dontdosadness
New member
EDIT 15/01/2021: All of the Primer Build-up days are now out!
DAY 1! (START HERE)
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
EDIT 01/01/2021:
For those wondering where the Day 1 Post is:
The posts will be made on Reddit at 18:00 GMT every day (this is because it is around the highest hours of reddit activity throughout the day, while not being too late for me to respond to comments if needed)
However, every day post will be up on my website at 00:01 GMT every day, so Day 1 is up now if you'd like to check it there before the official reddit post.
https://www.nick-e.com/exercise-library/routines/reddit-bwf-primer/
Hey folks! Nick-E Here.
This is just a post continuing to get the word out about the launch of the first of 5 routines we're coming out with in 2021 as an update/overhaul to the existing RR; the BWF Primer Routine!
Now if you haven't seen last week's announcement, I'd strongly recommend you have a look through there, because it provides some important information about all this.
Check it out here
In the last post we outlined our plans for all 5 programs, but in this post, I'll be going into more of a deep dive on the BWF Primer, as it is on its way into general circulation in the New Year!
As this routine is meant to be replacing a longstanding fixture of the subreddit, I will try to use this post to be as explicit about my reasoning and justifications for how the routine is structured and how it was made as possible.
DISCLAIMER: BEGINNERS NEED NOT READ THIS NOW TO UNDERSTAND THE PROGRAM, HOWEVER, READING IT MAY HELP TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU HAVE ABOUT THE ROUTINE IN TERMS OF 'WHY AM I DOING THIS' or 'WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT?'
Ok, onto the content!
The Making of the BWF Primer Routine:
So in designing the BWF Primer Routine, a lot of thought went into both what people who are new to exercise need the most, and how to best deliver that information effectively.
With those two things in mind, the following factors were held up as the goal for what the BWF Primer should achieve.
- The program should provide the tools to learn what proper form is for any given exercise, and enable the person performing the routine to self-evaluate their performance, and/or provide an avenue through which others with more experience can check form.
- The program should allow for individuals to get started with minimal barrier to entry, and weave in reading with actual practice. This will space out the (unfortunately necessary and) relatively large quantity of reading required to learn proper form and understanding of training programs, thus considerably flattening out the originally steep learning curve.
- The program should be structured in such a way to facilitate habit formation to help new exercisers get into the groove more easily.
Now some people find this absolutely trivial and can just sit down for an hour, read through all the material and get going on their first session. However, for many others this has proven to be a bit more of a difficult task and has resulted in feeling too overwhelmed and intimidated to start.
This is where point #2 (and #3) comes in. The solution to this in the BWF Primer is a 14 day 'building period', where there is an activity and/or reading to do 6 days per week. The building period allows people to start without having to tackle the whole routine on Day 1. Additionally, the 6 day per week structure will help build consistency while also keeping the sessions short and sweet, atleast to begin with. This will be explained below in the routine outline.
The BWF Primer Routine: Outline
The purpose of the BWF Primer Routine is to take someone who has never exercised before/has not exercised very much before, and is not familiar with common exercises or principles of how exercise and training works, and get them to a minimally effective level of operation to start building strength and muscle.
In completion of the routine, you should be able to understand roughly how and why workouts are structured the way that they are, and how that facilitates improvements in your fitness. You will also develop competence in a series of fundamental exercises.
The exercises you should be able to competently and effectively do by the end of the routine are:
- Push-ups
- Horizontal Bodyweight Rows
- Squats
- Single Leg Glute Bridges
- Deadbugs
- Bird-dogs
Squats and Glute Bridges are your main lower body exercises,
and Deadbugs and Bird-dogs are your main core exercises.
That list is also ordered in the most likely order that the exercises will be learnt.
The BWF Primer Routine: Structure and Progression:
STRUCTURE:
The BWF Primer will start out with a 14 day building period (explained in the next section), building up to this workout shown below by the end of the 14 days, to be performed 3 times per week. (Ideally with one day of rest between each session, but if need be, you can do 2 sessions in a row. But not all 3)
Exercise
Sets and Rep ranges
Deadbugs
3x10-20
Birddogs
3x10-20
Row Progression OR Reverse Corner Push-ups
3x5-12
Pushup Progression
3x5-12
Glute Bridge Progression
3x8-15
Squat Progression
3x8-15
In all exercises, as a standard baseline, we will work with 60s rest between sets (between the fact that 1. The work will be submaximal and 2. New exercisers need to develop better work capacity and inter-set recovery, more than 60s is likely not needed.)
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PROGRESSION:
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All exercises should start out very easy, and you should be able to add 1 rep per set (up to 3 sets of the upper rep range, e.g. 12, 15 or 20 depending on the exercise) every session. If you hit a plateau in the first two weeks you've started too heavy. If you did start too heavy and stall (or fail) for more than 2 workouts in a row, drop 2 reps per set and continue with the old progression scheme. FOR EXAMPLE: If you fail to complete 3x9 two workouts in a row, you should go back down to 3x7 before progressing again.
If the above scheme does not enable you to progress past a plateau, many other methods (far more sophisticated than this) exist that are outside the scope of this routine that can be investigated if you need them!
