How to combine workout days

Hi Everyone!

I know this had been asked before me many times but I want to specify this question further so others can benefit from it too.

So How to combine workdays? :roll:

My problem is that there is so much type of exercise I should do(I only do Coach's Gymnastic training) and every exercise has some crossover to the next day. Let's say I'm doing BL on monday then my Front Lever work is hindered on the next day because my lower back is very exhausted.(I know FL is mainly abs but exhausted lower back hinders my progress). But If I do pressing work then my planche what's hindered because of lower back again...

My workout pattern consists 3 days:

Day 1

Mainly Pulling work - Pullups and progressions(if I do L-sit pullups then my FL and L-sit work is hindered next day), Back Lever, HeSLL->HSLL(the more and more books under the head method) Rows, Building Muscle Up on bar. FSP-> Straddle-L, Planche

Day 2

Front Lever, HLL, ?L-sit Pulls :?: (trying to build them up but as I said it's hinders L-sit), L-sit, V-ups, Windshield Wipers etc.

HeSPU or Handstand Wall walks(I know it shouldn't be too hard but it IS hard for me right now so I'm doing 25 taps/shoulder)x 3-5sets FSP-> (already said: FL, L-Sit)

Day 3

Pushup Progressions, Manna Work, Planche Leans

I'm also running every other day(guess I don't have problem with this one)

Stretching 6 days a week

But I don't know how to organize my workouts... :? pls help me with some pairings(like pull-press) or some help with my existing one. What are the faults? or is it good and I need to train it patiently? I know it's a big and complex question but repairing it could help other people too.

I am finding great success combining horizontal pulls with vertical pushes, horizontal pushes with vertical pulls, and legs with abs.

This might seem strange, but I do opposite statics with dynamics. Here's what I mean:

So, HeSPU/HSPU, dips + FL rows/front pulls/front lever pulls/tops pulls, etc for one day. If you're doing FL->muscle up that goes in this day too. Statics for this day are planche, and manna if you want to train that. I do higher volume now, spread out across the day. This works surprisingly well, with the later sets actually being higher quality than the earlier sets! I am getting much better results than I was before.

By allowing the body to recover between sets for an hour or more, you are letting the body repair damage on the spot, get hormone secretion going, as well as replenish fuel in the muscle. I am honestly not up to speed on ALL the physiological minutia behind it, but this works much much better for strength and muscle building than a single intense session. Sometimes if I've got a busy day I'll do two sets of each thing real quick in the morning, or at least whatever I can do where I am, and another two at lunch, and then finish the rest spread out during my evening. Either way, I end up doing much more work than I can do in a single session, and I feel less beat down. I do eat after every set, you'll find you can get almost ravenously hungry as the day goes on.

I then take a recovery day, and do active recovery. Some freebalancing handstand work, some jumping, some jogging maybe, even some sprints. I only work hard on my legs once a week now, so I like to work on speed and explosiveness on either recovery days or non-leg work days.

Next I do push up progressions, PPP, eventually one arm push ups, pull ups, false grip pull ups, OAC work if you are ready for it, etc. Germans and Ians could also fit in here if you can do those. Anything where the push is primarily horizontal. Because I'm not pushing vertically or pulling horizontally, I do vertical push statics. L-sit, front lever, back lever, and straddle L, specifically. You CAN, and I sometimes do, move back lever to the leg/ab day, depending on how I feel about my elbows.

Again, this is more volume than usual. 5 sets each, minimum. Seems like a lot until you do one set of each, 5 times throughout the day. 1 when you wake up, 1 right before work, 1 before lunch, 1 after lunch, 1 after work, 1 before dinner, 1 later in the evening turns out to be rather easy to pull off. You don't get sweaty or anything! That's ideal, and again it's ok and perhaps more practical to do 2 sets of these at a time, and do 2 sets in the morning before work, 2 sets during lunch, and 2 sets when you get home. Doesn't matter really, it's however you can fit it in.

Leg/ab days are similar, with exercises being deck squats, SLS, GHR, weighted pike stretch/Jefferson curl, reverse leg lift, etc. For abs HLL, body levers, circular HLL, side levers if you're BEAAAAAST! like that.

There is one extra thing each work day for handstands, because I am focusing on that as Coach recommends. Leg days I do HS Wall runs. HSPU days I just do HSPU. Push up days I do wall handstand holds. This works very, very well. The reason why this spread works so well is that static contractions cause less damage than concentric or eccentric contractions, so they don't require the same amount of recovery. By spreading the sets out, you don't do as much total damage, because your body is healing in-between sessions, and you are taking in food which helps your body refuel. Your nervous system is also slightly enhanced, so your later sets are more productive.

