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Comment by Demiurge | Hacker News Reader

Not really. What’s a body weight alternative to shoulder lift? When I travel and stay in hotels without gym, I use chairs and furniture. However, holding on to them can be really hard and certain exercises are just impossible.

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You can build an entire upper body strength program around chins and handstand push ups. If you can't do a handstand push up; doing handstands and negatives until you can should provide plenty of upper body stimulation.

The only real downside to bodyweight training is lower back.

> The only real downside to bodyweight training is lower back.

I learned this the hard way when I got back in the gym.

Inverted shoulder press is super effective and not as hard as a handstand pushup.

Not the result. But I do do this, as well as pushups of different kinds, crunches, squats, etc. I just can’t agree that free weights can be completely replaced in a regular room.

You can do it with Resistance Bands which are super light.

That’s a good point, and I try that as well when no alternative, but I prefer a chair and a dumbbell before those things because they pull in a specific direction rather than down. But these are not just using a body.

Handstand pushups for example.

As someone who weights 250lb? ;)

Variations of Pike Press or Decline Push Up. If that 250lbs is mostly fat I wouldn't worry too much about my shoulder strength and focus on losing the extra weight. If it's muscle I agree that it's hard to maintain that without some iron.

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