Arnold's Training Partner’s Ruthlessly Effective Calisthenics Strength Secret

I don’t know about you, but I miss the ‘80s.

Now, I don’t personally have too many memories from that decade, as I was naught but a little lad born during the latter half of it, but nevertheless, I grew up watching action movies galore in my placid, decidedly non-action-packed birthplace of Omaha, Nebraska, and the flicks made during that period not only captivated me then, but are STILL some of the best around in my humble (and correct) opinion.

Without question, the undisputed star of that epoch was none other than “The Austrian Oak” Ah-nuld Schwarzenegger.

With his menacing, larger-than-life physique in movies like The Terminator, Commando, Predator, and others whose titles contained just 3 to 4 syllables to match his sparse, to-the-point dialogue, arguably no other man in the 20th century did more to get people to exercise than Arnold.

We’re fortunate today to be living in the decades after his peak, where fitness information has become so widespread it can literally be given away for free. In Arnold’s youth, good training insight was hard to come by.

While he learned his craft from some local men who were into the nascent bodybuilding scene in his homeland and dreamed of competing, eventually reality struck in the form of the Austrian military: his draft date had come.

Not content to let his momentum stop and his dreams die, he was determined to keep training, despite his superior officers’ opposition.

Now, here’s what a lot of people DON’T know.

At any chance he got, Arnold would sneak off and do chinups, dips, pushups, squats – anything to keep his body strong, muscular, and aesthetically pleasing.

Then one weekend he went AWOL to compete in his first-ever bodybuilding competition in Germany. And despite all the odds…

He won!

When he got back to the military base, he was in deep trouble for having skipped town without permission – a huge offense in ANY military.

But when his superior officers got wind of the fact that he actually won, they decided his “punishment” would be moving him to kitchen patrol, where he would just very coincidentally have access to more food for his training. They also purchased weights and other training equipment for the other soldiers (and, by extension, for Ah-nuld’s use, too).

The moral of the story:

Had America’s favorite action hero not worked up the courage to make calisthenics his main form of training when the situation called for it (subsequently gaining the support of not just his peers but also his military superiors):

He may have ended up too far behind in his bodybuilding goals to have made the impact he did
Joe Weider may never have made him his Golden Goose to put him on the covers of his magazines
He may never have come to America to take the fringe sport of bodybuilding and make it mainstream
He may never have gotten into acting, and his iconic role as Terminator may have gone instead to OJ Simpson (I’m not kidding. OJ was originally James Cameron’s first pick for that role. Google it.)

Is that the kind of world you wanna live in? ‘Cause I sure don’t.

Throughout his bodybuilding career and even today ol’ Schwarzy still loves calisthenics and re-released one of his old bodyweight-only programs at the start of the “pandemic which shall not be named” to help people stay in shape from home, and has famously said “any exercise you can do with your own body is great.”

So lest you think calisthenics training is a “Plan B” approach to exercise, you’re sorely mistaken.

Ah-nuld wasn’t the only one to get this memo.

His famous training partner, Sicilian dynamo Franco Columbu, was also a major fan and included copious amounts of them in his workouts.

Schwarzenegger even marveled at how much better Columbu was at pull-ups than he was (something Arnold was no slouch at).

But Columbu’s REAL secret?

He was able to knock off absurd feats of calisthenics strength normally reserved for professional gymnasts – including the gymnastics world’s #1 secret weapon against the diabolical clutches of gravity:

Straight Arm Scapular Strength

Straight-arm scapular strength involves holding your arms perfectly straight while supporting your body in awkward and challenging positions against gravity.

Usually considered the wheelhouse of people with lighter bodyweight, Franco gladly bucked convention, tossed these into his training anyway, and reaped the rewards.

Just how much it contributed to his massive lifts – like a 525 lb bench press and a 400 lb jerk – we may never know.

What we DO know, however, is that straight-arm scapular strength has a long and glorious pedigree of amplifying people’s upper body strength far above and beyond most people’s wildest dreams by helping trainees bring under perfect control. As Israeli movement maestro Ido Portal has pointed out regarding gymnasts’ abilities to conquer various athletic activities and strength sports:

Someone strong in the muscles surrounding the scapulae is an upper-body strong person in any endeavor; or, if he is not yet strong in one specific discipline, he can transform his strength into this new arena after a very short ‘transformation phase’.

And Ido wasn’t just whistlin’ dixie either:

Famous coach to numerous Olympians Charles Poliquin has told of teaching two gymnasts who had never touched iron in their lives. Within 3 weeks of being taught the bench press, they could each bench 350 lbs (160 kg) – more than double their bodyweight. To put that into perspective, most powerlifters train for years and years to attain such numbers in the bench press, and many NEVER reach it.
Gymnastics strength coach Chris Sommer tells of his own times as a gymnast and his experiences upon first taking up the standard issue iron training. With no previous training, he managed:
- Double bodyweight deadlift
- Military press with 110% of his bodyweight
- Chinups with 50% of his bodyweight added
- Dips with 60% of his bodyweight added
Perhaps the craziest of all is one of Sommers’s students, JJ Gregory, who deadlifted a whopping 400 lbs at a bodyweight of 135 on his first day of high school weightlifting.

Make no mistake about it, there are other factors at play as well: tension, mind-muscle connection, and so on and so forth, but the unreal levels of upper body strength that gymnasts have is largely thanks to their next-level strength and control of the muscles surrounding their scapulae.

Even better:

You don’t have to jump into the deep end to do straight arm scapular strength (or SASS) training.

As masters of their own bodyweight and the unforgiving pull of gravity, gymnasts have also learned to become the masters of progressions for strengthening their bodies starting at their current level and building to levels that defy gravity and force kettlebells to do the same.

My own students have also noticed almost IMMEDIATE improvements in their kettlebell strength by adding foundational SASS training to their existing programs.

Here is the program.

Check out my 21-Day Kick SASS Challenge. – CLICK HERE”

Aleks “The Hebrew Hammer” Salkin’s Kick SASS is a 21-day bodyweight challenge focused on an often-overlooked quality: straight-arm scapular strength (SASS). Drawing on gymnastics and old-school physical culture, Aleks teaches simple, progressive drills you can easily add to your existing strength routine.

Kick SASS will help you: