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Bodyweight Hi Need Help any adv Appreciated

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Jma25801

Level 1 Valued Member
Hi,

Just got into fitness and strength bodyweight. Discovered GTG, now I can only do two pushups and 6 inverted rows Max test on Sunday. So for 5 days this week shall I do 8 rounds daily of both 1 push up and 3 rows untill Friday, then take two days off max test again on Sunday and then see my increase and work it out from then? Or????

Also where can I do leg workouts I do bodyweight squats and step ups what days and shall I do these regular 3x a week? Or????

Thanks.
 
Welcome!

Doing singles to triples, GTG-style, for a beginner can work alright. However, I would suggest finding regressions that allow you to perform more reps (think max of 8-10, so your working GTG sets will be 4-5)

Some questions for you:

-For your inverted rows: How are you performing them? Feet on the floor, straight body? Rings? bar? Overhand (pronated grip) or underhand (supinated grip)?

If rings : By supporting your feet against something or even just standing farther back from the anchor point of rings, this will make you stand taller, less parallel to the floor. This will make the rows easier so you can get some extra reps.

If bar: consider bending at the knees to decrease the amount of strength needed to pull.

For pushups:

Elevate your hands on chairs, furniture or the like until you can do 8-10 reps. That will allow you to practice GTG sets at 4-5 reps. A max of 3 pushups on the floor means you are working quite close to your maximum capacity, so I would recommend reducing the difficulty and building reps there for a while.

For legs:
Depends on how tired you feel from the other work, and what your overall goals are. You can easily GTG for the legs as well, using bodyweight squats, lunges, or step ups. You can follow a similar template as the upper body, or you can just do a set with the upper body and just stop before you feel like it's feeling "hard."

Takeaways:
Reduce the difficulty to get a few more pratice reps in, and stop well short of fatigue on each set. Stay fresh!

Welcome to the forum and happy training!
 
Welcome to the forum!

If I can add to Jeff's very good advice, still feeling like I'm new to training some days, even after 8 years or so.

Take your time to work on technique. Don't look at rep numbers as much as feeling the strength you are gaining. Your technique is more than likely average to good at best. That leaves a lot of room for improvement without necessarily gaining reps every week (which you won't after a while).

Look at these articles and work on the accessory exercises too. Even if you aren't working pull-ups yet or pistols, the same principles apply. You won't get perfect reps the first time, but strive in time to get those. Work on the plank, hollow body hold and hollow hang. Consider these variants of the main skill and add them into your GTG practice. For example, work on a good plank before your push-ups, think of it as working on your push-up position. Do 1-2x15 sec holds before starting your GTG practice. Same before rows with hollow holds on the floor or on a bar. Keep the holds brief but try and work on the finer points, one at a time. Work on perfecting each point one at a time while also considering the whole. One week focus on squeezing the abs strongly, one week make the glutes the focus while also keeping the abs etc.

One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Push-up | StrongFirst
One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Pull-up | StrongFirst
One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Pistol | StrongFirst

I stayed stuck at 10 push-ups for years and it's only when I started focusing on having the perfect plank while doing push-ups, doing a pause at the bottom of each rep before pushing back up and stopping as soon as my reps slowed down, that I started making progress. These principles apply to elevating your hands also. You can do that while doing them on a chair or bench or even the wall (I have for months in the past). These technical aspects will make them harder, you will do less reps, but you are getting stronger, not chasing reps. Keep that in mind. Testing every week isn't necessary. I would do ladders, starting at 1 rep and stopping when my reps slowed down. Sometimes it took me 10 minutes to do a ladder of 1 to 5. I'd do a couple of those per day, with only one big day per week, the rest being average. I slowly went from 2 ladders of 1 to 5 (30 total reps) to 5-6 ladders. You might progress much faster than me, just know that it takes time to refine your technique.

Also don't worry about doing a fixed number of daily sets, do more some days and less on others. Something like 3-4-5 or 6-7-8 or 6-8-10 can be good general templates and allows you to have easier days, but 4-7-9 or anything else could be good also depending on your available time to train, as long as you respect the principles of staying fresh and keeping reps perfect in time you will make progress.
 
Last edited:
Benjamin Renaud said:
Welcome to the forum!

If I can add to Jeff's very good advice, still feeling like I'm new to training some days, even after 8 years or so.

Take your time to work on technique. Don't look at rep numbers as much as feeling the strength you are gaining. Your technique is more than likely average to good at best. That leaves a lot of room for improvement without necessarily gaining reps every week (which you won't after a while).

Look at these articles and work on the accessory exercises too. Even if you aren't working pull-ups yet or pistols, the same principles apply. You won't get perfect reps the first time, but strive in time to get those. Work on the plank, hollow body hold and hollow hang. Consider these variants of the main skill and add them into your GTG practice. For example, work on a good plank before your push-ups, think of it as working on your push-up position. Do 1-2x15 sec holds before starting your GTG practice. Same before rows with hollow holds on the floor or on a bar. Keep the holds brief but try and work on the finer points, one at a time. Work on perfecting each point one at a time while also considering the whole. One week focus on squeezing the abs strongly, one week make the glutes the focus while also keeping the abs etc.

