Frequently Asked Questions

A repetition is a single time you perform an exercise.

A set is a group of repetitions (an example would be 3 sets of 12 repetitions). Usually done without stopping.

For isometric holds and static exercises, “reps” and “sets” are essentially the same thing. Progress is instead measured by time, usually.

Calisthenics warm-ups can be done in many ways.

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A sample warm-up:

1.) Run in place and do some jumping jacks for 30-60 seconds. The idea is just to increase the temperature in your muscles. Their ability to perform is hindered when they are too cold.

2.) Do an easier variation of the exercise you do during your sets.

For example, if you’re working on Full Pushups, warm up with Wall Pushups.

Do 1-2 sets of about 50% of your maximum repetitions. For example, if you feel like you can do 100 Wall Pushups, do 50.

If you’re currently working on the easiest listed version of an exercise, simply do fewer repetitions of that exercise.

For example, if you’re doing Wall Pushups, warm up with the jumping jacks and a few reps of Wall Pushups, but not near your limit.

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That’s it! Experiment with this process to find one that makes your workout better but does not hinder your numbers.

Short Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYLw1cMYHX0

Longer Full-body Warmup (Follow Along): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQSLrDQezsA

Current research seems to indicate that static stretching before an intense workout is usually not recommended. It can reduce performance and safety.

Instead, one can perform dynamic stretches before their workout. An example is given in the Warm Up section above.

Static and passive stretching can be done AFTER your workout, if you want.

1.) Make your own gym rings. You can do this at home, and you can hang them from any stable place, like rafters or a sturdy tree branch. Here’s a quick DIY tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFGWH4iK-AA

2.) Use a stable table or railing to do horizontal pullups. You can grab from underneath. See below if you have trouble visualizing this.

3.) Make your own horizontal pullup setup: https://youtube.com/shorts/ZmnNTBS_5tg?feature=share

4.) Do "Pullup Negatives." While not my favorite method, so people build up to a pullup using only this method.

5.) Invest in a pullup bar setup - this is the simplest and probably the most long-term solution. $50 can get you a great one from Amazon in many countries. Sometimes even as low as $30. We’ll soon carry Pullup Bars in our store as well.

I don’t currently offer personal coaching at the moment. I’m really sorry.

I’d love to personally help each and every one of you. However, at our current scale, this isn’t feasible unless I spent all my time on this OR charged astronomically high prices - neither of which I want to do.

My friend Ben Patrick @kneesovertoesguy has a great online coaching program called ATG. His full-body method strengthens the body and protects it from future injury. Like my method, he offers regressions to adapt his exercises to any fitness level.

It’s also one of the most affordable programs that offer support and form coaching that I’ve ever seen.

I don’t have any kind of endorsement deal or anything. I’m just recommending them based on the NUMEROUS positive testimonies I’ve heard: https://www.atgonlinecoaching.com/

This is taken from my answer to a wonderful community member:

I could talk about this for hours... but the upshot is that I think progression > variety in almost all cases.

One of my qualms with the modern fitness culture is the over-segmentation of exercises. There are hundreds of muscles, but the body is designed to move together.

Focusing on a few scalable KEY movements develops strength and muscle across the body in a functional and aesthetically pleasing way.

Progressive calisthenics is just one way to do this. If someone wanted to use barbells or isometrics, it could also be done with something like... overhead press, bench press, squats, deadlifts, weighted pullups, and... well I'd retain hanging leg raises for ab work. They're hard to beat.

Any further segmentation can be done, but as a supplement to the current exercise routine. You can see "in-progress" sections on the routine that allude to this. For example, human flag work can be used to supplement leg raises. Calf raises can be used to supplement squats.

Why do I think it's better than variety? Well, time for one thing. One of the biggest barriers to fitness is "not enough time." Focusing on key movements saves time. Additionally, intensity. The MORE exercises we have in a workout session, the less intensity we can really focus into them. All else equal, this would mean less strength and muscle development.

