dontdosadness
New member
Hey guys! Nick-E here.
It's been quite a while since I've posted here, or since the sub has had much development at all; unfortunately no one on the mod team has quite as much time as we all used to, but a few of us are banding together to try and get the sub revitalised in the new year! This post is the first sign-post of things to come, in that respect.
A big part of that revitalisation will be a gradual overhaul of the wiki/FAQ content, and of the routines. (Including the RR! *gasp*)
This is something I've been wanting to do for at least the last whole year but between working and finishing my undergraduate degree, I've not had time until the last couple of months.
In terms of the justification for updating the RR:
There has always been talk on the undercurrents of the sub for many years, voicing various critiques of the RR
Not only that, but over the years of giving advice in our discord server (the absolute heart of the sub where the mods and many longtime community regulars hang out, come check it out: https://discord.gg/pG3CDZPMHP) I've found myself progressively giving more and more advice that is slightly (or very) in contradiction with the RR and I've found myself increasingly dissatisfied with it as the 'holy grail of the subreddit'.
As a result, over the last 3 months or so I've been toying with the concept of a total RR overhaul, and working on it whenever I have had any free time. I believe I've come up with the beginnings of a fairly sophisticated solution to many of the past issues the original RR suffered from.
At the beginning of the month, I proposed my ideas to the rest of the modteam and we collectively discussed it as well as other details relevant to the sub refurbishment.
Here is what was discussed. (NOTE: if you're new to exercise, you can skip all the nitty gritty details in the below section, and skip right to the one labelled 'New Year's Beginner Event!'.)
So the central theme of this overhaul is the idea that a single, cookie-cutter routine that is meant to be applicable to every one of our nearly 2 million (!!!) subscribers that can be run for an infinite period of time until death is just not tenable. So with this in mind, the overhaul will involve the creation of 5 separate routines, creating a pipeline from very absolute beginners to exercise all the way through to more advanced trainees whose goals will begin to diverge and specialise.
The routines labelled (WIP) stands for 'work in progress'. This means the routines are still in development. The more advanced routines need many more scrutinising eyes and collaborating hands on them and so will rightfully take a little longer to complete. The aim will be to get all of them done over the first half of the year, ideally (life circumstances allowing) before I start my Master's degree and lose all ability to continue to work on this for the greater part of 2 years, but we are aiming to launch the BWF Primer for the new year, so all the lovely newbies that want to start getting fit in the new year will have something appropriate to get them started.
Routine:
Purpose:
Details:
BWF Primer Routine
To ease people who are totally new to exercise into a routine, letting them learn as they go
Will give you something to do (almost) every day, and allow you to start exercising from day one, splitting the necessary reading/learning across an initial 2 week period.
BWF Strength Foundation Routine
The basics of BWF, intended to give you the foundation of strength required to follow any of the 3 following specialisation paths.
Most like the current RR in structure, but with very key changes made. Most notably, a specific end goal.
Weighted BWF Routine (WIP)
For people who have completed BWF Foundations Routine and want to continue gaining strength/muscle but don't care about gymnastics tricks, skills and levers
Will be a periodized repeatable block program focused on increasing the weighted versions of basic lifts (dip, pullup, row, pushup)
GST Specialisation Routine (WIP)
For people who have complete BWF Foundations and want to start learning tricks, skills and levers like Planche, Front Lever, Handstand, Muscle-up, etc.
This is the least well developed routine so far, but might include some modular programs based on focusing your progression on individual skills (E.g. planche focused routine, front lever focused routine).
BWF / Barbell Hybrid Routine (WIP)
For people who want to add some BWF into a gym based barbell routine or for people who have moved through the pipeline and want to put more emphasis on leg strength than BWF allows
Similar to weighted BWF, will be periodized repeatable program, adding progression towards Barbell Squats and Deadlifts, additionally using other gym equipment to augment your BWF training
The term 'pipeline' used above is key; the routines will funnel into one another, creating both a natural progression path for the total beginner, and also allowing for inlets for people new to BWF but not new to exercise, at various levels of existing fitness.
Here is an early draft of a flowchart of how that may work out, a slightly prettier, finalized version of this will likely be in the wiki in the future to help newcomers pick between the routines. (in that pic, intro to BWF is the 'BWF Primer'. The name keeps changing!)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...58164/draw.io_flowchart_of_RR_progression.jpg
So starting Jan 1st, we will be launching the BWF Primer Routine for absolute beginners to start to kick off their new year's resolutions.