One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Push-up | StrongFirst
One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Pull-up | StrongFirst
One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Pistol | StrongFirst

I stayed stuck at 10 push-ups for years and it's only when I started focusing on having the perfect plank while doing push-ups, doing a pause at the bottom of each rep before pushing back up and stopping as soon as my reps slowed down, that I started making progress. These principles apply to elevating your hands also. You can do that while doing them on a chair or bench or even the wall (I have for months in the past). These technical aspects will make them harder, you will do less reps, but you are getting stronger, not chasing reps. Keep that in mind. Testing every week isn't necessary. I would do ladders, starting at 1 rep and stopping when my reps slowed down. Sometimes it took me 10 minutes to do a ladder of 1 to 5. I'd do a couple of those per day, with only one big day per week, the rest being average. I slowly went from 2 ladders of 1 to 5 (30 total reps) to 5-6 ladders. You might progress much faster than me, just know that it takes time to refine your technique.

Also don't worry about doing a fixed number of daily sets, do more some days and less on others. Something like 3-4-5 or 6-7-8 or 6-8-10 can be good general templates and allows you to have easier days, but 4-7-9 or anything else could be good also depending on your available time to train, as long as you respect the principles of staying fresh and keeping reps perfect in time you will make progress.
Click to expand...
Wow thanks srs great information here how many days per week you reckon? 5 days and 2 days off? Or a different split? Like 4 or 3 days a week? I'll see after 6 weeks my progression. How about doing 1 negative before my pushup also? Same with inverted row?
Plank before pushups, hollow body hold before inverted rows shall do the sets one after the other like pushups first followed by my inverted row set. Please can you explain what you mean one big day per week. So on my average days/normal days it could 4 sets or 5 sets etc but of ladders so if my max elevated pushups are 10, I can do ladders of 1-4 or 1-3 to start with if I can manage to do that in a rotation of daily sets varying on days as you mentioned 3-4-5 etc. I would like something like 3-4-5-6-7
 
bluejeff said:
Welcome!

Doing singles to triples, GTG-style, for a beginner can work alright. However, I would suggest finding regressions that allow you to perform more reps (think max of 8-10, so your working GTG sets will be 4-5)

Some questions for you:

-For your inverted rows: How are you performing them? Feet on the floor, straight body? Rings? bar? Overhand (pronated grip) or underhand (supinated grip)?

If rings : By supporting your feet against something or even just standing farther back from the anchor point of rings, this will make you stand taller, less parallel to the floor. This will make the rows easier so you can get some extra reps.

If bar: consider bending at the knees to decrease the amount of strength needed to pull.

For pushups:

Elevate your hands on chairs, furniture or the like until you can do 8-10 reps. That will allow you to practice GTG sets at 4-5 reps. A max of 3 pushups on the floor means you are working quite close to your maximum capacity, so I would recommend reducing the difficulty and building reps there for a while.

For legs:
Depends on how tired you feel from the other work, and what your overall goals are. You can easily GTG for the legs as well, using bodyweight squats, lunges, or step ups. You can follow a similar template as the upper body, or you can just do a set with the upper body and just stop before you feel like it's feeling "hard."

Takeaways:
Reduce the difficulty to get a few more pratice reps in, and stop well short of fatigue on each set. Stay fresh!

Welcome to the forum and happy training!
Click to expand...
Thanks I will regress and do elevated on the stairs thanks, I will use ring's and elevate myself for inverted rows so I can hit 10 or more. For lower body step ups I feel like like I'll just do a set with the upper body before I start feeling like it's getting hard or fatigue which is usually around 8 reps. Thanks just a quick question how many days per week 5 days and two off? I'm going to do this for 6 weeks. How do I know when shall I change the reps when I get stronger or....
 
Benjamin Renaud said:
Welcome to the forum!

If I can add to Jeff's very good advice, still feeling like I'm new to training some days, even after 8 years or so.

Take your time to work on technique. Don't look at rep numbers as much as feeling the strength you are gaining. Your technique is more than likely average to good at best. That leaves a lot of room for improvement without necessarily gaining reps every week (which you won't after a while).

Look at these articles and work on the accessory exercises too. Even if you aren't working pull-ups yet or pistols, the same principles apply. You won't get perfect reps the first time, but strive in time to get those. Work on the plank, hollow body hold and hollow hang. Consider these variants of the main skill and add them into your GTG practice. For example, work on a good plank before your push-ups, think of it as working on your push-up position. Do 1-2x15 sec holds before starting your GTG practice. Same before rows with hollow holds on the floor or on a bar. Keep the holds brief but try and work on the finer points, one at a time. Work on perfecting each point one at a time while also considering the whole. One week focus on squeezing the abs strongly, one week make the glutes the focus while also keeping the abs etc.

