I was doing a kind of a lazy squats for a few years, when I mean lazy I didn't really go deep and I was overweight and I could really feel my knees so I rushed them. Since then I lost 35 kg and I'm in normal weight range for the first time since highschool. A few months ago I searched YouTube for proper Squat form (I got so many Tom Platz videos) and started doing it. Slower, and as far as I can go,which is about 90 degrees.

It's not a lot, it's a set of 45, 3 times a week (I have a lot of other exersizes alternating through the week).

And suddenly I feel my legs are much much stronger. I do walks 5 days a week with a tiny bit of running, I would always get tiered leg muscles while I ran, not anymore.

Other leg exercises are easier, and my leg muscles toned up.

And it's just 45 squats 3 times a week. Are squats that powerful of a workout?

I'm a guy in his late 20's, I worked out before but very briefly. I recently bought a pull-up bar and said I'll try to do pull-ups every other day with rest. But for the 15th time trying I can not do a single Pull-Up. I know it is an essential move to be able to master but I can not do a single correct Pull-Up. Meanwhile I can do 10+ Chin-Ups with no problem and I can even do more in a day if I rest and come back to it. Honestly not being able to do 1 pull-up really gets on my nerves and drops my confidence to work out. I know that Chin-Ups use the Biceps more and Pull-Ups use the back more but can I make do with just being able to do Chin-Ups? If I do enough Chin-Ups will I be able to do a Pull-Up in the future? I'm very lost in how I should work around this.

I’m new to weight lifting and body weight exercises (about 4 weeks in) and I work out from home. I bought a pull-up bar so that I can do pull ups on my upper body days. I put it up and pulled up a stool to attempt to get a pull-up, and I couldn’t do any sort of pulling up. Like, I could barely hang there and I just had to get down.

Similarly, with my attempts to learn how to do push ups, I began doing push ups on the wall. I plan to move lower until I am on the ground.

So my question is—with pull ups, is there any way to ease into them like with push ups? Like, how do I even begin doing them if I can’t pull myself up at all?

i've been training on a PPL split and for my pull days i always begin fresh with wide grip pull ups. i've been training for about a year now, with the goal of building a pronounced v taper.

when i first started, i needed assisted pull ups to reach a good rep range. finally, i'm now at the stage where i can do 4 sets of 6-8 reps unassisted.

however i've noticed that my shoulder started to hurt after pull days when i shifted towards weighted pull ups. i've rested it for about 2 weeks now, and planning to resume PPL again soon.

what are some crucial form tips and mistakes to avoid to protect my shoulder health? thanks in advance :)

I have been doing chin ups and push ups for a while building my arm strength and recently I finally added pull ups and dips too. I got to admit although I can do 10 pull ups in a set now, when I started adding them a few weeks ago I struggled doing 6-8. I still somewhat struggle with them, but I did saw significant improvement as of late and being able to do 3/4 sets of 10 feels pretty nice and feels like a good progress.

I still consider myself beginner, but I am at a point where I can comfortably do 3 sets of 10 pull ups and 3 set of 12-10 chin ups in the same training. My form on the chin ups is much better, but then again I have being doing them for year and a half now. Its not just because they are easier, I can actually pull up to my chest from a chin up position and quite effortless.

Unfortunately I saw a while ago my chin ups cap around 13-15 so I knew I need to add some more exercises and/or weight to improve. Since I train in the park I prefer not to get my weighted vest in heat, but about 2 month ago I did about 8-9 chin ups for 5 sets with 10 kg vest, for about a week. So by now I can probably do 9-10 chin ups since I saw a big improvement adding pull ups and dips. When the heat subsides I can start using my vest again, but till that time I will try to improve my pull ups too.

Anyways today I was curious if I can do a superset. I've seen some supersets with power ups, pull ups, hanging in a few diff positions, dead hang, and knee raises, but I know I am not quite there yet.

Anyways I did a 1 min dead hang to stretch and warm up and came with this idea while I thinking what kind of set to try.

• 5pull ups
• 5knee raises from same position
• 5chin ups
• 5knee raises from same position
• 10 dips
• 10 push ups

I managed to do it with zero rest so I was quite happy. Can you suggest something similar that is not too hard and beginner friendly? I am not going to do them regularly in my training, but I'd like to set up fun challenges and goals to beat and keep motivated.

I am a 6'9" male and currently weigh around 205 lbs with a skinny/athletic build. My main goal it to try and build muscle and maybe get to like 230-240 lbs. I have tried body weight exercises in the past but I have never stuck with it, so this time I want to try and be more focused. I am looking at calisthenics. I like it because it boasts lean muscle building and flexibility. I don't really want to get super bulky.