I think the key point is the crossover of ability. I'll use myself as an example of someone who focused on progression. By simply building up to one-arm pullups, I'm able to do multiple wide pullups, narrow pullups, underhand pullups, commando pullups, or what have you. While slightly different movement patterns, the muscles worked are similar enough that overall strength just dominates segmentation of exercise.

However, the opposite would not be true. Someone who spent more time on variety would make less and slower progress towards one-arm pullups (because of the intensity factors I mentioned above), and is UNLIKELY to be able to do them at all unless they focused on progression.

This is just one example.

To use your examples, one arm pushups will put much more intensity through your triceps, shoulders, and chest than diamond, wide, and pike pushups. Overhead pressing (handstand pushups) are coming though.

Now specialization absolutely has it's place. Some advanced athletes or bodybuilders may want to target a specific body part, for example. Once again, they're free to do so by supplementing the routine that already exists.

Additionally, variety is already built in! It'd be a slightly different discussion if we only added weight to one movement.

Plus I enjoy variety. It's good to change things up every few months, in my opinion.

But I'll conclude by saying that, while I understand how the routine seems "one dimensional," the simplicity of the routine is a result of MORE research and experience, not less. I fully respect if people want to follow a different routine that involves more variety, but I'm also fully expecting those that work through the routine to have more athletic ability and resistance to injury.

Hope that makes sense! Once again, people can do whatever they choose! I just wanted to show the research and thought that went into it.

This is probably the most common issue with squats; luckily, there are some pretty simple solutions for it!

1) Try adjusting your stance - having your feet a bit wider apart and your feet turned out slightly can help you be more upright and require less mobility in your hips and ankles!

But seeing as that isn't always an option, such as when we're working with narrow squats, here are some tutorials on how to improve your mobility, too :)

2) Ankle Mobility - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W0qCrpz3oiE (Calf Raises, Tibialis Raises, Assisted Deep Squat Holds - these will also help with your hip mobility)

3) Hip Mobility - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AtX_x7U9yNQ (Child's Pose with Side Reach)

While you work on improving those things you have 2 options:

Do your squats with a full range of motion but allow your heels to come up

Do your squats only so deep that your heels stay on the floor

I recommend the first option if you can do so without any pain; otherwise, stick to the second and aim to improve that range of motion over time!

Especially when you're starting out it's very normal not to feel the muscles you want to work during the exercises that train them!

It might just be that you haven't had enough practice with the movement yet to develop a good feeling for the muscles that are working, or that other muscles are a bit weaker and need to catch up first, and that's perfectly okay - your chest is working even if you aren't actively feeling it doing so!

But there are some adjustments in technique that we can make to target our chest a bit more too, which are:

Having your elbows a bit away from your body, somewhere around 45° (0° being right by your side, 90° being your arms fully out to the side, perpendicular to your torso)

Having your hands right below your elbows, especially in the bottom position - so you'll have to place your hands a bit outside of shoulder width!

Focusing on retracting (bringing back/together) your shoulder blades as you go down

Using a deficit! By placing our hands onto something such as parallettes, dumbbells, or just some pieces of wood, we can go deeper and put even more of an emphasis on our chest

Whether or not they are comes down to you! It's definitely enough to make progress with the movements in the routine :)

1) Effort

Not all sets are equal! How much you push yourself during sets greatly determines how much you can get out of them. So if you feel like the 2 exercises per day aren't enough for you, start by making sure that you're getting as much out of them as you can

2) Training Goals

Pushing yourself more in your sets isn't always going to be the best course of action though, sometimes you'd rather add some different movements to complement the existing ones - after all, the Hybrid Routine is designed to be easy to implement and paired with other activities!

That's also exactly why we've made this blog here, to help you with it: https://www.hybridcalisthenics.com/blog/customize-the-routine

In case you want to build as much muscle as possible, you'll definitely also want to add additional exercises to the routine - and your diet will be even more important, which you can read more about here, in the Diet and Recovery section: https://www.hybridcalisthenics.com/blog/5q4tsx1iehaezlhfr5v724ml6wj2ue

This is usually not a reason for concern, but of course we'll want to work around it and improve it!

