Jon’s Workout Blog:
On this last Wednesday we were to do a lot of kettlebell exercises (floor press, renegade rows, front squats and deadlifts). But on this day as on a lot of days I just replaced them with some great bodyweight exercises (heavy push ups, pole vaulters, some d-ball throws, plyo box jumps and cable full extensions). It was a simple 5×5 workout and here is what I did: always like to do the most powerful exercise first, so here it was plyo jumps.
1) Plyo box jumps (with approach steps) Adding in approach jumps is a great alternate exercise for basketball players as we so often do just that when jumping…do an approach jump. So here I added in my Power Jumper (if you don’t know check it out in our store, it is still my favorite invention for improving vertical jump).
1 x 5 x 36" x PJ60 (power jumper with one 60 lb band)
1 x 5 x 36" x PJ60 + 15lb weight vest (like to mix this in sometimes too for fun and variety)
1 x 5 x 42" x PJ60 + 25lb vest
1 x 5 x 42" (no steps)
1 x 5 x 48" (w/approach, landing 2 of 6 clean)
2) Cable Full Extensions: this is a great exercise and done using yoga blocks between your feet and knees makes you really make a clean pulling actions. For this exercise I used a R7 Yellow cable (R7 is a 70 lb cable) and measured my distance from where the cable was attached to the wall onto the train station.
1 x 10 x 10′
1 x 10 x 11′ + 15lb vest
1 x 10 x 12′ + 25lb vest
1 x 10 x 13′ + 25lb vest
1 x 10 x 14′ + 40lb vest
Loved how my whole body felt after this exercise!! Really works the backside of your body great but also opens up the hips properly too!
3) D-ball beam throws: This is an old favorite I use to do when the heaviest thing I had in my gym was the very same 30lb d-ball. Anyways here is what I did, 50 throws to hitting a beam that is 12′ high, doing both 50 pressing throws and 50 underhanded throws. For each of the two exercises if it don’t touch the beam, it doesn’t count:)
So I did 50 push throws and 50 pull throws as fast as possible…very good workout:)
Total time = 6:26
4) Prison Up workout (meaning do 1 rest for 5 count, do 2 rest for 5 count, keep doing this til you cant go any higher. I did this with the 25lb vest on too and it was awesome!!!
A) Kip ups (+25lb vest): 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 = 45 total reps
B) Push ups (+ power push up 80 lbs AND 25lb vest): 1,2,3,4,5,6 = 21
Loved this workout!! It was a lot of fun and mixed in some old school exercises and methods of training. Try them out and tell us how you like them too. And feel free to mix things up yourself with our workouts, after all, this is all about having fun and enjoying life right!!
Stay strong my friends:)
Jon Hinds Founder / Owner of Monkey Bar Gymnasium
NBA Strength Coach, Trainer to 100s of Pro Athletes
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