup position. Sometimes there is more of an
arch in the back, a sprawl, as is used in wrestling.
The basic version breaks down into just four moves. Squat down. Jump legs back. Jump
legs forward. Stand up. And repeat for as many reps or time as necessary.
Add a Pushup
When you get into the top of the pushup position you can then do a pushup. This is a very
common variation. But before you start doing this there is an important distinction to
make. It all depends in how strong you are in the pushup. As your endurance in them
starts to fade it will slow down the overall movement. Thus the limiting factor can be your
strength and not your conditioning. Not that this is a bad thing, just something worth
being aware of.
But if you’re strong and enduring in the pushup, and can maintain a quick speed

throughout all the reps, then the burpee with pushup is tougher cardiovascularly then the
basic version, because more muscle is in use.
When done at a certain cadence and by jumping the legs out to a straddle after being
straight it is also called an 8-count bodybuilder.
Add a Jump
Jumping was discussed in an earlier section and you already know how it can dramatically
ramp up the conditioning effect. On the fourth stage of a burpee instead of just standing
up, in this variation you’re going to jump up. This can be a maximally explosive jump,
although if you’re doing high reps, its going to end up being just a small jump. Of course,
box jumps could also be used.
Because of the necessary explosiveness, even in a small jump, this version is much more
conditioning based. This is a very common variation, that will likely make up the majority
of your burpee work once you‘ve “mastered“ the basic version.
Add a Squat to Roll
This is a less common variation that adds quite a bit of complexity to the burpee. Every
other time you come to the standing position, instead of going to the pushup, you’ll squat
down and roll on your back, then roll forward into a squat and stand up.
So the sequence is squat down, jump to pushup, jump back, stand up, squat down, roll
back, roll to squat and stand up. Then repeat this sequence for reps.
Part of the fun in this variation is learning to relax with the roll. If you’re holding your
breath doing it, you’ll get out of breath much quicker. When you can do that, this is about
the same difficulty, conditioning wise, as a basic burpee.
Add a Pullup
To do this variation you must position yourself under a pullup bar. Usually this is done
with the bar higher up, then just your raised hands over your head. Since most people are
going to be limited in reps based on their pullup strength, this is typically made easier by
jumping up to the bar and doing the pullup with momentum. Even then, the pullup
strength is likely the first place to diminish.
This adds an interesting dynamic as with the pullup many people, especially after a few
reps, will hold their breath through most of the movement as they exert their strength.
This will in turn get you more out of breath, making the rest of the movement tougher in a
cardio manner.
This isn’t as common of a burpee variation as some of the others but something you can

do once in awhile to mix it up. Just think if you do 100 burpees, that’s not that big of a
deal, but with the added pullup, that’s 100 pullup reps which is a fair amount, even if done
with a jump.
Combinations
Of course any of these variations can be combined together. A common burpee variation
includes both the pushup and the jump. And you can even combine them all which will
also serve to make your brain work to remember the correct sequence to go in.
Also feel free to use your own creativity. Any other manner of movements could also be
included into the mix. There’s even more ways to play with it like doing one legged
burpees.
Training with the Burpee
When you’re first starting out burpees may fall into the sprint set class, especially the
jumping variations, but for the most part you’ll be working with the long sets and short
intense sets.
With the basic burpee its fairly simple, in concept though not necessarily execution, to
build up to a large number for a single set or a workout (like done in an interval style).
100 burpees
300 burpees
500 burpees
1000 burpees
Start with a specific interval, or a loose interval, using as much rest as needed, and keep
track of the amount of time it takes you to hit these numbers. Eventually you’ll be able to
do them in a single non-stop set. But often then you can work to go even faster.
This same method can be done with any of the variations. If you can do 1000 reps of
jumping burpees you’ve got great conditioning.
And as with everything else, all variations of the burpee fit in well with any number of
circuits which will be discussed later.

Running and Hill Sprints
Although we began this book with a discussion about marathon runners and why long
distance running is not necessarily the best option for you health or fitness, that doesn’t
mean you shouldn’t run at all. Running, in its various forms, is a natural movement of the
human body and thus is well worth training.
When you turn from just running, to sprints, you have the ultimate tool for explosive
sprint conditioning workouts. In fact, I would argue that the very best method overall for
conditioning is hill sprints. We’ll be covering lots of details on those and in fact, that‘s
where our discussion will start.
There are several benefits of hill sprints over the flat land version. Hill sprints build muscle,
shed fat, make you faster, and they’re even safer than flat land sprints. This is because you
have a shorter stride length and thus less of a chance to pull a muscle.
By adding an incline you dramatically increase the intensity of the movement. This shoots
up the conditioning you can get from it. By working on a steep incline you will be able to
push your conditioning levels up quickly, as few things will get you tired as fast. Not only
will you get in better condition but you will become faster which is helpful for just about
every sport. Sprinting in this manner is like jumping, in its conditioning effects, because
you’re propelling your body explosively upward and forward with each step, just using a
single leg at a time.
In addition, because of their intensity, they’re one of the best exercises for releasing human
growth hormone in your system. This hormone helps keep you young and aids in the
addition of muscle. Plus this form of intense training, typically helps to deepen your sleep.
After all you’ll need your sleep to recover from them.

