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The first thing to note is that these are example programs. Depending on your individual goals, recovery factors, and other activities they may or may not integrate smoothly. They arc here to give you a sample of what your routines may look like. I would not suggest that you actually use them as your routine. However, you can modify them to fit your goals if that is what you want to do.
However, what I do not want to see is someone using any of these programs blindly because they think that how I would program is superior or because they thought it was what I would recommend. I do have some personal preference on what particular exercises work well coupled with each other which I will talk about. But by no means is anything I recommend mandatory. Although remember that I do highly recommended certain progressions to help keep structural balance and good strength and technical development — handstand holds, the L-sit/V-si/manna progressions, and straight arm press handstands.
I realize that not everyone has developed their strength and flexibility to be uniform with all levels on the strength and progression charts. That is the norm. It is very common for people to be coming in with a flexibility deficit or a skill deficit (especially in the context of handstands) despite having the strength to execute some of the higher level strength moves. This will be the case for most people with a weight ing or who participate in other sports at a competitive level.
The point I want to emphasize here is that where you are lacking is often a place where you can make the most progress given a comparable amount of time put in on all aspects of development. Working your strengths is good but bringing up strength, flexibility, to skills to be uniform between push and pull exercises is important to stay injury free. If you have ambitions with developing a lot of higher level straight arm work, the skill and strength-skill movements like handstands and straight arm press handstands will pay dividends later in training and you will be glad that you have invested the time and effort now.
You may also find that given your own abilities and individual anthropometry that you may progress with certain techniques or exercises much quicker than others. You can approach this from multiple ways
in your programming by decreasing the overall volume of these exercises or playing to your strengths. But do not neglect keeping yourself structurally balanced as I stated in the previous paragraph.
I am going to introduce sample programming for every two levels: L1-2, 13-4, L5-6, etc. up to L11- 12 to show how programming evolves in the context of the frequency, warm ups, skill work, exercises, volume and repetition schemes, prehabilitation, mobility, and flexibility. I am stopping at L11-12 because that represents close to the end of advanced strength. By then you should have a very good idea of how to implement your own program effectively as you will have the experience of programming for a couple years.
Correcting existing injuries may be integrated into program by examining how to do so by reading chapters 12-18.
Much of this material is going to be a rehash of the material earlier in the book. The focus now will not be reminding you of what I have already said but to show you how to integrate the material into your decision making for selecting proper frequency, exercises, volume, and repetition schemes for your workouts. Think of the earlier chapters as puzzle picces and this chapter as starting to fit those pieces together to see the whole picture.
Constructing a universal warm-up is a bit difficult since everyone has different needs. However, there. are some common threads that we need to focus on to progress effectively with skills such as handstands and manna.
A quick, short circuit of movements that focus on full range of movement to warm up the joints is the most useful. 1 also prefer to complete the warm-up with a movement that gets the blood flowing and core temperature up. Then skill work is ready to occur.
First, we want to start out with some joint mobilization work especially for the wrists and the shoulders which are the two joints in the upper body that will experience a lot of the stress for bodyweight movements. If you are stiff in the back, elbows, etc. it may be a good idea to add in additional joint mobility work before is tarting as well
I recommend a combination of wrist circles (15x each way) and wrist stretching all ways on the floor (both flexed and extended). For the shoulders, use a band or stick to do shoulder dislocates to help mobilize the scapulae and all muscles around the glenohumeral joint. If you have other methods of mobility or dynamic flexibility work you employ feel free to use them instead. This should take about 60- 90 seconds.
Secondly, we need to warm up the elbows especially in the straight arm position. One of the hallmarks of bodyweight exercises when progressing into more advanced strength skills is the integrity of the elbows, especially in the straight arm position. Avoiding excessive hyperextension by strengthening the biceps is the key.
For this I suggest 1-3 sets of purely straight arm locked support work. If you are strong enough to do aminute hold that is enough. Start to progress towards turning the palms forward during the hold (c.g what gymnasts call "rings turned out" or RTO for short). As you start turning the rings out and performing longer holds there will be a lot work for the biceps to stay active. This is good for elbow health along with adequately warming up the majority of the shoulder muscles and biceps.
If you cannot hold a straight arm position at all start on parallettes or parallel bars.
If you cannot yet hold a straight arm support on the rings, use a theraband to help you hold the rings together or get someone Lo spot assist you until you can hold it. This may be the case for most beginners as the instability can be challenging.
If you just started training holding a non-RTO support hold, then jump up with straight arms and try to accumulate between 60-90 seconds total hold time.
If you are a bit beyond that stage, try to use as few sets as possible to reach the 60s.
Once you start trying to turn the rings out, be consistent — do not let them come back in.
