Hello Wim,
Of course I can describe what I do. I hope it will help you but remember there are so many smarter people on here. All I can say is that this currently works for me / my training partner and we're both martial artists and I think it makes sense as to why.
I'll try and answer your questions in order.
What does the routine look like?
It is very simple. Tuesday and Friday we perform 6 ladders with a maximum height of 3 rungs. The movements are the chinup/pullup followed by handstand push up (so ladder 1 of the pullups, followed by ladder 1 of the handstand pushups, followed by ladder 2 of the pullups, etc). The rest period is dictated by the partner performing his reps (if you do this on your own just estimate the rest length if someone performed the same rep straight after you). So a sample day session would look like this:
PU 1,2,3/1,2,3/1,2,3/1,2,2/1,2,1/1,1,1//
HS 1,2,3/1,2,2/1,2,2/1,2,2/1,2,1/1,2,1//
We never train to failure. This is repeated each session until 1,2,3 is achieved for the respective 6 ladders. When it is add weight or make the movement harder.
A thing to note is that we decided with the chinups / pullup ladder to first do chin ups until the 6 ladders are completed and then move to thumbless pullups until that ladder of 6 is completed. Then we add weight and start back with the chinups and repeat. (This is because chinups are easier and we feel that following with pullups fills in any strength gaps).
What if you can't do a handstand pushup (or a chin up for that matter)?
If you can't do a decent number of handstand pushups then start like we did by putting something on the floor to go down to like a stack of bricks / books. Complete the 6 ladders and then take away a brick or book and start again. If you can't do them then you could do incline pressups or similar until you can.
For the chinups you can do negatives by jumping up to the top of the bar and lowering yourself under control. This is how I started.
What results?
This is of course a little subjective. Muscularly I/we have, no surprise, seen a thickening of biceps, triceps, lats, shoulder musculature etc. It has enabled us both to stay pretty fresh for the rest of our training as we never train to failure. My speed is good and I feel more structure in many movements. It feels like very useable strength.
In the months I have been doing it I have gone from having to embarrassingly jump for a lot of the bodyweight reps in the pull ups to currently chinning with an additional 24kg hanging from me. Handstands have gone from partial range of motion to nose to the ground and next session I will be increasing the depth. Best of all it has been a steady regular approach that makes me confident I will be doing 1/2 bodyweight chinups in the not to distant future etc. My training partner started out in better shape and has seen similar excellent results.
**Now not your question but my own suggestion. You mention that you run and like running and that you also like kettlebells. Consider this as an option. Make sure that without fail you do the above for strength every week. If you feel you need additional conditioning on top of what you already do in your MA practice then 2-3 x a week run or do kettlebell swings (I would follow this excellent plan
http://brittlift.blogspot.de/2010/09/have-you-got-timetimed-progression-in.html). But never miss a strength session. Two a week without fail.
I deliberately don't do any extra conditioning other than 2-3 45 min runs a week because I do a lot of deep stance training which cooks my legs already. If I didn't I might do the kettlebell work.
I think all in all this is an excellent routine worth considering. Gives you strength, keeps you pretty rested, doesn't take too long.... what more can you want. The rest is down to consistently doing the sessions. One thing I will finish with is that you must select something and stick with it for 3 months or more to really get the most from it. If you decide on this then don't look for anything else..... just get 'er done.
I hope that helps.
Cheers,
Richard
