sydneyelise
New member
So I did the Recommended Routine for 1 year. I'm here to share things that I learned, things that I went through, and things that I wish I had known from the beginning. (In case you are new to this subreddit, the Recommended Routine is on the Routines tab or the side bar of this subreddit.)
A couple months ago, I also posted a 1 year transformation of me. If you are curious about the transformation part, you can have a look at this post. While that post is focused on the transformations and outcomes, this post is going to be focused on the detailed insights and learnings. I believe this post will be helpful for those who are starting out or who are currently doing the Recommended Routine. So sit tight!
There are a few exercises in the Recommended Routine that are unilateral such as archer rows, archer pull ups, shrimp squats, and etc. Try NOT to choose the unilateral exercises path if the progression has bilateral exercises path (archer rows path VS tuck front lever path).
There is a reason why unilateral exercises are put in the "alternative" paths and not in the "main" path. Shrimp squats are an exception as there is no choice unless you are doing weighted workouts (Besides, the Recommended Routine recommends doing weighted squats which is bilateral). Unilateral exercises take twice as much time to do and exhausts you much faster. This not only makes the session take much longer but also exhausts you faster and leaves you with less energy to do the rest of the work outs.
I always felt so exhausted after doing archer rows and shrimp squats. I hated doing these as I knew how exhausted I will be after doing these. After I switched to doing the tuck front lever instead of the archer rows, I felt much more relieved.
You can come back to those unilateral exercises when you are less of a beginner.
Bodyweight exercises have lots of straight arm exercises that need strong elbow connective tissues to do without injuries. In the warm ups section, there is Support Hold which is exactly doing the strengthening of the elbow connective tissues. Even if you think you are doing it with locked out arms, make sure you are actually doing it properly locked out.
For a very long time, I thought I was doing the support hold with locked out elbows. However, I realized later that I was not doing it properly. My arms were straight but they were not locked out. So when I started doing the RTO (Ring Turn Out) support hold, my right elbow started hurting. Turning the rings out kind of forces my elbows to be locked out. However, my elbow connective tissues were not strong enough as I was doing the support hold with NOT fully locked out elbows up until then.
Connective tissues take an extreme amount of time to get stronger. So, make sure you ARE doing the support hold and you are doing the support hold PROPERLY. Don't wait until later. It will make your life so much better down the road when you are ready to tackle the straight arm exercises.
Note: If you have hyperextended elbows, you need to do lots of biceps work and be extra cautious.
German Hang and Skin the Cats are not mentioned in the Recommended Routine iirc. However, it's part of the warm up in Overcoming Gravity's sample warm up. (In case you are new to this subreddit, Overcoming Gravity is a book written by one of the mods of this subreddit and the Recommended Routine is heavily based upon it)
German hang is another must do exercise, on top of the Support Hold, to strengthen your elbow connective tissues. I strongly suggest you to do the German Hang as part of the warm up after the Suppord Hold. Support hold kinda hits the elbow vertically while the german hang hits the elbow kinda diagonally. Make sure to do both.
Not only doing the german hang is important but also doing it with supinated grip is super important. For those of you who may not know what supinated grip is, try this: While standing, lift your arms backwards as if you are doing the Naruto ninja run. Now, make your palms face the ground. That is supinated grip. In other words, if your thumbs are pointing outwards, it is supinated and if your thumbs are pointing inwards, it is pronated.
Back lever is to be done with supinated grip. However, since I was doing the german hang with pronated grip, when I felt I'm ready to move on to the tuck back lever, I couldn't even do 1 second of it. My body wasn't ready for supinated grip. You can start the german hang with pronated grip but make sure you progress to supinated grip as soon as possible.
Note: Same caution as the Support Hold above
Somewhere in the Recommended Routine or in Overcoming Gravity, I believe it mentions to put the hardest exercises in the beginning so you can tackle them while you are fresh. This would work in general.
However, I felt like after doing the pair of pull ups and shrimp squats, where pull ups is the one I felt the hardest and shrimp squat is a unilateral exercise (as I mentioned above), I already felt too exhausted. The rest of the session, therefore, would be done poorly.
With my new trained-beginner/intermediate routine I started doing after 1 year of the Recommended Routine, I put the pull up exercise later in the session. Now I feel much more fresh for longer and can tackle the most of my session with much better condition.
So try both ways of putting hard ones in the beginning and putting hard ones in the end. See which one works better for you. Switching between the two every few months might be ideal, too.
This video of mine (It's a 15 minute video. Click only if you are committed!) will show and explain in detail what I went through doing each of the 9 progressions (Pull Ups, Squats, Dips, Rows, etc), Support Hold, Elbow Lever, and German Hang.
Good luck with your trainings!
