William Morgan
The streamer who has taken the world by storm with his typical mixture of chaos, explosive reactions, and insane challenges, IShowSpeed, has told the public one simple thing he does on a daily basis that helped to build his athleticism.
21-year-old influencer IShowSpeed, real name Darren Jason Watkins Jr., shared his secret 'cheat code' for getting shredded over the weekend, and he said he does it every time he goes to the toilet.
It's not kegel exercises while he's tinkling, or the much more concerning idea of Speed doing push ups on the bathroom floor, but a relatively easy exercise that you can do on your way to and from using the toilet.
Sharing a video with fans from outside his bathroom, where he has a pull-up bar installed, Watkins explained to his fans: “You pee like five times a day, right? Every time you go to the bathroom, do ten pull-ups."
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While this might seem like a rather mundane way to try and get ripped, the reason Speed gave to his fans was that you will barely even register the extra exercise as you incorporate it into something you do multiple times a day.
"That’s fifty reps, five sets of ten. I have gotten so much stronger from doing these, I don’t think y’all understand,” he said before showing off his pull-up form.
This little and often approach is particularly important for pull-ups, an exercise which interacts with almost every muscle groups in your upper body, but especially more difficult parts to work out like your lats.
Fitness experts call this style of incorporating exercises into your routine 'habit stacking', as it works as a reminder to get in some exercise that you might otherwise struggle to find the motivation for independently.
Another handy part of Speed's toilet-based exercise regimen is that you don't need a gym membership for it, or even to leave the house. You just need to buy a pull up bar and put it outside your bathroom.
For pull-up beginners, this can also help to build-up your form as you slowly manage to increase the number of reps you can do in each set.
The proper form for a pull-up involves placing your hands on the bar facing out, slightly further apart than the width of your shoulders. Then when you are hanging from the bar, pull your chest towards it using both your arm and back muscles.
You want to keep your elbows angled forward and your legs together, but slightly in front of you rather than dangling behind. Then, once you have pulled your chest up to the bar, lower yourself until your arms are fully extended.
With good form, doing regular pull-ups can be a great way to exercise your entire upper body, with pull-ups primarily targeting your lats, but also is a great way of working on your biceps, delts, and even your deep core.
Andrew Tracey, fitness director at Men's Health, echoed IShowSpeed and advised: "Daily rep counts of just 30-50 can be extremely beneficial. You don't need to perform all the reps in one sitting; you can spread them across your training session, or even the day."
This will also increase your grip strength over time and most of the muscles that push-ups don't touch. And the best part is that you don't need to have an dumbbells to hand, as Speed pointed out, you just need to use the toilet.
Tracey added: "Done right, pull-ups are a powerful tool for upper-body development. The pull-up is a great bodyweight exercise to perform that's genuinely challenging, even rivalling lifting weights in terms of difficulty."
This is because pull-ups use multiple joints and muscle groups at the same time, making them a very efficient way to develop multiple muscles at the same time, rather than more singular exercises like a bicep curl.
A review of the available scientific literature by Sports Medicine found that prioritizing pull-ups in your workout routine is among the most time-efficient ways of maintaining and boosting multiple muscle at once.