The Fundamentals of Bodyweight Strength Training _ Eat. Move. Improve

18/03/13

The Fundamentals of Bodyweight Strength Training | Eat. Move. Improve.

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The Fundamentals of Bodyweight Strength Training By Steven Low Published: March 22, 2010Posted in: Articles, Featured, TrainingTags: back lever, bodyweight, bodyweight exercises, bodyweight program, bodyweight programming, bodyweight strength, bodyweight training, front lever, gymnastics, iron cross, manna, one arm chinup, one arm pullup, planche, programming, strength, strength training

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This article is just a taster of the book Overcoming Gravity: A Sytematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength. The book is available in digital format in our online store. It is also available on Amazon. I’ll say it straight: Overcoming Gravity is the best book money can buy on gymnastics and bodyweight strength–period! This book reads like what it is–an absolute labor of love, an allencompassing masterpiece written by a bona fide genius in the field. This book wasn’t written to make a ton of money. There is so much advanced training information in this huge volume that it could have easily been watered-down and split into ten books…maybe more. Overcoming Gravity has the power to change the way you train–not just for a handful of workouts, but for an entire lifetime. Buy this book! —Paul “Coach” Wade, best-selling author of Convict Conditioning and Convict Conditioning 2

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Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Decreased leverage is the key to strength III. Skill development www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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IV. Exercise selection V. Exercise selection summary and importance of mobility and flexibility VI. Resources for finding exercises, goals, and equipment needed VII. Routine construction VIII. Summing up the parts IX. Conclusion Introduction / To the top Having trained seriously with bodyweight exercises for about 4 years now, I strongly believe that they are slightly superior for strength development compared to weight training in the upper body. However, since the legs are much stronger than the upper body they require weighted stimuli to make optimal progress. Additionally, for those with other goals such as gaining mass, a combination of bodyweight exercises and barbell work or strict barbell work will get you better results. See our Barbell training recommendations for that. In addition to the impressive levels of strength that can be built, bodyweight strength training for the upper body requires excellent proprioception and kinesthetic control. Manipulating the body in space increases feedback via mechanoreceptors, cerebellar system, and other neural factors, which when combined altogether likely gives a correctly programmed bodyweight exercise a slight advantage over weights in terms of upper body strength development. Since force output is based upon cross sectional area of the muscle, angle of attack on the joint, individual limb length, but most importantly neural factors, developing these neural factors quickly in conjunction with the strength and mass will help you gain impressive results quickly. Anyone who has developed both barbell strength and bodyweight strength can attest that the transference from one to the other is strongly in the favor of bodyweight exercises (in most cases and with comparable strength skills). Try it for yourself! Note: I will not be discussing any bodyweight leg exercises. You can add them for your own measure on your own time – the template I will discuss does allow for them to be put in though.

Decreased leverage is the key to strength / To the top If you have not read how bodyweight exercises can be effective for strength training I would suggest reading this. The brief summary is that force is force. Thus, if we can apply the correct stress to the muscles through various exercises we can see increases in both strength and mass. Rather than increasing weights or adding weight to the body, gymnastics and other bodyweight sports provide structured progressions through which the stimulus on the muscles can be increased without increases in body mass. This is done through decreasing leverage. Decreasing leverage in exercise is primarily employed through two different methods. 1. Changing the body position is the obvious way to decrease leverage. For instance, both planche and front lever have changes in body position to make the exercise more difficult.

Progressions of the planche series What happens is through extending the body position, the center of mass is shifted further away from the fulcrum (joint angles). This increases the torque which is the force applied around an axis of rotation. Since our bodies are built on leverage methods (muscles move our bones), all forces on the muscles can be thought of in terms of torque on the muscles at certain joint angles. This is the basis of biomechanics. 2. We all know that muscles are strongest at near resting length as that is the point where the most contractile fibers overlap. Thus, if we lengthen or shorten muscles and then place the same load on the body, we are effectively requiring more force from the muscle when it is weaker. www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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muscles are strongest at normal resting length Typically this is seen with more advanced strength moves on rings where the arms are held in straight arm position. The straight arm position places the biceps as maximal length and thus requires significant amounts of strength and mass to do the skills safely. Similarly, in the planche the primary shoulder muscle (anterior deltoid) is placed in an extended position (compared to an overhead press where you get more leverage out of it). This requires more force output to perform. Note: Increasing reps increases endurance! This is not the answer. We who try to develop bodyweight strength primarily stick to the lower repetition ranges just like training for strength in barbell lifting. We will discuss this more on why later. The topic of decreasing leverage and several key fundamentals are covered in much more detail in Chapter 1 of Overcoming Gravity

Skill development / To the top The topic of skill development is covered in over 4 chapters of Overcoming Gravity Skill development for bodyweight strength training is much different than in barbell work. It is unlike barbell training where you can begin learning the more complex movements (such as the Olympic lifts – snatch and clean and jerk) as a beginner and reach a decent level of proficiency within a few months. In fact, with barbell work this is preferable because it allows for years upon years of meticulous training to reinforce proper movement patterns to do it under heavy loads. Bodyweight skill development follows a different tract. The levels of progression are separated by competency in previous skill development in combination of strength development. For example, a basic skill such as a handstand and its various progressions has many different levels to work through such as: The basic static hold upside itself developed from the wall to free standing, developing a proper straight arm press, obtaining a freestanding bent arm handstand pushups, obtaining a one arm handstand, controlling various positions in handstands or one arm handstands potentially one arm press handstands The complexity of progressions and the varying nature of many peoples’ ultimate goals make progressing in pure bodyweight work extremely difficult if you are not under the tutelage of someone who knows what they are doing and can offer correct progressions and tips on what to work on next. Skill development work will play an ultimate role in developing proper strength. It is to be included in every session. As one’s individual skill, strength, and work capacity improves exercises that may have been previously classified as “strength” skills may become skill work. Thus, it is important every 6-8 weeks to reassess your goals exercise selection in the context of what constitutes skill work and strength work as your training progresses. We will talk about how to properly do this later. The topic of skill development is covered in over 4 chapters of Overcoming Gravity

Exercise selection / To the top www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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Many more details about exercise selection can be found in Chapters 4 & 5 of Overcoming Gravity Concepts of bodyweight strength routine construction The shoulder is the lynchpin of the upper body just like the hip is for the lower body. All upper body moves go through the shoulder. For this reason alone I believe most of the exercise selection of a routine should be based upon the different articulations of the shoulder. Bodyweight skills have the unique quality that many of them require excellent upper body flexibility/mobility to perform. For example, proper handstands require 180 degree shoulder mobility and strength in that position. Likewise, manna, back lever, one arm pullups, etc. all have shoulder mobility requirements that need to be properly developed to ensure success.

the shoulder – image from exac.com Keeping the shoulders (glenohumeral / scapular articulations) operating optimally is the key to bodyweight strength success. This is not to say we are going to ignore the elbows, wrists, and rest of the articulations in the upper body. Rather, focusing on the shoulder will allow us to correctly select exercises that will build a properly balanced routine. The simple method of exercise selection There are two methods of selection I use. One is very similar to the push-pull system. This is what I would use for beginners namely because it is easy to follow. Any exercise in which the center of mass of the body is moving towards the hands is a pulling exercise Any exercise in which the center of mass of the body is moving away from the hands is a pushing exercise This works for most exercises in almost all cases. The primary static exercises that everyone wants to learn that are pulling exercises are the back lever, front lever, and iron cross. And the statics that are pushing are your planches and inverted cross. The maltese and victorian are at the borderline which is fitting because they are full body tension exercises to the highest degree.

full back lever and full back lever

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iron cross and planche

inverted cross and V-sit Many more details about exercise selection can be found in Chapters 4 & 5 of Overcoming Gravity The a-bit-more-complex method of exercise selection I am writing this section not to confuse you but to delineate an applicable method of selecting exercise according to planes. This will be invaluable when we talk about keeping proper balance of the shoulder in the section after this. Fortunately, bodyweight exercises have a limited amount of articulations of the shoulder that we train with. There is very little “elbows out” in gymnastics in any type of shoulder flexion unlike what you can do with barbell and dumbell pressing. This is because of lack of control. Handstands with elbows coming out to the side will inevitably be unstable – the elbows need to be tucked in front of the body to adequately correct the body as a balancing lever as it moves in plane. Most people who randomly do handstand pushups (HSPUs) or add them as supplementary barbell work do them with elbows flared out. While this is stronger (because of the added trapezius involvement in scapular elevation) this does not allow proper development of strength. For this reason, our “pushing” is in flexion based shoulder work only.

Shoulder flexion – image from purdue.edu There are the occasional exercise with transverse flexion such as rings flys or one in abduction such as inverted cross. in some of the upper level strength development exercises. However, these will not be covered because they are not for beginners or even semi-intermediate level strength. Once you know how to structure your own routines you should be able to program these in properly for yourself. Therefore, our “pushing” is comprised of flexion based shoulder exercises is divided primarily into two categories that we can use namely: Flexion exercises in flexion Flexion exercises in extension/hyperextension www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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Flexion work in flexion is primarily horizontal and vertical pushing work such as press handstands, handstand pushups, planche work, most pushup variations, etc. Flexion exercises in extension/hyperextension are exercises where the elbow pass behind the midline of the body and initiate flexion in the concentric phase. These are all dip variations, muscle ups, very deep pushup variations, and some odd exercises such as german hangs or back lever can be classified into this category as well. On the flipside is the “pulling” based exercises which is based in shoulder extension. We have one exception in this case – adduction –since we will will need adequate mobility in for proper shoulder development. This will eventually be used for development of wide grip pullups, bulgarian dips, iron cross, etc.

Shoulder extension – image from purdue.edu These are divided into two categories: Extension exercises in flexion + adduction Extension exercises in extension/hyperextension Extension exercises in flexion + adduction is compromised of most of the vertical pulling variations such as pullups, front lever progressions and pullup variations, and the aforementioned bulgarian dips, iron cross, etc. Most of the bodyweight type rowing exercises can be categorized here too. Extension exercises in extension/hyperextension are very few and far between. The most obvious one is manna, and to an extent V-sit. Some of the high pulling body row variations also fall under here in the plane of transverse extension. Many more details about exercise selection can be found in Chapters 4 & 5 of Overcoming Gravity Where most people go wrong… The lack of extension exercises in extension/hyperextension is the part where most people go wrong with routine construction. Extension in this plane requires two things that most people neglect to develop strong scapular retractors, posterior delts, and external rotators.

Manna This is why I highly encourage everyone to start training manna if at all possible. It has done wonders for my shoulder health and strength as it effectively balances out a lot of the pushing work. Most routines are also so pushing heavy that there is very little pulling work as named above. These need to be kept in balance to ensure that strength and muscle tension/length issues at the shoulder do not develop.