This will be rather different from other advice you get, mostly on the volume and spreading of the sets over the day. I will point out that I also never do less than 4-5 reps full ROM at 2120 tempo(for pulls: 2 seconds contraction, 1 second hold at the top, 2 seconds extension, momentary pause at the bottom) (for pushes: 2 second lower, 1 second pause at the bottom(NOT A REST), 2 second contraction, momentary pause at the top) of anything except false grip pull ups. I don't have a good way to assist those, otherwise I'd do higher reps with assistance for a while. This is to build joint strength. Every time I get up to easily doing 8-10 reps I make it harder, either by advancing the progression directly to the next step or taking an intermediary step like moving my hands back an extra inch on PPP or extending my legs a few inches in the FL from tuck towards straddle.

I believe the results will speak for themselves, and will be beyond what you get with a different timing scheme. Further, this will protect you from injury. Of course, you need to try everything that sounds good, but try each program that you think will work for at least one month so that you have a good idea of how it is working before modifying it or trying a new one.

Thank You for this much info I cannot say how thankful I am. You've just set me on the right way with the exercise spreading between the workdays.

But there is one thing. Sorry to hear that from me but I'm a little bit sceptical about the training throughout the whole day. Don't get me wrong I don't think it's bad but I've never heard of that before and I like to feel the exhaustion from exercising otherwise I feel that I didn't work at all... If it is that good then how come no one have ever spoken about this before? Or is it for pure strength gains only? I don't want to be offensive just a question. :oops:

And Thank You for the response again!

P.S. I like your videos they are great keep 'em going

In a way, gymnasts already train this way. I've read posts about how the top guys go into the gym 3x a day a few days a week, and do lighter stuff on off days.

Part of the reason this isn't mainstream is that modern fitness is about money, not results. There are lots of promises, and most are empty. This type of workout is not profitable, just like bodyweight training is not profitable. Why? YOU DON"T NEED TO BUY ANYTHING. You buy a 60 dollar set of rings and you don't even need a gym membership to become stronger than 90% of the people in those same gyms! Most people don't have equipment at home, and can't afford to run to the gym 3 times a day, so there's no market for selling this information, from the perspective of a mainstream fitness company. They could never make money selling a system that most people a) don't have time for, since they'd have to drive to a gym or b) don't have money for, since they'd have to buy a home gym. With the rings set up at home, and the ability to do many things pretty much anywhere due to the nature of the exercises, both of those problems are eliminated.

A second reason, which is only a guess on my part, is that perhaps no one has thought of it outside of elite athletic circles. The truth is that the Bulgarian weightlifters train this way. That's why they've won so many medals at the Olympics, they always have top level guys! But performance athletes are not the stars of the fitness industry, because it is supported by supplement companies, and they glorify bodybuilders. There's nothing wrong with bodybuilding, but the information out there is just plain wrong in many cases. All of the top trainers in bodybuilding will say the same thing, that you can NOT do the workouts printed in the magazines without "hormonal support," because our bodies just can't heal fast enough to handle that level of damage. A lot of the weight lifters are on "hormonal supplements" as well, so some of the frequencies they use are just too much (I read an article about some of the guys doing 7-10 max lifts for snatch and clean and jerk five days a week, and I have a hard time believing any body can handle that without "help," though I could be wrong), but the basic idea works very well, just like the basic idea behind the bodybuilding workouts can work very well. The problem is cultural and financial.

Furthermore, as an analogy, people used straightedge screwdrivers forever, until some guy said "Hey, you know... if I make this screw with a cross-shaped slot, and make a screwdriver that fits it, it's a whole lot easier to screw this thing in." And now we have Phillips head screwdrivers, thanks to him(or her, I don't actually know that it was a guy). It was obvious that the old screwdrivers worked just fine, but there was room for improvement. It took a while for industry to accept that Phillips screws are pretty awesome, but they finally did and now it's really easy to screw things together and take them apart. The fitness industry is in a similar situation, in the sense that it has a set of tools that work, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Some of the strongest people around work in manual labor, like iron and steel mills, where they periodically lift heavy things and carry them across the factory throughout every work day. They are strong as hell. I knew a guy who did that for 2 years and he went from 5"6 and 135 lbs to 5"6 and 200 lbs, ripped. Holy crap. It was ridiculous. Of course he didn't get a chance to ramp things up, so it took almost 6 months for his body to get used to what he was doing, from what he told me, but he had strength that was hard to believe, especially when you saw him in action. I saw him remove a valve cover with his hands that the other engineers couldn't budge with a 24" wrench. That shouldn't even be possible, I don't think! But he did it, regularly.

