Beginner Calisthenics (Mostly) Hypertrophy Program for Women

[cbsmel]

There are many misconceptions on the internet about training for women. On one hand we have people who say that women should train completely different form men and just do cardio and play around with those pink dumbbells and on the other hand we have people who think women should train exactly the same as men and do Starting Strength 3x a week along with a gallon of milk a day.

On top of that some women are afraid that lifting weights will magically turn them into a mass monster. This creates a lot of confusion in the minds of women who are new to fitness due to which, there have been many posts on this subreddit lately by women regarding training programs.

Even though men and women aren't that different and there should not be much difference in the training between men and women, but still there are some factors that we have to consider while making a program tailored for women. For example,

1. Women tend to have more endurance than men. [1]
2. Women have the potential to make greater relative strength gains than men. [1]
3. Women have better recovery capacity and can manage fatigue better than men. [1] [2] [3] [4]
4. Women can handle more training volume than men. [1]
5. Some physiological differences like different hormonal profile, men and women tend to have small differences in muscle fibre distribution and where they usually store fat etc. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
6. Women have different aesthetic goals than men. Most women do not want big bulging biceps and broad shoulders. They want a big round butt and thicker thighs.

Considering these factors, I would like to present a program specifically designed for women. Yes, the RR exists and it is a solid program but the thing is that it is way more biased towards upperbody which definitely is not a point of focus for most women. In order to encourage more and more women to do calisthenics, we need to make it enjoyable for them so that they actually stick to it and make progress.

[MUST READ] : Sex Differences In Training And Metabolism and Strength Training for Women by Greg Nuckols (Stronger by Science)

THE PROGRAM​

It is a 3x a week full body program structured as follows :

• Warmup (10-15 minutes) - RR Warmup
• Skill work (10-15 minutes) - practice whatever skills you want to work on. Just make sure skill work is submaximal and it should not affect your main workout. You should not feel tired after doing that.
• Main workout
• Core work (optional but recommended) - RR core triplet

MONDAY
WEDNESDAY
FRIDAY

Exercise pair 1
Squat Progression (4-5 sets x 6-12 reps) + Horizontal pull progression (4-5 sets x 8-12 reps)
Vertical pull progression (4-5 sets x 5-8 reps) + Vertical Push progression (4-5 sets x 8-12 reps)
Hip Extension Progression (4-5 sets x 6-12 reps) + Horizontal push progression (4-5 sets x 5-8 reps)

Exercise pair 2
Hip Thrusts (3-4 sets 15-20 reps) + tricep extension (3-4 sets x 8-12 reps)
Nordic Curl Progression (3-4 sets x 5-8 reps) + side laterals (3-4 sets x 15-20 reps)
Lunges (3-4 sets x 15-20 reps) + bicep curls (3-4 sets x 8-12 reps)

Exercise pair 3
Chest flies + calf raises (2-3 sets x 15-20 reps)
Dead hangs (2-3 sets x failure) + calf raises (2-3 sets x 15-20 reps)
Rear delt exercise like face pull + calf raises (2-3 sets x 15-20 reps)

• Rest 90-120 seconds between each exercise in pair 1, 60-90 seconds in pair 2 and 30-60 seconds in pair 3. You can rest longer or shorter too if you want but keep the rest times consistent session to session.
• For leg work, barbells are recommended but you can use bodyweight exercises too.
• On off days, you can do some cardio. It is optional but recommended.

How to progress?​

Start with the lower end of the sets and rep range and gradually increase them over time. Once you can comfortably do the upper range of the prescribed sets and reps, add weight or move on to the next progression. Also, it is not necessary to increase sets. You can keep the sets same and add weight when you hit the prescribed number of reps. For various possible progressions, check out the table below :

EXERCISE
PROGRESSION SCHEME

Squat Progression
Any weighted squats of choice (high bar back squat, low bar back squat, front squat etc.) or pistol squat progressions or shrimp squat progressions or sissy squat progressions or step ups

Nordic Curl Progression
watch this or swap them for bodyweight hamstring curls for 8-12 reps

Hip Extension Progression
Deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, single leg deadlifts etc. You will have to add weight to these after some time.