Once you have worked your way up to 60-90s with RTO (where the rings are in line with your body) then set your rings a bit wider — this will make it substantially harder
The marker to stop is when you start shaking significantly or start feeling significant pressure in the biceps. Remember, this is a warm-up and taxing yourself now will hinder the workout. Do, however, bear in mind that adding this skill to the warm up will help you progress in strength much more quickly because rings proficiency is built by accumulating a lot of time on the rings themselves.
Once the ring supports are complete we want to dynamically stretch the shoulders with some german hangs or "skin the cats." If you are new and your rings are set low you may just let yourself into the position and stretch for 5-10 seconds. If you are more experienced then feel free to pull out in a tuck or pike position to inverted hang and then back again.
The goal here is to take the shoulder to the edge of its range of motion in extension. This also helps with flexion too because german hangs stretch the chest and lats as well as the anterior shoulder girdle. Also, we do not want to let it stretch statically for about more than 15s as much longer may decrease some strength/power output in the latter workouts. This should take approximately a minute for 3-4 short stretches.
Finally, we will finish up with some burpees. You can choose a different method if you prefer, but they're great at waking up your cardiovascular system if you do a set of 15 or 20 in a row. This should take approximately a minute. Again, remember not to tax yourselfas this is just a warm-up, so scale down the amount you do if necessary.
In summary, it should take a total of five minutes for:
After this you should be ready to begin skill work or tougher exercises to warm up.
A five minute warm up is on the shorter side of a recommended warm-up. Typically, 5-15 minutes total is a smart range to be in; any shorter and you likely are not adequately warmed up and any longer will probably be more intense than necessary for a warm-up. If you are older or already have an established warm up routine feel free to use that.
Remember that the warm-up can be modified as you get stronger. For example, as you get stronger, dips and pullups become much more second-nature and much less intense for you and so you can start to throw them into your warm-up.
As I stated earlier we tend to want to mobilize the joints for the first few minutes, but after that we can aim for exercises that are about 2-3 levels below our current level on the progression charts. Thus, if you are working straddle planche as one of your main exercises you can add in some tuck planche pushups to help prepare the muscles for more intense exercise later.
Skill work is highly variable. Handstands and various skills such as elbow levers and even L-sits are mostly focused towards spending significant amounts of time in those movements or positions to accumulate a lot of practice and refine the body positions. Typically, most of these skills tend to focus more on balance, but they will have variable components of strength required. often, strength will make them easier as well as you get stronger.
You may be working above or below your strength level on skill work. This is not uncommon as there are strong people coming into bodyweight training looking to obtain some of the impressive static positions that are more skill-based. On the other hand, with good technique even relatively weak people can obtain a good handstand. The skill and strength progression chart levels in types of skills may not necessarily correlate to level of strength. This is often scen as handstand ability may lag behind actual strength for many athletes who start to train bodyweight exercises.
In general, strength will help improve your potential for skill work significantly. Thus, you will find that as you get stronger your skill work will tend to improve with it given you still apply the dedicated work.
The three main "skill work" categories I like to classify are handstands, L-sit progressions up to around V-sit, and the one- and two-arm elbow lever skills. There are others if you want to pursue other types of hand balancing, parkour, breakdancing, capoeira, or other disciplines. I am not including these in this book, but they can be well-integrated into a routine.
The key behind all skill work is the fact that the more you practice at something the faster you will get better at it. However, too much practice with skills even as simple as handstands can impair recovery. There needs to be balance (no pun intended) to facilitate optimal improvement
How we hit this balance is a tough question to consider. For most people, simply getting upside down ina handstand is a hard feat. For those more experienced who can hold a freestanding handstand longer than a minute, 10 minutes of total work would not be a stretch of the imagination.
I think the best way to approach skill work is like the warm up. It should not leave you excessively tired or swealy to start performing your strength workouts. This may be only 20 seconds inverted for new. people but maybe even 15-20 minutes for more experienced people trying to lear advanced skills like one am handstand. You are aiming to get the greatest quality of work without fatiguing yourself such that your technique is going to deteriorate.
I hope that gives you a better idea of the times you are aiming at. It does not have be a set time such as five minutes upside down six-seven days a week. I would play it more by feel. Aim for quality work and quit if the skill work is deteriorating or you are having a bad day. There is no shame in knowing that you cannot do something every day; we all have off days where nothing goes right.
Do as much quality work as you can per day (as time and fatigue allow) and you will improve splendidly. Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
Atlevels one and two, the general goal(s) is/are to develop basic strength, prepare the joints for upcoming levels of ability, and gain mobility especially in the shoulder girdle, back, and hips. If you are at level coming in then I generally expect that you are fairly new to exercising or are female since females typically have less base strength overall than males due to lower levels of testosterone.
Upper level goals such as back levers, front levers, planches, etc. should not be worried about at this point. It is much more important to develop strct strength in the basics and utilize more types of high repetition work to prepare the joints in combination with the mobility work.
This is why on the strength and skill progression charts I tried to keep the exercises and next progressions minimized at this particular level.
The main exercises that are going to be focused on are wall handstands, lower L-sit progressions, pushups, dips, pullups, rows, and starting some basic headstand pushup development as you get stronger.
The following is an example of a basic routine focused on improving the strength in the categories of vertical pushing, horizontal pushing, vertical pulling, and horizontal pulling. This facilitates balance between the muscles of the shoulder girdle and focuses on improving strength all around.
A full body routine works best. 2-4x per week training.
Sets and repetitions here will be focused on increasing repetitions to about eight to ten and then going to a harder variation starting with five repetitions again and working your way back up. 3-5 sets per exercise is preferred.
Repetition range within the 5-§ range typically is best for hypertrophy. I like 5 for beginners as specifically a good mix of strength and hypertrophy. As you progress with the exercises on the charts you can work your way up to around 8-10 and then reset back down to 5 or a bit lower to work on a tougher progression.
At level three and four, the general idea is to start to integrate some of the basic static holds into the routine.
At this point in the game skill, a workout is mainly going to be focused on improving wall and freestanding handstands, L-sits, and possibly starting to work into elbow levers if that is a goal. Other types of skills from other activities may be integrated in here as well.
As you get into the L3-4 range, the set of exercises tends to branch out into a varied set of movements I denoted by the exercises listed in the charts. These are:
From here I would say where you want to go depends substantially on your short and long term goals. I know that many people probably have many, if not all, of the movements listed above as part of the skills they want to learn. However, trying to do all of them at once does not particularly work well in most cases.
Remember, you mainly want to focus on about two pushing and two pulling goals respectively and build a routine around those.
As such, it is best to select an overarching "theme" for your training. As I talked about before, many people want to obtain the static holds as their primary goal. If that is the case, I would build a routine primarily around those skills.
On the other hand, if the goal is to get strong in movements or for a sport then a routine may be more biased towards getting strong at movements first and then adding in static positions later as you improve in strength at many different ranges of motions.
Remember that there is no right or wrong answer here. But you get better at what you train so you need to prioritize what you want to learn.
If your overarching goal is statics I would suggest a routine focusing on:
If your overarching goal is to gain strength I would suggest a routine mostly working on:
A full-body routine works best with 2-4x per week training.
Typically, I would recommend only doing two exercises for push and two for pull, but three may be fine at this point if progress can still be made without overdoing t.
A 2:4X per week statics full-body routine could be structured like this:
Refer to the isometric charts depending on your maximal holds to get how many Y sets of X second holds you need.
Like the previous training section, we will aim for 3 sets of 5-8 repetitions for the movement-based exercises. The focus is to move up the repetitions per workout and then move to a harder progression.
A 2:4x per week dynamic full-body strength routine would focus on:
Rows I would say are a bit more of an anomaly. I like working up to higher repetitions in this specific exercise because it helps keep the shoulders healthy. Horizontal pulling, along with the manna progressions, improves posterior shoulder strength and endurance more effectively than other motions.
Remember that the first exercise in a routine is the one that will tend to show the most improvement overall. For most people this is the planche which is why I put it first in the first example. If necessary, adjust this to better suit your goals.
At this level I also like the repetition range within the 5-§ range typically is best for hypertrophy. T like 5 for beginners as specifically a good mix of strength and hypertrophy. As you progress with the
exercises on the charts you can work your way up to around 8-10 and then reset back down to 5 or a bit lower to work on a tougher progre:
Levels five and six are where there is a shiftin training philosophy to some extent. Freestanding handstands are on the way to being mastered, so there is more of a focus on press to handstands and rings shoulder stands/handstands. There arc other various skills to start working such as forward roll to support and kip to support which are denoted on the charts. Rings strength and associated skills are starting to be integrated more and we are starting to be able to progress from some of the tuck and advanced tuck positions into straddle and layout positions for the statics.
There is a wider variety of skills to learn now, so keeping the routine focused is a priority. Keeping exercises geared towards the specific goal(s) will lead to faster progress overall.
Remember that it is better to focus on and achieve a few goals first, then work on others while maintaining the initial goals. Trying to do too many goals at the same time will lead to slower results or even complete stagnation.
At this level, I would say a full-body routine still works best. However, this is the first level at which asplit could work well if you have constraints on your schedule or are simply looking for some variety.
The full-body approach should be 3-4x per week. Any type of split that was recommended earlier is fine (push/pull, straight arm/bent arm, and upper/lower). I tend to lean toward push/pull as it works well integrating with leg exercises — squat being a pushing exercise and deadlift being a pull. However, depending on your sports or other schedules you may find a different split more suitable.
