Hitting all body parts good?

Hey guys, I need you to critique my routine to make sure im hiiting all body parts so i can gain some mass and strength.

I do a combo of weights and calisthenics. Mainly calisthenics though.

Mon:

Bridge progressions - 3 sets

Hack squats - 3 sets

1 arm pushup progressions - 3 sets

Pullups - 3 sets

Planche progressions - 3 sets

Inverted rows - 3 sets

L- sit - 2 sets

1 Legged calf raise - 3sets

Wed:

Bridge progressions - 3 sets

Straight leg deadlift - 3 sets

1 arm pushup progressions - 3 sets

Pullups - 3 sets

Planche progressions - 3 sets

Inverted rows - 3 sets

L- sit - 2 sets

1 Legged calf raise - 3sets

Fri:

Bridge progressions - 3 sets

straight leg deadlift - 3 sets

1 arm pushup progressions - 3 sets

Pullups - 3 sets

Planche progressions - 3 sets

L- sit - 2 sets

Bicep curls - 4 sets

Is this sufficient enough for mass/strength gains?

Thanks guys :)

Off topic: but don't you mean "Hitting all BODY parts good?" for the title rather than "BOY parts"?

Stop thinking about the body as a collection of bodyparts. It isn't.

Basically, you want the following things:

Vertical push

This would be handstand work. Or dips. You're not doing it. Develop your handstand, man, it's essential!

Vertical pull

Pullups do the job.

Horizontal push

One-arm pushup progression is what you should stick with. You seem not to have attained a 3x30s L-sit yet, so hold of on training planche until you have that under your belt.

Horizontal pull

Inverted rows do a great job.

Legs

Barbell squats and deadlifts. And I'm talking real squats, not hack squats or lunges or split squats or whatever.

Bridges are a flexibility exercise. Treat it as such and put it in the end of your workout. L-sit is an FSP and comes before your workout. Do at least 3 sets of that, it's a fundamental thing. Bicep curls and calf raises... if you want to do them, do them at the end. Drop them if you're short on time, rather than cutting into the main part of your workout.

Mass gain is mostly diet. Strength gain will be fine if you stick with those six exercises + L-sit.

Read around a bit on the forum.

Just out of curosity, why do you put handstand pushups and dips in the vertical push section? I've always noticed a much better carryover with dips to pushups than overhead pushing to anything else.

@ Patrick Smith

Yes whoops lol.

@ Rik de Kort

Thanks very much that helped loads

First things first, Vertical push, there are dips and handstand work. I have the strength for dips, but i cannot do them as they give me shoulder issues. And no, its not a form issue, i injured my shoulder 5 months ago with a grade 2 ac tear. Now i cannot do some exercises. Handstands.....i 'm shit scared to do these lol. But i guess i could start working on them.

As you said i should be able to perform 3 x30 of l sits before learning the planche, does this mean i should do the same with handstand pushups? And L-Sits at the end of the workout? From what i've learned, any ab exercise should be at the end as it kills your core, and it would hinder other exercise performance if done first.

Legs....whats wrong with hack squats? I train i home with no squat rack, i dont want to injure myself.

Ok i re arranged my workout to this:

Mon:

Hack squats - 3 sets

Pullups - 3 sets

1 arm pushup progressions - 3 sets

Inverted rows - 3 sets

Handstand work - 3 sets (p.s know of any good progressions? )

L-sit - 2 sets

Calf raise - 3 sets

Bridges - 3 sets

Wed:

SLDL - 3 sets

Pullups - 3 sets

1 arm pushup progressions - 3 sets

Inverted rows - 3 sets

Handstand work - 3 sets (p.s know of any good progressions? )

L-sit - 2 sets

Calf raise - 3 sets

Bridges - 3 sets

Fri:

SLDL - 3 sets

Pullups - 3 sets

1 arm pushup progressions - 3 sets

Bicep curls - 4 sets

Handstand work - 3 sets (p.s know of any good progressions? )

L-sit - 2 sets

Bridges - 3 sets

First things first, Vertical push, there are dips and handstand work. I have the strength for dips, but i cannot do them as they give me shoulder issues. And no, its not a form issue, i injured my shoulder 5 months ago with a grade 2 ac tear. Now i cannot do some exercises. Handstands.....i 'm shit scared to do these lol. But i guess i could start working on them.