Breaking Into Hill Sprinting
If you haven’t done any sort of running recently you don’t want to jump in and start
sprinting all out. If you are already in good shape, do at least one session jogging or
running the hills, but not going all out before you begin sprinting.
For those not in great shape already, jogging may be all you can muster. Even for
sedentary folks just walking the hill may be the most optimal choice. Ease into this intense
exercise. For one, you’ll be less sore the next day, but also you will dramatically lessen the
chances of injury.
Also you should warmup before sprinting. I don’t recommend static stretching for this
purpose. Even dynamic stretches aren‘t the best. Instead just do a short jog, so that you‘re
actually working the body and muscles needed for this exercise. For me all it takes is
jogging to the hill to begin my sprints. Of course if you feel you need more than that, by all
means go for it. But building the ability to go into an all out sprint without warming up is
a good ability to have in case you ever need it.
Types of Hills
Depending on where you live you may be able to find different options. Unfortunately, not
everyone has hills in their area, which is why the alternative options are covered later.
What sort of hill should you look for? Virtually any level of incline will work. Obviously,
the steeper the hill the harder the exercise will be.
Equally important is length. I find the optimal length is whatever you can sprint in about
30 seconds. Go longer and you won’t be sprinting all out. Shorter and you don’t have
enough time to expend all your explosiveness and run out of breath. The great thing is if
you have a large hill you can just run a portion of it and the full length at other times the
full thing.
Explosive Hill Sprints
In all your training you must keep it progressive. This way you know you are doing better.
For this reason you should run the same length most of the time. Have a start and a finish
line. And time yourself for each sprint. Race yourself trying to beat your best time each
and every time. It is satisfying to see over the course of a couple weeks how what took
you 30 seconds before now only takes you 27.
For every single step you want to force yourself to go faster. This gets you out of breath
quick. With many other conditioning exercises (like bodyweight squats or burpees) there
is time in the move to relax, even if just for a split second. Even going at a fast pace its
really not all out like hill sprints can be at every moment. With a steep hill you will get out

of breath fast. That’s what makes this one of the best exercises.
Its for this reason that hill sprints of all types build mental toughness. With each step your
CAN go a little faster. When your lungs are burning and your legs are about to collapse
you can keep going and you can go faster. But its hard. You must force yourself to do it,
and that takes toughness. The fact is you can always push yourself a little bit harder. Just a
tiny bit faster. This is why hill sprints are in my opinion one of the best ways to build this
trait.
I find that four to eight sprints is enough for the workout, and that takes some building up
to. You know you are in condition when your last sprint is not more than a second or two
in time off of the first. But when you’re starting out don’t be surprised to find yourself
taking five to eight seconds longer on that last sprint.
After you finish the sprint walk down to the bottom and start again. Your only rest is in
the walk down. This same style works even if you’re starting out walking or jogging up
the hill. It’s the natural interval built into hill running. Of course, in the beginning if you
need more time to recover, rest at the bottom of the hill.
In keeping with the idea of keeping fresh, I’ll typically terminate my hill sprint workouts
when my time takes a big drop off from one sprint to the next. For instance, I may hit my
first four sprints in 30 seconds or under, but then the fifth is 33 seconds. At that point I’ll
usually call it a day.
Typically hill sprints are done two or three times a week, depending on other leg training
and conditioning exercise. Doing hill sprints a couple times a week will make you tougher,
better conditioned, stronger, and faster. Well worth the effort.
Here’s a video of hill sprints in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxace4YSrOs
Other Hill Sprint Training
The natural interval of sprinting up and walking down is my favorite. But there are other
useful ways to do hill runs.
If you have a long enough hill, like a half mile or a few miles, try running up the whole
thing. This is more of a steady pace then a sprint, but it certainly is more intense then just
running on flat ground.
I’ll also work one minute hill sprints in. If its more than a gentle incline, you won’t be able
to all out sprint the whole thing, but you can still go at a fast pace.
If you don’t have a long hill you can run up and down a shorter one non-stop. Be careful
with this, as running downhill places more impact on your joints. You want to avoid this if

