Overcoming Gravity Online Introduction - History of the development of the book and my background

0:01 hey guys my name is Steven Lowe and I am the  author of overcoming gravity so this book right  

0:07 here the so-called body weight training Bible  basically I'm starting this series on overcoming  

0:14 gravity online in order to go through the book  chapter by chapter and it's basically going to be  

0:21 a supplemental for those of you who have the book  so there have been a lot of questions throughout  

0:27 the years on all the various science related in  the book and understanding it and then also how  

0:34 to construct workout routines and programming  since that is the probably number one question  

0:41 that most people have with the book and if they're  getting stuck with plateaus or they're unable to  

0:48 progress that is the the number one questions that  come up with it if you're unfamiliar with my work  

0:55 you can follow along the series and hopefully  you'll learn something as we're going through  

0:59 the book and all the fundamentals of learning how  to construct your own workout routine and if this  

1:06 series interests you hopefully you can grab a book  as well and follow along there's also going to  

1:12 be some minor discussion on potential science  updates obviously there has been some updates  

1:19 since this book has been out several years  not a lot but we'll go through those as well

1:27 so before we get started I just  want to put out the disclaimer there  

1:32 mainly this series is going to  be for educational purposes only  

1:37 I don't know your particular situation in terms of  if you need to see a doctor a physical therapist  

1:44 or personal trainer in order to make sure that  you're safe to begin exercise and other things  

1:52 like nutrition so make sure that you guys are  safe and ready to do exercise and mainly I'm  

2:00 going to be talking about all these different  things from an education perspective and make  

2:06 sure that you consult the appropriate medical  professionals before you begin an exercise routine

2:15 so the goal of overcoming Gravity the first  edition so this is the the first edition here  

2:22 it didn't accomplish what I wanted to accomplish  compared to the second and obviously as you can  

2:28 tell from the book it has a lot of editing errors  and lower quality illustrations and so I wanted  

2:36 to improve on that to the second edition and  around that time when I published both a lot of  

2:43 the information on bodyweight training was still  in the heads of a lot of coaches at the time and  

2:50 so getting that all out there into a digestible  format it was important obviously now with the  

2:57 the rise of social media and me being on here  there has been a lot out there on the various  

3:03 progressions on how to work up to Advanced body  weight strength movements like front lever back  

3:09 rubber clinch handstand push-ups and so on however  there still isn't a lot out on good programming to  

3:17 get you there so that is the importance of the  series that I wanted to go through the main goal  

3:24 of the book has always been based on the proverb  or adage give a man fish and feed him for a day  

3:31 and the goal of the book was to teach a man  to fish and feed him for a lifetime so with  

3:38 the second edition I we have succeeded in that  and we'll go from there and learn and I'll try  

3:45 to be teaching you guys about programming to learn  more and make sure that you can continue producing  

3:52 your routines so there's five main sections  of overcoming gravity all right the first is  

4:00 your fundamental knowledge base and this section  goes over Progressive overload the physiology of  

4:07 strength and hypertrophy the various progression  charts that we'll use to progress exercises and  

4:15 set your goals and then also structural bounce of  the shoulder mainly and then intro to programming  

4:22 and workout routines and various populations so  understanding all these things can help us to put  

4:28 together a routine a lot better and safer part  two is focused on constructing a workout routine  

4:35 and let's go over all the components of our  workout routines so your warm up your skill work  

4:42 and your strength work and how to progress that  and then finally at the end you usually your  

4:49 isolation your prehab pull down and flexibility  work and then also Mesa cycle planning which is  

4:57 basically looking at routines through the lens  of several weeks to several months as opposed to  

5:03 just week to week part three is other factors that  influence training so some people like to combine  

5:12 their workout routines in order for specific  sports or goals so endurance cardio cross training  

5:19 how to plan and or avoid overreaching and  over training Health Energy Management if  

5:26 you start to get overuse injuries and then also  lifestyle factors dialing in your sleep nutrition  

5:34 and how to make sure that you stay healthy  if you get sick and are training during that  

5:43 part four is based on program implementation so I  go through various examples of beginners trained  

5:53 beginner intermediate and advanced routines and I  actually use some of the examples that people made  

6:01 themselves from the first edition of overcome  gravity in the second one and then part five  

6:07 is on common bodyweight training injuries and  how to avoid those injury and flexibility and  

6:15 Rehabilitation resources and then finally the last  basically half of the book is on the bodyweight  

6:22 strength progressions okay all right so my history  with gymnastics if you don't know about me this  

6:30 is how I got into it and why the book was written  so my dad was a part of the Gymkhana troupe which  

6:38 is an exhibitional troupe that goes that is  based at the university around College Park  

6:45 since 1946 I believe and they go around to local  area elementary middle and high schools promoting  

