Family ATG: Rapid Study Series: Press & Pull
Last week I sent you a 60-page manual for training your entire family.
Now let’s take things piece by piece so you can quickly “get it” on each key part of the system.
We’ll tackle pressing and pulling, using my family:
-kids
-parents
-and grandparents!
We are ALL winning on pressing and pulling.
“We must live our lives in such a way that our children, and their children after them, will form a natural and lasting commitment to the vigorous life…”
-JFK
Kids & Grandparents, Pull
In the family ATG system, youth and longevity have similar goals.
All you need is rings!
We use a simple system of:
Level 1: hang
Level 2: hold the top
Level 3: lower down as slowly as you can
Level 4: full reps
Example: My 70-year-young mother — now known as “Nana” — is able to control the way down.
BUT GUESS WHO’S WATCHING?
Little 2-year-old Sapphire was squirming out of my arms, wanting to copy her Nana! She didn’t even give me time to lower down the other ring.
Meanwhile, I’m working on a home squat rack that doubles as a pull-up rack that further doubles as stall bars! (Stall bars are a type of gymnastic equipment.) One of our long-time ATGers is a brilliant engineer, solving things to save you time and money! This is my favorite product yet.
Bonus: My dad told me this week that he’s been working on the pull-up! He wants to keep up with the grandkids. So our new family goal is for the kids, parents, and grandparents to ALL be able to do a chin-up.
Parents, Pull
My wife’s goal is maintaining at least 1 full chin up.
Mine is maintaining 10.
This works well for us.
But these are by no means absolutes.
We’re here to support YOUR goals, and I believe providing the honest context of what we actually maintain is useful for you in determining what will suit your life.
Kids, Press
Medicine balls have been used for 3,000 years.
“Medicine” was once another name for “health.”
Lifting weighted balls was believed to improve health.
I got a fleet of medicine balls for my kids.
This is the only “weight” they’ll need for some years (other than their own bodyweight).
They NATURALLY squat to pick up the ball, use back muscles to lift it, and press it overhead.
And the natural progression is throwing the ball.
My 2-year-old lifts it.
My 3-year-old wants to throw it.
It’s a wonderfully natural way for my kids to learn exercise. They don’t live on a farm. Maybe they should. But the medicine ball can build a lot of key muscles (especially when done with one arm, while operating a bubble gun with the other, as Onyx is expertly demonstrating below).
Pressing Progression After Medicine Ball
As my kids get older, they’ll do what I do, what my wife does, and what my parents do:
We press dumbbells overhead, with a full range of motion. Specifically: stay in the range that feels good for you. We have found that exercising our natural ranges of motion is a helpful method for making a more capable and resilient body.
My Personal Pressing Standards
I use 25% of my weight per hand (50% total) for at least 10 reps overhead, with my fullest range of motion.
I also do 37.5% per hand for at least 8 reps in an incline dumbbell press, using at least a 30-degree incline (45 degrees shown below, which I did for 8 reps yesterday), using my fullest range of motion.
These are not impressive by powerlifting standards, but they give me a fantastic baseline for my goals of resilience, athleticism, and mobility.
Thank you for reading!
If you do any of this with your own family or friends, please let us know how it goes!
From the family system to my personal Standards program, we continually work on your service and user-friendliness on the site and app.
Yours in Solutions,
Ben