Remember that I very highly recommend that you work on straight arm presses. This is in conjunction with the handstands, and the L-sit/V-si/manna progression as skill work. This is about the Tevel where they are critical to learn.
A 3-4x per week statics full-body routine on M/W/F or M/Tu/Th/F would be focused on exercises such as:
Other potential exercises depending on goals are:
Note that switched up days does not matter much. M/W/F is the same as Tu/Th/Sat or W/F/Sun. This is similar for 4x a week schedule such as M/Tu/Th/F which is the same as Tu/W/F/Sat or W/Th/Sat/Sun.
A 3-4x per week dynamic full-body routine on M/W/F or M/Tu/Th/F may focus on:
A 4x per week push/pull pull routine may be structured M/Tu/Th/F with Push on M/Th and Pull on Tu/F. This is an actual example of one that was used to good effeet including skill work.
Note that this routine includes leg work which I have not included any in my examples so far. Make sure you are working your legs.
These are the trainee's comments about the above routine:
My height is 5"8, my weight is 215, and I'm around 8% body fat. Also an interesting note I am a type 1 diabetic in the 99th percentile for blood sugar control, and eat a very strict Paleo dict.
[This routine template was] basic push/pull cycle with handstand work as well as a fair amount of pre-hab work. My original template for pushing work had me using a tuck planche, RTO ring support hold statics, as well as RTO pushups/ Handstand pushups. As the cycle went on I began to drop the extra
The pulling days I was using advance tuck front lever, single leg negatives which eventually progressed to full front lever negatives, front lever rows, and some single arm db rows, for which I was using about % of bodyweight (roughly 50-601bs) for a controlled tempo.
This is by no means a perfect program. I started doing L-sit work after handstands but that was inconsistent. The core of the program stayed consistent week to week, which was to improve on the planche and front lever. However some weeks I might experiment with different movements, or if energy was low I might cut out certain aspects. I expect to keep a similar format now that stresses are lower and my energy is a lot higher.
[Regarding the handstands], I would do stomach to wall holds, and push off with my toes and hold as long as possible. Towards the beginning of the cycle I could only hold for 5 seconds, towards the end I was banging out 10-15 second holds.
For comparison, prior to this push/pull program I was doing a killroy70 template, with back lever included, and less leg work. With your advice and simplifying training, I am doing fantastic. I am leaner now that I am doing one extra workout a week, with lower volume and higher intensity. I am also a lot stronger. Pre-hab has gone a long way for keeping me healthy. I now have an easier time getting stronger,
especially with the help of your intensity chart. As a side note to this new cycle and the benefits of bodyweight training: I regularly compete with the top level crossfitters I coach, I am simply stronger than any of them. I give them a run for their money even though I don't practice them, I can do a heavier weighted pullup than most, and aside from practicing technique with an empty bar, I was able to split-jerk 260 lbs for 1 ata body weight of 215, a few weeks ago. I attribute this to my gymnastic training."
So that is just an example of some of the structure and modifications of a classic push/pull system especially with people as heavy as this person attempting gain strength with bodyweight exercises. I hope that helps.
This is the type of program (a 4x per week push/pull system) where I see would be effective especially with larger athletes. This is because working full body three times a week may be too intense for some. Three times a week with something as intense as planche can totally drain trainees around 200+ lbs and put them out of commission from training for a while.
A 4x per week straight-arm / bent-arm routine may be structured M/Tu/Th/F with straight-arm work on M/Th and bent-arm on Tu/F
An alternating straight-arm/bent-arm routine is, in a sense, a hybrid of static and dynamic exercises. It s not necessary to break these up onto separate training days, but some people like emphasizing these seemingly two different modes of strength training and splitting them up allows them to put a separate focus into each one.
A split between upper body and lower body I feel is self explanatory based on the constructions as stated and thus I will not discuss it.
Levels seven and eight represent a move to the upper range of A skills and approximate balance of the intermediate range of strength. Many people find that strength at this level to be impressive to the layperson.
My preference for repetition ranges at this point is more in the 3-6 range. However, if you still need or want hypertrophy then hit the 8-10 repetition range before moving up to the next progressions. This is the only change in philosophy at this point other than potentially adding another day.
I do not think daily undulated periodization is needed at this point, but it can likely be employed effectively if you want to try.
A 3-5x per week statics full-body routine may look something like this
A 3-5x per week dynamic strength routine may look like this:
Other potential exercises depending on goals are:
The push/pull and straight-arm/bent-arm splits will follow similar variation of exercises. Typically these are done 4x a week so you will hit each split twice. However, these can be bumped out to 5x a week on a A/B/rest/A/B/A/rest schedule with the next week being alternated as B/A/rest/B/A/B/rest to compensate.
