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I like the full body routine structure over body part splits.
Why?
We know that strength has a large component that is neurological. With full body routines we perform more compound exercises and eliminate isolation exercises. This allows us to work more muscles over more gross pattern movements than a split routine which typically has a mixed bag of compound versus isolation exercises. Thus, the net gain of working compound exercises with higher frequency is enhanced such that full body routines performed only 2-3 times a week can be more effective for gaining strength and mass than split routines.
Secondly, we obtain higher frequency with the exercises we want to work. A split routine such as say a biceps/back, triceps/chest, legs split hits all muscles once or maybe twice per week compared to a full body routine which allows thrice or more weekly work with particular muscle groups. As we noted earlier, a large component of strength is practice with the gross movements. The more we work movements we want to work, the faster we will get better at them.
For example, if we used a split routine such as push/pull/legs with 1 rest day in between we would perform each workout approximately 2 times per week. If we use a full body routine, we will get 3 times a week practice with push/pull/legs exercises.
To drive this point home let us look at something like the planche exercise. In the above split routine examine it would be categorized into a pushing exercise. Therefore, you would get practice with it twice a week. However, with the full body routine we are getting practice with that 3 times a week. It does not seem significant, but over the course of a year that is 50 more workouts with the planche with the full body routine than with the split routine!
We can examine the math even more. The person using split routine with 2 pushing workouts per week is down about 50 workouts with planche compared to the full body.
This means that he is about 25 weeks behind training the planche as his counterpart. And 25 weeks / 4 weeks per month is about 6 months behind the trainee using the full body routine.
Let me reiterate this. Over the course of a year, a person with a 2 times a week split routine is almost 6 months behind in planche training as someone who is doing a full body routine 3 times a week!
I do not want to sound too sensational. The training effects from workouts are not linearly additive so the trainee performing the split routine is probably only 3-4 months behind as a more reliable estimate. Even so, an "extra" 3-4 months of training on a planche can be almost another progression level near the beginning stages of the progression. The vast difference in being able to work a strength move even 1 more time a week is extensive given long periods of time.
Now, I do not state any of this to belittle a push/pull system or other various splits. Push/pull, straight arm/bent arm, and upper/lower splits can be used very well with bodyweight routines. These will be discussed some in the subsequent chapters and the sample programming section. My main aim is to get us away from looking at the body part splits as an effective way of training, especially for novice and intermediate level athletes.
Sometimes body part splits are necessary for higher level athletes. Those that have heavy skill work such as in the sport of football where they often run two-a-day practices may need to split up volume in terms of say a push/pull system or upper/lower splits depending on their recovery factors. Sometimes body part splits may need to be used with these athletes. It is all relative to overall workout volume and recovery factors.
In conclusion, isolation work is typically used effectively at the opposite ends of the fitness spectrum: injury and elite athletes.
If you are a beginner or intermediate trainee as predicted by the strength progression charts you should absolutely be utilizing a full body routine with very few except
Let us go over the basics of the the general exercise selection structure we went over before, We are going to construct a routine for the upper body using bodyweight exercises. Lower body exercises can be added at your own discretion,
Compound movements such as dips, handstand pushups, pullups, and others will for the most part be emphasized much more than isolation exercises like triceps extensions and biceps curls. This is not to say
that biceps curls are useless especially if your goal is to obtain 18" biceps. However, they are not particularly useful when you can work multiple muscles at the same time instead of just one.
Studies have shown that full body training is the most effective way to gain strength and muscle mass especially for novices. In addition, studies also show that compound exercises which stimulate many muscles, and often the entire body, work the best. Fortunately, bodyweight movements are all compound exercises.
The structure of theoretical exercise selection also encourages a balanced full body routine of pushing and pulling movements. While pushing and pulling can be split apart to separate routines at more advanced levels of progression they are not needed now.
I am going to assume for the sake of argument when discussing programming that we are going to use full body workouts. In the latter intermediate and advanced levels of programming I will introduce different options in routine structure that can be used.
For the exercise selection i this chapter we are going to focus more on how to select them for our routines.
