I Need Help Making A Program, Absolute Beginner.

I been in to health and fitness for a while,  I got my NASM CPT(National Academy Of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer), I know about muscles, workout layouts and things of that sort.  I was severely obese; I lost 138lbs to date. I still have fat to lose, about 50lbs more which would put me at about 8% body fat.

I always felt building muscle is pointless unless you can apply it.  Most bodybuilders can’t run, they are slow, I am looking at things from a survival perspective.   In the book he gives a few examples where gymnastic helps with lifting, but lifting doesn’t always help with gymnastics.

I just don’t understand these routines at all, I am trying to apply them in a bodybuilding fashion.  As I said I am still a bit heavy, I can’t do 1 pull up, I can do some pushups but not much, maybe about 20-30.   

The routine I laid out for myself is a 3 day workout.  Consist of push, pull, and lower body.

Push – Puhsups, dips, and shoulders(book says hand stand pushups, but I think right now it would be best to stick to shoulder press for me).

Pull – Pullups(various hand positions) and bicep work.

Legs – I’ll just squat

Thinking of doing core/ab and lower back work at the end of push pull days.  I am also working on the L-Sit I believe it's called. Going through that progression.

I tried reading other workouts before, I just don’t understand them. The acronyms/terms use, like “static work†or the “HSPU†stuff. I know now that HSPU stands for “Hand Stand Push Up†there are a lot of acronyms that throw me off. I just don’t understand the workouts that are laid out on the forums and in the book.

This is a list of common acronyms used here: https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/9386-wod-acronyms/   as for your programming you should also work in the basic foundation of static positions like hollow hold, Lsit, planks and wall handstands, maybe at the end of your strength workouts but it could be great if you trained these basics everyday

Antonio Rodriguez said:

I am looking at things from a survival perspective. 

In what sort of environment do you intend to "survive"?

Adapted muscularity, body composition, body types & athletic performances will vary as much as the environment you are exposed to. With some exceptions, extreme climates appear to me as more suitable for smaller people with a better surface/volume ratio. Usually, larger persons mostly strive in temperate climates.

Hernandez C said:

This is a list of common acronyms used here: https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/9386-wod-acronyms/   as for your programming you should also work in the basic foundation of static positions like hollow hold, Lsit, planks and wall handstands, maybe at the end of your strength workouts but it could be great if you trained these basics everyday

Thanks for your help.  That page really helped, i am going through killroy's routine and peacing it together.

FredInChina said:

In what sort of environment do you intend to "survive"?

Adapted muscularity, body composition, body types & athletic performances will vary as much as the environment you are exposed to. With some exceptions, extreme climates appear to me as more suitable for smaller people with a better surface/volume ratio. Usually, larger persons mostly strive in temperate climates.

Yes I agree, when I think of survival what comes to mind is military, natural disasters, or just pure survival in an enviorment that's not civialized, where you have to hunt and gather your own food.

Before I say anything else, I'd like to say two things:

1) NASM is actually a pretty good certification, especially if you have gotten it recently or have reviewed what they teach now. Congrats on selecting a quality certification!

2) Congratulations on your weight loss so far! Extremely impressive, keep on keeping on!

I think the first place you should start is with the pre-requisites. Right now, the hollow hold, straight arm protracted plank (with proper body shape for OUR purposes, which is very different from normal planks... you should practice them as well from time to time), and PB support are probably where you are safe starting off.

Obviously, you should keep doing your push ups, squats, assisted pull ups (having now purchased a full set, the Body Bands brand is the best price for an excellent product, especially for assisted pull ups), and foot-supported body rows.

For the body rows, you'll probably want to put a set of wall anchors on a stable wall (not one that was added during a remodel, so usually the outer walls of the house are best) deep into the studs and use them for the leaning rows. You will probably want one set at head height and a second set all the way up at the ceiling. Make sure you always lean in the direction of the stud if you put these of the ceiling (keep them near the wall, this lets you use the wall for a foot-stop, which you will need for a long time).

If you feel safe doing handstands, they are a good idea, but I think you should learn how to do a basic forward roll first, and then practice doing a forward roll from a handstand with stomach to wall. That way you'll never just collapse on yourself. Use your feet to kick yourself off the wall and generate forward momentum for the roll!

Joshua Naterman said:

Before I say anything else, I'd like to say two things:

 

1) NASM is actually a pretty good certification, especially if you have gotten it recently or have reviewed what they teach now. Congrats on selecting a quality certification!