The biggest concepts to keep in mind are that exercises such as eccentrics become more useful, For example, front lever tends to respond well to inverted hang slow eccentric to hang. Likewise, OAC responds particularly well to eccentrics. Another concept that may be used is some type of density training. For example, aim to decrease the rest say 30s between sets over the next few workouts and then aim for an increase in repetitions or progressions as you improve, These are concepts you can use if you feel that your progress is stalling compared to how it usually has been.
If you need to modify programming to make it more difficult, 1 would suggest switching to more of a light/heavy style of workout where you use higher repetitions on one day and lower repetitions on the next day. This will help you progress much quicker as well. The reason I would say use light / heavy before DUP is because typical DUP spans 3 workouts where you force adaptations before progressing back and increasing the weights on the 4* workout. Light / heavy and other protocols typically increase the weight every other workout or every 3 workouts.
The main thing you want to look for at this point is to use small adjustments in programming to improve your gains. There does not have to be a large overarching change such as a total switch from a full body routine to DUP protocol. It can be as simple as using eccentrics, or changing up the rest periods slightly from workout to workout, or changing to the light / heavy days. If you are stalling you want to make the simplest changes you can that will help you improve. Save the drastic changes for when you totally stall on minor modifications.
Programming for levels nine and ten represents the transition into the impressive B skills and the need for more complex programming which is why I categorized L10 into the advanced programming. I am mainly going to talk about how to implement DUP protocol and other various systems such as push/pull modifications in accordance with various exercises. However, depending on your circumstances the traditional programming can be still used effectively.
In terms of an executed DUP program I am going to post one that I actually implemented somewhere in the fall of 2006, I did not have access to a gym every day and had some college commitments, but you can see it can still be executed well even if itis 3x a week and not consistent like a M/W/F program.
Note the jump in poundages compared to the previous 10 RM, 7 RM, and 4 RM workouts and how I try to keep my exercises consistent. I used a makeshift weight belt as I had a piece of rope and hooked weights onto it to provide additional resistance. You can use a weighted vest or other implements if you need additional weight in some of these exercises.
The main targeted exercise was working on improving my iron cross, so the iron cross pulls are the focus of what I am trying to accomplish. If you are going to focus on any of the exercise and how I implemented it this is the one I want you to focus on as a primary example,
A 3x per week daily undulated periodization routine may look like this:
I had poor nutrition at this time so it devolved after the first two weeks which is why the whole cycle is not posted. Eventually I did make it up to cross pulls with an additional 50 lbs in another cycle using a similar method a couple of months later. This time it was on a ~2 day a week program of light/heavy workouts.
Notice how I manipulate the volume alternating from 10 RM and 5 RM. As the cycle progresses I start to build more toward 8 RM and 4/5 RM and consequently move toward strength. By the end I am performing a 3 RM.
This is a variation you can do which is similar to classic periodization with its hypertrophy, strength, and power cycles. Instead of staying set with 10 RM, 7 RM, and 4 RM, I implemented the program to focus more on strength protocol near the end as it was near a show where I needed to perform the Tron Cross.
Let me give you another example based on an actual program I implemented with weighted dips.
Notations are in WEIGHTXREPSXSETS. If there are only two numbers, it is is just WEIGHTXREPS. An *f placed after a repetition denotes that it was a failed repetition.
My previous 1 RM was +155 lbs, and I had not performed weighted dips for a couple months. What ended up happening is that in about 3 weeks of a ramp up I was able to add 15 lbs onto my weighted dip. This particular impressed on me the effectiveness of the protocol because I was able to add a significant amount of weight onto my weighted dip at such an advanced level of strength. This does not even take into account that I had a ramp up period in that short amount of time.
The main thing to note is I used a scheme of decreasing the repetition and increasing the weight almost from workout to workout. The following RM progressions were followed from day to day: 5, 5, 4, 3,3, 4, heavy negatives (similar to a 1-2 RM), 5,2, 1,3, 1. Dropping the weight and adding repetitions serves to add volume which helps to force adaptations. You can then aim to max and hit a PR, even if you are advanced in strength.
This was all done at a bodyweight of 135 lbs. So +170 extra pounds added @ 135 lbs.
This program is by no means optimal, and I would modify it more towards a true 5/3/1 type of system or 6/4/2/1 type of repetition scheme if I were to do it again. But it helps show the power of the hybridized DUP system, even when not used perfectly and at a fairly "advanced" level of strength.
