Basic Program

First of all, if you started from the beginners phase and have come this far, congratulations! I know it takes a lot of hard work to perform exercises such as the handstand push-ups and others, if you have never done them before in your life. When it comes to bodyweight training, I have found that once you have reached a good level of relative strength; full body routines are the most suitable and effective programs in building a healthy, strong, symmetrical and ripped body. I am not saying that training more will either get you better or worse results. I have experienced great results also by training more than this, but always at times when I didn’t have anything else important to do, having all the time in the world to have an ideal stress-free recovery...

Today almost everyone’s life demands a big amount of energy and time, leaving all kinds of physi-cal and psychologiphysi-cal stress on our body. Whether you are a student or a family-guy, your physiphysi-cal recovery is not always optimal since it will be frequently hindered by bad sleep quality, psychological stress, bad food choices and other bad lifestyle habits. We all know that in some periods of our life these simply are inevitable.

Draining out every single last drop of energy by over-training can do more bad than good to som one’s health. That is the main reason I consider this basic program as the ideal long term training frequency for 95% of people.

Full body program benefits. One thing I personally like about full body trainings is that you can

“attack” every training with your batteries charged, since there is always at least a day of rest in between every session. Other benefits of full body training are:

•It is less boring. It is less possible that you will get bored with the frequency of this program.

•Free time. You have more free time on your resting days.

•Ideal for training only with compound movements. It is ideal for the number and type of exercises used in this program.

•Enough time to rest properly. Your muscle and nervous system function together as a one. It’s like electricity and magnetism, you can’t have the one without the other. So whenever you apply stress on your muscles you also apply stress on your nervous system whether you are doing pull ups or pistol squats. When you’re stimulating your neuromuscular system day after day, eventually it be-comes fatigued and the overall amount of reps you can perform on a daily basis really takes a hit.

With this full body program, you can train all your body 3 times per week and give it enough time to recover fully, every seven days for at least 4-6 months of continual training.

•Simple Scheduling. If you miss training for whatever the reason that may be, you can simply wait until the next opportunity and you’ll still be hitting all your exercises and muscle groups. When you are doing a split program if you miss out a workout, you mess up the whole training schedule for the rest of the week.

•Push yourself to the limits. Once you reach the basic program, you will have “matured” enough to know how to force your body to its limits in every training without injuring or overtraining yourself.

Obviously, it isn’t always possible to train to failure in every set of every exercise, every single day.

But pushing yourself to the limits in the last set and last 1-2 reps of the exercise is important if you want to avoid plateaus.

Basic program routine. The basic program consists of 3 training sessions per week. Besides leg raises and the prone cobra, the rest of the exercises in all three sessions are pretty much the same with slight differences in the order they are placed in and the total amount of sets they

consist of.

The most demanding exercicses in this program, for the majority of people are Pull ups, Handstand push-ups, Dips and Pistol squats. That is why the first three of them are placed in the beginning of one workout once every week. This way you can hit them hard with your neuromuscular system fresh & energized, improving your form and adding more reps to them. As for pistol squats, since they are a lower body exercise, they are placed in the middle of every routine so you are not too drained and they can give your upper body a bit more time to recover before continuing with the rest of the upper body exercises.

You will notice that there are some differences in the total amount of sets - in different exercises - from session to session. That is done for two reasons. Number one is that there is always some extra volume in the first exercise of each workout for the reasons mentioned in the previous para-graph. Number two is a decrease in sets of some other exercises that come later on in each training session. This is because the big common muscle groups that get stimulated in the first exercise, will remain a bit fatigued.

The first workout of the week starts with pull ups & chin ups doing 6 sets in total. Combining these exercises together builds immense upper body strength, especially in the arm and back depart-ment. For reasons mentioned in chapter 6 I organize them always together as one exercise.

Workout 2 starts with handstand push-ups. Since this is a highly intense and your beginner exercise this day, make sure you warm up your shoulders quite well. Handstands on the wall and pike push-up warm push-up sets are ideal to prepare for this performance.

The last workout of the week starts with dips which is one of the best bodyweight exercises for the chest. This is the last day of the week, so don’t be afraid to push yourself a bit more. There will be plenty of time to recover the next two resting days.

If you want to focus even more on one of the three most demanding exercises (pull-ups & chin ups, handstand push-ups or dips) you can place the day that the exercise is most dominant (meaning first in order) at the beginning of the week. This way your batteries will be fully charged after a two-day rest and you will be able to put more effort in it.