I was at my strongest when I would periodically stop and do a quick set, often only 1 rep, of a certain exercise throughout the day. I did that with curls, and ended up curling 100 lb dumbbells. I did that with chest flyes and ended up using 85 lb dumbbells for chest flies. Good reps, not that sissy crap where people look like they're doing a wide bench press. Nearly straight arms. I never got that strong when I was working out in single workouts per day. There are, to date, no studies on this that I am aware of. Perhaps someday there will be, and when I get to GA state I'll look into getting something done, but don't hold your breath. In the end, results are what matter, whether the results happen in a lab or at home under your own skin.

You will still be obeying the rules of frequency, volume, and intensity, but you will be able to do more total work with less damage at the end of the day. This gives you an advantage. Whether you get bigger, stronger, better endurance, or some combination depends entirely on how you construct your workout in terms of sets, reps, resistance levels, and rest time between workout days. What I have outlined is primarily for strength, with hypertrophy as a secondary goal. You won't get bigger than you need to be, but you will easily gain whatever muscle your body needs to perform the movements you practice... as long as you eat enough!

Also, if you're training to be exhausted, you are training the wrong way for strength. Keep your skepticism, it is a good way to measure whether something is really working or not. Try it out for a few weeks, you certainly won't LOSE anything! You may just find that you get better faster than you thought possible.

Slizz you are positively on fire. Another EPIC and very informative post. It could be a third training protocol option after WOD and Kilroy...

Mr Brady said:

Slizz you are positively on fire. Another EPIC and very informative post. It could be a third training protocol option after WOD and Kilroy...

Agreed! I'm still waiting for my rings before starting my first SSC but I've been thinking about structuring my workouts, of course. I was thinking of doing a 4-day schedule (M-T-Th-F): day 1 pushing, day 2 pulling, day 3 legs, day 4 core, and FSP each workout day (L-sit, planche progressions, FL, BL). Also HS work each workout day. Do you guys think that this is okay? Or would you suggest two push/pull days and two legs/core days per week, perhaps with sets spread (morning, lunch, evening)? Thanks in advance!

slizzardman said:

Also, if you're training to be exhausted, you are training the wrong way for strength. Keep your skepticism, it is a good way to measure whether something is really working or not. Try it out for a few weeks, you certainly won't LOSE anything! You may just find that you get better faster than you thought possible.

Thanks again. I think you have one of the most valuable posts on this forum Yeah I think I will try that out 8)

and again I meant No offense! I don't have a problem with that method It's just that I've never heard of this before but after your last post It's clear. Thanks!

Wow, I didn't expect such a positive response! Thanks! :oops: :shock:

As a side note, even though I don't get "sore" per se doing this, you absolutely feel your muscles. They just start feeling very powerful and perhaps a bit tired the day after, but not sore. It's hard to describe. And this is without using the advanced recovery techniques, like the cold baths or contrast showers!

Biomieg, I think you could do a 4 day schedule easily. If you're going to have two push/pull and two core days, there are two effective ways I can think of to structure that. One would be to only do 3 sets per exercise total, but do all push/pulls without breaking the horizontals from the verticals. I think this may well be a better option for more advanced athletes to cycle through, at the very least. You'd have push pulls M,Th and leg/core T,F. That may actually work out surprisingly well, you're getting good rest in between all the workouts. The reason for a few less sets is that in the course of the week you'll do the same # of sets, but since you're working twice a week it's better to do less damage per workout. I think this could be successful, and if you are going to try it out then PLEASE keep us informed!

The other 4 day schedule would have to be higher volume each day, probably 5-10 sets spread through the day per exercise. In either case, for the FSP make sure to stick to more of a steady state plan when working them! It just seems to work better for the statics, and do not work the same static more than 2-3 times per week. Very important not to overdo the statics. 4 days a week is too much for all of them, I think. I am certainly having better progress with once or twice a week, personally. I WILL say that I am doing high volume with the statics. Check my workout log once I get my recent workouts in, should be later today. That will give a better idea of how I am structuring things, and should help clarify anything that I am not doing a good job of here!