Exercise selection summary and importance of mobility and flexibility / To the top Note that horizontal pushing means that the hands are moving in that plane with respect to the body. Thus, horizontal pushes would be all pushup variations, planche, bench press, etc. Vertical pushes would be both handstand pushups and dips. They will be distinguished by “upward” push — www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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handstands and variations — and “downward” push dips type movements. The same goes for pulling exercises. If last section was too complicated for you basically it boils down to this: Do one vertical push upwards and downwards, and one horizontal pushing exercise Do one vertical pulling exercise down, and one horizontal pulling exercise. Do manna OR add in another horizontal pulling exercise OR vertical pulling exercise upwards It is best if the vertical upwards pushing starts out as handstand work. Handstands are critical for the development of body proprioception and control. Progression in this skill signifies the level of ability of the user. Very few people develop strong bodyweight abilities without proper handstand work. A proper handstand has the body in alignment stacked on top of each other part by part. There should be no arch, and if at all maybe a slight hollow position.

Proper vs. improper handstand in modern gymnastics – credit to Jim’s beastskills.com In a perfect world everyone would work both manna and handstands as coupled skills. I like this for multiple reasons: 1. Development of strength in active flexibility positions is the key to dominating bodyweight movements. These will drastically increase your proprioception and ability to control your muscles through all range of motion. Handstands work proper overhead flexion range of motion of the shoulders, and manna works the limit of extension range of motion of the shoulders. 2. Both handstand and manna have built in core control and strength work. Thus, less time needs to be spent on core conditioning, and more emphasis can be put in on skill and strength development. 3. As previously mentioned, developing these skills simultaneously will ensure that imbalances of the shoulder will be less likely to develop. The alternative is additional scapular retraction work (another horizontal pulling exercise) or an inverted pulling exercise (such as inverted pullups) to keep the pulling and pushing exercises balanced. Many more details about exercise selection can be found in Chapters 4 & 5 of Overcoming Gravity

Now that we have identified the major movements in bodyweight skill development, it is time to begin putting a routine. Chapter 7 of Overcoming Gravity covers this in much more detail. Let me note that if people have previous injuries or impaired posture/mobility/biomechanics/strength imbalances then certain work may be needed or integrated to correct these deficiencies concurrently with bodyweight strength work. Unfortunately, this is a whole other topic, but I am going to at least put together a sample routine here and explain the reasoning behind such exercises. My recommendations for barbell work from “How to construct…” has always been something along the lines of structuring a routine based on 2 pushing exercises, 2 pulling exercises, and 2 legs/posterior chain exercises. This is similar to what I am going to do here except we are going to select exercises from each of the categories we have previously determined in both shoulder flexion and extension planes. www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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For those with no experience with exercising you should start out with 2 pulling and 2 pushing exercises. For those with some experience with exercising, I tend to like 3 exercises for push and pull starting out, and then integrate it down to 2 with an increase in skill work as work capacity increases. I use this structure for two reasons. First, getting the person to work in many planes of motion is going to help extensively learning to manipulate themselves in space. This is a bit unlike barbell training where you want to stress few fundamental movements. Secondly, distributing the volume over another set of exercises will help because it is harder to keep strict technique. Barbell work you can tell when form degrades and make load adjustments; in bodyweight work the body will inadvertently adjust to improper technique which decreases forces applied often significantly. Once technique becomes more ingrained then this is less of a problem. For our “pushing” exercises we want ones that are based in flexion in flexion and flexion in extension. For beginners, the best things to choose that will give the most benefit are in the veins of handstands, planche, and dips. For our “pulling” exercises we want ones that are based in extension in extension and extension in flexion. For beginners, this would be pullups, some sort front lever or back lever work, and inverted rows or inverted pullups. For legs there are lots of things you can work on such as sprinting, pistols, plyometrics, or other methods such as this. I do still recommend weights should be used, but sometimes people have no access to equipment so they have to make do with what they have. Many more details about bodyweight programming can be found in Chapter 7 of Overcoming Gravity Mobility/flexibility work First, proper flexibility and mobility work will go a long way to improving upon the effectiveness of the workouts by keeping joints safe. This is needed in both barbell and bodyweight work. The older you get, the more you will realize the truth of this. Mobility work may be integrated into warmups and/or as skill work, during workouts, or even post workout. One of the more effective things I have personally done for my manna progressions is to do my shoulder stretching (german hangs / skin the cats) directly before so as to allow better movement of the shoulder girdle pressing into hyperextension. Both german hangs and wall slides + band dislocates are musts as they will help improve proper shoulder range of motion in extreme flexion and hyperextension for handstands and manna respectively. Not that this is all of the work that should be done, but they are the more important of the two. Ido Portal has produced a good set of videos on scapular mobility and stability which you should definitely think about incorporating into warmups or cooldowns. Scapular mobility Scapular stabilization Additionally, proper leg and core/back flexibility are important to develop as well. Obviously, for the legs you have your classic splits that need to be worked on as well as ankle stretching. These are obvious.

Splits are critical for development of handstand press variations – image from about.com For the back, there are some good posts on Gymnastic Bodies on how to start developing these which should be integrated into the warm up or cool down. Improving back flexibility 1 Improving back flexibility 2 www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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Likewise, wrist flexibility and strength should be developed as well. Wrist pushups are good, and so is rice bucket for strengthening. So all in all we want to develop proper mobility and flexibility of our: ankles, hips, back, shoulders, and wrists. These will all be crucial to developing a lot of strength we need, so they should not be neglected. Details about flexibility and maintaining structural balance can be found in Chapter 4 of Overcoming Gravity

Resources for finding exercises, goals, and equipment needed / To the top Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength.is the 542 page book I wrote which will cover the above topics in far greater detail as well as the actual programming we will get to below in greater detail as well. Also, the book is available on Amazon. One of the posters on reddit typed up OG’s charts on exercise progression if you want to take a look at the tiers for progression of various exercises. Integrating Bodyweight and Barbell training is a great article on how to do that if you are interested in both methods of training. We list a multitude of good goals and potential exercises in our Setting and Achieving Goals article. Similarly, DrillsAndSkills lists many good exercises. Roger’s articles are also a gold mine for some of the particular techniques and nuances that need to be developed as well. Jim’s Beast Skills site has many skills that people want to strive for as well. Gymnastics WOD has a bunch of different gymnastics video resources talking about technique and such. I would not recommend their programming for strength based work, but they have some decent conditioning workouts if that is what you are looking for as well. This sticky post I made on PMenu has more more gymnastics specific resources. Coach Sommer’s Building the gymnastic body has pages of picture demonstrated exercise progressions. There are many youtube video channels that now have a lot of the different exercise progressions. As always we strongly recommend that you obtain a pullup bar and a set of rings. For most people, the things that work best are a doorway pullup bar and a good pair of rings. The rings may be hung off of the pullup bar, so you do not need to find somewhere outside to hang them unless you so desire.

Routine construction / To the top Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. For beginners, I recommend that a full body routine of 3x a week (so MWF for example) of 2 pushing, 2 pulling and 1-2 leg exercises be used. Skill work can be used on top of this if you need to. I typically recommend that both L-sit and handstand work be done in the beginning as “skill work” as HS and manna progressions are paired together effectively to balance the shoulder. So for a beginner with some training behind their belt, a sample program would begin with: skill work: 5-10 minutes of wall handstand work 60s of L-sit and/or straddle L pushing: 60s of planche dips or support hold work on rings pulling: 60s of back lever 60s of front lever www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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+ 1-2 leg exercies of your choice. For beginners, I typically recommend barbell lifts such as squat or deadlift because they are superior to bodyweight lifts for building strength. However, bodyweight exercises such as single leg squats / pistols, sprinting, hill sprinting, box jumps, stair training, etc can be used effectively as well. As you become more advanced (2-3 more cycles with appropriate rest weeks of the above cycle of 4-8 weeks), the program morphs into: skill work: 5-10 minutes of freestanding handstand work and/or working on straight arm press handstands L-sit / straddle-L– or if sufficiently advanced progressing towards manna work support hold work pushing: planche appropriate multi-plane pressing or dipping variations Another exercise IF necessary (vertical or horizontal pushing) pulling: back lever front lever another exercise if necessary (horizontal pulling related) +1-2 leg exercises of your choice. At this point, if skills are obtained such as back lever or front lever, or if it is not sufficient volume then you can start to add multi-plane pulling movements or such things as rope climbs. Weighted pullups/dips or progression pullup/dips are good. Multi-plane pressing, pulling, or combination exercises such as muscle ups can be integrated into each specific category. Quality of work is more important than quantity. More is not always better, especially in the case of bodyweight work where significant energy must be expended into the skills to not only learn them correctly but also perform them correctly. Form deteriorates much more easily with bodyweight work than barbells. If you are thinking about adding more exercises consider how your body is reacting first: ~Are you making progress week to week? ~How do you feel within the first 24-48 hours after workouts? ~Is the quality of your other lifestyle factors such as sleep/school/family/etc. deteriorating? If there are other factors that are causing problems such as lack of sleep or outside stressors then it may not be a good idea. If you are struggling with soreness of any kind whether it be muscle or especially joint then it may not be a good idea. If you are making good progress then why change what works for now? Clearly, undertraining is not good, but overdoing is generally far worse in most cases. It’s always a good idea to push your limits once in a while to see where they are at. This will give you an idea what you are capable of at that particular point in time; however, you have to realize that you will likely need to back off after you push past your limits so you can properly recover without developing overuse injuries. When in doubt, take a couple of extra rest days and then see how you feel. From here as you start to achieve your goals, you need to progressively implement harder exercises. Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. One alternative I would like you to consider is routines with little or no isometric work. I tend to prefer more movement based routines over strict isometric work. You do not necessarily have to work the isometrics to obtain the isometric skills, but it will be faster if you do. I have built up to crosses, straddle planche, full front lever, etc. without the use of much if any isometric work during training. The way you would program something like this is that instead of the additions of planche, front lever, back lever, etc. to your program you would substitute in extra exercises for those. For example, for the planche we would go with a horizontal pushing exercise such as a planche pushup progression, pseudo planche pushups, or other rings pushup variations. With front lever we can do front lever progression pullups, or even delve into barbell or dumbell work with bent over rows or one arm dumbell rows. You can also go with reverse flys or weighted inverted rows. For example, with 2 push, 2 pull, 2 legs you could go with something like: pushups progression moving into one arm pushups, or rings pushups progressions dips progression (or handstand pushups progression) www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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pullups progression moving into one arm pushups inverted rows progression moving into front lever pullups bodyweight squats progression into barbell squats or pistols bodyweight leg curl / glute ham raise progression There are many choices on how to do work. The reason why I like working strictly movements is I want to be stronger in all planes of movement rather than strict isometric positions. Studies have indicate that isometric movements only confer strength within about 30 degrees of the range of motion being worked. For the shoulder 30 degrees is nothing when it almost has 300+ degrees of rotary movement. Something to think about, but then again I suspect that almost 100% of you are doing bodyweight strength training because you want to obtain such skills like planche, front lever, etc. in which case I would recommend keeping the isometrics in your routines. Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. Where’s the core work? Many people are probably wondering why I did not include core work. My reasoning for this is that core work should be developed as part of the flexibility and skill work regimen mostly in the form of compression exercises to improve active flexibility.

