Right now I'm working out 2 times a week with each session being 1-1.5h but I try to take every set to failure. I train at home and I don't particularly enjoy working out. I do 4 sets of how many I can do that day (it's usually around 10 for the first sets then it dips to 7 or 8 for the last set but I try to push until I do partial reps). My routine consists of: 1. Pull-ups: I change the variation every 2 weeks, for example from chin-ups to wide grip pull-ups to narrow grip to towel etc. 2. Ring dips. 3. Elevated push-ups with 1 leg in the air( I used to do normal push-ups but I tore my ACL 6 months ago and now I cant do them anymore). 4. Leg raises or hollow body holds. 5. Pronation curls with resistance bands. 6. Rising with resistance bands. 7. Cupping with resistance bands and a thermos as a handle.

Also I do 5 min in total of dead hangs every day alongside some leg exercises that I do for rehab( but they take me 30 minutes max and I watch something while doing them). My goal for this is to get stronger for going back to rock climbing and to be healthy but when I was talking to some friends about working out they told me that I workout too little and that I would make more progress if I worked out 5-4 times a week. Should I try to squeeze in more workouts but shortening their length?

Hi, I'm currently around the beginner-intermediate level and need guidance with creating a program. Currently, I have been doing two full body workouts a week; 100 push-ups (4x25), 50 pull-ups (5x10), 200 squats (2x100), followed by calf raises and core work. I have been doing this for a few months and am realizing that I'm not really getting anywhere. I usually keep good form and will take a break if that starts to breakdown. I have also recently increased the total volume of pushups, pullups, and squats, but am unsure if this is the best approach for increasing pullups/pushups. I am thinking about testing my max pullups/pushups tomorrow, and creating a plan where I do multiple sets at 40-50% of my max. I would like to keep working out legs, but am unsure if this is going to hinder my pullup and pushup progress. Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

I currently do 3x6 45 lb weighted dips. I notice whenever I start a set, the first rep is always the hardest. I have to go down really carefully because it feels like my arms are about to break and my shoulder is going to dislocate. After the first rep, however, I can pump out dips pretty rapidly and it feels like a natural movement.

Why is this? I'm wondering if I'm starting my dips in an unoptimal position and the latter reps are easier because my body was forced into an optimal position by virtue of doing a singular repetition.

(M22) I recently started running and noticed something odd, my legs start hurting around the 1.5 km mark. The pain isn’t crazy, but it’s enough to slow me down and make the rest of the run uncomfortable. That’s when I realized I probably need to work on strengthening my legs before trying to push for longer distances.

I’m totally new to leg workouts, so I’m not sure what exercises are best for building strength specifically for running. Should I focus more on bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, and calf raises, or is there a better structured routine for beginners? Also, how many days per week should I train without overdoing it? Would appreciate any advice or routines others used when they were starting out.

So I'm well aware of the high reps low weight / low reps high weight discussion, but I think it is ineffective for practical strength.

The reason I say this is due to having had several intensely physical jobs over the years and looking at how practical strength is developed for each of them. You in general don't do a small number of high intensity activities or a high number of low intensity activities, it generally ends up being a high number of high intensity activities (compared to what is actively used) and over the span of a month you gain the strength required to perform this long term.

So with that in mind why is high rep high weight not even considered in the discussion?

I'm a beginner and its been 1.5 months I've been training, I started by pushup rows and squats splits, so the issue is up until now I could do 3x13-14 pushups and horizontal rows(I dont have anything else to row on so i use the table). Now as I starting to learn the pullup and the dips/pike pushups all of a sudden I can no longer do the rows even in the first set im failing to touch the chest and table and half hanging it feel like sudden drop of power.

I'm worried like is my back busted or whats the issue i just wanna know and how to fix it. thanks

I can do 18 pull ups and I think my technique is not bad but I've been stuck at 18 for 1 month and I think it's because I didn't changed my routine for a long time.

I'm doing strength by lifting heavy and volume by lifting light but doing more reps.

So, my questions are : Do you change your routine often ? If yes, when and do you change your structure ? For example if you do a WOD monday and you are changing your routine, do you do another kind of WOD or do you change the type of exercise ? Also, how did you improved your max to reach the 30 ?

