50 x 100
I once had the goal of doing 50 onearm (alternating) dumbell snatches in 10 minutes with a 100lb dumbell. I went at this a few different ways. One way was starting with a 75lb dumbell and working my way up. The other way (once I could do 1 snatch with a 100lb dumbell) was to do this exercise EVERY DAY for 5 minutes and once a week for ten. Constantly doing the exercise seemed to be the thing that got me there. I think I weighed about 190 at the time and the 100lber was the heaviest dumbell in the weight-room I was using. Since hardly anybody does this exercise, I got a lot of "looks." One guy asked me, "What does that work?" Translation: What part of your body are you trying to get all "swoll" by doing THAT? I laughed. What part of your body do you NOT work when you are trying to get a dumbell (that is over half your body weight) from the floor to a fully extended position over your head?
MEx2
My next favorite was going for a 2x BW deadlift. Translation: I wanted to be able to lift a bar weighted with twice my bodyweight (bw) from the floor to hip-height. Once again, I used 2 different approaches. I didn't have a ton of time to work out (like - not even 20 minutes), so gaining muscle mass wasn't an option anyway, but it would have been counter-productive too! If I weighed more, I would have to lift more. SO, I dropped carbs significantly and dropped down to about 175 (I'm 6 3, but "slender"). Then I started doing 2 sets of relatively heavy deadlifts everyday before bed in addition to some super-quick morning workouts. One morning, I got up and I just "felt it." I wasn't even planning on it. I wasn't in my basement workout gear. I had jeans on. BUT, since I felt it, I just went for it and managed a fairly smooth 363lbs. About 8lbs over bw for good measure.
PISTOLS
The "pistol" is a one legged bodyweight squat where you keep your unloaded leg extended in front of you. I tried to get a picture of someone doing one in here but blogger was hating on me.
I spent a lot of time doing front-squats (with the bar loaded across one's sternum and delts instead of trapezius/back) to get to the point where I could do one pistol without collapsing onto the floor, but it felt great and I eventually got up to 10 per leg before some knee stability issues convinced me to back off.
What's next?
Future goals include a 400lb deadlift, one arm chin-ups and one arm pushups (I have long arms, so these are lofty goals). I'd also like to get to a respectable squat, but my hips and lower back don't like them.