Pike and straddle compression exercises – images from drillsandskills.com For these I would add them to either the end of the workout when you do flexibility work OR you may add them into the beginning where you’re working on your L-sit/straddle-L/Manna work. Both work well from my experience. Here are some guidelines: 1. Stretch your hamstrings for 30s 2. Arms straight, hands by your knees. 3. Pull your knees up to your face straining your abs as hard as possible. 4. Hold 10s. If you feel lots of cramping when you first start you’re doing it right 5. Repeat 1-4 about 5 times. If you can get your knees to you face for most of the sets, move your hands closer to your toes. I am going to assume that most of you are either using weights for lower body in which you are getting adequate lower back work. If you are not, I would recommend bodyweight work such as glute-ham raises, reverse hyperextensions, or other such bodyweight exercises. Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. Sets and repetitions This chart from Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength summarizes the rep ranges we want to use.

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For strength stick with 3-8 reps For hypertrophy stick with 5-12 reps For strength and hypertrophy stick with 5-8 reps As you can see above, strength is maximized the lower reps you go. The problem, however, with sticking in the 1-3 rep range for strength is that you need to do an enormous amount of sets to get adequate volume to force strength adaptations. Working in the 5-8 range for strength for beginners tends to be optimal — many barbell novice programs such as Starting Strength and StrongLifts are based off 3×5 methodology. Hypertrophy is maximized by the overlap of myofibrillar and sacroplasmic hypertrophy in the 5-12 rep range. This is where you can get adequate volume of reps, but also have the weight heavy enough to damage your muscles which will heal to eventually increase muscle mass. Thus, if you are aiming for both, try to pick exercises that are difficult in that 5-8 repetition range. We are not working to failure. Set and repetition selection should be based on being able to complete the first set of an exercise with a repetition or two to spare. If you do this, on the final set of an exercise it will usually be to near failure or failure. Failure is taxing on the CNS and if we overwork it then the quality of our workouts degrade much faster. Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. Depending on how many exercises you have, we would want to optimize the number of repetitions through a weightlifting chart like prilepin’s table Prilepin’s table

Although this chart was built for Olympic lifters and subsequently modified for powerlifting purposes, it can shed some light on what we are aiming for. With 3-6 reps we are working in the 70-90% range. So our optimal range of total repetitions for an exercise is approximately 15-18 repetitions. This can be split up as needed – 3 sets of 5-6, 4 sets of 4, 5-6 sets of 3, or whatever other variations you want to throw in. One of the ways to get a “feel” for the percentage you are working with is RPE — rating of perceived exertion. If the repetitions feel harder in nature you’re probably closer to the 90%, while if you can bang out the first couple easily you’re probably closer to 70%. It’s a good guage of how hard you are working. Alternatively, I tend to like the scale of just doing as many repetitions as possible of an exercise stopping about 1-2 repetitions short of failure as I mentioned above. Once you get strong enough to where you can do more than the 5-6 repetitions, you need to implement a harder progression of the exercise and reduce the amount of repetitions. Update: This article on Prilepin Tables for bodyweight strength isometric and eccentric exercises, which is www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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direct content from Overcoming Gravity, shows how to more effectively structure how to set up the hold time or eccentric time for the isometric strength and skills of the planche, front lever, back lever, L-sits, handstands, elbow levers and for eccentrics involved with obtaining one arm chinup as well as regular dips, pullups, muscle ups, and other exercises. Prilepin Tables for bodyweight strength isometric and eccentric exercises Isometric prilepin chart

Eccentric prilepin chart

See the above link for details about how to use these. Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. Now that we have discussed how to correctly get reps and sets, we need to talk about overall volume of exercise in regard to push and pulling exercises. Overall capacity, I would aim for approximately 25-50 repetitions of pushing, and another 25-50 repetitions of pulling work per workout. This can be fluctuated as necessary due to fatigue or improvement in strength, but this is a good range to aim for. Rest times for strength development can be anywhere from 3-7 minutes in between each set. Having trained for a while I prefer about 5 minutes between my sets. Depending on your conditioning and work capacity you may prefer a bit lower. Alternating pushing and pulling exercises may allow you to shorten rest times a bit more if you are time constrained. For example, if you are doing planche and front lever isometrics you may do a set of planche and then rest for 90-120s and then do a set of front lever. This will help make you more time efficient, but may blunt your gains very slightly because it becomes a bit more metabolic. Proper recovery weeks

Every about 4-8 weeks of work is a good time to reevaluate what you are doing and take a rest week. For newer people since they progress a bit faster and for longer I would suggest more weeks without rest unless it clear they are not making much progress. If this occurs, one day of work may need to be eliminated per week to allow sufficient recovery between sets. Overall, doing full rest is not productive during a recovery week. I will present a couple alternatives that tend to work well. 1. I would suggest that you keep the intensity high, but cut half of the volume during your rest weeks. For example, this can be done by eliminating 2 days of workouts. So if you’re on a M,T,R,F schedule of workouts then you may only do 2 workouts such as M,R during a recovery week. 2. Another alternative is to eliminate half of the exercises. This can be done exclusively by eliminating isometrics. I would suggest eliminating the isometrics for a week, as it is more productive in most cases to continue working on full range of motion through the muscles during rest weeks. 3. If it was a particular brutal cycle on the body it may be worth it to eliminate all of the isometrics and exercises and exclusively focusing on the skill work and prehabilitative protocol. www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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For example, continue to work on handstands and ring supports, and improve shoulder, wrist, back, hip and ankle mobility and flexibliity. Rest weeks are often very good times to implement more prehabilitative work and stretching protocols to reduce the amount of scar tissue/adhesions in the muscles, and get your mobility ready for the next set of training.

Summing up the parts / To the top Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. To sum up the parts we looked at, our hierarchy of a routine adheres to the common template: 1. Warmup / mobility work 2. Skill development 3. Strength/power work 4. Cool down / prehabilitative or rehabilitative work For warm up anything that gets the blood flowing works. I tend to like a short circuit of pullups, dips and burpees. From there we move into mobility work to warm up the joints to allow successful movement. All of the mobility/flexiblity work I have talked about is listed below. In general, I would save the the static stretches for post-workout cool downs, but anything that helps warm up the joints in the dynamic phase listed below may go into your mobility work in the warmup. Shoulders: Scapular mobility Scapular stabilization german hangs wall slides band dislocates Jim Bathurst has suggested an alternative to wall slides: I was shown a great/better variation where you sit with your butt against the wall, legs straight out in front of you. Grab some PVC at 90/90 elbow/shoulder degree and press above your head like a wall slide. Wrists: Wrist pushups rice bucket Hips/ankles/legs: Splits Pike Straddle Ankles (can be found page 4) The splits… and more… Back: Improving back flexibility 1 Improving back flexibility 2

Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. Skill development depends on the strength level. As you read above, eventually handstands will not become very difficult because you have gotten much stronger. Anything that you can practice extensively for 5-15 minutes without becoming significant fatigued, but that you still need to master is classified as skill work. Once handstands or any other movements such as L-sits, straddle-Ls, elbow levers, or whatever else you want to develop becomes like this you may put it in this category. Implement active flexibility work here or after the workouts when doing flexibility.

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L-sit and straddle-L sit can be performed on rings, parallettes, or the floor

Elbow lever If possible I would try to work on anywhere from 2-4 skills at one time but no more than that otherwise it will take too long. Most people do not have excessive amounts of time in their day that they can devote to training anyway. I recommend that these isometrics be coupled for beginners: ~handstand work with manna ~planche with front lever or back lever Routine construction should follow the general template of 2-3 pushing and 2-3 pulling exercises for about 3-5 sets of 3-6 repetitions depending on work capacity. You are aiming for a total of about 25-50 repetitions total for each pushing and pulling exercises in your workout. Rest approximately 3-7 minutes between sets. Alternate pushing/pulling work if you are time constrained and shorten the rest periods to 1.53.5 minutes. Remember, quantity is not always better than quality – focus on getting the most out of your exercises. If you are too fatigued to finish exercises properly then simply terminate the workout for the day. We are not working to failure. Set and repetition selection should be based on being able to complete the first set of an exercise with a repetition or two to spare. If you do this, on the final set of an exercise it will usually be to near failure or failure. Failure is taxing on the CNS and if we overwork it then the quality of our workouts degrade much faster. You may substitute isometrics or eccentrics for exercises according to the data above. Cycles should be continued for at least 4-8 weeks followed by a rest week. From there goals may be evaluated and new exercises and skill selected depending on if you completed your goals or are stagnating on exercises.

Creating a routine is covered in detail in Overcoming Gravity. The details fill 3 chapters and over 50 pages. Cool downs should be focused on improving flexibility as the muscles are best able to do this when they are warmed up. Work on a lot of the splits as well as shoulder flexibility exercises like german hangs here (even if you used them in conjunction with manna work as well). Implement active flexibility work here if you did not implement it in the beginning with the skill work. In addition, this is the time to add isolation prehabilitative work as well. For example, the external rotators are a bit neglected in most gymnastic work. Thus, it may be beneficial to do a couple sets of side lying external rotations or the middle part of a cuban press to help keep the shoulders healthy.

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Side lying external rotations – image from build-muscle-and-burn-fat.com Similarly, more band dislocates and wall slides are recommended here as well as wrist pushups and rice bucket wrist conditioning.

Conclusion / To the top Remember, this article is just a small snippet of the 542 pages on programming and injury information available in Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength on Amazon and the digital edition in our store. The aim of this article was to successfully educate you on how to properly construct a bodyweight strength routine. The underlying caveat that took me so long to write this was that I wanted to ensure that anything I recommended would be able to keep a person in it for the long haul while mitigating potential injuries. I hope this helped you to be able to do it. The resources out on proper bodyweight programming are scant so it is with regret that I was unable to get this article out sooner. However, now that it is out I hope it is extremely useful to those looking to exclusively bodyweight strength train. One of the big problems that most people encounter with bodyweight strength work is that it is very hard to see progress as opposed to adding weight to the bar every session or every other session. However, like any training the key is consistency. If you work (1) hard and (2) consistently you will make good progress. This is key for any type of program whether bodyweight, barbell, or both. For those of you who wish to do a combination of barbell and bodyweight work you may note that many of the exercises are very similar to pulling and pushing exercises. You may substitute these in for exercises in your barbell routines and it works out fine. If you still have no clue, Jim Bathurst (BeastSkills) wrote an article for Performance Menu that focuses on bodyweight skill integration with barbell work. I have read it, and it is almost exactly what I would recommend. If you are not a subscriber of PMenu journal it will cost you $2.75 though. Good luck with your training!

This article is just a taster of the book Overcoming Gravity: A Sytematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength. The book is available in digital format in our online store. It is also available on Amazon. Did you like this article? Check out these related articles: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Integrating Bodyweight and Barbell Training A Breakdown of Balance Training Prilepin tables for bodyweight strength isometric and eccentric exercises Setting and Achieving Goals Skill Guidelines for Building Strong, Useful, Adaptable Athletes Comments [151] Digg it! Facebook Stumble

About the Author Steven Low, author of Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength, is a former competitive gymnast who, in recent years, has been heavily involved in the gymnastics performance troupe, Gymkana. With his degree from the University of Maryland College Park in Biochemistry, Steven has spent thousands of hours independently researching the scientific foundations of health, fitness and nutrition. Currently Steven is pursuing a doctorate of Physical Therapy from the University of Maryland Baltimore which provides him with insights into practical care for common injuries. His training is varied and intense with a focus on gymnastics, parkour, rock climbing, and sprinting. He currently resides in his home state of Maryland. www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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151 Comments 1.