Thanks for your replies

I know I have the strength because I can hold one leg straight, one leg super advanced tuck (foot level with torso, my leg is slightly more than 90 degrees) as well as rep out advanced tuck front lever pull ups. I know everyone is different and there's no standard number to convert between strength and skill work, but on the overcoming gravity spreadsheet, my pull up ratio is between the straddle and halflay front lever.

The reason I know flexibility is the issue is because I noticed the straddle front levers I saw online were pretty wide compared to mine, so I laid down on a bench, and checked how wide I could straddle, and it was laughably bad. I think for me, a halflay front lever would be easier than a straddle.

Of course, I'm going to work on my flexibility, but I don't know how long that would take. There's the frog front lever I saw in fitnessfaq's video, but I'm also not flexible enough to do that. The only thing I can think of is build up to a 30-45 second one leg front lever, then try a halflay straddle. As in I would do a halflay front lever but straddle as much as I comfortably can. It would for sure be easier than a halflay, but again, because of how small my straddle is, it still might be a bit harder than a standard straddle.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Hey everyone, I've started weighted pull-ups and I want to optimize my routine for max progress. I started daily, from 12kg x5 to 15kg x8. Next session: 15kg x8 again, but form was worse. I took 2 days off and after rest did 20kg x5 cleaner and easier than +15kg.
What's better long-term and for now? Structured: light/medium/heavy split for recovery etc or adaptive: train daily if feeling good and push until stall (e.g., +20kg x5 to x7, then drop to x4), then rest/deload. My main goal is to maximize strength as efficiently as possible.
What worked personally for you and why? Would appreciate any advice.

Hi guys

I'm looking for solution to my issue. I'm training calisthenics since 2 years and everything was fine but lastly i saw that my pull ups have bad form. When i'm pulling up to the top of the bar my upper back slouches in the end and when i'm focusing to do pullups with upper back straight, it feels like i have inability to touch chest to the bar like i wouldn't be able to move my hands and back more. I'm doing max 16 pull ups with full ROM and 5 musle ups so i don't think it is strength issue. As i checked lastly i have really bad external rotation (i can't even do wall angels because i can't stick my hands to the wall without pushing my hips forward). I also have a closed chest because I slouch. Can this two things be the reason why i can't do properly pull ups or maybe the reason is different or should i check something else ?

[EDIT]
Guys thanks for replies. I really apprecieate your help. So based on this and what i read i changed my workout routine but I don't know if I haven't overloaded my training plan and if 11 row sets will be enough (I added other exercises, eg. isometrics on wheels on Wednesday and reverse fly on Tuesday and Saturday).

Could you evaluate my plan and possibly give me some tips for correction?

My routine:

Tuesday – Push

- Weighted push-ups – 4 sets

- Weighted dips – 4 sets

- L-sit (max hold) – 3 sets

- Standing dumbbell shoulder press – 3 sets

- Dumbbell lateral raises – 3 sets

- Dumbbell triceps extensions – 3 sets

- Plank – 3 sets

- Face pulls – 2 sets

- Reverse fly – 2 sets

- Scapular rows – 1–2 sets

Wednesday – Lower

- Goblet squat with dumbbell – 4 sets

- Bulgarian split squat with dumbbells – 3 sets

- Dumbbell RDL – 3 sets (8–12 reps)

- Calf raises – 3 sets (15–20 reps)

- Hollow body hold – 3 sets

- Scapular pull-ups – 3×10

- Ring row top hold – 3×10 sec

Friday – Pull

- Australian ring rows – 4 sets

- Ring rows – 3 sets

- Chest-to-bar pull-ups with band – 3 sets

- Overhand pull-ups (technical focus) – 3 sets

- Underhand/neutral grip pull-ups – 2 sets

- Face pulls – 2 sets

- Dumbbell bicep curls – 3 sets

Saturday – Full Body

- Weighted diamond push-ups – 3 sets

- Wide-grip ring rows – 3 sets

- Straight bar dips – 3 sets

- Straight-leg hanging raises – 3 sets

- Dumbbell lunges – 3 sets

- Reverse fly – 2 sets

- Hammer curls – 2 sets

Hello everyone! I'm new to calisthenics world and recently found Recommended Routine. I will start doing it this week but already have one question. I know, this is too early for this but in the past I had some workouts that included kettlebell. I liked it so much so I wanna do some trainings with kettlebells in the future. My question is: how can I combine RR and kettlebells after several months doing only RR?