you are overweight, not in shape or have any pre-existing injuries to the ankles, knees,
hips or back. This still has some of that natural interval but is done in a non stop manner.
So while the hill sprint is best for the explosive set, they can also be used for short intense
and even long conditioning sets.
Stair Running
While my favorite is hill sprints, in some areas hills aren‘t available. If you don’t have hills,
a long stair case, like stadium steps, can be substituted.
The same factors of length, time and how to train all come into play.
The reason I prefer hill sprints to stairs is that you have to step in line with the stairs. I feel
this holds you back from going in an all out sprint. This is because the stairs may not fit
your natural gait of sprinting. Still this can be used for an interesting change up.
The normal way of stair running is for one foot to touch each step. You can make both
feet touch each step, for added footwork. Try skipping a stair with each step. Or two or
three. Jumping variations can also be included. These different strides and methods will
change up how this exercise hits your body and your conditioning as well. They allow
more variation then just pure sprints.

Flat Running
Hill sprints are preferable to flat land running, because they’re safer, and the intensity is
much higher. Of course, that doesn’t make flat running and sprints bad.
Instead of always pushing the distance like a marathon runner why not try focusing on
speed? A 40, 50 or 100 yard dash are all common tests of sprinting ability. Get a timer and
go for it, working to focus on your speed. Do these as intervals and you’ll be working
your conditioning ability in a big way.
Also how fast can you run a 400, 800 or mile? Work on bringing these times down and
you’ll have similar benefits as regular sprints except as a longer test. It engages the
muscles of the legs in a more muscular fashion then marathon-style running. This allows
you to do lots of work in the short intense, to long sets of conditioning.

Circuit Training
The final method of bodyweight training covered here is that of using circuits, rather than
focusing on one specific exercise. Thus this is a different form of training that can
incorporate much more.
As has been mentioned in the training section of each exercise, all of them can be included
in circuits. But you can also do plenty of other exercises. Any bodyweight exercise (and
any exercise in general) can be done in a circuit. Let’s cover some different training
formats and options.
Explosive sprint sets are best kept to a single exercise. However, you can build a circuit to
include these, even of several different types. This would then be done in some form of
interval fashion. For instance:
Hill Sprint
10 Max Height Jumps
20 Double Unders
By resting as needed between sets you could do each at a maximum speed.
In contrast, if you have great conditioning this can all be done back to back. Because
you’ll have to pace yourself to some degree, more than likely, this will go into the short
intense range. This can be then completed for a number of rounds to make up your
conditioning workout.
Long sets are done in circuits with any exercises, done with little to no rest. These can go
very far if you choose stacking up tons of reps or time.
In addition to the exercises covered in this book, circuits are great to include other
exercises, that are traditionally used for strength purposes. Pushups and pullups, tend to
fall more into the strength category, but can be used for a whole body conditioning effect,
by their use in a circuit. Here’s a few examples.
Pushups x 10
Squats x 20
Repeat 3-10 times
Pushups x 10
Squats x 10
Situps x 10
Inverted Rows x 10
Repeat 3-10 times

Hindu Pushups x 30
Hindu Squats x 100
Repeat 2-5 times
Jump Ropes x 100

Run 400m
30 Pushups
10 Pullups
Repeat 3-10 times
Jumping Lunges x 50
Squats x 50
Pushups x 20
Repeat 3-10 times
A circuit with pushups, pullups, hanging knee raises and squats, done quick can become
a great conditioning workout.

As you get stronger and stronger you can use more strength based exercises, but doing
them in a fairly easy rep range. Still, these done back to back can become an intense
conditioning workout.
Handstand Pushups x 5
Pullups x 5
Pistols x 5 each leg
Hanging Leg Raise x 5
Repeat 3-10 times
For more information on these and other bodyweight exercises be sure to check out the
other books in The Ultimate Guides to Bodyweight Training series.
With circuits you can build in an interval, for instance, resting for a set or non-set period
of time, after each round.
Or you can go non-stop, doing each round back to back.
Rest can also be built in between each exercise, though if you use this its usually a low
amount, like 10 seconds. Typically all the rest you get is as you move from one station to
another. But with bodyweight exercises you often don’t even have to change places since
there’s no or little equipment to use.
If you select a specific circuit workout you can make progress in a variety of fashions. Its
basically a matter of more total volume or work (adding more rounds or reps to each
round), or a higher density (keeping track of your total time, as you bring this number
down you’re getting faster or use less rest).