Adam Posted March 22, 2010 at 1:15 PM Hey I loved this article Steven. It was really informative, and I’m sure it took you forever to write it. I posted a new topic in the Gymnastics Bodies forum that links to this article, as well as giving it a thumbs up in stumble upon, so hopefully more people can get around to seeing this. Thanks a ton! Reply

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fingolfin Posted March 22, 2010 at 5:49 PM fantastic article. thank you for taking the time to write it Reply

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Steven Low Posted March 22, 2010 at 7:31 PM Glad you guys liked it. I couldn’t find the thread on GB though, so I guess they deleted it. Seems to happen to a lot of content related to me. Oh well. I do get belligerent sometimes, but I harbor no animosity. Reply Adam Posted March 23, 2010 at 6:11 AM Yes apparently you or someone else already put up a link in some obscure thread, so Coach Sommer decided to delete my post. Hopefully some people will end up stumbling across it regardless. Reply

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Lucky Posted March 24, 2010 at 6:29 AM This is an absolutely fantastic article – I hope you are going to turn this into an e-book. I would pay for and download it for certain. I’m printing it out right now so that I can read it more carefully after work. I’ve been wanting to get into bodyweight strength training but didn’t know where to start, so this is exactly what I needed. Thank you so kindly. Reply

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Fredastere Posted March 24, 2010 at 5:32 PM Incredible work Steven, Thanks a trillion for sharing all this knowledge and putting it into such a nicely structured and easy to digest format! Reply

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Mike Posted March 25, 2010 at 11:35 AM Good write up. One thing, though. I believe the Prilepin table you posted is flawed. For the 90%+ range, the rep range totals span from 4 (min.)-10 (max) on most other charts. Seven reps is usually considered the optimum. However, sometimes trying to get 7 reps total with your 2 rep max (~95%) using 2 reps per set is almost impossible without a marathon workout of repeated attempts. Some powerlifters say they cut the reps for that range because of the fatigue, so maybe that is why someon put 4, to modify it for powerlifting. The chart does work for many people, and across many disciplines though. Reply

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Mike Posted March 25, 2010 at 11:40 AM Oh, and one question. How did you arrive at the conclusion that 3-4 seconds of statics is about 1 rep? Is that based on perceived exertion, or some TUT calculation. I have always gone by staying away from failure in an effort not to overdo it, and build up slowly over time to make sure I am not undertraining.

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Reply Steven Low Posted March 25, 2010 at 1:43 PM Odd. The same one I posted is the same one on eliteFTS. And I doubt they would get it wrong… however, looking at the rest of the ones on the web it is more common to see the other ones. I’ll just post the other one. 3-4s of statics = 1 rep is based on my experience of conversion. In addition, it is approximately the time it takes to do a nice controled negative + explosive concentric movement as well. I guess you can call ot a TUT calculation. I agree though with staying short of failure for both concentric, isometrics, and eccentric movements too. Reply 8.

Albert Posted March 26, 2010 at 7:16 AM thanks! Reply Jason Posted March 26, 2010 at 5:28 PM Steven, Very informative and thought-out. I especially like your articulation of the concepts of press-pull, as well as your descriptions of shoulder flexion. Too bad there’s not a simpler way of saying “flexion exercises in flexion” or “flexion exercises in extension/hyperextension,” ’cause those phrases don’t roll off the tongue so well. I’ve just read Wendler’s 5-3-1, and you know what would be great? Something similar for bodyweight exercises. I was inspired by his book chiefly because of its simplicity! I’m wondering if one could apply it to bodyweight stuff: 4 exercises, FL, BL, PL and L/V/Str/Manna, train one per day, pair it with unweighted complementary exercise, boom, you’re outta the gym in record time. Again, great piece of writing. Good job pulling all this stuff together … get your ebook together now! best, jason from GB Reply Steven Low Posted March 28, 2010 at 5:11 PM Possibly. I’ll think about it some more and see if I can come up with something. Reply Jason Posted March 28, 2010 at 8:17 PM Steve, Not sure if you’re familiar with Wendler’s deal, i.e. 5-3-1/amrap last set, etc., but think of the challenge in this way — Can you set up guidelines for a gymnastic-based workout that would have you out of the door in 60 minutes? jason Reply

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Mike Posted March 28, 2010 at 11:18 PM Wendler gets quite a bit of credit for his 5/3/1. I’m forgetting it, but I remember it being press 2x a

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week, and legs 2x a week. I guess something analogous would be weighted pullups/pullups and front lever each once per week. Then handstand pushups and maybe planche variation each once per week. Mon: Pullups……………….or………Pullups (weighted) Tuesday: Handstand pushups …..or……..Handstand pushups Weds: Front lever……………or……..Pullups (weighted) Thurs: Planche progression of choice..or..Handstand pushups Throw in core and legs as necessary. I know I thought about what would be similar to a bodyweight 5/3/1, but I think it is a little difficult to program. You could just do handstand stuff 2x, and weighted pullups 2x. Nice thing about each, namely pullups, is you can adjust the intensity according to Wendler’s very easily. From the little I know of advanced progressions, you could probably get close to a OAC, planche (of some variety), and front lever on this routine if you make great strength gains. Reply Jason Posted March 30, 2010 at 11:59 AM Mike, Steven, I have given it a little more thought. Wendler’s method is gaining traction because it’s simple, direct, and no-nonsense. It also works. A Gymnastic 5-3-1 might look like this: Instead of press/bench/squat/dead: Front Lever/Back Lever/Planche/Straddle-L; L-sit; V-sit; Manna (or perhaps Cross?). Establish whichever variation you can hold for 15 seconds — it may be ring support, may be tucked frog stand, whatever. If you can hold comfortably longer than 15 seconds, move up to the next progression. In keeping with Wendler’s idea, IT SHOULD BE SIMPLE, and CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR. Be prepared to backpedal if need be. Take 90% of your max, which would be 15 seconds: ~13 seconds. Week one: 3×5 Set 1: 65%, ~9 seconds Set 2: 75%, ~10 seconds Set 3: 85%, ~11 seconds and AMSAP after that, 2 seconds before fail. Week two: 3×3 Set 1: 70% Set 2: 80% Set 3: 90%, AMSAP after that, 2 seconds before fail. Week three: 5-3-1 Set 1×5: 75% Set 2×3: 85% Set 3×1: 90%, AMSAP after that, 2 seconds before fail. Week four: Reduce I would probably embed each Fundamental Bodyweight Exercise with its reciprocal, i.e. FL with Multi-plane Pressing, PL with MP-pulling, manna with HS/press HS, etc. On 4 days a week, work one FBE and its reciprocal per day. Boom, you’re outta the gym sub60 minutes. Would this even work? I have no idea. jason Reply Jason Posted March 30, 2010 at 12:14 PM On consideration, I still don’t know: that’s ~ 150 seconds of static work per day … too much? www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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Reply Steven Low Posted April 1, 2010 at 7:50 PM It seems OK. The only thing I don’t like about the statics is that they don’t scale well as reps do. I’d rather have a set progression of a multi-plane pressing and pulling movements as the main, and accessory work as the isometrics. I’m gonna try to write up something this weekened. I have a decent idea of what something like this would look like in my head, but I also need to reread Wendler’s 5/3/1 to make sure it matches up correctly. Reply Wazza Posted July 28, 2010 at 7:56 PM Steven, this whole article is simply awesome. Has there been any progress on the Wendler methodology / gymnastics strength mashup?? Also keenly awaiting the ebook(?). The GPP integration mentioned in these comments would also be welcome! Keep up the amazing work!! 10.

Mike Posted March 31, 2010 at 1:02 AM I have hunch it would work. Simply due to the volume and the fact of a deload. You might have a really good program there. Only way is to try it. Reply

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Jonathan Tracy Posted April 8, 2010 at 6:21 PM “Let me note that if people have previous injuries or impaired posture/mobility/biomechanics/strength imbalances then certain work may be needed or integrated to correct these deficiencies concurrently with bodyweight strength work. Unfortunately, this is a whole other topic.” Is there anyway without the support of a professional where someone could find out about all of these problems by themselves? Or do you know of something or somewhere else, online or otherwise that would go into more detail about the work needed before training begins and work that should be integrated? Steven Low you said that it is a whole other topic. Is there anywhere I could go or advice you could give me on it? P.S Awesome thread. Thank you so much for putting all this in one place. Reply Jonathan Tracy Posted April 8, 2010 at 6:24 PM My shoulders seem to pop and become inflamed easily. I have not worked out my upper body in a long time, mostly running and biking. It seems to be a problem that never goes away no matter how little activity is done.and I would like to be able to get them healthy and progress with the body weight strength training offered in gymnastics. Reply Steven Low Posted April 8, 2010 at 6:25 PM I’m currently writing up stuff on this, so it’s not out yet. As you know if you have lower body problems I do have the article out on that http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2009/11/shoessitting-and-lower-body-dysfunctions/ (the common ones at least). Most shoulder stuff is fairly simple if you know exactly what your problems are there are set things you can do for rehab to improve strength, mobility, etc. Do you know what your problems are right now? Shoot me an e-mail if you want.

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Reply Jonathan Tracy Posted April 12, 2010 at 1:27 PM Yea sure. What is your email? Reply Steven Low Posted April 12, 2010 at 7:01 PM steve at emi (typed out) dot com As for mobility and flexibility work if you do it back to back it should take about 10-30 minutes if you pick and choose the most effective stuff for your limitations. Reply 12.