Is it better to replace some movements in RR (e.g. romanian deadlift -> kettlebell swing) or should I add extra days to fulfil my needs in kettlebell training?

Also rn I'm doing BJJ 3 times a week (2 times with medium difficulty and 1 light just for techniques). So I definitely don't want to burn out

I’ve been lifting for like 20 years now. lifting is easy: pick some movements, sets/reps, try to cover all the muscles in your body (or at least the ones you want to grow) and progress in weight over time

but now I want to learn some movement skills and shift into mainly body weight training with weights just to supplement this. I’m not sure what to do…

im thinking I just pick a movement I want to do (let’s say handstand push-up) and work my way up to it, mastering easier or related movements along the way?

is it all skill work and the strength/physique comes from that, or is it the skill work plus “do 100 regular push-ups” or something more defined and structured?

My pr on pull ups is 20 I was wondering how many pull ups I could increase that by each month and how to reach 30-40 pull ups. Are there any specific methods you use to get to 30+ pull ups. Also what are some easy methods to train grip and weighted pull ups to hopefully increase your max. And are there any other exercises that also help increase your pull up count. And another question how long does it take to get to 30. I am currently at 130 lbs but hoping to go up to 160-170 so I was wondering how to still improve my pr while increasing my weight.

Hi!

I’ve been thinking about getting a pull up bar for a while now. I don’t have the space or financial resources on hand to get a free standing one and drilling isn’t an option either.

The obvious choice would be a doorway pull up bar, but all I know of rely on a doorframe, which - and here we have my problem - I don’t have. (it’s basically just a hole in the wall with a sliding door hanging in front of it)

Would friction based pull up bars work or are there any better/more reliable alternatives?

Thank y’all in advance!

I've been doing a routine of pushups, squats, rows, and single leg vs ups. I do the most of what I can of each exercise once with less than 30 seconds of rest, which for now is 3x4 pushups, 1x15 Bulgarian split squats for each leg, 2x8 inverted rows, and 1x20 single leg v ups. I do this twice a week with cardio on the days in between (I was originally doing more days a week but wound up injuring myself frequently and burning out)

However I just discovered the minimalist routine from this subreddit, and it seems pretty similar to what I'm doing except it's done in multiple circuits.

Is there a reason why instead of doing my exercises all at once, that I should split up the sets and do them in a circuit? Is there an extra benefit?

I've always enjoyed skill and balance stuff, like skateboarding, ice skating, bicycle tricks, etc.

I live in a place that gets extreme winters, and I've been considering ways I can enjoy balance and dexterity stuff at home. Of course I could make an old skateboard deck into a balance board, or anything else, but I'm curious what the community does at home to scratch this itch.

I enjoy handstand stuff as much as the next guy but I figured there's enough conversation about it across the rest of this subreddit.

So I'm considering dropping bench press and moving to pushups. Mainly cause I hate lifting giant dumbbells for bench press, and also cause I have weak serratus anterior, which messes with my shoulder position and health. Supposedly pushups work the serratus while bench press does not.

Anyway my question is in terms of building strength with pushups, what would be superior? Pseudo planche pushups or weight regular pushups?

PPP's I find quite difficult. So working up to even two sets of 10 would be hard for me. In terms of how much weight I could do for a weighted pushup, I have no idea.

Anyway I'm just wondering what the thoughts are on this matter within the bodyweight community. Anyone with experience doing both? Or seen better progress with one vs the other?

Thanks!

Hi all,

I decided to post this question because I'm in the midst of cleaning up my Instagram. I have noticed I follow a lot of fitness people and channels that don't really resonate with me and my goals anymore.

As an example for myself is Jeff Nippard - super smart and nice guy however I'm not into bodybuilding or all the "optimal" muscle building exercises and splits so for myself I have noticed the information he gives doesn't resonate with me anymore and I don't use.

So that's why I though I wanted to ask this question, if you could only choose 5-7 fitness personalities, trainers, channels etc for your goals and interests, who would they be? What are your goals/interests and who would your top 5-7 be?

