There is a big misconception that Mike relied on heavy weights and long workouts to build muscle when he was in his prime. In fact, it wasn’t until he was released from prison that he started to incorporate the weights that he had been lifting when behind bars, into his normal fight prep. All of the muscle that he had built earlier in his prime had come from calisthenic workouts that consisted of extremely high volume and reps that hit every muscle in his body.
The exact bodyweight total body workout that has been reported is as follows:
50 or 100 reps of Bench Dips
50 or 100 reps of Pushups
50 or 100 reps of Weighted Shrugs (bar only)
100 or 200 reps of Full Sit-Ups
100 or 200 reps of Bodyweight Squats
The choice between the higher and lower rep totals had to do with whether Mike Tyson’s workout was going to be performed 5 or 10 times in a given day.
For example, if he opted to do this grueling workout 10 times, then he would only perform the lower rep counts for each of the total body exercises mentioned above. If he was going to perform the entire workout just 5 times in a given day then he would do the higher rep counts each time.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Athlean-X’s Jesse decided to attempt to do a full day of this Mike Tyson workout plan. All told, he had to perform 4500 reps in a 24 hour period. Needless to say, this wasn’t easy. By the time Jesse had logged his final rep of the day his abs were burning, legs were on fire, chest was unable to assist him through another pushup and his traps were blown up.
Do you think you could survive this Mike Tyson Total Body Bodyweight Workout routine?
The bigger question is, do you think it even has any benefits?
I’m here to tell you that it absolutely does. There is a big mistake that people make that they think bodyweight workouts are not capable of building bigger muscles. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A well designed bodyweight workout routine can absolutely build big muscles. Look at the bodies of many Olympic gymnasts and you will have all the evidence you need to prove that heavy doses of calisthenic exercises are capable of packing on muscle mass.
The trade off when dropping the amount of load used in your workouts however is that you either have to structure the bodyweight workouts in such a way so as to increase the overall impact and intensity or you need to dramatically increase the volume of the workout. Here, while the intensity surely wasn’t low, it was the tremendous spike in rep volume and workout frequency (it was said that he performed this total body workout 6 days a week) that was responsible for the muscle mass that Mike Tyson carried around during his prime.
Beyond this, many people will ask about Mike Tyson’s diet. It is known that he has recently dropped a lot of weight in preparation for his upcoming fight with Roy Jones Jr. After going vegan a few years back, he was able to drop almost 100 pounds of excess fat off his body. He has since begun to reincorporate meat into his diet, as he says he does so responsibly, while at the same time limiting his intake of processed carbs.
He also increased his cardio a great deal, however I am first to tell you that if you are willing to be extremely strict on your diet then the cardio isn’t as necessary when it comes to fat loss. Of course, as an athlete and a human being the conditioning is vital to a healthy heart but as a fat loss tool by itself it just isn’t as effective as getting your diet in check.
If you are looking for a complete nutrition plan and workout that will help you to build muscle across your total body with just bodyweight exercises, be sure to head to athleanx.com via the link below and check out the ATHLEAN XERO programs. Both XERO 1 and XERO 2 are designed to help you pack on thick athletic muscle with nothing but your own bodyweight.
For more videos on Mike Tyson’s ab workouts and total body workouts you can do at home, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube via the link below and don’t forget to turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when it’s published.
Build ripped athletic muscle here – http://athleanx.com/x/my-workouts
Subscribe to this channel here – http://bit.ly/2b0coMW