Jonathan Tracy Posted April 12, 2010 at 5:05 PM When it comes to stretching to increase mobility and flexibility, is it necessary to do all of the stretches you are planning to do every day or can you divide that over the training week and still get good results? Otherwise all of that stretching for the full body would take a long while right? Reply Scott Posted April 19, 2010 at 10:00 PM After reading this article and a bunch of stuff over at gymnastic bodies, I’m wondering how you would incorporate this sort of thing into a GPP program that includes serious metabolic conditioning. I’ve been working starting strength for about 2 months now (though without enough food apparently, I’ve only gained ~10-12 lbs), and while I’m happy about my strength increases, I’m starting to feel the lack of metcon in my fitness regime. Plus I don’t like only working out 3 days per week. Any advice on using the bodyweight moves described here as part of a comprehensive GPP routine would be great. Reply Steven Low Posted April 20, 2010 at 5:38 PM Jonathan, Yes, you may break it up to off days or separate days. I would try to hit similar stretches at least 2-3x a week to make consistent progress on them though. Scott, Yes, actually. I am going to include this in the e-book I’m writing on this subject. I’ve chosen to rewrite a lot of this material making it a lot more detailed, and add a lot of other programming for various ability levels plus some other content. Reply

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Johnny Blount Posted April 20, 2010 at 7:27 PM Steven, just got through reading this and later in the day someone sent me a video and it made me think of your article with the range of motion and everything. Thought it might interest you so here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=BNR74UCidBI&feature=player_embedded Reply Johnny Blount Posted April 20, 2010 at 7:29 PM Oh, and the interesting stuff is after the singing. Reply

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CB Posted April 28, 2010 at 3:52 PM “Let me note that if people have previous injuries or impaired posture/mobility/biomechanics/strength

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imbalances then certain work may be needed or integrated to correct these deficiencies concurrently with bodyweight strength work. Unfortunately, this is a whole other topic, but I am going to at least put together a sample routine here and explain the reasoning behind such exercises.” With reference to this part of your article and these threads outlining my injuries and setbacks, could you guide me some more? Something you can / would add / advise? http://gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2868 http://gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2573 I also had a rib injury during a Ski trip but that seems have mostly healed and I do my great yoga stretches completely now. Reply Steven Low Posted April 29, 2010 at 6:24 PM I remember reading through your threads. Except I still don’t know what your diagnosis is. If I have a diagnosis and there is applicable physical therapy stuff you can do then I can give you something to get started. Without a diagnosis (or properly answering my questions such as in the first thread) there is no way I can help you. I can’t examine you over the Internet you know. Reply CB Posted May 2, 2010 at 12:40 PM I am guessing this one http://gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2573 Where you asked.. Which of the shoulder articulations hurt.. http://www.exrx.net/Articulations/Shoulder.html I went to the doc and he pressed shoulder at certain places and figured it somewhere at the front of the shoulder. What I will do is do these articulations (I dont have the machines though) and record the feeling for each on my shoulders. Does that work? Should I post that here or there on that thread & continue there? Reply Steven Low Posted May 2, 2010 at 3:28 PM I don’t want to bother with that. If you went to a doctor he should have given you an actual diagnosis. What is the diagnosis he gave you? If he didn’t give you a diagnosis then you had better switch docs because that one didn’t know what he was doing. Go to an orthopedic doc. It’s been long enough that you shouldn’t be playing around asking someone else on the Internet about how to fix your injuries. Physical therapy may be indicated. Reply CB Posted May 3, 2010 at 9:49 AM I went to an Ortho surgeon. He is a close family friend and he found the injury and asked me to lay off for 6 weeks. Which I did. After that 2 months or so I had another shoulder injury doing some heavy volunteer work.. 2 months later. Then a snowboarding / skiing trip and I hurt my ribs. Never got to GB workouts all the time. I just started again recently with extensive warmups & mobility (maybe too much) and minimal work load. Will post on the forums. www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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Steven Low Posted May 3, 2010 at 6:50 PM So you have had cumulative injuries on that shoulder, and you still don’t know what the problem(s) is/are. How am I supposed to figure that out? See the ortho again if possible. Get a diagnosis. Then you have options from there on what to do. 15.

Sam G Posted August 4, 2010 at 11:08 AM Steve, I’m not sure if it’s in this article but I remember you or Chris writing that in the hierarchy of a workout, power comes before strength which comes before MetCon. My question is: Where do I place Sprinting, as they develop all three? Reply Chris Salvato Posted August 4, 2010 at 10:40 PM The depends on why you are sprinting… If you are sprinting to be fast off the block and your main goal is to work technique and develop power then you do your sprinting first in low volumes, high intensities. If you are sprinting to gain strength/power but there are other goals that are more important (such as squatting) then you do them after power but before MetCon with low/medium volume and high/medium intensities. If you are doing them to MetCon then you should spring last while doing them in higher volumes, lower intensities (relatively lower, that is). Reply

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Sam G Posted August 5, 2010 at 2:29 PM Another Q: Right now I’m doing planche w/front lever and handstand w/back lever for my two pushing and pulling exercises. You recommend doing manna progression with Handstands however. The problem is to do that I’d first have to work on L-sit, and I don’t have time to add in another exercise to my routine. So, is it better to work on L-sit now, which would mean eliminating one pulling exercise (BL), or should I stick with back lever for now and work on L-sit/Manna after achieving the BL? Also, which exercise would you recommend for one of my leg/posterior chain exercises: bridging (working towads being able to fall into and stand up from) or Glute Ham Raises? Reply

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Steven Low Posted August 5, 2010 at 5:51 PM L-sit and handstand tend to be less intense after you get used to working out and qualify as skill work. If you cannot add them in during workouts, feel free to do them anytime during the day when you can get quality reps in. Especially handstands with these skills you need MUCH more practice than the time you’re going to get only in a workout setting. If you’re short on time, remove handstands and do them with L-sits and their variations when you have other free time. Keep your workout all workout if this is the case. GHR. Going into a bridge is not a posterior chain exercise. If you meant some variations of hip thrusts, especially weighted… then that can work though. Reply

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Jon Y Posted August 10, 2010 at 5:59 PM Hi Steven! I was just wondering if you could give an example of how you’d implement barbell work for legs in a routine like this. Would a simple 5×5 squat work? And how should i split the workouts? Thanks for an amazing write-up by the way!

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Reply Steven Low Posted August 11, 2010 at 8:47 PM Linear progression with 3×5 is best if you haven’t been on something like Starting Strength and your stats are less than 2x bw squat/DL. Otherwise, it depends. Reply Jon Y Posted August 12, 2010 at 8:09 AM I’ve been training with weights for quite some time, but vain as I am , I have been neglecting the squat and dl way too much. It’s now, after reading up on SS, that i understand the importance of them. My main goal is to squat 2x BW (currently 275lb, 170lb bw) while maintaining my gymnastics. Would the first workout example here; http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/How_To_Construct_Your_Own_Workout_Routine be suitable? Reply Steven Low Posted August 14, 2010 at 9:45 PM Yeah, sure… you don’t need me to tell you that though. Reply 19.

Dave Z Posted August 15, 2010 at 5:42 AM Steven, Can press/pull exercises be combined on the same day or do they need to be kept to separate days? Which is more beneficial? Same question for static/dynamic exercises involving similar muscle groups. Thanks. Reply Steven Low Posted August 16, 2010 at 10:23 AM Before you ask questions can you at least read the article? I answered these two questions in the above text… I always recommend full body days. No separation of press/pull is needed at all until maybe you get to B level strength, or you have issues with the amount of time spent working out. Same thing with the statics. If you are doing them they count as a press or pull depending on which static it is. Reply Dave Z Posted August 16, 2010 at 8:49 PM I did read the entire article… thanks for clarifying these points. Reply

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Sam G Posted September 18, 2010 at 9:35 PM Are static exercises better for building strenght than dynamic ones or vice versa, or are they jsut different ways of accomplishing the same thing? When I say dynamic movements I am referring towards bodyweight strenght movements also (ex- oneleg-squats, one-arm-pushups/pullups, etc.)? Also, have you guys ever though about writing a whole article on conditioning? I know you talked about it in this article, but their is still so much you could write. Reply Steven Low

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Posted September 19, 2010 at 9:31 AM You get better at what you practice. Thus, if you practice statics you will get good at holding positions, and if you practice dynamics you will get good at expressing strength through all ranges of motion. Of course, there is some carryover to both which is why I tend to advocate both. However, if you have certain goals then you want to bias it towards your goals more. Get what I’m saying? And yes, we have some stuff on conditioning in the works by another author we are trying to bring in (effectively a rewrite of “How to construct your own workout routine”). Never Gymless by Ross Enamait is a good alternative if you’re looking for something like that though now. My main priority at this point is the bodyweight strength programming book, and it probably won’t have much about conditioning programming in it. Reply Sam G Posted September 19, 2010 at 7:59 PM 1. If you get better at what you practice, and life generally consists of dynamic movements(unless you are a gymnast, in which case you need to be able to hold static positions), it would seem to me that your primary focus should be on dynamic movements (note that I wrote “primary focus”, not “only focus”, because of the carryover effect). 2. Thanks for the referance to Ross’s book. I’ve seen other places which advocate it but not anyplace which I trust as much. 3. When is the book going to be done? I’d definitely love to get a copy of that. Reply Steven Low Posted September 20, 2010 at 3:18 PM 1. Yes, that’s why I rarely do any statics. 2. No problem. 3. I’m getting it done as fast as I can… I have about 70 pages uneditted text so far. I estimate it will be around 175-200ish range when I’m done with pictures of course. Reply Sam G Posted September 28, 2010 at 10:38 AM Any reason why you recommended Never Gymless over Ross’s other material? I did some looking around and it seems NG doesn’t talk about conditioning as much as his other stuff. I’m pretty set with my current strength program (at least until your book comes out) so I’m really just looking for conditioning stuff now. Steven Low Posted September 28, 2010 at 12:05 PM Whoops, yeah. Full throttle conditioning is the way you want to go. Honestly, though, it’s not too hard to put together a routine, circuit, or interval. The concepts are pretty simple. 21.

Jonathan Mead Posted October 17, 2010 at 8:33 PM Wow, this is incredibly generous man. If you ever wrote a book, I would definitely buy it. Reply

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Justin Posted October 18, 2010 at 4:30 PM Hey Steven, Hope you are doing well man. I have been working on planche for a good while now and can’t seem to

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get past the tuck planche stage. Currently I am doing 6 sets of 10 second holds and don’t seem to see any progress. What could be the reason for the lack of progress. Thanks a ton and God bless man Reply Steven Low Posted October 19, 2010 at 10:37 AM What’s your whole pressing routine currently? Walk me through a week. When’s the last time you took a break? Reply Justin Posted October 19, 2010 at 10:52 AM Currently I do the Workout of the Days on Coach Sommers’ website. So the pressing routine varies. However, I do work on tuck planches four times a week and handstand/press handstand work twice a week. Currently my holds consist of 6 sets of 10 second holds. I’ve been stuck on tuck planches for a while now so it’s a bit frustrating. I don’t really know what’s wrong. I am on the last week of the steady state cycle which is 8 weeks for me, so the last break I had was 7 weeks ago. Thanks for your help Steve. Reply Steven Low Posted October 19, 2010 at 4:02 PM I’d finish up this cycle then retest near the end of your rest break and see if you supercompensate. If you don’t then you may need to add in some additional pressing exercises. Reply Justin Posted October 19, 2010 at 7:29 PM I may try your dynamic approach to achieving these static positions. I have been doing FL pulls instead of the usual front lever statics and I have noticed an increase in strength big time. Also, what method did you use to achieve your straddle planche? You said you worked up to it by doing dynamic exercises. What were some of those if you don’t mind saying? God bless you bud Steven Low Posted October 19, 2010 at 8:19 PM Rings pseudo planche pushups, straight arm handstand pressing work, free handstand pushups 23.

