These are some of the excercises I had to do at the Royal Air Force College during RAF Initial Officer Training:
- Burpees: Similar to the Squat Thrust. Start standing. Drop to a crouching position, knees bent, hands just in front of your toes. Thrust both feet back together, juping to a press-up position with both arms braced. Return sharply to the crouching position, then jump into the air. Repeat as required.
- Bastards: Note: I don't know the real name for this exercise, but this is a fairly accurate name nonetheless! Standing in front of a bench, do a full press up with hands on the bench, then jump on the bench and bounce off again. Repeat, jupming into the press-up position as with burpees.
- Tricep dips: Grip both arms of a chair, or the front of a bench, behind your back. You need to be in a sitting position with your buttocks just in front of the chair/bench, knees bent at 90 degrees. As rapidly as is comfortable, use your arms to lower your buttocks to a couple of inches off the ground, then raise again immediately. Repeat in rapid succession until you are too exhausted to continue.
In addition, there are some variations to the classic press up that were used to "beast" us. The three main variations were:
- Dolphins: Difficult to describe. Start in the press-up position, arms braced. Move your shoulders back, thrusting your buttocks higher; your arms should be braced and in front of your shoulders at roughly a 45 degree angle. Now move the entire upper body in a circle, lowering your shoulders and moving them forwards, then returning to the starting position. Continue to move in this circular motion.
- Heart-to-heartsSame as with normal press-ups in terms of starting, moving and returning to rest, except that the hands are not shoulder-width apart. Instead, the index fingers and thumbs of both hands meet to make a heart shape, and the brace position therefore starts with both hands immediately below the chest. This is excellent for developing the triceps.
- Wide-arm press-ups: As the name suggests, standard press-ups but with the hands twice as far apart as normal. Develops the pecs and, to a smaller extent, the shoulders.