A 4-5x per week push/pull routine may look like the typical M/Tu/Th/F with push being M/Th and pull being Tu/F. The structure would be set up something like this:
The heavy days would consist of exercises of 3-5 repetitions, and the light days would consist of exercises from 5-8 repetitions. You can bias it more towards strength by lowering the repetition range, so the heavy day would be 1-5 repetitions and the light day would be 3-6 repetitions. If hypertrophy is more of the goal, skew the repetitions in the other dircctions with the heavy days being 3-8 repetitions and the light days being 6-12 repetitions. Note that alternating the focus week to week is completely acceptable and especially encouraged when plateaus are being met with.
This routine is structured utilizing a variety of different "light/heavy" variations.
With some exercises, such as the Planche, it's very difficult to effectively add weight. There are multiple ways to work around this type of scenario.
Some have found ankle weights to be their preference for making exercises like the Planche more difficult while others prefer a weight vest. Some decide to make their own versions because the commercial versions of these tools are not available. Even without added weight, the progressions themselves are a good way to base your light/heavy, DUP, or workout structure on.
For example, let us say you are stuck in the middle of a transition where you can hold 5-6s of Straddle Planche during a "heavy" day, but cannot get higher times on the Straddle Planche to make it effective for a*light" day. You can always go down to the previous progression for the lighter day; in this case it would be the Adv. Tuck Planche which could be trained for 20s holds on the light day.
Additionally, if you are training towards the Planche on the floor or parallettes, moving to the rings when you lower a progression (Adv. Tuck Planche in this scenario) can be used for a light day or even as alternative supplementary work.
As you can see from the programming illustrated above, I use multiple scenarios to distinguish a light day from a heavy day. All of these are based around what equipment may or may not be available. Do not be afraid to be creative with them.
To change a heavy day into a lighter day for the Rings HSPUs and RTO Dips I simply decreased sets and increased repetitions per set
To go from heavy to light for Planche Pushups I changed from the higher progression of Straddle Planche Pushup to the lower progression of Adv. Tuck Planche Pushup. I did the same for the Front Lever Pullups,
For the German Hang Pullouts and One-Arm Chin-up work I utilized weights to make the heavy day harder which consequently decreases the repefitions.
Obviously, the easiest way to manage alternating intensity is to use some form of added resistance in the form of weight belt, weighted vest, or other makeshift added resistance. If you are not feeling too creative this is definitely the way to go to make it easy to construt a routine so you do not have to worry about switching progressions.
These are just three different types of things you can do to manipulate bodyweight training into light or heavy days. Similar steps can be taken if you are going with high, medium, and lower repetition days.
At levels 11 and 12, strength gains may seem far and few between. At this point, gains tend to appear at best once a week, but usually once every few weeks. Do not be upset if it takes an entire cycle to see even a small improvement in strength,
An increase in complexity of programming is needed and will be needed after this level of ability if you want to continually progress.
I feel that training here becomes a bit more instinctive. As the trainee, you have developed a ridiculous amount of strength, awareness, growth, and overall knowledge of yourself and what tends to work better according to you as a person.
The term auto-regulation and the style of training it implies is how you will train from here on out. As I discussed in the programming chapters, you want to have quality workouts. You know how your body handles stress and you will know if you can do more or know if your body cannot handle more on a given day. At this level it is acceptable and necessary to add or subtract exercises or sets mid-workout as you feel fit.
One of the things I like in particular at this level of training is a light/heavy or DUP-type taper. For example, you may start with a repetition scheme 12/6 for light/heavy respectively. Every week you change the repetitions of the light and heavy workouts until you "taper" to hit a | RM at the end of the cycle.
So week 1 may be 12 RM/6 RM, week 2 may be 10 RM/5 RM, week 3 may be § RM/4 RM, week 4 may be 6 RM/3 RM, then week 5 may finish out with a4 RM and a 1 or 2 RM to set a PR. Sets may be held constant at 3 sets or increased as you move towards the heavier days if you can handle the volume. You may base set numbers around predicted maxes according to the adapted Prilepin's table.
I am going to use the previous program from the level 9-10 without making significant changes to the exercises to reflect L11-12 section to simplify it and show you how it can be modified to fit in this context.
Let us say we want something around 10 RM and 6 RM for the first week, 7 RM and 4 RM for the second week, and 5 RM and 2-3 RM for the last week.
A 4x per week hybridized DUP program on a push/pull system may look like this:
Week 1:
Week 2:
The key thing to note about week two is that the light workouts are very similar to the heavy workouts of the previous week. Depending on how well you're progressing from week to week, they can be slightly harder or easier. The main objective is to have the progress
Week 3
The progress we are aiming to see from week one to week two we will also aim for from week two to week three. As a fair reminder, sometimes workouts do not go as planned and progress may be a bit slower or faster than expected depending on many outside factors.
It is very hard to know if programs will work at higher levels without much experience. However, if you have come this far, you have likely acquired enough experience as a base to be able to get a "feel" for how a workout will go.
If the repetitions or exercises need to be modified to make things easier or harder mid-workout, at this point you can trust yourself to make a wise decision.