Sam G Posted October 21, 2010 at 5:55 PM In between sets, do recomend complete rest or active rest? I know active rest is said to be better when doing conditioning, but I wasn’t sure if it was the same with strength training. Reply Steven Low Posted October 22, 2010 at 7:54 AM Either rest or do non-taxing mobility work focusing on loosening up the muscles especially those that you’re using during the exercise(s) in question. Definitely no active work. Strength training is not conditioning and you don’t want to be taxing the energy systems because that will limit total work capacity during strength sets. Reply

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Gregor Posted January 17, 2011 at 10:37 AM Hey Steven, There are some things in your article which I don’t quite understand, so it would be cool to have some

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clarification here. 1)Why do you recommend killroy’s plan which consists of handstand, planche, backlever and front lever? I mean, these are 3 shoulder extension exercises but only one flexion exercise(FL). Doesn’t this lead to a disbalanced shoulder development? The flexion and extension in the elbow joint seems to be balanced, though. 2)Why does Prilepin’s table count for each exercise and not for each muscle group? Because you say, that the “optimal” range of total repetitions of an exercise is 15-18 reps(with 3-6 reps per set), whereas you recommend 25-50 repetitions total for each pulling and pushing exercise. It just seems weird to do after the “optimal” 3×5 front lever pullups another 5×3 (weighted) pullups, which work the same muscle group. Programs like Starting strength or 5×5 Stronglifts also don’t go beyond 3-5 sets(x5 reps) per each muscle group. 3) I also don’t get this sentence of this article(http://eshlow.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-constructyour-own-workout.html#VI)”Therefore, 3 RM is probably the lowest amount of repetitions in a set you want to go. Add to that the fact that it is hard to get enough volume to successfully continue strength gains (as 15×2 to get 30 total reps is wayyy too many sets) and 3 RM is appealing for near optimal strength gains.” Because according to Prilepin’s table you just would have to do 7 reps total with 2 repetitions per set. –> 3×2 or 3×2 and not 15×2 Really good article though, I’ve already recommended it to so many people… In the last 2 years I must have read it more than a dozen times, but I finally got it just a few weeks ago Reply Steven Low Posted January 17, 2011 at 1:06 PM 1. Back lever is technically moreso a pulling exercise. The strength gained from it moreso applies to increasing ability in front lever and the cross because of the pec/lat strength. Additionally, I recommend L-sit/V-sit/manna progressions which work the posterior shoulder, and if another exercise needs to be added to put in a rowing exercise. Overall, it balances out well if it’s HS/manna + PL/rows + FL/BL 2. Volume depends on level. I am assuming that most people are beyond a novice level of strength in the upper body, but not at the intermediate phase yet. 25-50 total reps works well for this phase of training. This is why I am writing the book because this article is just a “one size fits all” programming guide. As you increase in strength programming needs to be more complex including total intensity/volume/frequency/etc. SS and StrongLifts are notable novice programs, but if you look at how some of the advanced novice or intermediate programs are focused you can see they go to different rep schemes or vary intensity. With bodyweight exercise it is hard to vary intensity (via progressions), so it’s much easier to add a few extra sets or reps given good form. If you notice that two exercise for 3×5 + 3×5 or 30 reps total isn’t actually much more than a set of one exercise 5×5 anyway. 3. Specific maxing days are generally fairly higher intensity but lower volume. That’s what Prilepin’s chart attempts to delineate. If you are using low repetitions frequently but low volume, there will not be enough stress provided to force adaptations. This is especially the case if we are only working out 3-4 days a week rather than multiple times a day for 5-6 days a week like most athletes using Prilepin’s chart for elite level strength such as Olympic Weightlifting. Basically, for our means it’s much easier to stay with 3 repetitions or more because otherwise it’s hard to get enough volume for continual progress if we go less reps than that. Hope this helps. Reply Gregor Posted January 18, 2011 at 2:16 PM “3. Specific maxing days are generally fairly higher intensity but lower volume. That’s what Prilepin’s chart attempts to delineate.” So Prilepin’s chart isn’t really about the amount of repetitions for optimal www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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hypertrophy/strength gain? Or it just doesn’t count for people, who have a full body workout 3-4 times a week? “If you are using low repetitions frequently but low volume, there will not be enough stress provided to force adaptations. This is especially the case if we are only working out 3-4 days a week rather than multiple times a day for 5-6 days a week like most athletes using Prilepin’s chart for elite level strength such as Olympic Weightlifting.” Do you have something for me to read in this direction? The rest is clear for me now, thanks Reply Steven Low Posted January 18, 2011 at 6:00 PM For a newer person who isn’t recruiting anywhere near maximum of their capability how would working with 2 RM help them that much? Remember, most of the beginner/intermediate programs center around 5-8 reps and sometimes go as low as 3 or as high as 12 or more but rarely do they go lower or higher than that. 5/3/1 program is specifically more for intermediate to advanced and beyond lifters for this reason alone. Once you’re much stronger you do need to work closer to max at least sometimes to get the most out of your training, but not so much at this level of ability. Gaining mass especially is about total repetitions or time under tension whichever theory you subscribe to. Heavy weights don’t help that much specifically with hypertrophy because of this. Now they do with strength, but again it’s for more experienced lifters once you start to move down into that range. Does that make more sense? It’s more about the experience level of the lifter when utilizing >90% RM effectively. Prilepin’s chart is based on strength gains… not hypertrophy. It just so happens then 5-8 RM volume falls within the range where you can get some good hypertrophy out of it as well. I don’t have anything off hand for that. You can google prilepin’s chart and periodization together if you want. You should be able to come up with good stuff. Reply Gregor Posted January 20, 2011 at 5:59 AM Yes. Thank you! 25.

Dr. Portmann Posted June 1, 2011 at 2:28 PM Amazing article, with real depth, you certainly display a wealth of knowledge. Some of those poses seems very daunting for a beginner just starting to get into working out though. Reply Chris Salvato Posted June 5, 2011 at 8:26 AM Yes, Dr. Portmann. Most of the illustrations show the end result. The tuck planche progression at the beginning is an example of a beginner progression. There are loads of resources that Steven recommends regarding finding each of the exercises. Whole books have been made JUST outlining the progressions, for example. These resources can be found here: http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strengthtraining/comment-page-1/#bw6 That said, gymnastics training IS for beginners. We all need to start somewhere. By increasing your leverage you make the positions easier. Tucking, for example, is one of the easiest ways to increase your leverage in almost all bodyweight skills Reply

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Drew Posted July 16, 2011 at 8:14 PM

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Hey, great article. I have a quick question though. Were you saying that the Killroy program should be done prior to doing the program you outline; or were you saying that the Killroy program is simply an alternative to the one you outline? Reply Steven Low Posted July 17, 2011 at 12:56 PM It’s a decent alternative as a primary isometrics routine. Reply 27.

Todd Kuslikis Posted August 14, 2011 at 1:11 AM That picture on the front of your post pumped me up! The guy doesn’t look ripped but man is he strong! Thanks for the inspiration! Reply

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Jeremy Posted September 11, 2011 at 1:22 PM Steven, I have a decent foundation, doing stronglifts for about half a year, and then doing crossfit for four months. I’m 170, can squat and DL a little more than my bodyweight, and OHP 105. With that said, I’m still a beginner in my opinion because I can’t do 15 chinups and 20 dips. I think my pullup max is 7, chinup max 10, dip max is 12. I’ve decided to develop a strictly bodyweight routine. What do you think of this? Monday (horizontal push/pull) Warmup, Stretch Hamstrings for L Sit work Handstand practice for 10 minutes against a wall Body Row on Parallel Bars with elevated feet, 5×5 alternating Tuck Sit holds between sets Ring Pushups 5×5 alternating Tuck Sits holds between sets Wed Warmup, Stretch Hamstrings for L Sit work Handstand practice for 10 minutes against a wall Pullups/Chinups 5×5 (not sure if I should try adding weight to chinups, start doing wide grip pullups) Dip Work (Not sure if I should be doing weighted dips, I can do 5×5 at 10lbs, or ring dips, or single bar dips or russian dips) Tuck sit holds Glute Ham Raise Situps on Parallel bars. Friday-repeat Monday. The long term goal is to be able to do 15 chinups, 20 PB dips, then 15 pullups, 10-15 ring dips, and a smooth muscle up on rings or kipping muscle up on bar eventually. Reply Steven Low Posted September 11, 2011 at 1:53 PM Aim to get your DL and squat up for lower body work. Add weight to pullups and dips is fine. I’m not sure why your goals are high repetition bodyweight stuff… not very useful in my opinion. I rarely work high repetition stuff, and I can do 40 straight dips just from the fact that I can dip >2x my bodyweight. You will want another exercise for each. 2 exercises for both upper body push and pull each at least at the beginning. Reply jeremy Posted September 11, 2011 at 5:08 PM It’s not necessarily a goal, I just think it’s a good benchmark. So I can continue to follow a 3×5 or 5×5 protocol, add weight, and my numbers will increase? How often should I add weight? Reply

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Steven Low Posted September 15, 2011 at 1:31 PM 3×5 is fine if you have another couple of exercises. Otherwise, I would go with 5×5. Add weight every workout or every other workout. You should be able to do this for at least a couple months in most cases. Reply jeremy Posted September 17, 2011 at 11:31 PM Thanks Steven, I read your article again and came up with the correct answers as you have just mentioned. 29.

Jack Posted October 14, 2011 at 7:26 AM Would “Lalanne pushups” (i.e. http://i.imgur.com/HI472.jpg ) be categorized as shoulder extension in flexion? If so, would that make them suitable for training this articulation “from the floor” when something like a pullup bar is not available? Reply Steven Low Posted October 14, 2011 at 2:12 PM Yes, I would say so. Generally speaking, shoulder extension in flexion exercises tend to work the chest and lats a lot which is the case for pullups and this exercise above. Reply

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Ricky Posted March 22, 2012 at 3:41 AM brilliant article thanks for providing a book that bodyweight enthusiasts and anyone interested in strength without weights will benefit and learn from Reply Steven Low Posted March 22, 2012 at 1:19 PM Thanks. Spread the word. Reply

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Ricky Posted March 27, 2012 at 3:25 AM Steven I be interested and thankful to hear your views on a subject matter which has had some conflicting reviews based on different proponents of bodyweight enthusiasts.Its regarding the use of weight vests.Some claim they are effective in helping increase strength and muscle yet others claim they leave the body open to injury and should be avoided. Ricky Reply Steven Low Posted March 27, 2012 at 10:18 AM Remember that everything, whether barbell or bodyweight exercises and various implements like weighted vests, chains, etc, are just tools in your tool bag. Some are more dangerous than others, some are more effective than others — but in the context of someone’s goals. Now, what does a weighted vest do? It allows you to progressively overload the muscles using the same progression. Like barbell work this can be potentially injurious if you progress too fast or beyond your comfort level. However, staying within the bounds of safety and good technique you should be able to progress in both strength and muscle mass fairly well. There’s nothing really truly terrible aside from say barbell exercises like upright rows or sumo

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deadlift high pulls which have a high degree of injury risk. I would say the same thing with one arm chinup and iron cross without sufficient base strength and condition and focusing on good prehab work for the elbows and shoulders. Everything in the proper context can be effective for the most part. Weighted vests are just a way to load the exercise to make you stronger just like you can increase progressions from say adv tuck planche to straddle planche. I don’t see any inherent significant injury risk in that, as long as you are maintaining good form and technique. Does that make sense? Reply Ricky Posted March 28, 2012 at 1:13 AM yes it does Steven many thanks for providing such a informative response really appreciate it Ricky Reply 32.

slabo Posted May 22, 2012 at 12:29 PM Great article, please update because many images aren’t linked properly. Reply Chris Salvato Posted May 22, 2012 at 3:19 PM All of the embedded images seem to be working fine. Which images are not working, slabo? I will fix them immediately. Thanks! Chris Reply

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Juan D Posted June 15, 2012 at 8:18 PM A couple of questions Steven: How does the workout routine change from a weekly basis as far as exercise selection goes? Meaning, if I want to work up to a Planche, should I do 60 secs (or what the chart says) of work in X progression, on every training day (3-5 times a week)? Or maybe on some days, and pick Planche leans for the other days? This also applies to exercises like Back levers where I don’t want to spend 4 days a week working with it (too much time consumed on an exercise where I would not mind to progress slightly slower). Could I just do them twice a week, and on the other 2 days just eliminate them? I just don’t think I could do Muscle-ups 3-4 times a week and progress from week to week, for instance. Thanks for the help! Reply Steven Low Posted June 16, 2012 at 6:05 AM 1. You can increase reps or if you have a weight vest weight from workout to workout if possible. If you complete a progression or get to high reps then you can start working on a more difficult one. 2. Yes, you can change exercises if you want to. It’s not recommended, but if you are someone who likes variety then an A/B routine or push/pull or something along those lines may be more suitable for you. 3. Yes on the back levers, and muscle ups. All of these questions and more are answered in the book you know.

