Blog entries in Inspiration and Motivation

If you're not already familiar with The Bar-barians you should definitely look them up. The Bar-barians are a group of elite bodyweight training specialists working out in parks around the world.

Founded in Brooklyn, New York in 2004 this growing community can be seen performing advanced bodyweight exercises and making them look easy, demonstrating the true value of bodyweight movements for building an elite physique and developing almost super-human strength.

These guys are truly an inspiration and a testament to back-to-basics, playground fitness.

Joining The Bar-barians

You can become a member of the Bar-barians for free and move up through their ranks below -

• Bar-pledge: to commit to becoming a Bar-barian and pursuing full membership.
• Bar-candidate: One that is close to reaching a Bar-baron status and likely to become a full member.
• Bar-baron: Someone of great strength and commitment and has met the base requirements shown below.
• Bar-elite: Possessing the ability to demonstrate unique style and strength in their form as well as meeting base requirements.

The base exercise requirements for joining the Bar-barians are shown below and need to be completed in six minutes or less:

1. 5 muscle-ups
2. 45 dips
3. 25 pull-ups
4. 55 push-ups
5. 5 more muscle-ups to finish

If you're going to start training to join the Bar-barians they recommend starting by building your foundation, mastering the basic movements such as pull-up, dips, push-ups. Practice quality of quantity, with good form, controlled movements and full range of motion

We're willing to bet that these guys are in better shape than almost anyone to be found in your local gym and all they train with is the humble pull-up bar.

Find out more information and read about the Bar-barian founders on their website at bar-barians.com and make sure to check out their YouTube channel.

One of our favourite fitness trainers online - Ross Enamait has released his second functional training video compilation. 

It's a great example of hardcore, varied functional fitness in a low-tech gym.

Ross uses a huge range of equipment - barbells, dipping stations, sledgehammers, tyres, suspension trainers, parallettes, skipping ropes, sandbags, makeshift gymnastics rings, kettlebells and ab-wheels, right down to equipment-free bodyweight training and plyometrics.

It's an inspirational watch. 

Ross Enamait, trainer, athlete and former boxer cannot fail to inspire and motivate when it comes to physical fitness. On his website, rosstraining.com you will find a wealth of information created only to educate and inform.

We like Ross's no frills approach to fitness and writing, and his low-tech / high-effect training methods. If anyone is an example of the effectiveness of old school, back to basics workouts with pure grit and determination carrying you through rather than fancy gym equipment then it's Ross Enamait.

Ross Training is a great resource to help you liven up your own workouts and develop an appreciation for our physical capabilities. Dedicated to high-performance conditioning and functional strength training we recommend rosstraining.com to anyone interested in fitness or wanting to achieve elite physical fitness.

The video below will give you an idea of Ross's training methods -