So what sort of exercises? - Bodyweight strength feats

You might have read my first post and thought, Ok buddy, using dumbells for exercise is pretty broad, or, what do you consider a bodyweight strength feat?  Well, good questions.

I'll say, that in time, I will post detailed information about the exercises I like to do and am trying to achieve, as well as how I'm trying to obtain them (progression steps for BW exercises), but for now I'll just discuss them.  I'll start in this post with bodyweight (BW) exercises as they probably require the most explanation.

BW exercises for strength have been used for many years, most notably being the handstand and pull up in my opinion.  However, there are many many BW exercises, but most of them are in fact progression exercises.  And while all the progression exercises are great, they are usually leading to one impressive bodyweight exercise that requires tremendous strength.  Not sure what I'm on about?  Quickly, consider moving weight around.  The progression with most exercises related to moving weight only involves adding more weight.  The more weight you can move, the stronger you are.  But in BW exercises, your not going to deliberately get heavier (I hope) just to progress.  This is where you have to understand how to make BW exercises harder, and this usually involves moving from using two arms to one, or changing leverage.

Take the outstanding exercise, the pull up.  Now sure, that in itself can be considered a very hard exercise, and for some they might see it as the final step in a long battle, but in fact, in lots of bodyweight strength circles, the pull up is a relatively easy step on the way to the one armed pull up (OAP).

But, please don't think I can do OAP's, because I can't, but that's what I'm working towards.  And I'm working towards it because I consider this a awesome BW strength feat. 

Anyway, still confused about seperate exercises leading to one final strength feat?  Looking again at the pull up. You might have used progression exercises to get to the pull up, do you remember? But now you have it, what next, go from doing 3 to doing 100?  You could, but then you go from using the pull up as a strength exercise and making it an endurance exercise.  So what to do?, well that's exactly where the OAP comes in!

A quick and simple progression plan may look like this;
Pull ups
Close grip pull ups
One arm holding towel (thrown over bar) with other arm completing the pull up
Same as above, but moving the hand further and further down the towel

This is a very basic progression, and not fully complete, but you get the idea.

BW exercises are great, because on top of the progression exercises, there can be other exercises which can help obtain the final feat.  Such as in the OAP, one armed negatives for example.

So as I said above, I will in time post information about how I have been trying to obtain these, but in the meantime, if you look you will find heaps of information and helpful sites/books.  I like convict conditioning 1 & 2, and a fantastic website is 'Beastskills'

Here are the bodyweight strength feats I'm trying to obtain are the following;
One armed pull up (OAP)
Free standing hand stand push up (FSHSPU)
One armed handstand (OAHS)
Planche
Front lever
One armed push up (OAPU)
One legged squats (Pistols)

If any of the above aren't familiar to you, or you don't believe me the old time fitness enthusiasts did all of these, just use trusty google and you will soon find them all along with all the info you could ever imagine.

So that's my quick rant on BW exercises, but there will be others. 

Good luck with your training.