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Let me know if you have anymore questions. Reply Juan D Posted June 16, 2012 at 8:15 AM Thanks for the speedy response. I have the book. Great stuff. I recall reading that the more you practice X, the better you get. But as you may know, taxing things like One-arm Chin-ups are very difficult to work 4 times a week, yet other things like front levers are possible. How to program your routine when you have such a problem is something I could not find. I just didn’t see any place where I could ask such book questions except here. Anyhow, I do have a couple of more: 1)My question is that in the book, you keep mentioning to do 3 sets of X. Even the sample routines have mostly 3 sets. But the prilepins charts that you provide have usually 4-5 sets. So which one should I follow? If I can do 6 reps max on X exercise, following the chart, I would do something like 4×4. OR should I follow the advice of 3 sets and do 3×5? Or what would I do? 2) This is something I could not find in the exercise order section. But is there any benefit (variety perhaps) from changing the order of the exercises? Such as starting with the statics two days a week, and starting with the dynamic work on the other two? Thanks for the fast help man! Reply Steven Low Posted June 16, 2012 at 6:19 PM A. Yeah, if you think an exercise may be too intense to do 3+ times per week you can definitely cut back on it. Deadlifts are one of those things, so are unilateral progressions once you get up fairly high in ability. 1. 3 sets tends to be standard for concentric exercises, though if you need additional volume you can add sets. Generally speaking, you’ll want to be within that 25-50 repetition range or so I spoke of with concentrics… so 2-3 exercises with 3×5 would fit in that range. However, if you were using say 3 repetitions you would be using 5 sets to get similar volume. Make sense? So it really depends on the overall repetitions in the exercise and how much it will contribute to the workouts. 2. Yes, this was mentioned — Exercise order on page 59. If you want more variety this is also a valid reason. Let me know if you have anything else that you want to ask. Oh, and don’t forget to submit an Amazon review. Reply Juan D Posted June 16, 2012 at 6:57 PM Oh all right. Yeah, the volume thing makes perfect sense. I’ll keep the exercises prioritized. I was simply wondering if changing the order, say every 2 weeks for just one session, is something I should bother with. One last thing. I’ve worked up to 5 Ring Muscle-ups and 7 HeSPUs with a wall. Right now, however, my routine will solely on other exercises. My understanding is that you can work on maintaining past goals by using easier exercises of those ones in the skill work. So pike HeSPUs and negative MUs in my case. 1) But what set-rep scheme should I use? Or better yet, what total volume of reps should I shoot for with those easier exercises on the skill work to maintain the “neurological strength”? www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/

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2) And what about doing the actual exercises (HeSPUs and MUs) but with far less volume, like 1-2 sets of 1-3 reps? If this would maintain my maxes on those exercises, I’d rather do this in my skill work instead. 3) In other words, in your experience, what maintains the maxes on those exercises better, higher volume with lower intensity, or lower volume with the same intensity (same exercises)? And yes, I’ll get a review in ASAP. Again, thank you very much for the help. I’ve already tested my maxes for the past few days to start a cycle with the new workout routine Steven Low Posted June 16, 2012 at 7:06 PM 1 & 2: The best way to work to maintain previous goals is to throw a set or two into your warm ups or once a week work that exercises into your routine. If you can already do more than 3 reps, it would probably just be better to do those reps in your warm up — specifically near the end of the warm up when you are mostly warmed up — instead of reverting to a previous progression. 3. Maintaining maxes is best done with the exercise in question for the most part. If it’s higher skill component then a higher volume approach can be more beneficial, but generally speaking it’s best to maintain intensity if possible. Hope that helps. 34.

Juan D Posted June 16, 2012 at 7:38 PM Thank you man. That helps a bunch. If you ever re-do the book (like a 2nd edition or something), perhaps that would be something you could elaborate on? It sounded a bit obscure in the book. Anyhow, I really appreciate the help and the book in general. I’m extremely pleased with the content. Reply Steven Low Posted June 17, 2012 at 10:29 AM I’m aiming to get the 2nd edition by late next year. But we’ll see how things go! Thanks for the critique advice.. I’ve been collecting a lot to make it better. Reply Juan D Posted June 17, 2012 at 7:24 PM Hey Steven, a couple of more questions arose: 1)I understand that during an L-sit, the shoulders should be kept down (doing them on the floor solves this). However, when I do them (especially fingers-back), my shoulders are pronated (they are “trying to meet” in front) and my shoulder blades are separated. If I try to “keep a proud chest”, and keep the shoulder blades together, I cannot perform the Lsit. So which form is correct? I really want to do them perfectly, as it seems L-sit/Vsit/Mannas are VERY important as far as shoulder balancing goes. 2) Do you have any e-mail address where I could shoot some questions about the book (such as the past questions… possibly in the future)? I feel like this is not the place to ask them. I promise not to bomb you with questions hahah. It’s just in case you don’t want them asked here. If you’re fine with them here, then disregard this Anyhow, I do appreciate all of the help given thus far man. Really helpful. Reply Steven Low Posted July 21, 2012 at 10:12 PM

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Oops, sorry I didn’t see this. 1. Typically, it will be easier to get a perfect L-sit position on parallettes and rings where the rings are parallel. I showed hands back in OG as it gets you use do the position that you need to use for V and manna progessions in the future. It’s very difficult to get the shoulders back in L-sit without leaning back, so you can work on that too; however at that point it may be better to start working on the V/manna progression. So basically, work on both. 2. EMI forum is typically the best place to ask questions. Reply 35.

Lane Posted July 6, 2012 at 10:10 AM Thank You Steven Low!! I can’t wait to get your book for a more in depth look at your programming. I’m new at this and didn’t realize how much stress this puts on your joints, so I cut back to a split of upper Mon/Thur lower Tues/Fri. I find it allows me to recover more easily. Is this ok? One thing I can say is I love how my entire body feels like a unit doing these types of workouts vs my regular lifting. Thanks Reply Steven Low Posted July 8, 2012 at 8:41 PM If you feel like you’re overworking yourself a bit, then cutting back and upper/lower, push/pull, or any type of split like that is definitely fine. Let me know if you have any further questions. Reply

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Denis Posted July 14, 2012 at 6:26 PM hello Steven, I just want to ask you what are ways to increase intensity in bodyweight exercises? When it comes to say one leg squats or or handstand push ups on rings, after mastering those exercises and being able to perform high reps of those, what would you recommend to do in order to make them tougher? Would adding a weight vest be a good idea? Also would doing dynamic tension, where I tense up my antagonists muscles as I push up, be a good idea to keep on increasing intensity? Reply Steven Low Posted July 14, 2012 at 6:48 PM Weight vest is better than increasing reps for the most part for both strength and hypertrophy to bridge the gap to move up to the next progression. You can also combine movement such as straight body press to handstand from support (hollow back press) or say “90 degree pushups” on rings which is essentially a roll to shoulder stand and then a handstand pushup out of it. Bodyweight leg exercises are generally inferior to barbell squats and deadlifts in terms of gaining strength and muscle mass just so you know. And no, dynamic tension is not a good way to increase intensity. Reply Denis Posted July 15, 2012 at 5:39 AM Wow thanks for the info Steven. Well since you said any bodyweight leg exercise is going to be inferior to barbell squats and deadlifts, what about kettle bells? For me kettlebells seem like safer weights to handle and does using them in squats seems like a good idea? Along with that after I master the one leg squat, is that when adding kettle bells or weight vests spply? And my final question is why is dynamic tension not a good way to increase intensity? What can dynamic tension be used for then? Reply Denis Posted July 15, 2012 at 11:37 AM Also Steven since I’m at a beginner level here, I want to ask you about the workout I am currently doing. I do pushups, bodyweight squats, bridges, full body

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hamstring curls,leg raises, and horizontal pulls at the lowest height possibly for my arm length. Along with that my skills work consists of l sit, bridge holds, planche progressions, handstand, and body twist holds. Should I leave the bridge holds and bodytwist holds at the end of my workout since they can be considered active stretching? Also if I just leave l sit, planche progressions, and handstand in my skill work, should I also add front and back lever work thus, having 5 skills to work on in the beginning? Reply Steven Low Posted July 15, 2012 at 7:11 PM Yes, KBs are inferior to squats and deadlifts as well. However, they can still be a useful tool to build strength as can bodyweight exercise. It just won’t be as much strength or as much hypertrophy. Yes, you can use KBs and weighted vests to make bodyweight exercises harder. There’s no real good use for dynamic tension in organized strength and conditioning. I’m not even really sure why you would want to use it. I’m not sure what body twist holds though but they don’t sound very useful. You can put the bridges in the warm up or at the end with stretching. Planche, back lever, and front lever are not skill work; skill work is anything that you need to be fresh for that requires significant practice, usually with a balance component. Planche goes with the main workout. Remember, 2 push, 2 pull, maybe 1-2 legs, and a couple skills, and some stretching. Don’t try to do everything at once. Prioritize. 37.