Wrap Up
We’ve covered a lot of information in this book and in this section I’ll bring it all together
for you. You’re not meant to do every exercise or workout covered here, at least not at
once. Realize that conditioning isn’t something that you have or you don’t, but is
constantly in flux. As long as its improving in general over time that’s great.
As you build your training program keep the seven Never Quit Conditioning Principles in
mind. Here they are once again:
1. Anaerobic versus Aerobic

2. Strength & Endurance Curve
3. Full Body Exercises
4. Movement Efficiency
5. Control Your Breathing
6. Staying Fresh and Fast
7. Progressive Training
If you follow these your conditioning will get better. Add to this working, to some degree,
on all of The Three Conditioning Sets:
1. Explosive Sprint Sets

2. Short Intense Sets
3. Long Sets
That will help you to maximize most of the principles.
In the beginning it is best to choose one exercise and method to be your mainstay. For
instance select hill sprints, jump rope, squats, jumps or circuits. Select one of these and a
conditioning length to make your primary focus. Do that for a period of time, with the
occasional mix-up.
Pick a goal to shoot for. Think of something that you definitely can’t do right now, but
with training it will be achievable. Those big numbers like 1000 burpees in a workout, 500
straight squats, 100 double unders in a row, are all worthy goals if you choose them. You
can also go with five hill sprints under 30 seconds of a certain hill length. Then start
training. After you’ve reached your goal, select a new one, rotating the exercise, or
conditioning length.
Its great to focus on one thing, but even while doing that, you’ll best be served by
including some variation to cover the other bases.
This can look like one focused session a week and one random conditioning workout. Or
two focused and one random. Or one focused and two random. Or two and two. More
than that, especially if you’re doing long sets, is likely more than most can recover

properly from.
A common mistake many people make is to think they need to spend more and more time
conditioning. In truth, one or two conditioning workouts a week is enough to progress.
More than that and you won’t necessarily get any better any faster. In fact it can even slow
progress as you take more recovery time. Also keep in mind that you can’t make up for
intensity just by doing more volume.
Realize there is no perfect workout schedule. And even if you have one, its only perfect
for a short period of time, then changes need to be made. Keep on evolving and your
conditioning will get better and better. There will be ups and downs, setbacks and big
gains, but overall it’ll be a virtuous spiral of greatness.

Some of My Other Books, Courses and Websites:
The Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups

http://www.legendarystrength.com/products/ultimate-guide-to-handstand-pushups/
The Ultimate Guide to Pullups & Chin-ups

http://legendarystrength.com/ultimate-guide-pullups/
The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Ab Exercises

http://legendarystrength.com/ultimate-guide-abs/
The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Squats and Pistols

http://legendarystrength.com/ultimate-guide-squats/
The Master Keys to Strength and Fitness

http://legendarystrength.com/master-keys/
Mental Muscle
http://mentalmusclebook.com/
Learn How to Back Flip in 31 Days

http://legendarystrength.com/go/backflipbook/
Advanced Bridging Course

http://advancedbridging.com
Deceptive Strength: Becoming Strong While Staying Small

http://legendarystrength.com/deceptive-strength/
Front and Back Lever Training

http://legendarystrength.com/front-and-back-lever-training/
Secrets of the Handstand

http://www.handstandmastery.com/
For a full up-to-date list go to:

http://www.LegendaryStrength.com/books-videos/

Ultimate Guide Conditioining

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The Ultimate Guide to

The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Conditioning

All Rights Reserved.

Manufactured in the United States of America

So let’s get started…

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They’re not thinking:

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Meaning excessive endurance exercise, such as running marathons or ultra-marathons,

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Sprinter vs. Marathon Runner

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1. Anaerobic versus Aerobic

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2. Strength & Endurance Curve

Focusing on Strength Based Exercises

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As an example, take the bodyweight squat, an excellent exercise. If a beginner starts on

More Strength = Better Conditioning

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Multiple Training Methods

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Never Quit Conditioning Principle #4 guides us to understand how becoming efficient in

5. Control Your Breathing

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Mouth versus Nose Breathing

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Some even go so far as to artificially make breathing harder, by breathing through a

6. Staying Fresh and Fast

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Never Quit Principle #6 helps us to understand, if you progress in your conditioning by

Remember that what gets tracked, gets improved!

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Remember what gets tracked gets improved!

Analyzing Your Weakness

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1. Explosive Sprint Sets

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Workout 1 - 30 seconds on/30 seconds off x 10

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One of my favorite methods of training is to go non-stop. There is something about doing

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Bodyweight exercises generally require no equipment. The exception, covered in this

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Training for Hundreds or Thousands of Reps

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Spread volume throughout your day.

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