Now, let us take a look at our list of goals. Recategorize them into the distinct sections we have talked about before namely: (1) skills, (2) pushing — with their subsets, (3) pulling — with their subsets, (4) legs, (5) flexibility/prehab/mobility, and (6) rehabilitation.
One thing to keep in mind is that as you get stronger and more proficient that some exercises they may become skills.
Take 1-2 goals from each of the main workout categories — skills, push, pull, legs — and construct a routine around them. We will prioritize which goals that you are going to work on with your initial routine.
The mobility/flexibility/prehab and rehabilitation goals we will integrate into our routines in both the beginning and the end.
Te beauty of having less goals is that you can be more focused. As we talked about earlier with the planche 3x a week vs 2x a week example, more focused means that we get more practice and training towards them. Therefore, we will achieve them faster. Two exercises directed towards planche work will be more effective than one exercise working towards the planche and one exercise working towards handstand pushups.
On the other hand, the beauty of having a couple more goals is you can be more general and broad in your whole body strength. Although since it is less focused you will build strength towards specific goals slower.
This is why I tend to give the option of 1-2 goals. You can choose to be more focused or you can choose to be a bit more broad. 3 goals tends to be a bit too broad to work towards, and people may become frustrated with the lack of progress.
Exercise selection is simple given the progression charts according to our goals. As you have taken a look at the exercise technique section, we can see that there are progressions to help us advance until we can obtain the goal we set. We will base our primary movements on working up the line of progressions towards the skills we desire. Do not over think this.
First, we are going to narrow our goals down into a series of five categories that we need to work on
Skill goals are primarily those that require lots of practice. Handstands fall into this category along with many other types of balancing type skills. Anything about 2-3 or more levels below your competency level that requires practice to maintain falls into this category too.
I would put the L-it to manna progressions will also fall into this category as most people are working the L-sit or V-sit progression which tends to be below their strength level but above their flexibility level. Depending on the amount of available time within your workouts that you can manage select 24 of these skills.
The pushing and pulling goals are the ones we are working towards that are above our strength level. 1 have categorized these in the progression charts. We tend to want to focus only on 1-2 of them at a time because working more requires a lot of extra work. Most novices will not be able to add the extra volume up front to do this.
From the previous chapters, we can see that we highlighted our goals on the charts. Hopefully we were able to test where we are on certain progressions. Assuming that you reached the competency threshold in certain exercise progressions, that is exactly where you want to start with those particular exercise progressions. These represent the core exercises aimed at achieving our goals,
Mobility and flexibility goals may also be selected too. On a basic level of flexibility for a lot of the handstand variations, we need a compact pike stretch (face to the knees), and a compact straddle stretch (chest to the ground). We also need about 80-90 degree wrist flexibility, and shoulders that operate to the
full edges of their range of motion. Most people will need to work on all of these. More details with be forthcoming in chapter 16
It is possible to avoid most flexibility and mobility requirements altogether. However, the main reason why I suggest being overzealous in this area is that keeping the hips and all of the upper body joints mobile is that it will help to stave off injury.
Additionally, using a lot of the gymnastics progressions that require us to operate near the edge of our range of motion make learning many of the higher level skills much easier. For example, shoulders fully open in handstands, shoulders fully hyperextended in mannas, and the hips flexible for manna and straight arm press handstands, and many other progressions will benefit from good mobility and flexibility Likewise, since mobility is often critical to technique, it will make your technique develop that much faster giving you overall much faster progress.
For prehabilitation or rehabilitation it depends on the context of the injury or potential injury. Are we healthy? If so, then mobility work and proper strength training can serve as "prehabilitation." If were trending towards tissue damage and pain then prehabilitation work to correct imbalances may need to be implemented. For rehabilitation we need work to help rebuild the integrity of the the injured structures. This involves eliminating offending stimuli, allowing the tissues to heal, and correcting any imbalances that may have caused the injuries in the first place.
We will discuss more about this in the section on management of health and injuries. For now, if any exercises chosen elicit pain or aggravate an injury or potential injury, we have to consider that it may be best to avoid this goal or exercise progression for the time being.
Exercise order is not difficult although some considerations need to be taken. The concept of fatigue applies to the workouts themselves just like it applies broadly across a mesocycle.