Denis Posted July 15, 2012 at 7:42 PM Thanks Steven as for dynamic tension, what I’m talking about when referring to it is by using the antagonists, to provide resitance for the agonists when doing a movement. So for example is I do a basic push up when pushing up I can tense my biceps and my back to use them as resistence for my triceps and pec which are doing the movements. Would you conisder this type of “internal resistance” useful? As for the planche and the levers, would you recommend taking anything out? Reply Steven Low Posted July 16, 2012 at 2:37 PM Yeah, I am saying dynamic tension is not useful. No competitive sports, athletics, or disciplines use it to train just because it’s not an effective strength and conditioning protocol. You have no way of keeping track how much resistance is being provided at all and “effort” is a relative thing. It’s better to have progressive loading either with weights or progressive exercises or both as these are all measurable concepts and will provide much better progress AND tracking of your abilities. A planche counts as a pushing / horizontal push, and any of the levers count as a pull / horizontal pull. So if you’re doing a full body routine you would sub out an exercise if you’re going to add one of these. See the details on programming in the article above. Reply

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David Posted July 20, 2012 at 7:19 AM Hi Steven, Great website to begin with so thank you. After reading the above I have a question about rep size doing Convict Conditioing. I have read from you and others in regards the rep size things like you have written above and this: “Strength training typically produces a combination of the two different types of hypertrophy: contraction against 80 to 90% of the one repetition maximum for 2–6 repetitions (reps) causes myofibrillated hypertrophy to dominate (as in powerlifters, olympic lifters and strength athletes), while several repetitions (generally 8 – 12 for bodybuilding or 12 or more for muscular endurance) against a

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sub-maximal load facilitates mainly sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (professional bodybuilders and endurance athletes).” So I would just like to hear views on whether maybe some of CC’s progression steps are too high in reps and if moving on to the next step after 3 sets of 12 or something may be better if you want just the strength and not massive endurance? Apologies if I am over simplifying this whole thing of rep size. Thanks Reply Steven Low Posted July 21, 2012 at 10:15 PM High rep is useful for building connective tissue strength. That’s useful if you’re overweight or obese as you have a lot of weight on your body that can more easily cause overuse injuries. However, if you are fairly athletic or in decent shape and slim getting into bodyweight training and are looking for strength and hypertrophy you will be better off sticking in the lower repetition ranges and progressing when you can. Reply 39.

Normal Dude Posted September 3, 2012 at 11:13 AM Hey Steven, first and foremost thank you for this article, it’s uber-awesome (and that word is not quite strong enough). It is all too rare to get a gymnast opinion (or anyone who knows more than google) presented in an understandable manner. I’m an average guy, basically trying to be in good shape, look good without spending too much time because I have a busy life. To fit those goals I’ve been trying to create a simple routine that: -I can do anywhere (I often travel and like to be outside) -> bodyweight (possibly bands and rings) -that promotes good posture (I’m tall and work a lot on computers) -would not result in me getting injured (recently got a tennis elbow … no good for computer work) -that is attainable within a reasonable time perspective: 1 year or so. (before the tennis elbow I could do about 15 pull ups (2 with 40 pounds), 4-5 (ugly) supported handstand pushups etc…) I was wondering if you could help we create that routine (mainly check for completeness and feasibility) I’ve come to the conclusion that: -handstands is awesome -> feels great for my posture, works core, traps and shoulders (at least front and middle). So I definitely want to include that, or possibly FSHSPU (free standing handstand pushup) but I fear it is too difficult. -I love pull ups (I will use neutral grip after the tennis elbow…) good for lats. But I feel it is slightly too easy (I could always add weight … but not practical), and somehow my posterior deltoid does not seem to get a lot or work (nor does my biceps). Is there anyway to modify this exercise? I tried tucked pull-up rows, but it left me feeling crunched up which cannot be good (am I too weak?) Would front lever be an alternative (but are they good for posture?) -I love backbridging: opens up my chest I would love to do manna but it seems completely out of reach, although I liked the feeling I got when trying, crunching the abs while externally rotating/extending the shoulder (that has to be good for posture right?). A vertical V-sit (with hips to the front) could do the trick, or does any other exercise give a similar feeling? For good posture/decent physique what would you recommend -as a push between: one arm pushup, ring pushups, dive bomber, pseudo planche pushups (other variation) (planche seems out of reach) -as a pull between: face-pull with external rotation, inverted row 1arm/feet elevated. (any other exercise that would strengthen lower trap, serratus and posterior delt?) Anyway, it’s a bit of a vague question but I hope you see what I am after. I roughly am looking for a 2 pulls/2pushs (one of each hard, one of each medium) + bridging + possibly another one. (for legs, I’d do sprinting) Also could I get a vague sense of how hard the following exercises are (I know it’s subjective but still): FSHSPU, One Arm pushup, front lever, V-sit, 1 arm row ( I’m not mentioning one arm chin, planche and manna which are most likely out of reach for me in a 1-2 year period).

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Sorry for the long message, Thanks! Reply Steven Low Posted September 4, 2012 at 8:21 PM Pullups you can work towards pullovers, or start with any of the back lever/front lever progressions. I prefer front lever progression pullups. Also inverted rows are good. You can always do them weighted too. The L/V/manna does take a long while but as you said good benefits for the shoulder either way — work the progression as best you can. I don’t really recommend anything — whatever your goals are that’s how you should construct a routine. Just make sure it remains balanced pushing/pulling wise. Make sense? LYTPs (google, dave draper’s site I believe) are very good for low trap, posterior shoulder, rhomboids, etc. Check out Overcoming Gravity’s charts for difficulty via relevant exercises: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc? key=0ArzTY8Rx2z1DdDZlaUVxa1NISlQ0RVpMYVlRaklJelE I would suggest purchasing the book, though, since it contains the technique for the exercises and more about how to properly build a routine and all of the factors that go into it. Along with tons of great injury/health management info. Reply Normal Dude Posted September 5, 2012 at 12:23 PM I intend to get the book as soon as I get back home. What I was after is simply to know if some exercises are more likely than others to improve posture (maybe you do treat that in your book). I often find that gymnast seem to have (relatively) poor posture, being hunched over. So I assumed that some of their training must not be very good for posture purposes. For example let’s take the front lever, which is a pull. From most examples I’ve seen, people seem to hunch their upper body during the movement limiting the extension of the spine and working the chest on the same time. (It might well be that it’s bad technique) Anyway, that does not seem to promote the sort of strength that you would expect to balance out a push. I hope I’ve made my inquiry slightly clearer. The answer might well be in your book in which case I’ll know in two weeks anyway. Looking forward to seeing your book Reply Steven Low Posted September 5, 2012 at 8:30 PM Yes, horizontal pulling work like rows, front lever, and any other back type work are very good for helping to balance out poor posture along with specific mobilization work on your t-spine extension and stretch your pec major and minor. And yes, front lever hunched over is incorrect. You want to have the chest open and the scapulas retracted. Make sense? Reply Normal Dude Posted September 6, 2012 at 11:31 AM Ok makes sense, thanks for the info! 40.

Allen

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Posted October 5, 2012 at 1:11 AM I have one question… if u constantly train for strength like you said 5 – 8 reps and want to gain all gymanstic positions (planche, front lever, back lever…) how will that kind of training benefit your max pushups or pullups? will it increase a lot? i would like to get to all positions and maybe then when i reach it then train for max pullups and pushups Reply Steven Low Posted October 7, 2012 at 9:34 AM Strength, in general, increases the potential for doing endurance. When I was training handstand pushups, weighted dips, planche progression pushups, etc. I could do 50 dips without ever training more than 10 dips at a time when I tested. So… once you’re strong it’s much easier to do high reps of other stuff. Reply 41.

Claudio Venteras Posted October 12, 2012 at 4:19 AM This is some excellent stuff Sir Steven, I’m ordering my copy of your book (overcoming gravity) right now. However, I do have to ask, what is your opinion on strength progression programs that work up to being able to do 3 figure reps? Like say the 100 pushups program (20 reps, and do not build any significant amounts of strength. Reply

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Lu Posted October 14, 2012 at 5:57 PM Hey Steven I bought the book and can’t put it down, one thing I’m still puzzled by are the isometrics..how many seconds should i be striving for in each hold before progressing or just in general? Reply Steven Low Posted October 15, 2012 at 3:57 PM This article explains it a bit clearer: http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2012/05/prilepin-tables-for-bodyweight-strength-isometricand-eccentric-exercises I am going to edit that part in the 2nd edition to make it more clear. Reply Lu Posted October 15, 2012 at 6:33 PM thanks a bunch, love your work! Reply

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Allen Posted November 17, 2012 at 4:03 PM steven my goal is to do a one arm chin up and planche. i can curently do 1rep of one arm chin up but only with the right hand and even that it takes like at least 4,5 seconds to get to the top firs question is should i do concentric OAC with the help of a rubber band or should i do eccentric OAC? i will describe you my routine because i want your opinion i warm up with jump rope, bar muscle ups, freehandstand balancing and handstand shoulder taps… because my goal is planche (i suck at this movement a lot comparing to pull movements) i start with

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isometrics (tuck planche hold) for 3 sets of 15-20 seconds then i go to this 6 exercises: oh and I do 1 set of pull movement and go to 1 set of push and then rest 1. one arm negative – i do them 4 sets of 5 s and rest between sets for 2 minutes 2. tuck planche pushups – 4 sets of 5 reps 3. front lever one leg extended (each rep i change leg) – 4 sets of 5 reps 4. handstand pushups with wall support – 4 sets of 4 reps (i changed from doing it on the floor to parallel bars and its freaking hard) 5 and 6 – weighted dips and pullups 4 sets of 5 reps (i do the first set with 40 kg and when i cant do 5 reps in a set i put 30 kg and try to do 6 reps) and then i do pistol squats for about 50 reps with each leg it takes me about 6 sets if i understand for concentric movements lets say when i can do 8 reps easily i must put more weight on. for eccentric when i can do 4 sets of 12 seconds i try to rest less. just asking because i want to know how to progress. i bought the book but just recently start reading it and i love it already. take care Allen Reply Steven Low Posted November 18, 2012 at 1:23 PM if i understand for concentric movements lets say when i can do 8 reps easily i must put more weight on. for eccentric when i can do 4 sets of 12 seconds i try to rest less. just asking because i want to know how to progress. i bought the book but just recently start reading it and i love it already. take care That is correct. Here’s some other alternatives: A pulley type system is ideal where you can put on maybe 5-10 lbs of weight assist to help you get up and reduce as needed. Otherwise, if you have a rep or two with rest in between you can go with a density style system such as the one here which I used to work up my OACs rapidly: http://eatmoveimprove.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=76 Feel free to ask if you have anymore questions, and don’t forget to submit a review! Reply 44.

John Posted December 22, 2012 at 5:40 PM Steve! I’ve already bought the book but I’m still waiting to receive it. I didn’t start with the method yet. I started doing what I could read from previews. At the beginning of the workout when I’m fresh, I practice handstands and front lever. Then I do my workout in which I do lots and lots of different types of pull ups and push ups, and lots of reps. Very high rep sets. In my first pull up set I might do 24 pull ups. I still don’t know how to make more significant progress with front lever for example. I’m capable of doing 24 pull ups but unable to perform the front lever. So I’m getting anxious to start with the method. Please give me an advice to equilibrate my skill (front lever, handstand) and strength (pull ups, push ups) workout! Thank you very much and just can’t wait to receive the book! Reply Steven Low Posted December 22, 2012 at 5:59 PM If your goal is strength training and/or increased muscle mass, then start working on tougher progressions rather than doing very high reps. Front lever, pullups, pushups are good but move onto harder progression(s) in those and also add in another pushing movement such as planche, handstand pushups, or dips as well. About 3-8ish or so reps for strength, 5-12 for hypertrophy (5-8 for both), with 3 minutes rest

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between sets. Reply Trackbacks / Pings 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

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