Everything About Progressions
Choosing progressions
The same procedure that will be presented is applicable if you are doing stand alone workouts, or modules (which you can learn more about HERE.
You can check out this video for a detailed follow-along on how to get started using a program, or workout and choosing progressions:
In depth follow along video on how to get started with programs and workouts.
Your first workout will necessarily be a bit more time consuming and challenging because you will need to choose progressions for each exercise. This is the only way to assure that the programs and workouts are as efficient as possible and that you work at your limit and get the best results possible.
It is very important that you spend time experimenting with and selecting the proper progressions that are challenging enough. Have a look at the exercise descriptions to get an idea of the rep range you should be working with, to make an educated choice of progression.
How to select progressions in the app
EXERCISE/PROGRESSION CARDS
Each exercise category (except for some warm-up drills) has a progression button on the right side. Clicking this will make a list of available progressions appear. When first doing a specific program, or workout, we must choose the progression that is most suiting to our level.
The progression should be chosen based on the details provided on the exercise card. For example, if it says “5-10 reps - to failure”, that means you should choose a progression you are able to perform 5-10 reps of. If you are able to do 10, then you may want to choose an harder progression. If you are not able to do 5 reps, you should consider choosing an easier progression.
PROGRAMMING APPROACH
Below you will see an example of an exercise card with the rep scheme “collecting seconds. While the progressions can be changed by clicking the arrows on the right, the rep scheme stays the same throughout all the different progressions in this exercise category. In these kinds of rep schemes, the goal time indicated by (20s) will also change throughout the progressions. In this case, the next progression will be “tuck planche (30s) (PL2)”. Don’t mind the (PL2), it’s just for organisation.
In the above example of an exercise card, you need to choose a progression (by clicking the arrows on the right) that you are able to hold the specified goal time (in this case 20 seconds) in 5, or less than 5 tries. when you are able to hold the specified goal time in less than 3 tries, you are ready for the next progression. In this case 1 set is considered to be the amount of tries needed to complete the goal time. You will also rest 20-30 seconds between the tries. Collecting set is inspired by classic weight lifting rep schemes rest-pause sets and cluster sets. You can learn more about “collecting seconds” rep scheme and other rep schemes used in the app in the videos below.
A short introduction to the concept of programming of bodyweight and calisthenics strength, handstanding etc.
once you have chosen a progression for each exercise in the workout, you can save the choice so that the app remember this throughout your program. As you get stronger, you can of course choose a more challenging progression under ways.
The “5-10 reps - to failure” and the “collecting seconds” rep schemes are just examples and there are many different set schemes provided in the different workouts. Here is a video gallery with instructions for the different rep schemes:
TEST DAYS
On most of the broader programs (all the bodyweight programs and handstand programs as well as others) there are test days. These test days is the first day of the program and includes all exercise categories used in the entire program and all of its workouts. The test day can have 2 functions:
Learn More About Test Days
If it is your first time doing a program, you spend this day testing out the different progressions on each exercise category to find the most suitable progression according to your level.
When you are repeating the program (which you should expect to do), you can spend this day experimenting with more advanced progressions and see if you are able to bump up your level in any of the exercise categories. This can also be done continously throughout the program before starting a workout, so you do not have to wait for the next test day top do this.
You can use it as a traditional test day when re doing the program. You can note down the number of repetitions and compare it to the previous time you performed the test day. measuring progress is an important part of your training journey to make sure you are actually seeing progress.
SKIPPING, OR CUSTOMIZING PROGRESSIONS
The app contains more than 1000 progressions spread out between the different programs. Some of these are duplicates specifying specific rep ranges and hold times, cause lets be honest, 20 seconds of planche compared to 10 seconds of planche is as much a progress as jumping from one variation to the next, and should be celebrated as such.
Can you skip progressions? YES, of course - if you are able to stick to the specified rep range for the exercise, then go ahead. Especially for technical exercises, some steps may be ambiguous for some people. Other times, two progressions may even be of the same difficulty, just in a different way, or with different equipment so you can choose what is most convenient for you. We are also all different, so in a few cases, one progression that is considered more difficult for some, may be easier for you and vice versa.
In some cases however, you may even want to introduce your own progressions between two progressions by doing what I like to call progression interpolation.
In short this means that for progressions including distances and depths, you can create an intermediate progression with the distance, or depth in between the one specified by the two separate progressions.