Additionally, even though you may program something like this and expeet to see gains from week to week, if your body is not responding as well as you hoped you may have to increase or decrease the difficulty or repetitions as necessary. This may have to be executed on the fly or from week to week. Just make sure to keep your light days light and your heavy days heavy. Thatis the most important part of periodization.
It is also very important to dial in sleep, nutrition, and stress along with the training at this point in time. You will not get very far without having these factors in order.
I think the main concept that needs to be kept in mind at this level is that as the stimulus to force adaptations increases and our training increases to match it, we need to keep in mind that it is very easy to start doing too much rather than too little. This is partially solved by the fact that we have proper deload weeks, but we need to think about the fact that if we have been training for years there may be accumulated fatigue that we are not even aware of.
I have had to recently take an extended break off from training after training consecutively with rest breaks for almost 3-4 years. I was around the ability of level 11 and 12 in most categories when I was forced to take the break away from training. However, for the next about 2 months off from training my body was actually still experiencing changes with increased hypertrophy as I "recovered" more. I had not even been aware of this as I had been making good progress beforehand.
So what I am saying is that if you have been training for a long time and are at this level that even if you are still progressing effectively there may be the possibility of taking more extended deload periods which extend for 2-3 weeks. You do not have to take full rest off during these times. Relax and learn a new sport, Or take off and enjoy some time with your family. Go for a fun. There are a lot of fun things you can do besides training that can help to refresh both your mind and body.
When you come back from the rest break if you have been training consistently for years there will be very little overall drop off. The overall total fatigue will be dissipated, and you will be able to get back into training fresh and ready to go. Having this "fresh" type of experience will be conducive to working hard in your training again and being able to progress much more effectively.
I sometimes think that as we get 50 strong and our abilities skyrocket that we often lose sight of many of the other qualities that are important to training effectively. Life is not just a game to see who can do the best. We should really have a love for what we are doing, and sometimes loving what we are doing means we need to take time away from it to appreciate how much we love it. A new perspective often fosters sucess
As far as routines go they are easy to construct. For example, you can use a routine to work on sequences of skills, or you can use them to help drastically shorten workouts by combining a ot of skills You have been working on already.
A basic level routine on rings may look like this
As you get more advanced, routines can be anything you want them to be. For example, if you wanted to work on front and back lever first before above the rings skills a routine may look something like this:
Basically, you can make up anything that you want to do based on your creativity.
Typically, you will want to combine a series of skill and strength moves alternating if you want to work on transition type movements. However if you are going for pure strength you can work specifically on strength moves all in a row in shorter sequences. If you want to do this, it helps if you work alternating movements of pull and push. For example:
One previous sequence that I had fun doing once I leaned how to do freestanding rings handstand pushups was to do as many rings handstand pushups as possible then if that number was 4 then I would perform:
Overall, it was good at aiming to hit all of the shoulder girdle in both pushing and pulling exercises in all of the planes of movement. I even had some fun playing with it in reverse, but it was difficult estimating how many free handstand pushups I could do at the end.
The kipping and felge skills are meant to be transitioned into and out of in gymnastics routines. It Tooks cool when you can chain them with strength moves. Be creative with your routines. Share them with cach other as well.
Another fun game that I used to play with some of my friends was parallettes add on. So basically what we did was we started out with a skill such as an L-sit. Then the next person would do an L-sit and then add a skill such as a press handstand. Then the next person would perform the L-sit, press handstand, and then add 2 skill onto that. This would go on and on until someone eventually failed.
Training does not have to be boring If you are getting tired of doing singular movements working towards strength then feel free to mix it up. Make it fun to work on these skills and strength movements. After all, that is why we are training. Not just to do impressive stuff but because we also love it
I am excluding further specific information on programming here because I feel that past level 12, people have diverse sets of goals for what they want to achieve and the experience to make it happen.
If you have further questions, ask those who are more experienced than you. The Inernet is a great resource, and I think it is underutilized as an effective tool for learning. I am almost always open to helping trainees if they want to post on our forums at eatmoveimprove.com.
Additionally, note that I did not really discuss any of the special techniques you can do to make workouts shorter such as pairing exercises or the various different types of split routines. This may be implemented according to your various disciplines or preferences
One of the few things that were suggested to me when The Fundamentals of Bodyweight Strength Training was initially posted on eatmoveimprove.com was the possibility of adapting Wendler's popular 5/3/1 program for bodyweight training.
The great thing about Wendler's 5/3/1 is that it is basically a program to increase your maxes and it only takes a short amount of time each day to perform and light overall volume during the week. With the stagnation that athletes or post-novice weightlifters normally face, having a program that was geared towards progress with an attitude of ‘get in and get out fast’ is particularly appealing.