As you said i should be able to perform 3 x30 of l sits before learning the planche, does this mean i should do the same with handstand pushups? And L-Sits at the end of the workout? From what i've learned, any ab exercise should be at the end as it kills your core, and it would hinder other exercise performance if done first.

Well, I get where you're coming from. It's just that L-sit is a static position, so that comes in front of the workout, because they can be a bit rough on the nervous system. Not sure if that applies to L-sit. Regardless, it's a fundamental thing, so it should come in front of your workout because what you're working first will show the most gains.

For handstand, just start with wall handstands as skill work. That means they come after the warmup and before your workout. Once you're starting to get good at this, you can add some type of HSPU as vertical push.

Legs....whats wrong with hack squats? I train i home with no squat rack, i dont want to injure myself.

Ok i re arranged my workout to this:

Get a squat rack, dude. I didn't know you didn't have a squat rack. It's just that the normal squat it the best lower body exercise there is.

Like I said, do bicep curls at the end of your workout. They're far from essential and may end up bothering exercises further in. It's okay if you want to curl; just make sure it doesn't interfere with what it's all about, the core movements.

Alex, I put dips in vertical pushing because your body is vertical when doing them. They build up triceps strength, which is good preparation for HSPU variation down the road. In the meanwhile, you build up inverted vertical skill with handstand work. That's why they sort-of belong together. It's an odd little thing, though.

Rik de Kort said:

Alex, I put dips in vertical pushing because your body is vertical when doing them. They build up triceps strength, which is good preparation for HSPU variation down the road. In the meanwhile, you build up inverted vertical skill with handstand work. That's why they sort-of belong together. It's an odd little thing, though.

Totally understood! Thanks for the explanation.

Ok man thanks you've been a great help.

As for the handstands, should i ditch them and go for military press instead? Reason is because i absolutely hate handstands, and blood rushes to my head and i feel like my head is going to explode. Are handstands necessary ? Im sure my shoulders can gain great strength from military press and planche training. Of course planche training AFTER i do 3x30 L-Sits.

Once i do progress to planche training, at what part of my routine should i be doing them ?

I will be following these progressions

You have been a great help

Yes, handstands are that important. I highly suggest using military press for full ROM work, preferably with dumbbells so that you can keep a proper hollow position for at least some of the sets at least one day per week, because that WILL help with your progress.

Military press can not replace HS work, the form is fundamentally different.

As for your AC tear, if it was 5 months ago you should be ok for slowly beginning to work back into dips with some bands or a dip machine or even an assisted pull up. You'll have to take it super slow, and start really light, but you won't know whether or not you can work back into that stuff until you start this process and take it step by step. May take 1-3 years, but wouldn't that be awesome?

Start with mobility work, and don't add any resistance until full mobility is pain free.

Your body will eventually adapt to handstands, but in the meantime I will suggest you limit hold times to whatever you can tolerate until it becomes really easy and the blood rushing isn't a big deal anymore, and then start progressing up from there.

Ok man thanks.

Thanks to everyone, have been a great help

Joshua Naterman said:

(...) As for your AC tear, if it was 5 months ago you should be ok for slowly beginning to work back into dips with some bands or a dip machine or even an assisted pull up. You'll have to take it super slow, and start really light, but you won't know whether or not you can work back into that stuff until you start this process and take it step by step. May take 1-3 years, but wouldn't that be awesome? (...)

With A/C tear and A/C instability, I found that at first, I was also very worried just doing PB holds; the trick is to try it out with your feet on the floor for assistance and safety, and listen to your body...

If you don't feel it is right, don't do it further... keep doing assisted holds once in a while, and see how you progress - it should be fairly quick.

Once you can do PB holds, start an SSC with it.

After a little while (maybe 4-6 weeks?) you may be able to test the waters for neg dips, etc...