6:51 a drug and alcohol-free lifestyle he got into  it in the 70s and the it's basically a lot of  

6:58 people don't have any gymnastics experience so  it's pretty cool in that respect where he didn't  

7:06 have any and so he was able to get into it about  half the troop dozen half the troop doesn't and so  

7:11 he got into it and then he got me into it when  I was a kid and I did it for several years but  

7:17 eventually ended up quitting I had a Simone biles  like experience where I lost my aerial awareness  

7:23 and crashed on both floor and vaults and landing  on my neck at least one time and so that kind of  

7:31 freaked me out and I was like okay I'm pretty  much done but eventually it started to interest  

7:36 me again and around 2002 2000 to 2002 I joined  the drills and skills.com Forum which is one  

7:46 of the first bigger Forums on the web about  gymnastics skills and learning how to train  

7:54 and so as I went to college in 2003 I started  gaining back a lot of the skills that I had  

7:59 learned early on in gymnastics but the next year  I really started to realize that I actually needed  

8:07 to have some dedicated strength training in order  to progress since I had gotten back a lot of my  

8:13 previous skills but it was hard to progress to  harder skills from that so around that time I  

8:19 found mad cow's geocity site which was basically a  lot on Russian periodization at that time from the  

8:29 70s 60s and 60s and understanding that in terms  of the fatigue and fitness models and then also  

8:37 understanding how to progress from like beginner  to intermediate in terms of bar mail training  

8:43 so I started to apply those Concepts from  barbell training over to my body weight training  

8:50 around that time I also joined the CrossFit and  performance menu slash Catalyst Athletics message  

8:57 boards and this was before CrossFit got big in  about around like 2012 maybe 2013 but at that  

9:06 time when they were small scale there's actually a  lot of coaches in various areas such as gymnastics  

9:13 track and field and a lot of other sports Olympic  weightlifting powerlifting getting into the I  

9:22 guess those fields and we're actually learning a  lot from each other based on how various sports  

9:29 did their strength and conditioning so whether you  have a you know a good idea about CrossFit or nuts  

9:36 a lot of coaches have been through and learned  some from some of the concepts and from each other  

9:42 after that I started my own blog on blogspot  and then eventually moved to eatmoveimprove.com  

9:50 and that was where I had published My article  on how to construct a workout routine for  

9:56 body weight strength training called the  the fundamentals of body weight strength  

10:01 training in 2010 and I realized that there was  a big interest in that because I got over 50  

10:09 000 hits in the first few months and so that  led to me running the first edition of the  

10:14 book which was pretty cool so after that in the  ensuing about five years tons of questions were  

10:23 coming in I had started a message board on or  subreddit read it at that time and was getting  

10:30 tons of questions and So eventually that  led to the the second edition of the book  

10:36 that I have talked about a little bit for this  so there's no plans on a third edition of the  

10:42 book but I want to continue to teach and so  that's what this series is going to be based on  

10:50 so some of my Feats of Strength I've done your  full back lover front lever I gotten this four  

10:59 strict one arm chains Iron Cross there's a lot  of them but I don't need to go through all of  

11:04 them but some of the ones I'm I'm pretty proud  of are getting the the 10 second Iron Cross I'm  

11:10 getting my dips up to around 140 percent of my  body weight for five reps so I around the time  

11:18 that I did the 190 pound dips I weighed about 140  maybe so I wanted to get the five plates but that  

11:25 is very difficult so hopefully I'll strive  for that in the future and then some other  

11:33 ones like eight freestanding handstand push-ups on  rings that was a fun one to work on at my current  

11:40 I'm mainly climbing and so I don't do a lot of  super dedicated strength training as it's hard  

11:44 to do two things at once so most of my training is  geared towards getting stronger for rock climbing  

11:51 but I do eventually have some  goals that I want to hit otherwise  

11:56 and finally some problems by book solve obviously  I'm most well known for overcoming gravity but  

12:04 I've also written a few other books if you're  interested overcoming poor posture and overcoming  

12:09 tendonitis for those of you who are injured or  have any issues with posture and then I also have  

12:16 an e-book out on overcoming gravity Advanced  programming basically looking at programming  

12:22 from the perspective of intermediates  advanced and Elite Training and how to  

12:30 mitigate fatigue and integrate workouts in  terms and on progressing because normally as  

12:38 a beginner you're able to progress your workouts  from week to week or work out to work out pretty  

12:44 easily but progress gets harder as you get  more experienced and stronger and so that's  

12:49 what overcoming gravity Advanced programming looks  to solve and so if you're also interested in some  

12:55 of my other material I have a lot of articles  on my website and on stevenlow.org and then  

13:03 follow me on social media as I'll hopefully  be getting a lot more videos out on this  

13:09 series soon I'm aiming for three week so stay  tuned for the first video on the first chapter