These workouts will follow a set structure for the first 2 weeks, starting very short and easy, and over time will build up to a full workout routine by the end of the 2 weeks. The details of this will be explained in greater detail next week.
Importantly, because of this set structure (this will be explained in detail in next week's post) people will be able to all start on the same day, and follow through it together, using a centralised daily post that will be stickied at the top of the sub to check in and discuss how its going with other people who are doing the same thing! Sweet, sweet accountability!
For example:
Every day there will be a post saying 'New Year's Community Workout: BWF Primer Day X' (or something to that effect, fancy name is pending, and pun suggestions are welcome). In that post, there will be instructions on what exactly to do in your workout on that day, and some informational/educational reading relevant to the workout. People can comment how it went, questions they have about the reading, and just generally discuss in the comments section of that post!
Simply put, if you have been wanting to get started with exercise, this Jan 1 will be the best time to do so with an easy guided routine that you can do in a big community of other new people, for free! If you know anyone who wants to start exercising but doesn't know how, let them know about this event starting in the new year!
New year's is exactly 2 weeks away as of today. I will be posting about this next week to go into more detail about the program as well as to remind people of the event.
For all the users that don't know me (which is probably most by now), I've been a part of the r/bwf community for about 6 years now. I've been a mod for almost 3 years, where I came on the team initially to take part in the development of the last major RR update, working alongside the other training-savvy mods. I also have a website, (nick-e.com) from which I used to post articles and tutorials about BWF for the subreddit semi-regularly between 3 and 5 years ago when I was a wee lad not yet having found my footing as a fitness professional. I am currently undergoing a website re-design that will hopefully be coming out before the New Year as well, to provide some content to go along with the new routines.
In terms of my credentials (incase anyone wants to know 'who the heck is this guy and why is he touching our precious RR):
It's been quite a while since I've posted here, or since the sub has had much development at all; unfortunately no one on the mod team has quite as much time as we all used to, but a few of us are banding together to try and get the sub revitalised in the new year! This post is the first sign-post of things to come, in that respect.
A big part of that revitalisation will be a gradual overhaul of the wiki/FAQ content, and of the routines. (Including the RR! *gasp*)
This is something I've been wanting to do for at least the last whole year but between working and finishing my undergraduate degree, I've not had time until the last couple of months.
In terms of the justification for updating the RR:
There has always been talk on the undercurrents of the sub for many years, voicing various critiques of the RR
Not only that, but over the years of giving advice in our discord server (the absolute heart of the sub where the mods and many longtime community regulars hang out, come check it out: https://discord.gg/pG3CDZPMHP) I've found myself progressively giving more and more advice that is slightly (or very) in contradiction with the RR and I've found myself increasingly dissatisfied with it as the 'holy grail of the subreddit'.
As a result, over the last 3 months or so I've been toying with the concept of a total RR overhaul, and working on it whenever I have had any free time. I believe I've come up with the beginnings of a fairly sophisticated solution to many of the past issues the original RR suffered from.
At the beginning of the month, I proposed my ideas to the rest of the modteam and we collectively discussed it as well as other details relevant to the sub refurbishment.
Here is what was discussed. (NOTE: if you're new to exercise, you can skip all the nitty gritty details in the below section, and skip right to the one labelled 'New Year's Beginner Event!'.)
Recommended Routine Overhaul:
So the central theme of this overhaul is the idea that a single, cookie-cutter routine that is meant to be applicable to every one of our nearly 2 million (!!!) subscribers that can be run for an infinite period of time until death is just not tenable. So with this in mind, the overhaul will involve the creation of 5 separate routines, creating a pipeline from very absolute beginners to exercise all the way through to more advanced trainees whose goals will begin to diverge and specialise.
The routines labelled (WIP) stands for 'work in progress'. This means the routines are still in development. The more advanced routines need many more scrutinising eyes and collaborating hands on them and so will rightfully take a little longer to complete. The aim will be to get all of them done over the first half of the year, ideally (life circumstances allowing) before I start my Master's degree and lose all ability to continue to work on this for the greater part of 2 years, but we are aiming to launch the BWF Primer for the new year, so all the lovely newbies that want to start getting fit in the new year will have something appropriate to get them started.