Depending on the condition of the athlete, the first exercise should be an exercise that relates to the athlete’s primary goal. For example, if I want to learn the planche the most then I will want to have the planche isometric or other related planche work as the first exercise,
Even though we are not performing our sets to technical failure, working out is still difficult enough that our body cannot totally recover from tough sets of strength work. Thus, every subsequent st in a workout will slowly degrade in quality
Anyone who has experience with training can tell you this. With a 3x5 repetitions scheme, the first set is typically able to be accomplished 1-2 repetitions short of failure whereas by the third set we should be struggling with that Sh repetition.
This applies to any exercise that follows the first exercise. So if our second exercise was a front lever, the quality of work slowly decreases as the number of total sets increases over the course of the workout.
This is not something you will notice unless you constantly vary your exercise order, but the percentages of maximal effort possible drop off by a couple percentage points every additional set of exercise you do. So by the time you do 15 total sets of exercise, you may be only operating at 90% of your fresh" capacity level
Thus, our exercises should generally be prioritized in order of the importance of our goals. If we have say 4-5 total goals for our pushing, pulling, and legs respectively, we should prioritize them as such to work towards the goals we want to obtain first.
For example, let us say we have the goals of attaining a planche, front lever, back lever, and say 2x bodyweight deadlift. Most bodyweight trainees will want to attain planche the most, and back lever and front lever tied for say second most, and neglect the legs as the last place goal.
If these were really your goals then you would want to prioritize the planche exercises first, then the front lever and back lever work, and then finish up the workout with the deadlifts. It is that simple.
I, for some reason, you wanted to get back lever slightly more quickly or work the deadlift because you are close to the 2x bodyweight then you can put those exercises closer to the front of your workouts and move planche and front lever to the back. You will notice that the quality of work for the back lever and deadlift will increase, and the quality for the planche and front lever will decrease if you do this.
That is fine if that is what your goals are. It is just the nature of how we workout; we cannot be operating at 100% all of the time during workouts unfortunately.
Thus, prioritize your exercises to what you want to progress with the most. There is slight different speed in progression by prioritizing the exercises like this.
Consolidation of exercises into a routine
We have established the hierarchy of skills and strength progressions already, so putting everything in order should not be difficult.
The warm up and skill development portion will consist of what we need to do to prepare the body for workout.
Remember back to the competency levels and our progression charts. Any exercise that is a couple levels below our current strength level is applicable to be used as warm up or in skill development or warm up. Prehab/mobility exercises may also be put here as well.
The main thing to keep in mind is that our bodies are all different. So if you have tight spots in your back, or your wrists are feeling achy or tight then definitely include some warm up or mobility exercises for those. It is important to get all of the joints that we are using for the workout mobile and ready to exercise.
For the core of the workout with the strength and power development we have already talked about ordering those exercises. If you have no preference on what you want to develop the most then start with explosive exercises and work your way down in the order. If you have a preference/goal for what you want to develop the most then put that first, and then the second exercise second, and so on.
Endurance work, if any, would be slotted into the next section.
Finally, cool-down/flexibility and rehabilitation work is put at the end. If we are working around injuries then this is definitely when you should be adding in work to rehabilitate them unless rest is prescribed by a qualified medical professional. As to what these exercises be depends on specific injuries or tightness that may be hindering progress. It is person specific so I cannot tell you what they should be. We will discuss these topics in more detail later.
Use the list of refined goals you have in conjunction with the skill and progression charts. Select exercises that correspond to your particular goals,
Remember that:
Full body routines are superior to splits
Selecting exercises is important in the context of your overall goals. We want to select exercises that work those goals specifically or build the assisting strength or musculature needed to execute those particular goals.
The goals must be built around the 3 major groupings that make up the exercise routine.
The aim of this selection is basically prepare the body for working out as well as getting the high quality skill work for things that need to be practiced when fresh. We want to loosen up all the muscles and make them pliable and ready to go for our main workout.
This is the heart of the routine and selecting the exercises and setting them up for proper order according to our goals is going to make everything easier. Always do power/strength before any type of endurance work.
This is where we focus on improving other attributes that we need for our routines such as flexibility and other rehabilitation work if we have injuries. Pretty straight forward.
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