 

2) Congratulations on your weight loss so far! Extremely impressive, keep on keeping on!

 

 

I think the first place you should start is with the pre-requisites. Right now, the hollow hold, straight arm protracted plank (with proper body shape for OUR purposes, which is very different from normal planks... you should practice them as well from time to time), and PB support are probably where you are safe starting off.

 

Obviously, you should keep doing your push ups, squats, assisted pull ups (having now purchased a full set, the Body Bands brand is the best price for an excellent product, especially for assisted pull ups), and foot-supported body rows.

 

For the body rows, you'll probably want to put a set of wall anchors on a stable wall (not one that was added during a remodel, so usually the outer walls of the house are best) deep into the studs and use them for the leaning rows. You will probably want one set at head height and a second set all the way up at the ceiling. Make sure you always lean in the direction of the stud if you put these of the ceiling (keep them near the wall, this lets you use the wall for a foot-stop, which you will need for a long time).

 

If you feel safe doing handstands, they are a good idea, but I think you should learn how to do a basic forward roll first, and then practice doing a forward roll from a handstand with stomach to wall. That way you'll never just collapse on yourself. Use your feet to kick yourself off the wall and generate forward momentum for the roll!

Joshua,

Thanks for the support,  I clicked on your avatar thought the picture was cool. I noticed you got an A in ochem. That’s cool. I am currently majoring in biochemistry right now, still haven’t taken ochem yet but I will.

I do have a TRX, I don’t need the wall mounts. I tried to find the protracted plank in the book, I wasn’t able to find it, I also checked Google images, found nothing on it. What is it?  The front roll tip is good.

I don’t have PB, I seen some people using dumbells on the floor similar to parallel bars.

What I have so far is to work on these basic movements such as hollow hold, Lsit, planks, wall handstands.

I do have access to a gym, we have an assisted pullup machine, you can also do assisted dips on it.  These static holds, such as the planks, hollow holds, wall hand stands should be worked on often.  I think I can do most of the resistance work with my TRX. This is a TRX below.  You can put it pretty much anywhere. You can put your feet or your hands in the loops. If you put your feet in the loops you can do pushups with feet elevated,  rows with feet against a wall and so on. It can be used for a lot of exercises.

I am stuck on how to organize all these exercises. I deleted my original template and going through the killroy70 plan, supposedly it's popular, also going thruogh the book again and taking notes trying to put together the pieces.

Okay this is what I came up with.  It kind of looks like  targets chest(planche progression and pushups), back(pull ups might throw some body rows in there). I don’t believe in isolation work, such as curls.  I see the body as a system, it works as a unit, in real life situations we rarely use muscles in isolation.  If your biceps are not properly balanced with the strength of your back(pulling exercises) it can lead to injuries due to imbalance.  You get balanced bicep worked with pulling motions, triceps gets worked with pushing motions.   Thinking about doing the next progression of the exercises every week, once I can’t do one,  start over.  How does this look?

oh Workout A and B are alternated. I can do it 3x a week or 4x a week up to 6x a week(this is too much though).

A

warm up

Stretching

Chest - pushups

Chest - frog stand (planche progression)

L-Sit

Hollow hold

planks

Hand Stands

B

warm up

stretching

back(upper/lower) - pullups, Hyper extensions

Bcak Leaver (progressions)

legs - squats

L-Sit

Hollow hold

planks

Hand Stands

You can use the TRX, but it is going to be a lot easier than the rings, and you won't be able to do muscle ups on them, and there are also certain movements that you really need to be able to have separate anchor points. This makes a big difference in how the rows feel and what they work. For now you are probably ok, but in my personal opinion you should strongly consider saving up for a set of rings. The TRX is a lot of fun, and can be useful for all kinds of lower body work, and beginning upper body strength, but you can't even do ring supports or dips on them unless you drape it over something, and it will be hard to keep the handles even, which is pretty important.

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/5959-scapula-position-for-basic-and-static-exercises/

Read the above link. The body position you see is the same for the hollow plank. The only difference is that your hands will be directly under your shoulders instead of shoulders in front of hands like a planche lean.

