Broadsword2004

With the gymnasts, I just meant that we Americans placed too much emphasis on using weights for certain sports that don't really require them. Like in gymnastics, for some reason, our coaches think those girls need thickly muscled legs.

As for Jackie Chan, I meant as he was growing up in/at the Peking Opera School, he didn't use weights.

If you put the average person who does real calisthenics up against the average person who does weights, the calisthenics person will have the advantage in strength and endurance. If you mean Joe Schmoe who just does 50 crunches a day and 50 pushups a day, up against Joe Blow who does benchpressing every 2 days, squatting, barbell rowes, biceps curls, etc....then yeah, in terms of strength, Joe Blow will probably have the better strength. But I'm referring to if Joe Schmoe does hardcore calisthenics. But calisthenics tax your cardio. Knock off 150 straight Hindu squats and then check your heart. It will probably be beating very fast. Hindu squats will strengthen your knee ligaments, plus build up explosive strength, as well as muscular endurance in your legs, as well as taxing your entire cardio system. That's one of the unique things about Hindu squats. If you do them, you don't need to run on a treadmill or anything. You can run through nature for the joy of it, but Hindu squats will give you explosive legs, strong legs, legs that have ltos of muscular endurance, and a really cardio workout. You just have to do them in extrmely high numbers to get great benefits. People don't like them though because you feel like you're gonna collapse sometimes when you're half-way through the number you planned to do.

Oh yeah, this may be unrelated, but from what I have seen, guys who train for real strength, who use weights, they often do the hardcore exercises where you're killing yourself while doing them. And if you do those kinds of exercises with true passion and discipline, you'll get very strong. And if you do hardcore calisthenics with true passion and discipline, you'll get very strong too. And if you combine them, you will also. But people who just "go through the motions" pretty much won't. The thing is, though, a calisthenics person and a weight trained person, while they may both have great strength, walking on your hands for the calisthenics person may be a cinch, where for the weight training person, they can have the strength for it, but not the balance and fall over. They may also not be able to do a planche. Now you may say, "What the hell would a fighter need those skills for??" but in general, if you can have them, I think you should, and fighters of old days often had those skills. They provide increased balance and coordination.

But yeah, I think we understand each other's points now.

Calisthenic exercises with weights added are also extremely good, as we agreed, and exercises like benchpress, squat, rowe, etc....are basically like calisthenic exercises but with weights.

As for pushups, remember, the pushups that put about 40% of your bodyweight on your arms are the reg. style pushups, the basic kind. You only do those for increasing endurance or if you are super weak. Otherwise, do the more hardcore pushups.