Workout Programs
Organizing your exercises into a routine that works your entire body!
Hybrid Routine 2.0
Repetition Speed:
2 Seconds Down, 1 Second Pause, 2 Seconds Up, 1 Second Pause
Rest Times:
2-3 Minutes between sets.
5 Minutes between separate exercises
Adjust these as needed! For example, after finishing the first set of pushups, a practitioner (you!) will wait 2-3 minutes before starting their next set. After they finished 2-3 sets of pushups, they’ll wait 5 minutes before starting on Leg Raises.
This program works the entire body and is designed to cover all the most common goals in fitness:
Gain muscle
Gain strength
Lose fat
When in doubt, start here!
Boring Explanations & Stuff
The exercises in this routine are designed to work as if they were weights on a barbell - adjustable to our current fitness level.
How we organize these exercises has everything to do with our goals and success!
Pick one above or below to get started! You can always adjust as needed.
In fact, I recommend changing up your routine every 3 months or so. Try some new exercises. For example, experiment replacing pushup progressions with dip progressions.
These routines were designed as a foundation upon which users can supplement. They work well as-is. Especially for beginners. However, as you get more experience under your belt, you may want to try new things! Add some explosive variants (think hill sprints to squats) and isometrics (think L Sits to leg raises).
If this seems confusing just use the Hybrid Routine shown above. It’ll work for almost everyone and will benefit all of the goals listed in the next section.
You can use any program you like. Keep in mind that most of these routines will give benefits for all the goals. For example, increasing strength generally increases some muscle mass and endurance.
As a general guideline, I recommend training for strength and muscle. This will give more endurance crossover than the reverse situation. For example, someone who builds up to one-arm pullups can probably do 20+ pullups quite easily. However, someone who builds up to 20+ pullups without increasing exercise difficulty will not be able to do a one-arm pullup.
A lot of academic ink has been spilled on how exercise changes our body. Even more has been used on debating how to best use these principles to achieve our goals.
In general:
Strength - To get stronger, we must progressively challenge ourselves with harder exercises. The more often we ask our muscles to contract near their maximum voluntary capacity, the stronger we get. Therefore, pure strength programs will focus on high set volume, low rep volume, and high resistance. This way, the individual can pour as much strength into each rep as possible.
Muscle - To get more muscular, we must fatigue our muscles. When we bring our muscles near failure, this triggers a growth response. It’s interesting to note that science doesn’t fully understand exactly how hypertrophy (muscle growth) functions. We just know that it does based on empirical data. Although resistance doesn’t necessarily need to be as high as it’d be in a pure strength program, enough resistance must be present to activate and fatigue our type-2 muscle fibers. They have the most potential for growth! Think low sets, high reps, and moderate-high resistance.
Fat Loss - This has more to do with our diet than our workout program. To lose weight, our caloric intake must be lower than our caloric output. A good overall training program will help you burn more calories, optimize your hormones, and increase functionality. However, if you’re training hard and not losing as much fat as you’d like, you may need to adjust your diet.
Stamina - Although often used interchangeably with “cardio,” building our muscular stamina can be a separate pursuit. Our endurance is somewhat activity-dependent. For example, being able to do high-repetition pushups does not mean we will be able to do high-repetition squats. Many programs can be used for muscular endurance, but these usually involve high set volume, medium rep volume, and medium resistance. If you just want to feel your heart pumping, high repetition squats or bridges will do the trick. You can also explore things like hill sprints.
Pure Strength
This is for those that want to get as strong as possible without putting on size.
Repetition Speed:
2 Seconds Down, 1 Second Pause, 2 Seconds Up, 1 Second Pause
Rest Times:
2-3 Minutes between sets.
5 Minutes between separate exercises
Adjust these as needed! For “pure” strength training, there is very little benefit to moving the sets and exercises closer together. Precedence should be given to each repetition being better and stronger.
Therefore, rest times have been optimized so the individual can come back to each set feeling refreshed from the last one.
Rest times are still limited so body stays primed for the exercise. Sitting down and resting for too long may have a negative effect on following sets. Don’t stress about this though. Just do the sets when you can.
Choose an exercise that you can do 5-8 repetitions of if pushed.
Do 1-2 repetitions per set.
Do several sets throughout the day.
Use harder exercises as you get stronger.
Don't do the eccentric portion of the dynamic exercise. For example, during pullups, we don't have to lower ourselves from the bar after pulling up. Just hop down (safely) and pull up again.
The goal is to stay "fresh" so that high-intensity exercises can be done at optimum capacity for more repetitions overall compared to other programs.
This is because most muscle damage and soreness comes from the eccentric portion of a movement, where the muscles are lengthening under tension. This time under tension can be excellent for hypertrophy, but is a hindrance if we’re trying to get as many reps as possible without fatigue.
I still recommend doing the full movements (including eccentrics) at least once a week.
Rest days are given so individuals may avoid central nervous system fatigue.
Experienced individuals can experiment with gradually removing rest days if desired.