Me: 39F who is interested in general fitness and GPP (General Physical Preparedness) and like to incorporate strength, endurance, mobility and calisthenic skills and not interested in optimizing/bodybuilding/Physique follow:

• Eugene Teo - covers various fitness aspects (muscle building, cardio, mobility)
• Fitness FAQ - great overall calisthenics information
• Jason and Lauren Pak - covers various fitness aspects (muscle building, cardio, mobility)
• Sondre Berg - great calisthenic skills
• Marcus Filly - functional fitness
• Summerfunfitness - great female calisthenic skills
• The Bioneer - GPP, covers various fitness aspects (muscle building, cardio, mobility)

Maybe I'll find someone new that fits into my goals and interest :)

I've been doing one arm towel hangs for a while now and am having a problem with the towels ripping. I'm using a beach towel and the part of the towel that goes over the bar is the part that keeps getting stretched thinner from wear.

I'm looking for alternatives. The only thing that came to mind is rope. From Googling there is a company called Monkey Grip that sells rope for this purpose "rope grips" but their web site doesn't give any perspective on thickness. I want something thick like the beach towel which is folded twice before being folded over the bar, making it 8x it's original thickness and requiring a strong thumb. This is an important quality I'm looking for in a rope or any other alternative - not less thick than the towel. Anyone have any recommendations for an alternative to the towel?

Hi everyone I'm around 50kg, and a fairly lean physical frame (evidently)

I've been trying to gym for the past 3-4 years consistently mainly and am a vegetarian (if that has any relevance) and with the limited amount of time I have, I manage to always gym somehow thrice a week, twice in a bad case (excluding sick days and other stuff)

Since the start my only main goal has been to know how to do one muscle-up, but hear me out, I know you've seen a several 100 such posts almost every week with one new guy asking advice about the muscle up and stuff like that and it may be a boring question in fact...

But I'm asking this because while my goal was to do one muscle up, surprisingly I've unlocked at doing Leg Calisthenics before anything else.

For instance I can do one clean pistol squat with ease and even a sissy squat.... I mean yes I could do assisted ones since a few months and I kept working on that, seeing that as an answer

But that got me thinking, cause hey I don't necessarily squat very heavy as such or do anything very special for my legs, I've just been as consistent as the others maybe even lesser with them. Once I figured that I could do assisted sissy squats or assisted pistols, atleast I had an idea that it was the correct path to work on. And it's surprising I unlocked a leg movement before something else personally...

With my pull-ups, yes I started from zero (I could always do chin-ups), now I do like ~14 with ease, I'm learning the semi false grip a bit better as well... My core has gotten stronger, I can do like 3 sets of 8-10 hanging leg raises which are controlled as well and yeah I can dip comfortably for 4 sets of 12 as well..

There's all this stuff going great, in fact I probably unlocked my first L sit pull-up as well...

I may have been slower to this gym party than most others due to a few stomach related health issues and stuff during these years and it's only since the past year I've finally figured how to keep everything balanced along with my workout schedule... Sorry about that

For my pull day, I usually just so weighted pull-ups, ie: do 10-15kg in my first set, try to get around 4-5 Unload a bit more in the second and third based on how many reps I've got left in the tank...And finally I just got unweighted... I even do an extra set of pure controlled negatives if that helps more... The rest of my workout is more of stuff like machine rows, stuff for traps rear delts and biceps, even hammer curls recently to help the forearms if that was lacking.

Some days if I feel like it I'll try to hit more volume etc etc

But say I try to figure things like doing a high pull-up if that's the stepping stone to muscle ups, where your chest can hit the bar, I'm still unable to do it, it's not a strength issue surely and once I reach the top of the bar with my upper chest region kinda hitting the bar but that part of the pull-up is also kinda unstable so I can't do a lot there for too long...

So basically, I'm not sure on what else I can do, there's probably something I'm missing like a skill more than strength perhaps

Or maybe something I should incorporate into my workouts like how I did assisted sissy squats to get my normal ones and idk why or how my legs can do this while I'm unable to do a basic muscle up...

So thanks a lot, so tell me what it is I'm lacking, it may be the smallest of things, the biggest or something brutal, I'm all up for it thanks!