(Don't do dips before your PB hold is solid and comfortable)

It took me 3-4 months from being able to do a push up after surgery (not the AC, but the AC was still quite unstable), to being able to do PB holds, then another 6 weeks to be comfortable with neg dips.

Like slizz mentioned, handstands are a fundamental thing. You can't get really strong without a good handstand since so many high-level skills work with balance in the inverted plane. The 'head explosion feeling' will go away soon enough, trust me.

Planche are a horizontal push. So with the one-arm pushup progression you have two horizontal pushes. If you have the time, you can just do another horizontal pull (say, front lever). It'll come at a price though: your progress with two horizontal pushes won't be as quick as with one. So I'd say drop the one-arm pushup progression and come back later when you run into problems with the planche (be sure to read around on the forums!) or something.

Hey, refering to the squats, have you tried zercher squats yet? I also train at home and have no powerrack. I tried some squat variations over the last months and the zercher is the variation which I like best.

I feel that it really also works the core (especially the back).

Try them if you haven't

@ FredInChina

My shoulder has strengthened enough to be able to do negatives without pain. I tried it in todays workout . So i ill stick with these and gradually work my way up. Thank you

@Rik de Kort

Ok man, i will work on handstands, I will also take out 1 arm pushup progressions. But could i add weighted pushups or hip pushups for a chest workout? And the planche etc are isometric thus strength based. Could they actually build muscle despite me eating at a caloric surplus with 1 lb of protein per bw?

@biobohne

Yes i tried zerchers in the past, didn't really like it tbh.

sufy123 said:

@Rik de Kort

Ok man, i will work on handstands, I will also take out 1 arm pushup progressions. But could i add weighted pushups or hip pushups for a chest workout? And the planche etc are isometric thus strength based. Could they actually build muscle despite me eating at a caloric surplus with 1 lb of protein per bw?

No need to drop your 1-arm pushup work if you want the one-arm pushups. I think they're very attainable without any direct training, though, so your time would best be spent on the pushup progression as found in BtGB as that will bring you to the path of planche pushups, which are a very good assistance movement to planches.

The systems behind hypertrophy are a bit confusing, but the basic deal is this: you do damage to your muscles. You then eat enough so your muscles can recover and add a little more muscle mass to protect it against the higher strain. Then you do more damage and recover, etc. etc. Now, don't think that, just because something isn't moving, there isn't any damage being done to the muscles. In isometrics, blood flow is largely cut off to the muscles, leading to less available oxygen, which damages the muscles. Which, in turn leads to hypertrophy. Maybe Joshua wants to write more on this, but bottomline is that isometrics can build hypertrophy.

Excellent !

Damn you guys are smart, thanks for all the help. Yes, i would love to hear more on the hypertrophy by anyone

P.S Will drop the one arm pushups anyway, not much of a chest workout.

You don't need damage for hypertrophy, what you need is for the structures to experience more stress than they are currently built to safely handle. There is an in-between zone where you are stimulating growth but not damaging muscle, and this is where you get your best results.

When you actually cause damage you tend to see protein breakdown in those areas, and that's not a good thing because it all has to be replaced. Depending on how much damage you do you may need to completely re-synthesize parts of muscle and that can take 5-6 weeks.

There are no specific protocols to be in this zone, but if you're avoiding DOMS then that's your first indication that you're getting things right. There should never be significant soreness unless it during the first two weeks of a new exercise.

Thanks for the heads up, Joshua. I learn something new every day here.

Rik de Kort,

I am a little confused on leaving out some kind of shoulder pressing? Is hand stand training along with the dips enough to omit shoulder (vertical pressing)? I have read that coach recommends that you progress through all dip variations before moving to HeSPUs, but I thought that maybe leaving some dumbbell shoulder press or box supported HeSPUs was necessary for a balanced routine? Also, if cutting down to 3 day/wk program, does this mean you only train the FSp 3 days/wk as well?

Handstand work serves as vertical pressing if you keep pushing your holds. Then later on you can start integrating HSPU work. Your handstand is more important, IMO.