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END STATE:
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You should be able to perform:
3x8 pushups
3x8 horizontal rows (body parallel to the floor at the bottom of the movement)
3x15 Squats
and 3x15 Glute bridges
all WITH GOOD FORM before moving on to the next program (For now, that will be the RR, but in future it will be the BWF Strength Foundation Routine). If you achieve one of these goals before reaching the rest, you may continue to progress in those exercises, or stay at that level and work on your form until all requisites are met.
(SIDE NOTE: If you were doing corner reverse push-ups, you should acquire something to do rows on and continue on this program until you reach the row progression, progressing everything else in the meantime )
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***A SIDE NOTE: RATIONALE FOR REP RANGES:**\*
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You may be wondering why the upper end rep ranges for this program are so high. There's a number of reasons:
- Due to the occasionally big jumps between progressions in BWF, its usually better in a program suited for the widest number of people to overestimate the level of strength needed to move on in a progression. If 8 reps of one progression JUST ABOUT gives you enough strength for 5 of the next (albeit maybe with not the best form), thats a needlessly rushed approach when alternatively building up to 12 reps in the former progression would allow for a comfortable acclimation to the next progression because it is well within your strength ability. In a way it sort of naturally periodizes the intensity of that progression rather than slamming your head into maximum intensity every single session.
- Working in a variety of rep ranges is important for too many reasons to go into, and too many beginner programs just slam people either with 5s, or with 5-8's.
- Specifically for the squats and glute bridge progressions, BWF leg work is inherently limited in scope due and so naturally to squeeze the most benefit out of it, you will need to work in higher rep ranges, because if you do not have access to weights then you will hit a ceiling extremely quickly. Therefore, it's much better to treat BWF leg work on the "pump"-ier side of the rep range continuum.
14 Day Building Period
The structure of the 14 day building period is shown below:
Day
Task
Reading
Day 1
Pushups
Read about Push-up Form!
Day 2
Pushups
Some Brief Training Theory (TBD)
Day 3
Pushups, Rows
Read about Row Form!
Day 4
Pushups, Rows
Some Brief Training Theory (TBD)
Day 5
Pushups, Rows, Glute Bridge
Read about Glute Bridge Form!
Day 6
Pushups, Rows, Glute Bridge
Some Brief Training Theory (TBD)
Day 7
REST!
Catch up on any reading you may not have done, or not have had time to do in the last week
Day 8
Pushups, Rows, Glute Bridge, Squat
Read about Squat Form!
Day 9
Pushups, Rows, Glute Bridge, Squat
Some Brief Training Theory (TBD)
Day 10
Deadbug, Pushups, Rows, Glute Bridge, Squat
Read about Deadbug Form!
Day 11
Deadbug, Pushups, Rows, Glute Bridge, Squat
Some Brief Training Theory (TBD)
Day 12
Birddog, Deadbug, Pushups, Rows, Glute Bridge, Squat
Read about Birddog Form!
Day 13
Birddog, Deadbug, Pushups, Rows, Glute Bridge, Squat
Some Brief Training Theory (TBD)
Day 14
REST!
Catch up on any reading you may not have done, or not have had time to do in the last week
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***SIDE NOTE: TOTAL VOLUME OF THE BUILD-UP PERIOD**\*
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Yet again you might be thinking to yourself:
"But Nick! How could you! Beginners shouldn't train 6x a week, beginners should train 3x per week! 6x per week is far too much volume for our poor beginners and they will surely die a fiery death from:
O V E R T R A I N I N G! ! ! ! ! ! "
If they were doing the full volume workout 6x per week, yes. That would certainly be likely to exceed the recovery capacity of a beginner athlete.
However:
- The volume of each session will be reduced as exercises are added to ensure the weekly volume stays at a manageable level, and generally around the volume of the full routine (The current RR, for example, is 81 weekly working sets. The full BWF Primer is 54 sets of sub-max work. Week 1 will be around 45 sets, and week two will be 60. Of very sub-maximal form work mostly. There is zero chance of exceeding your recovery capacity as a beginner if you work in the guideline intensity)
- The intensity of this routine is meant to be low for the 14 day build-up. The intensity of the sets are not meaningfully high enough to impact your recovery in this period because the purpose of this period is learning, not really pushing yourself and trying to make huge gains.
The End.
So that's the BWF Primer as I've got it developed so far in readiness for the New Year!
There's still some finishing touches to go before it's ready, and it will likely continue to be developed to smooth out any rough edges (all programs have them when they are transferred from the perfect, lab-like ideal conditions in someone's brain to the wild and wacky real world), but the goal is to get it to a minimally effective state by New Year's so the first cohort of people going through the first 14 day build-up Community Workout will get a good experience!
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading
If you are experienced enough with fitness and exercise that you perfectly understood all that and would like to be a helpful member of the /r/bodyweightfitness community, you should join the Discord server and opt-in to the 'Newbie Helper' role, to help get ready for the New Year's Rush, as beginners will be joining during the community event to ask questions! https://discord.gg/5MsaChT3YF
Cheers,
Nick-E