As for O-chem, I highly recommend David Klein's "Organic Chemistry as a Second Language." There's one book for each semester, and it will teach you how to use fundamental concepts to solve problems, which is literally the most important thing you need to know. If you understand electrostatics, you understand Organic Chemistry. Always think in terms of electronegativity, and what happens to partial charges on each side of every bond. WHen you get good at this, you pretty much don't even need to memorize mechanisms because you'll be able to figure it out. I should warn you  that THAT level of mastery takes a lot of dedicated time, and is not strictly necessary. I just... like to learn

The books are primarily practical skill books, and I am extremely glad that I found them! Make sure you have the newest edition, Amazon often directs you to an old one with a yellow/green cover, but the 3rd edition is blue. By the time you get to O-Chem, it may be something different so make sure to check! I used his general chemistry skill book as well, and didn't really even need to study to get A's in both semesters, and that was with some reasonably difficult teachers.

Anyhow, back on topic! Two chairs will work like parallel bars, and so will dip bars. If you can flip the support pad on the assisted pull up/dip machine out of the way, you can just do dip supports on the bars!

Joshua Naterman said:

You can use the TRX, but it is going to be a lot easier than the rings, and you won't be able to do muscle ups on them, and there are also certain movements that you really need to be able to have separate anchor points. This makes a big difference in how the rows feel and what they work. For now you are probably ok, but in my personal opinion you should strongly consider saving up for a set of rings. The TRX is a lot of fun, and can be useful for all kinds of lower body work, and beginning upper body strength, but you can't even do ring supports or dips on them unless you drape it over something, and it will be hard to keep the handles even, which is pretty important.

 

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/5959-scapula-position-for-basic-and-static-exercises/

 

Read the above link. The body position you see is the same for the hollow plank. The only difference is that your hands will be directly under your shoulders instead of shoulders in front of hands like a planche lean.

 

 

As for O-chem, I highly recommend David Klein's "Organic Chemistry as a Second Language." There's one book for each semester, and it will teach you how to use fundamental concepts to solve problems, which is literally the most important thing you need to know. If you understand electrostatics, you understand Organic Chemistry. Always think in terms of electronegativity, and what happens to partial charges on each side of every bond. WHen you get good at this, you pretty much don't even need to memorize mechanisms because you'll be able to figure it out. I should warn you  that THAT level of mastery takes a lot of dedicated time, and is not strictly necessary. I just... like to learn

 

The books are primarily practical skill books, and I am extremely glad that I found them! Make sure you have the newest edition, Amazon often directs you to an old one with a yellow/green cover, but the 3rd edition is blue. By the time you get to O-Chem, it may be something different so make sure to check! I used his general chemistry skill book as well, and didn't really even need to study to get A's in both semesters, and that was with some reasonably difficult teachers.

 

Anyhow, back on topic! Two chairs will work like parallel bars, and so will dip bars. If you can flip the support pad on the assisted pull up/dip machine out of the way, you can just do dip supports on the bars!

I tried to send you a PM, it says you can't accept them.  This is what i wrote.

"I am still stuck. I am here trying to finish the routine I started and I am just so confused about reps, sets, etc with this form of training.

I used to be a perfectionist, well still kind of am. I am trying to let go of that mind set and keep it simple.

I am thinking of abandoning this workout, but i want to be able to do these moves that gymnast do, like planche, leavers etc.

I guess what I am ask is, is gymnastic about static holds? Like you build up the strength to do the static holds? If this is true then i can just do my normal workout routine and focus on static holds."

You CAN do that, and in your current condition I would say that yes, that is probably your best approach.

Right now you want to focus on getting to 15-18% body fat, according to calipers, and for GB work do the pre-requisites that you can do. I always train mine to failure of good form, for 3-5 sets (depending on how I feel each day) anywhere from 4-6 days per week. At first, I HIGHLY recommend you start at 2 days per week, and if that's no problem after a week then you can try 3 days per week for 2 weeks, and then go to 4 days per week. I don't think you need to do more than that right now for the GB work.

We tend to recommend that you master the hollow hold and parallel bar supports before dealing with L-sits, so if that is a possibility for you I would recommend that route.

I think that A,B, rest, A,B, rest rest is a good schedule for you right now. You may find that you need to skip the statics some days, or just do 1-2 sets. Don't feel bad when you hit those days, just make sure you do 3-5 sets at least twice each week.

Joshua Naterman said:

You CAN do that, and in your current condition I would say that yes, that is probably your best approach.