For those of unfamiliar with the 5/3/1 program, it can be quickly deseribed as a strength program that has 4 main lifts spread over 4 days. The beauty of the program is that it uses submaximal weights — often far below 1 RM — to build up virtual max weight to high levels. It works and it works well.
I have struggled a bit with how to implement a similar type of program for bodyweight strength training. Some of the people in the comments section of The Fundamentals of Bodyweight Strengih Training said that perhaps instead of adding additional repetitions for the last set of each workout, it could be programmed to add extra time to static holds.
The thing I do not like about using statics to mimic increasingly weighted barbell work is that the statics do not function as well in this context. They become metabolic much faster than weights do because the isometric hold occludes blood flow. Typical range of motion exercises have the eccentric phase of exercise where blood can be pumped back into the muscle to clear metabolites. However, given the fact that we do have an isometric "Prilepin" table, this approach can be properly adapted if people are willing to put some time into crunching the numbers. I do not expect as good results though.
The problem with implementing a repetition-type system with bodyweight exercises is that it’s very difficult to tell how much improvement has been made from workout to workout. However, I believe the solution lies in the skill and strength progression charts more than the isometric movements,
There are enough exercises with direct progressions that allow you to "check your ego at the door" and start extremely light. For example, with the handstand pushups we have:
If you are moving into the B level skill range (which would warrant intermediate programming), you will likely be better off starting with some of the lower progressions such as Wall HeSPU.
The core formatting would be as follows:
One the few problems I can foresee for this type of programming is having a hard time knowing approximately what your max is for all of these different exercises since there are a lot. However, the fact that you are nearing intermediate strength means that you have a good idea when "failure" is going to occur within about four or five reps.
Although this does not exactly follow the repetition maximum diagrams, stopping short of failure by as many repetitions is relatively light on the body.
This type of program has by no means been tested. You would have to play around with it a bit to get it to work properly, but that is the fun part about this program. If you're a little bit off do not worry because the first couple sets are a relatively low intensity compared to the progression used in the third set.
After you can perform at least seven repetitions on all sets from all of the weeks, move up a progression. Seven is an arbitrary number here, but a 7 RM does signify that you are around 80% of your 1 RM capability which means you can likely progress to the next variation without much difficulty.
The assistance work then becomes sets of static isometrics for Back Lever, Front Lever, Planche, Iron Cross if you are training it, and any remaining skills you want to work on.
My recommendation is to work with a static variation or other exercise that works the opposing muscle groups compared to the one given
For example, if we are using a pressing exercise — Handstand Pushups in this case — then you would want to pair it with a pulling-based static such as Front Lever, Back Lever, or Iron Cross work. Alternatively, you can pair it with pulling-based movements such as Front Lever Pullup progressions.
The specific choices are up to you.
If the joints and connective tissues start to feel stressed, I would back off of the difficulty of the exercises and start with higher volume work such as 12-20 repetitions, potentially near the beginning the workout as the warm-up.
I would do general ankle and foot mobility and stretching as these would likely be needed for other aspects of sport or strength.
I will not name a specific number of degrees that I think mobility or flexibility should be increased to for each specific joint. I feel this is a bit counterproductive since not everyone will be as flexible as the next person. However, you should be able to move into any of the typical stretching exercises such as splits, German Hangs, wrist pushups, etc. fairly comfortably.
In particular, if we take an exercise such as the German Hang which is stretching our shoulders far into hyperextension we want to be able to hang comfortably in that position for at least 20-30s. Whether this is at a 160 degree angle beyond neutral or 120 degree angle they are both fine. What matters is we have access to a good range of motion comfortably that we can apply force in. When we have this we are both mobile and stable; therefore, we can develop strength effectively and keep our bodies healthy.
If your joints are getting sore or have trouble moving throughout the full range of motion or have trouble applying strength near the end of the ranges of motion, that is definitely something you are going o want to work on.
This is done at the end is because the tissues are adequately warmed up from the workouts and so stretching and mobility work will be very productive. Do not ignore this work as staying healthy is one of the long-term components of progress. You cannot beat up your body without taking care of it and expect to become strong.
I think it would be a good idea to summarize how to progress from a general perspective because programming is complex. This will keep it simple for some of you new to programming.
If you cannot do one of the options you will move down to the next option until you use one that works.
This structure for new people should be able to progress you through at least level 9-10 on the charts. By then you should know how to build routines much better.
Chapters eight and nine on programming can be daunting for people new to learning how to construct workouts. I hope some of these examples on how to apply those concepts in a structured manner were helpful.
The bodyweight training community is vibrant and willing to help each other eritique their routines. If you have any additional questions ask people who are more experienced than you, or visit any of the many sites on the internet that have a significant amount of bodyweight practitioners.
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