Vertical pull progression
This
Vertical push progression
pike pushup progressions or overhead press with weights

Horizontal push progression
Learn how to do pushups first, then build up to dips and then either take the Pseudo Planche Pushups (PPPU) route or Ring dips route. For PPPU, increase the lean or do planche pushup progressions (tuck, straddle etc) or take the exercise to rings . For ring dips, increase ROM, RTO dips , Bulgarian dips or archer dips

Horizontal pull progression
This
Hip Thrusts
Watch this
Lunges
watch this
Bicep curls
bodyweight curls or pelican curls or regular bicep curls with weights, cables, bands or whatever

Tricep extensions
watch this or regular tricep extensions with weights, cables, bands or whatever

Side laterals
watch this
Chest flies
ring chest flies or regular chest flies with weights, cables, bands or whatever

Dead hangs
build up to one arm hangs

Calf raises
standing calf raises, seated calf raises, one leg calf raises etc.

Rear delt exercise
Face pulls or reverse flies or use weights

 

[tommymcfarland]

@cbsmel I'm a woman and I already have a strong lower body but need to get stronger arms and back. Will stick to my rows, pushups, assisted pullups, and other upper body exercises.

 

[georgieporgy12]

@tommymcfarland Agree.

Got pretty strong core and legs even before I started RR. I still train total body, but focus most of my training on upper body.

Edit to say: Also strong lat will give an illusion of a slimmer waist.

 

[cbsmel]

@tommymcfarland Keep up the hard work.

 

[unbridledwild]

@cbsmel I think you’ve got too much variety for beginners. Even working within like movements, it assumes strength and endurance are the only two factors at play. Beginners are also more likely to skip days or sets, which would set them even further behind. Just don’t really understand the purpose of trying to reinvent the wheel when the RR and other beginner programs are tried and true and the goal is more about exploration and building a habit. You aren’t shortchanging incremental improvements built over many months of consistency when consistency is the single most important component of progress. You can even add more leg work if it makes you happy, like going for runs on your off days or adding calf raises to one of the circuits. The only reason I’d recommend putzing around like this is if it was the difference between you exercising and not exercising.

 

[itallgood]

@cbsmel Most of the exercises you recommend aren’t effective body weight exercises. Hip thrusts and deadlifts aren’t bodyweight movements that will effectively build strength for the average person. I don’t know how this is helpful for most women or men trying to improve lower body strength.

 

[cbsmel]

@itallgood Barbell exercises are recommended for legs

 

[dawn16]

@cbsmel I’m a woman and modified the RR to fit my goals. I added an extra leg exercise to the row/push-up set as well as splitting the ab set to two supersets so I could include calf work. Every day is a heavy lower body compound—squats, deadlift, or hip thrust—and I do those with my pull-up set so I can go as heavy as possible. The remaining leg exercises can either be one legged squat variations or deadlift variations. I also do weighted bench press, row, or shoulder press depending on the day. I’ve made excellent progress so far and have seen gains that don’t emulate the ‘bulky’ look that women fear.

 

[cbsmel]

@dawn16 Solid!

 

[dawn16]

@cbsmel Yeah I picked this up because I knew it would benefit the exercises I prefer to do—yoga and running. I love that it’s easy to fit in my schedule. Can’t do multiple unassisted pull-ups yet, but maybe one day.

 

[cbsmel]

@dawn16 Keep up the hard work.

 

[chenml60]

@cbsmel That was a great post. I always enjoy learning new literature about women-specific training physiology, so that was much appreciated. While, as the other one who commented, I also want to get my upper body stronger, and don't mind the "masculine" aesthetic, we all have to agree that the majority of women prefer to train the lower body because of aesthetics.
I always look for balance, so for me, the upper and lower have to go together. So this program was a great resource. I will try to add some things to my current routine to have a balanced upper/lower body strength.