TLDR: JUST READ THE BOLD POINTS
A couple months ago, I also posted a 1 year transformation of me. If you are curious about the transformation part, you can have a look at this post. While that post is focused on the transformations and outcomes, this post is going to be focused on the detailed insights and learnings. I believe this post will be helpful for those who are starting out or who are currently doing the Recommended Routine. So sit tight!
Unilateral vs Bilateral Exercises
There are a few exercises in the Recommended Routine that are unilateral such as archer rows, archer pull ups, shrimp squats, and etc. Try NOT to choose the unilateral exercises path if the progression has bilateral exercises path (archer rows path VS tuck front lever path).
There is a reason why unilateral exercises are put in the "alternative" paths and not in the "main" path. Shrimp squats are an exception as there is no choice unless you are doing weighted workouts (Besides, the Recommended Routine recommends doing weighted squats which is bilateral). Unilateral exercises take twice as much time to do and exhausts you much faster. This not only makes the session take much longer but also exhausts you faster and leaves you with less energy to do the rest of the work outs.
I always felt so exhausted after doing archer rows and shrimp squats. I hated doing these as I knew how exhausted I will be after doing these. After I switched to doing the tuck front lever instead of the archer rows, I felt much more relieved.
You can come back to those unilateral exercises when you are less of a beginner.
Keep Your Elbows PROPERLY Locked Out
Bodyweight exercises have lots of straight arm exercises that need strong elbow connective tissues to do without injuries. In the warm ups section, there is Support Hold which is exactly doing the strengthening of the elbow connective tissues. Even if you think you are doing it with locked out arms, make sure you are actually doing it properly locked out.
For a very long time, I thought I was doing the support hold with locked out elbows. However, I realized later that I was not doing it properly. My arms were straight but they were not locked out. So when I started doing the RTO (Ring Turn Out) support hold, my right elbow started hurting. Turning the rings out kind of forces my elbows to be locked out. However, my elbow connective tissues were not strong enough as I was doing the support hold with NOT fully locked out elbows up until then.
Connective tissues take an extreme amount of time to get stronger. So, make sure you ARE doing the support hold and you are doing the support hold PROPERLY. Don't wait until later. It will make your life so much better down the road when you are ready to tackle the straight arm exercises.
Note: If you have hyperextended elbows, you need to do lots of biceps work and be extra cautious.
German Hang and Supinated Grip
German Hang and Skin the Cats are not mentioned in the Recommended Routine iirc. However, it's part of the warm up in Overcoming Gravity's sample warm up. (In case you are new to this subreddit, Overcoming Gravity is a book written by one of the mods of this subreddit and the Recommended Routine is heavily based upon it)
German hang is another must do exercise, on top of the Support Hold, to strengthen your elbow connective tissues. I strongly suggest you to do the German Hang as part of the warm up after the Suppord Hold. Support hold kinda hits the elbow vertically while the german hang hits the elbow kinda diagonally. Make sure to do both.
Not only doing the german hang is important but also doing it with supinated grip is super important. For those of you who may not know what supinated grip is, try this: While standing, lift your arms backwards as if you are doing the Naruto ninja run. Now, make your palms face the ground. That is supinated grip. In other words, if your thumbs are pointing outwards, it is supinated and if your thumbs are pointing inwards, it is pronated.
Back lever is to be done with supinated grip. However, since I was doing the german hang with pronated grip, when I felt I'm ready to move on to the tuck back lever, I couldn't even do 1 second of it. My body wasn't ready for supinated grip. You can start the german hang with pronated grip but make sure you progress to supinated grip as soon as possible.
Note: Same caution as the Support Hold above
Exercise Order
Somewhere in the Recommended Routine or in Overcoming Gravity, I believe it mentions to put the hardest exercises in the beginning so you can tackle them while you are fresh. This would work in general.
However, I felt like after doing the pair of pull ups and shrimp squats, where pull ups is the one I felt the hardest and shrimp squat is a unilateral exercise (as I mentioned above), I already felt too exhausted. The rest of the session, therefore, would be done poorly.
With my new trained-beginner/intermediate routine I started doing after 1 year of the Recommended Routine, I put the pull up exercise later in the session. Now I feel much more fresh for longer and can tackle the most of my session with much better condition.
So try both ways of putting hard ones in the beginning and putting hard ones in the end. See which one works better for you. Switching between the two every few months might be ideal, too.
Lastly,
This video of mine (It's a 15 minute video. Click only if you are committed!) will show and explain in detail what I went through doing each of the 9 progressions (Pull Ups, Squats, Dips, Rows, etc), Support Hold, Elbow Lever, and German Hang.
Good luck with your trainings!
TLDR: JUST READ THE BOLD POINTS