Routine:
Purpose:
Details:
BWF Primer Routine
To ease people who are totally new to exercise into a routine, letting them learn as they go
Will give you something to do (almost) every day, and allow you to start exercising from day one, splitting the necessary reading/learning across an initial 2 week period.
BWF Strength Foundation Routine
The basics of BWF, intended to give you the foundation of strength required to follow any of the 3 following specialisation paths.
Most like the current RR in structure, but with very key changes made. Most notably, a specific end goal.
Weighted BWF Routine (WIP)
For people who have completed BWF Foundations Routine and want to continue gaining strength/muscle but don't care about gymnastics tricks, skills and levers
Will be a periodized repeatable block program focused on increasing the weighted versions of basic lifts (dip, pullup, row, pushup)
GST Specialisation Routine (WIP)
For people who have complete BWF Foundations and want to start learning tricks, skills and levers like Planche, Front Lever, Handstand, Muscle-up, etc.
This is the least well developed routine so far, but might include some modular programs based on focusing your progression on individual skills (E.g. planche focused routine, front lever focused routine).
BWF / Barbell Hybrid Routine (WIP)
For people who want to add some BWF into a gym based barbell routine or for people who have moved through the pipeline and want to put more emphasis on leg strength than BWF allows
Similar to weighted BWF, will be periodized repeatable program, adding progression towards Barbell Squats and Deadlifts, additionally using other gym equipment to augment your BWF training
The term 'pipeline' used above is key; the routines will funnel into one another, creating both a natural progression path for the total beginner, and also allowing for inlets for people new to BWF but not new to exercise, at various levels of existing fitness.
Here is an early draft of a flowchart of how that may work out, a slightly prettier, finalized version of this will likely be in the wiki in the future to help newcomers pick between the routines. (in that pic, intro to BWF is the 'BWF Primer'. The name keeps changing!)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...58164/draw.io_flowchart_of_RR_progression.jpg
New Year's Beginner Event!
So starting Jan 1st, we will be launching the BWF Primer Routine for absolute beginners to start to kick off their new year's resolutions.
These workouts will follow a set structure for the first 2 weeks, starting very short and easy, and over time will build up to a full workout routine by the end of the 2 weeks. The details of this will be explained in greater detail next week.
Importantly, because of this set structure (this will be explained in detail in next week's post) people will be able to all start on the same day, and follow through it together, using a centralised daily post that will be stickied at the top of the sub to check in and discuss how its going with other people who are doing the same thing! Sweet, sweet accountability!
For example:
Every day there will be a post saying 'New Year's Community Workout: BWF Primer Day X' (or something to that effect, fancy name is pending, and pun suggestions are welcome). In that post, there will be instructions on what exactly to do in your workout on that day, and some informational/educational reading relevant to the workout. People can comment how it went, questions they have about the reading, and just generally discuss in the comments section of that post!
Simply put, if you have been wanting to get started with exercise, this Jan 1 will be the best time to do so with an easy guided routine that you can do in a big community of other new people, for free! If you know anyone who wants to start exercising but doesn't know how, let them know about this event starting in the new year!
New year's is exactly 2 weeks away as of today. I will be posting about this next week to go into more detail about the program as well as to remind people of the event.
Some Context:
For all the users that don't know me (which is probably most by now), I've been a part of the r/bwf community for about 6 years now. I've been a mod for almost 3 years, where I came on the team initially to take part in the development of the last major RR update, working alongside the other training-savvy mods. I also have a website, (nick-e.com) from which I used to post articles and tutorials about BWF for the subreddit semi-regularly between 3 and 5 years ago when I was a wee lad not yet having found my footing as a fitness professional. I am currently undergoing a website re-design that will hopefully be coming out before the New Year as well, to provide some content to go along with the new routines.
In terms of my credentials (incase anyone wants to know 'who the heck is this guy and why is he touching our precious RR):
- I am a professional online strength/mobility/rehab coach, and do this stuff for a living
- I have an undergraduate degree in Sport and Exercise Science
- I am a certified Personal Trainer (lol) and Sports Massage Therapist
- I have been training for about 8 years, more than half of that time being BWF specific training
- Many years of learning both independent and from people much wiser than me, across internships in Strength & Conditioning in professional sport, mentorship from others while working in gyms over the years and many workshops and seminars from people like Yuri Marmerstein, Ido Portal, MovNat, Mikael Kristiansen, Kelly Starrett and more!