One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Push-up | StrongFirst
One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Pull-up | StrongFirst
One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Pistol | StrongFirst

I stayed stuck at 10 push-ups for years and it's only when I started focusing on having the perfect plank while doing push-ups, doing a pause at the bottom of each rep before pushing back up and stopping as soon as my reps slowed down, that I started making progress. These principles apply to elevating your hands also. You can do that while doing them on a chair or bench or even the wall (I have for months in the past). These technical aspects will make them harder, you will do less reps, but you are getting stronger, not chasing reps. Keep that in mind. Testing every week isn't necessary. I would do ladders, starting at 1 rep and stopping when my reps slowed down. Sometimes it took me 10 minutes to do a ladder of 1 to 5. I'd do a couple of those per day, with only one big day per week, the rest being average. I slowly went from 2 ladders of 1 to 5 (30 total reps) to 5-6 ladders. You might progress much faster than me, just know that it takes time to refine your technique.

Also don't worry about doing a fixed number of daily sets, do more some days and less on others. Something like 3-4-5 or 6-7-8 or 6-8-10 can be good general templates and allows you to have easier days, but 4-7-9 or anything else could be good also depending on your available time to train, as long as you respect the principles of staying fresh and keeping reps perfect in time you will make progress.
Click to expand...
Progression instead of testing is just adding more ladders when you feel or get stronger yh 'one big day' is doing a set of how many ladders you can in one daily session to my max?
 
Jma25801 said:
how many days per week 5 days and two off? I'm going to do this for 6 weeks. How do I know when shall I change the reps when I get stronger or....
Click to expand...
5 should be fine. The key is to learn to listen to your body. If, say, at day 4 you notice that you can't do as many reps, or you feel sore, or the reps feel noticeably more difficult, then take an easy day or just rest. You don't specifically have to do 5 days on/2 days off. If you feel you need a rest after two days, that's fine. As long as you're averaging something like 4 days a week you're probably good. That's the nice thing about GTG: you just do it when you're able. Since each little mini session throughout the day is pretty short, you can squeeze them in more easily.

If you notice that things are feeling easy, take a rest day or two and then retest. You don't have to test on a schedule, unless it's helpful for you.
 
bluejeff said:
5 should be fine. The key is to learn to listen to your body. If, say, at day 4 you notice that you can't do as many reps, or you feel sore, or the reps feel noticeably more difficult, then take an easy day or just rest. You don't specifically have to do 5 days on/2 days off. If you feel you need a rest after two days, that's fine. As long as you're averaging something like 4 days a week you're probably good. That's the nice thing about GTG: you just do it when you're able. Since each little mini session throughout the day is pretty short, you can squeeze them in more easily.

If you notice that things are feeling easy, take a rest day or two and then retest. You don't have to test on a schedule, unless it's helpful for you.
Click to expand...
Thanks
 
Jma25801 said:
Please can you explain what you mean one big day per week
Click to expand...
I mean with the total number of reps. Let's say first week you get to 50 total reps (on one exercise) on a big day where you had time to do a lot of sets (ten sets of 5 or 3 ladders of 1,2,3,4,5 for 45 reps), the other days of the week you could do 20-40 reps. A couple of weeks latter your big day could be 55-70 total reps and your other days 25-50 total reps.

Also, you can vary the rep scheme you use from day to day. Have fun with it. Some days you could try doing sets of 3, some days you could do ladders of 1,2,3,4... (stop when rep speed slows down), other days when pressed for time you could do sets of 5 with less total sets. When doing smaller sets you will be more powerful and stronger on each rep. Make sure you work on a perfect set-up every time.
Jma25801 said:
I'm going to do this for 6 weeks. How do I know when shall I change the reps when I get stronger or....
Click to expand...
Like I said if your rep speed slows down you stop the set. You will notice after a few weeks that you can add a rung to your ladders, or that you can more easily do sets of 5 without slowing down at the last rep.

Just to be clear, slowing down means that when you push for a push-up, you notice you start to struggle a bit. It doesn't mean trying to do your reps super fast without taking the time to lower with control or without taking a short pause at the bottom.

Have fun training!
 
I forgot to mention this before, but if your aim is to do pull-ups, you can also set your rings up low enough so that they are about chest height and do feet assisted pull-ups instead of rows. You could easily do rows on some days and assisted pull-ups on other days.

Here I use a low bar but rings would work very well for these too. Use as little assistance as needed especially on the lowering phase. You could also use only one leg.

 
Benjamin Renaud said:
I forgot to mention this before, but if your aim is to do pull-ups, you can also set your rings up low enough so that they are about chest height and do feet assisted pull-ups instead of rows. You could easily do rows on some days and assisted pull-ups on other days.

Here I use a low bar but rings would work very well for these too. Use as little assistance as needed especially on the lowering phase. You could also use only one leg.

Click to expand...


I do this with my barbell in the rack set about that height.
 
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