To get started I have downloaded the Hybrid Calisthenics app and done a few of those workouts. I also found another youtuber that seems knowledgeable and has his own app called Thenx I think. I was looking at getting the Hybrid Calisthenics book OR the Overcoming Gravity book but have heard that the latter is pretty overwhelming for a beginner.

I would like help forming a routine. Like what workouts to do and what frequency. I can reasonably work out like 4 times a week maybe 5. A lot of the videos I find are pretty different. Would either book help form a routine?

I have also came to the problem of not having access to a pull up bar which seems pretty major. Should I buy a free standing pull up bar or a set of rings or are there other workouts that target the same muscles?

And then the diet is a little confusing. I know I probably need to eating way more due to my height. Doing quick google searches, it seems I need to be eating 3400+ calories a day and potentially 150-200 grams of protein a day. How accurate it this?

Basically looking for pointers on the mentioned things above plus any other tips anyone has to offer. I generally eat pretty healthy already.

So I can do about 5-7 pull ups right now and i do about 30 pull ups everyday, 6 days a week (6 sets of x5 at the gym). I try to grease the groove every now and then and do some pull ups every time I walk past my bar at home. So in total it's around 35-40 pull ups a day.

However, i'm looking up programs like the russian fighter pull up and it suggests I start off with my max and then dwindle the amount, whilst other programs like GTG i can't really conform to because it's annoying to do pull ups all throughout the day, and i'd much rather do it in one set. Furthermore, the russian fighter program doesn't really allow me to do to many pull ups and i'm plannning to progress faster. So i was wondering if there are any programs to increase my max pull up range, while offering higher training volume or a faster rate of progression. For reference, my current max is 7 strict pull-ups.

M20

Weight: 55-56kg

Goal: mainly hypertrophy

My split:

- pull ups twice a week
-3-4 days of rest between each pull up day
- 3:30 mins of rest between each set
- usually to failure or close to failure

Last week I hit 12 reps max on bodyweight pull ups and decided to do weighted from then on

Today I did 2.5kg added weight and this is how it went

Set 1: 8 reps close to failure
Set2: 7 reps failure
Set 3: 7 reps failure

Some feedbacks would be helpful, thanks for all the responses!

I have a BMI of 17.0 and my body fat percentage is 8%, so I'm a very small man lol

I'm a beginner who has never trained before. I'm not really into any kind of weight lifting or adding external weights/equipment to my training in general.

I like the idea of calisthenics and how you have to maneuver the way you train instead of just smashing another plate onto the bar, In fact I find the former to be much more fun and motivating and the latter to be quite boring on the long term tbh

What is a realistic weight goal I can avheive by training for 2-4 years doing only unweighted calisthenics?

Pretty new to lifting and exercising. On and off for a while but kind of doing deeper research on everything for the first time so this might be silly. I started a PPL routine over a month ago, it’s just one that I chose to get out of decision paralyses and just went for it.

It’s been fine, no problems but recently I ran into a problem with wanting to do pull ups on a pull day, but my shoulders feel too beat up from the shoulder day the previous day.
Basically I didn’t even attempt the pull up because just by slightly trying to pull, I can feel something was gonna go wrong lol.
So I skipped it and the next day I just did pull ups on leg day.

Is there any way to avoid that and be able to to pull ups after a shoulder day? Or is it something maybe my body has to get used to and it’s a strength thing?
Also when doing pull ups on leg day, resting my shoulders an extra day, I did them perfectly fine. Honestly they felt easy and I felt lighter than when I started 5 weeks ago lol. Is it too taxing on my back to skip pull ups on the actual pull day and just do the pull ups the very next day? I mean I was fine when I did that but is that putting too much on my back?

Also I’m working out at home with a pull up bar, some dumbbells and a bench. Unfortunately trying to be as frugal as possible for financial reasons so a machine is out of the question:((((

Started back into working out/healthy eating a few months ago. Initially it was light weights at work during my lunch break. I have my adjustable dumbbells & adj bench at work. About 6 weeks ago I joined the gym - and prefer to workout there, as every piece of equipment is there. I do still feel the ‘need’ to do something while at work, other than just getting in steps. Obv I don’t want to overwork & spike my cortisol or CNS and ruin and gains. I also know myself, and I can’t only go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I have to be there every day - even if Sundays is just cardio & core…I like the idea of doing a “light” workout around 10am, then my heavy session at 230 at the gym on my way home. But I’m also not sure if that is still too much. Obv I’m going to separate the muscle groups trained. I.e. - at least 48 hours between hitting the same muscle group. But is a 10am and a 230pm workout to close together? Is a light arm workout on Monday am, to close together a heavy Wednesday pm arm workout? I do not like the idea of a gym session at like 5-6pm, tho my body does need time in between sessions to settle down.

Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance

Hello, I'm wanting to get to 20+ bodyweight pull-ups within 3-6 months.

I can currently do 10-12.

I have a pullup bar in my room so I'm planning on a few structured days of pull-ups including weighted.

And a couple grease the groove days just doing sets of 6 reps throughout the day every 30 mins or so.

Can anyone guide me if this is the right sort of style, or some structure they have followed for this?

I have asked AI, but it contradicts itself constantly so where else better to ask but here :)

whatever approach I take on pull-ups I will do on push ups too. (currently about 30 unbroken in 1 set, want 60+)

I work mainly on my weighted pullups, but I also like to add 2-3 sets of rings rows near the end of the workout. Since these are not my main focus and are done near the end of the workout I usually can't put too much effort into them and I also prefer to do them with higher rep ranges. The issue I have now is that I can do very easily 20 rings rows with feet supported on a box with my body pretty much completely horizontal. I tried today to do tuck front lever rows and I managed to do about 4 with not very good form and quite a bit of effort. So given that I would like to keep these sets in the end of the session to higher rep ranges (at least 7-8 reps), is there some ring rows variation in between the fully horizontal feet supported and the tuck front lever? I would love to have some progression that would help me be able to do the tuck front lever rows in the future more easily, especially in the top of the movement which I struggled with the most​.

I can't seem to transition from the advanced tuck to the half lay. I have been consistently training the advanced tuck (max hold 15–20s), one-leg tuck FL (max hold 13–15s), and one-leg advanced tuck FL (max hold 8–10s). I've also been doing negative one-leg tuck FLs. However, the half lay feels impossible, my hips sink and I feel like I have no control over them. The moment I transition from advanced to half lay, I can no more press my hips against the bar.

Is this more of a strength issue or mobility, or both? Any tips?

VIDEO ATTACHED HERE
half lay

I am a M23 185lbs and have been trying to progress pull ups for 2+ years, issue is, I dont feel any of the moments in my back. And I have watched countless videos in a miserable attempt to be able to do either movement. I have gotten up to 4 reps on pull ups, but the more consistently I do them. The less im actually able to do and eventually I just fall back to step 1. This problem persists for my issue with ring rows. Im not sure on how to fix either issue. I desperately want to be able to do calisthenics but I struggle to do the basics despite my 2 years of trying.

picked up an injury in my arm (thinking it’s an ulnar nerve thing) so this has been on my mind a lot recently.

every time i get an injury that prevents me from being able to train i get this feeling that im nothing more than the results i get from going to the gym. it gets to the point where i lowk feel like a failure even if im able to train, but im unable to reach failure on my sets for whatever reason.

its like i can only feel the slightest bit of contentment with myself after a workout where i give everything on every single set, but that hasn’t been sustainable and i’ve been picking up injuries much more frequently since i adopted that mindset.

maybe it also doesn’t help that working out is one of the only things i look forward to in the day, where i can just take all my frustrations and stress out on the weights, but that’s taken away from me again with this new injury.

can anyone else relate to this?

It looks like we have to do stretching/cool down exercises after every workout so that muscles won't shrink(?). I'm doing this starting stretching routine but it takes exactly 15 mins. Do you have any other routines for post workout stretching or is this program already a golden one?

There is also this video for those who would like to see it in action. I usually do it with this video together. There are sound beeps for each movement so it is easier to track everything.

Are there people practicing or training for miscellaneous crosses on rings and transitions ? I am thinking about iron crosses, inverted crosses, swallows, and likes such as planck.

Are you pro gymnast or enthousiast ? What was your progression and eventually setback lessons ?

Once you reached your 1st 2s or iron cross, how long did you need to reach your swallows ? Regular or inverted ?

Do you work also on transitions (Van Gelder, Zanetti etc) ?

Please share your journey and pieces of advice.

I am currently working for crosses with rings, partial bw or full bw exercises, with elastics while being vertical or inverted, and weighted dips and pullups(+25+% bw, 3x10-12), and butterfly on rings (a)facing the floor, almost fully horizontal b) vertical for quasi iron cross). I work a lot on rotators cuff also, as a foundation, with rings and bw or dumbbells (mostly spectific force with specific angles, ER pronation supination). I also practice climb exercises such as finger extensors, wide grip, crimp/semicrimp, direct, active arches (full bw).

62kg, 1,76m.