 

Right now you want to focus on getting to 15-18% body fat, according to calipers, and for GB work do the pre-requisites that you can do. I always train mine to failure of good form, for 3-5 sets (depending on how I feel each day) anywhere from 4-6 days per week. At first, I HIGHLY recommend you start at 2 days per week, and if that's no problem after a week then you can try 3 days per week for 2 weeks, and then go to 4 days per week. I don't think you need to do more than that right now for the GB work.

Okay so right now priority is get down to 15% body fat, I can do that. Currently at 28%. So it will take months, it would put me at 230lbs. I am currently at 265. My LBM(lean body mass) is 196lbs. I am 6ft 2in

SO what I gather from all this so far is

1. Get down to 15% BF

2. Focus on the prerequisites (hollow hold, Lsit, planks, not ready for handstand work)

I plan to just focus now on planche progression, and L-sit.  Is there any problem with this post?

Inreply to your post about the static pb hold. I can do that now. I actually did it today, I did the first progression.

Antonio Rodriguez said:

I always felt building muscle is pointless unless you can apply it.  Most bodybuilders can’t run, they are slow, I am looking at things from a survival perspective.   In the book he gives a few examples where gymnastic helps with lifting, but lifting doesn’t always help with gymnastics.

Most bodybuilders (people that actually compete) are actually quite fit. A lot are former athletes, some still compete in another sport besides bodybuilding. The problem isn't that bodybuilders are slow/not athletic it's that the average "gym rat" is nonathletic when all they do is bench and curls. These guys aren't bodybuilders. 

Rob Ritches (bodybuilder) has a whole show on youtube where he goes to other sports (parkour, sprinting, one even has him doing a lot of gymnastic movements) and he continually impresses people with the amount of athleticism that he brings as a complete newcomer to these sports. The series is called "Nice body but what can you do with it."

As for your original question, your AB setup looks good. One thing I would add is you are missing a horizontal pulling movement in that setup. A back lever does not work your retractors sufficiently. I would recommend either adding in front lever work or an inverted row.

AlexX said:

Most bodybuilders (people that actually compete) are actually quite fit. A lot are former athletes, some still compete in another sport besides bodybuilding. The problem isn't that bodybuilders are slow/not athletic it's that the average "gym rat" is nonathletic when all they do is bench and curls. These guys aren't bodybuilders. 

Rob Ritches (bodybuilder) has a whole show on youtube where he goes to other sports (parkour, sprinting, one even has him doing a lot of gymnastic movements) and he continually impresses people with the amount of athleticism that he brings as a complete newcomer to these sports. The series is called "Nice body but what can you do with it."

As for your original question, your AB setup looks good. One thing I would add is you are missing a horizontal pulling movement in that setup. A back lever does not work your retractors sufficiently. I would recommend either adding in front lever work or an inverted row.

 

You're right, I was thinking about back work, i knew something was missing.  I seen that series on youtube I never watched it. Rob Ritches does have a nice physqiue. I am talking guys who are bigger, like pro bodyuilders.  I can see a body like rob ritches doing a lot of positive things with it.

hey Antonio, is a great thing you have that success story, where are you from?

Eres de Mexico?

hablas español, si es asi, es algo genial que haya mas mexicanos por aqui =)

Saludos!

If not, then i hope i can help you with what i can 

Greetings!

3D Guy said:

hey Antonio, is a great thing you have that success story, where are you from?

 

Eres de Mexico?

hablas español, si es asi, es algo genial que haya mas mexicanos por aqui =)

Saludos!

 

If not, then i hope i can help you with what i can 

 

Greetings!

Gracias, no, soy de estaudos unidos, california.  Como dejo el muchacho tengo que perder un poco mas para ser eso tipo de exercisos. Te puse en mis contactos de MSN, aver si chatiamos y me puedes ayuard. Aculpo alguien que me puede ayudar segido.

3D Guy said:

hey Antonio, is a great thing you have that success story, where are you from?

 

Eres de Mexico?

hablas español, si es asi, es algo genial que haya mas mexicanos por aqui =)

Saludos!

 

If not, then i hope i can help you with what i can 

 

Greetings!

Yo soy mexicano, de Monterrey

Hernandez C said:

Yo soy mexicano, de Monterrey

Yo también soy mexicano, de Torreón.

------------------------------------------------------

So this is my first post and introduction. I am just a beginner.

Excelente!!

Es excelente encontrar cada vez mas mexicanos por aqui, yo soy de San Luis Potosi!

=)

Un gran saludote!!!

Agreguen a FB para estar en contacto!!!