Monday: PUSH/CORE/LEGS
Pushups: 10 Sets (1 Every Hour)
L Sit: 6 Sets (3 Minutes Rest)
Squats: 3 Sets (3 Minutes Rest)
Tuesday: PULL/POSTERIOR CHAIN/LATERAL CHAIN
Pullups: 10 Sets (1 Every Hour)
Bridges: 10 Sets (1 Every Hour)
Clutch Flag / Human Flag: 10 Sets (1 Every Hour)
Wednesday: REST
Rest
Thursday: PUSH/CORE/LEGS
Pushups: 10 Sets (1 Every Hour)
L Sit: 6 Sets (3 Minutes Rest)
Squats: 3 Sets (3 Minutes Rest)
Friday: PULL/POSTERIOR CHAIN/LATERAL CHAIN
Pullups: 10 Sets (1 Every Hour)
Bridges: 10 Sets (1 Every Hour)
Clutch Flag / Human Flag: 10 Sets (1 Every Hour)
Saturday: MOBILITY WORK
Pushups: 1 Set | Medium Reps
Leg Raises: 1 Set | Medium Reps
Squats: 1 Set | Medium Reps
Pullups: 1 Set | Medium Reps
Twists: 3 Holds Per Side
Sunday: REST
Rest
Bodyweight Muscle
This is for those who want to do calisthenics with an emphasis on building muscle. Because of volume, strength gains may be reduced.
Repetition Speed:
2 Seconds Down, 1 Second Pause, 2 Seconds Up, 1 Second Pause
Rest Times:
60 Seconds between sets.
5 Minutes between separate exercises
Adjust these as needed! For example, after finishing the first set of pushups, a user will wait 60 seconds before starting their next set. After they finished with pushups, they’ll wait 5 minutes before starting on Leg Raises.
The key is balancing short enough rest times to bring your muscles to deep fatigue while resting enough that you can pour greater strength into your next set and stimulate the muscle fibers that have the most potential for growth.
For all exercises, spend most of your time on a variation where you can do 10-15 repetitions if pushed. For example, even if you can do a few One-Arm Pushups, spend most of your set working on something like Sliding One-Arm Pushups.
As a general rule, if you can do 30+ repetitions, you should find a harder exercise. If you can do fewer than 5, find an easier one.
You can always choose to start your set with a few repetitions of your hardest exercise, but you should spend most of your time on an exercise where you can get medium repetitions.
Medium repetitions are difficult enough to stimulate growth while allowing deeper fatigue and longer time-under-tension than low repetitions.
Push yourself harder than you normally would during, say, the Hybrid Routine. Go a few reps more than you normally would. Keep your form good enough to be safe and avoid injury, but you may notice that it may deteriorate a bit during your last few sets. For example, your waist may move a bit more during pushups. This is normal as long as the form mistakes do not cause injury.
This program will build strength and endurance, but the focus is on hypertrophy. By using gradually easier variations, we can bring our muscles to deeper fatigue and stimulate greater growth.
This should be combined with a quality, high-protein diet for best results.
Day 1:
Pullups: 3 Sets to near-failure
Pullups (Easier Variation): 2 Sets to near-failure
Pullup Isometric Hold (any angle): 2 Holds until failure
Sprints / Hill Sprints: 2 Sprints - 100m
Squats: 3 Sets to near-failure
Squats (Easier Variation): - 2 Sets to near-failure
Calf Raises: 2 Sets until failure (Aim for 20+ repetitions)
Wall Sit (wall optional): 1 Hold to failure
Bridges: 3 Sets to near-failure
Bridges (Easier Variation): 2 Sets to near-failure
Straight Bridges: 2 Sets to near-failure
Day 2: REST
Twists: 2-3 Sets
Gentle Stretching: 10 Minutes
Tai Chi (optional): 20 Minutes
Day 3:
Pushups: 3 Sets to near-failure
Pushups (Easier Variation): 2 Sets to near-failure
Pushup Isometric Hold (bottom position): 3 Holds until failure
Leg Raises: 3 Sets to near-failure
Leg Raises (Easier Variation): 2 Sets to near-failure
L Sit (any progression): 3 Holds to failure.
Day 4: REST
Twists: 2-3 Sets
Gentle Stretching: 10 Minutes
Tai Chi (optional): 20 Minutes
Notes:
As you acclimate to this routine, you can experiment with removing the rest days (Day 2 and Day 4) or combining them with the other days. I recommend always leaving at least one day a week to rest.
Legacy Programs
-
Solid Start
Monday: Pushups & Leg Raises 2-3 Sets
Tuesday: REST
Wednesday: Pullups & Squats 2-3 Sets
Thursday: REST
Friday: Bridges 2-3 Sets
Saturday: REST
Sunday: REST -
Work Week
Monday: Pullups 2-3 Sets
Tuesday: Bridges 2-3 Sets
Wednesday: Pushups 2-3 Sets
Thursday: Leg Raises 2-3 Sets
Friday: Squats 2-3 Sets
Saturday: REST
Sunday: REST