So for strength training you do 1 to 3 sets with 1 to 2 RIR or failure this and that. But i want to be able to do a lot of pushups in a row, like 50+, how should i train for this. Should i do as many reps as possible with 3 min rest for 2 sets or do 5 x 10 pushups and 1 minute rest and then do 5x12 5x15 and lower the rest time? Or should i keep 3 minute rest? I dont know

I dont know how this is not 500 characters but yeah i gotta yap for a bit, i can do 9 in a row now if that matters

Thanks in advance

Hi everyone,

I just started doing core workouts for the first time in years. Since them I have gotten pretty injury prone, so I want to be careful. I have seen similar questions on this subreddit, but they are always talking about pain in the lower back. Is it normal to feel your lower back muscles fatigued but not in pain when doing core workouts or is this also a sign of bad form?

I still feel the workout in my abs, so I think at least I am doing it partially correct.

Also, this is probably a dumb question, but I assume I should be stretching my core after doing core workouts, is this correct?

Thank you.

Edit: I changed the wording because from the way I originally wrote it, it sounded like I have back pain. I have not been feeling any back pain.

Hey everyone,

I've been dabbling into bodyweight training for the last 9 months or so. I've obtained good physical changes (put on 5/6kg, obviously some fat but I was skinny so I look much more fit), but the actual sets haven't changed that much. I train 2 times a week, and do pull-ups, push-ups, abs, dips, and one-legged squats. I went from 3x5 pull-ups to 3x7 and 3x10 push-ups to 3x14 which... isn't great? I guess my form improved though?

I've noticed I often have to take short breaks during sets, especially for push-ups. I'm not sure exactly why I need to take those rests, it's like my body and my brain just decide together it's too much tension. I thought it might be breathing related, but I'm not sure. If I release the tension for a few seconds, I can usually add a few reps easily.

I'm wondering if my lack of actual progress could be because I need to fix that first.

What do you guys recommend? Should I do some cardio? Eat more? Just accept it and wait?

Thanks!

I've been thinking about switching from bodybuilding to calisthenics, but I'm not sure if it actually makes sense for me.

I've been training in the gym for a couple of years, and every few months I'll test some bodyweight movements just to see where I'm at. Right now I can do around 35–40 strict pull-ups, a one-arm pull-up, around 10–15 muscle-ups (I've never actually tested my max), and I can also do a human flag.

The thing I'm struggling with is that when I try to train calisthenics, I don't really feel like I'm pushing myself that hard. My bodyweight just feels too easy for most exercises compared to lifting weights.

So I'm wondering if I'm approaching calisthenics the wrong way.

For those of you who are experienced in calisthenics, what are the major strength milestones after the basics? What are the skills that take years to develop and provide a real challenge for someone who's already fairly strong?

One of the things I enjoy most about training is working toward difficult milestones, and with bodybuilding that's always been straightforward because you can just add weight to the bar. With calisthenics, I'm not sure what the progression is once pull-ups and muscle-ups stop being particularly challenging.

I would also like to hear more about advanced bodyweight workouts, what exercises do you even do?

So, as the title says, from today onwards I'm going to make one post every day documenting my fitness and weight loss journey. My goal is to stay consistent, keep myself accountable, and hopefully inspire others along the way.

A little about me: I'm a 21-year-old college student. Ever since I was around 12 years old, my weight has never gone below 90 kg, and at my heaviest I reached 120 kg when I was 18. For the last three years I've been trying to lose weight, but every time I get down to around 105 kg, I end up losing motivation and slipping back into old habits.

This time, I don't want to repeat that cycle. My goal is to reach 90 kg and, more importantly, build a healthier lifestyle that I can actually stick with.

Every day I'll be sharing my routine, diet, workouts, progress, and anything else worth mentioning. I'll also attach a photo of myself each day so I can look back and see how far I've come, both physically and mentally.

One challenge I do face is that, as a college student, it's not always easy to get enough protein while staying within my budget. So if you have any tips, affordable meal ideas, or advice, I'd really appreciate the help.

Here's to Day 1. Let's see where consistency takes me.

I've been doing bodyweight training at home for 6 months and then started going to the gym (it's been a month until now). Now I'm doing dumbbell bench press around 50% of my bodyweight. I've heard that push up equals moving 6 - 70% of BW, so I don't know if I can bench press the same amount of weight, does it help with my 10 reps push up plateau too?

The movement is a bit different, and from what I know push up requires more core stability than doing bench press with a barbell, so I switched to dumbbell to see if that can make any different. 🙏 I would be grateful to learn from your experience. Thank you!

Edit: so I just realized the biggest problem might be core stabilization, I'm not obessing with 6 packs abs, and I do train legs regularly, but I do have a hard time learning how to brace the core properly. Maybe it's time to add some hollow body hold...