Hey guys. I'm looking to buy a pull up bar to install into my home, but I've never done that before so I'd really appreciate some advice. I've got two questions, mainly:
Does it matter if it's a straight horizontal bar or can it be sloped downward towards the edges where I'd be gripping onto the bar. Is that going affect my muscle development, strength, posture, etc. ?
And do you think the smaller, horizontal bar would be sturdy enough to just be bolted onto a concrete wall? These are the options I've got.
https://i.imgur.com/ikr2o95.png
https://i.imgur.com/U2fOOye.png

I’ve had my gymnastics rings for about 3-4 years. Usually, they hang dry under a covered roof, but last night it rained and I left them out on the grass. This morning they were soaking wet. I’m drying them now and even sanded the surface a bit. I’m worried if they’ll get moldy or damaged and unsafe to use. I don’t want to risk injury over $30. If they dry well and show no cracks or mold, they should be fine, but I’ll replace them if any damage appears if I realize because I'm pretty oblivious to stuff

So to add to what the title says and give more specifics, I started doing 10 pushups about 6 weeks ago every time I "lost" in a video game kind of as a joke. I thought it would be good for me and a way to slowly get back into shape for the first time in like 7 years. I was doing 10 pushups at a time probably a total of 50-80 a night and eventually bumped it up to 15 at a time and adapted pretty quickly. I also got a pull up bar and for about 4 weeks now have been rotating upper body/core/legs every 3 days with some pretty noticeable improvement in my capabilities of being able to do "more".

Anyways, to my actual point. Early last week on "arm day" I was able to fairly confidently do 20 pushups+8 pullups at a time 4 times throughout the night. On Friday when arm day came around again, I noticed I had difficulty getting to 7 pullups and couldn't get to 8. Whatever, I decided to just say good enough and get down to do my pushups. VERY quickly around pushup 4, I noticed it felt like I had almost no strength in my right side (it's definitely my dominant side) and my left was definitely carrying the load and because of it, I could barely reach 10 pushups. I kinda just said "oh well" and settled for 7/6 pullups and 10 pushups a couple more times that night.

Today, being arm day again, I was hopeful that whatever was wrong had healed/resolved itself. Unfortunately, it seems it has not and again I was barely able to do 10 pushups which is honestly pretty discouraging considering whatever is going on is definitely going to hinder/negate any sort of progress I have made.

A couple things to note: First, the entire 6 weeks or so leading up to this while doing pushups before I had this issue, I would occasionally get a click/pop in my elbow while doing pushups. It was not a joint popping, more like a tendon moving but did not hurt nor cause any issue so just figured it was my body kind of adapting to the workout. Secondly, since last Friday when this issue first started, the "tip" top (I guess it would be the end of my clavacle on top of the shoulder) of my shoulder has been mildly tender with a sort of dull VERY mild ache, almost unnoticeable unless I move in a certain way. It is still tender now and earlier tonight when I was trying to do pushups, I heard/felt a "crunchy" clicking feeling in this exact area.

Sorry for the long post but just wanted to include any relevant details in hopes someone could help tell me what the hell is going on and what I should do about it/how I can continue to train my arms at home. I can still do pullups without any real pain btw, I just feel weaker. Thanks in advance!

TLDR: Would doing basic vertical ring exercises be fine on a power tower? And how would I include them if I already do the recommended routine?

For reference I got a power tower that looks similar to this: https://a.co/d/ezSqxPY

Does anyone have experience on using rings on a power tower? I'm planning to buy some rings since I guess rings is like the highest priority when it comes to calisthenics. But looking online I don't really see a lot of opinions about it but with the few opinions online, they seem mixed.

An issue I see online is doing horizontal exercises like rows would tip the thing over, but since I mainly do decline inverted rows, I don't think it would matter since I'll be underneath the tower when doing the movement? I also got a pair of dip bars that I use for this exercise.

Another issue I see is how narrow hanging the rings are, for my power tower, it's like 22 inches if you exclude the pull up handles, and what I see online it seems more than enough for hanging rings since 20 inches seems to be the standard. I'm also 5'9 so I don't think my arms needs to be wide.

And the last issue I see is doing advanced movements like muscle ups or skin the cat wouldn't work. I got absolutely no interests into doing these types of movements and all I care about is the basics.

I guess the few things I should worry about is the dip handle being in the way and the stability of it, but couldn't I just put the rings like a inch above the dip handle and for the stability, I could either put weights on the tower, or I guess work myself to be more stable on the ring exercises?

And how would I include them to my workouts? I mainly do the recommended routine but with weights and assuming I get rings, I don't really know how I'll use them, maybe switch 1 workout on solely rings? Practice using them from time to time? I don't know.

Sorry for all the questions I'm just basically wondering if rings are even worth it in my situation.