 

[cbsmel]

@chenml60 I've tried to make it as balanced as possible. There are 17 weekly sets for lower body and 16 for upper body comppounds along with some additional arms and isolation work.

 

[chenml60]

@cbsmel Thank you, I will try it.

 

[jam_allday]

@cbsmel Your points are highly simplistic and generalized. I’ll just put a summary here of the abstracts if anyone doesn’t wants at tldr.

Women tend to have more endurance than men.

When you lower the weight of a movement, of course you will be able to do more compared to a guy who’s doing a one rep max. This is has to do with men possessing greater absolute strength capacity.

Women have the potential to make greater relative strength gains than men.

however, the women's vs. men's respective relative and absolute increases did not differ significantly

This paper says nothing about the potential for anything (at least not in the abstract). It’s a study for now. What should be noted is that both men and women will gain similar levels of muscle given the same regimen.

Women have better recovery capacity and can manage fatigue better than men.

I did not read all of it so I could be missing something. A common theme in two of them presents the idea that men work harder for a given task hence they are fatigued longer. This makes sense, e.g. sprinting faster means resting long. Ties back to greater inherent absolute strength.

This fatigue is also highly dependent on the task performed as mentioned by one of them.

There were no differences in muscle strength among the female subjects, regardless of recovery time

This I found interesting. Imo it could mean GTG methods would work better in women for 1-rm training. Needs more research.

Women can handle more training volume than men.

It’s been established that men exert greater absolute strength performance than women. Naturally, when the experiment is built around this, of course women will be able to handle more volume because the decreased intensity = less fatigue so they can train more. This also means female athletes in comparison to male athletes will have differing 1-rm calculators which I agree with.

5 is obvious.​

6 everyone has their own goals. Not all of them want big glutes and thighs.​

All the papers came to the conclusion that men have a greater ability to exert absolute strength in comparison to women. It is from this dichotomy that these variables like fatigue, etc, are brought about.

That’s about it. This has nothing to do with the post apart from providing a summary for the citation. I encourage everyone to workout and this program is certainly an alternative to RR

 

[georgieporgy12]

@cbsmel 30s/F here.

I do RR plus skills 2 times a week (unfortunately social + work schedule can’t fit 3 x 1.5-hour workouts) and it works fine.

Had to throw away 1/4 of my wardrobe yesterday because many of my clothes no longer fit around the chest/shoulder/tricep area. (And I love my “new” muscular arms.) Pants still fit fine.

I still do squat and hinge progression. Didn’t feel the additional needs to focus my training on my lower body. Had extremely muscular legs since I was a baby. The only lower body thing I should work on is lower body flexibility.

I’ll stick with RR+Skills.

 

[carose]

@georgieporgy12 Yeah the wardrobe change sucks. But I'd rather go on a cut than tuning down my upper body programme

 

[georgieporgy12]

@carose I love gaining muscle in my upper body. Feeling so much stronger. Throwing away my 1/4 wardrobe gives me reasons to buy new clothes too.

Also strong lat makes my waist looks smaller.

I find OP’s point 6 a bit too generic. Not every woman want to look like T-Rex. Most Instagram “fitness model” didn’t get their butt from exercise and I don’t plan to look like them.

 

[carose]

@georgieporgy12 I love my upper body strength too, it's useful for challenging hikes in the mountains as well. And it feels great to hang on a bar and not feel like a sack of rice.
Plus, no more lower back pain!

The current aesthetics are only a hype of the current times though. And it's a dangerous one, as it leads to crazy upper/lower body impalance in most women, which, I find, looks ridiculous. Also, a doctor told me that most women come to him because of lower back pain they got from squatting too much with bad form. Fitness is supposed to keep you healthy, not mess up your spine.