The number 1 thing to do is to make sure that your lower back keeps contact with the floor, but if that alone doesn't do the trick, there are some more options to help out!

Option 1

We can place a small rolled-up towel or our hands beneath our lower back and perform the exercise that way - the added support takes some of the pressure off our lower back and allows us to strengthen our abs and hip flexors, which will help us avoid the pain in future

Alternatively, we can also raise our head and upper back off the floor, being in more of a hollow body position and performing the movement while maintaining that position!

Option 2

If you feel that option 1 didn't really help, we can adjust our leg raises in different ways or support ourselves with different exercises, such as:

Reducing the range of motion: not letting our legs come down as far will make things easier and help you avoid pain

Working with isometrics: holding our legs up just high enough so that you can still keep your lower back against the floor

Supplement your training with different exercises such as planks, hollow body holds, or exercises that work the hip flexors in a lengthened position such as lunges, back bridges, or a couch stretch

It could be any one, or a combination of these options that help you! Just gradually progress with them to prepare yourself for regular leg raises and you should be good to go.

Side note: progressing with the back bridges may also help alleviate the issue!

Until now you've probably only been feeling your glutes, legs, or core - but that changes now, and it's okay!

You might be feeling the back of your upper arm (your triceps), or the back of your shoulder (your rear delt) quite a bit as you get started, and that's absolutely fine that way! Those two muscles have to work quite a bit to push you into the position and it's good that we train them, as we'll also need them in the upcoming bridge positions :)

If however you find that your wrists, elbows, or shoulders hurt, it might be best to regress things a little bit!

You can do this by keeping your legs slightly bent and closer to you, or by elevating your hands on something as we do for incline pushups <- that would be a good overall approach, but if you notice that your wrists specifically are causing you issues, see this video here! It might be for pushups, but it applies just the same https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BcgUyiwMsHY

It's okay to not always feel your muscles doing the work! As long as your form is good, they're bound to contribute!

Pushups: Pecs (chest), triceps (back of upper arm), front delts (front of shoulder)

Pullups/Horizontal Pullups: Lats (side/lower back), traps (mid/upper back), rhomboids (upper back), rear delts (back of shoulder), brachialis (front/outside of upper arm), biceps (front of upper arm), forearms

Leg raises: Abs, hip flexors (top/front of thighs), the obliques (sides of core) and spinal erectors (along the spine/lower back) work a bit too

Squats: Glutes (buttocks), quads (front of thighs), hamstrings (back of thighs) and calves (back of lower leg) a little bit

Twists: Hip abductors (outside of hips), spinal erectors (along the spine), obliques (sides of core), shoulders and general spinal mobility

Bridge:

Glute Bridge: Glutes (buttocks), hamstrings (back of thighs), abs, spinal erectors (along the spine/lower back)

Straight Bridge: Triceps (back of upper arm), rear delts (back of shoulder), glutes (buttocks), hamstrings (back of thighs), abs, spinal erectors (along the spine/lower back)

Back Bridge: shoulders, triceps (back of upper arm), rear delts (back of shoulder), glutes (buttocks), hamstrings (back of thighs), abs and hip flexors (they get stretched), spinal erectors (along the spine/lower back)

Achy joints are surely not a good thing, but it's something that happens to everyone at some point, so let's figure out why and what to do about it!

There are 3 common reasons and solutions, as laid out in this video https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HfyDZ0KmGEY

Doing exercises that are too hard for us - even though our muscles might be strong enough, our joints and connective tissues could still need some more time to adapt, so regressing to an easier variation can help us do exactly that!

Doing exercises too quickly - speed isn't inherently a bad thing, but if we go fast because we lack the necessary strength and control to do it more slowly, it might indicate that what we're doing is a bit too hard for the moment

Doing exercises with improper technique - many technique alterations make sense and are useful, but some may cause us to exceed the load capacity of our joints, meaning that they put more stress on them than they can handle without first working up to the position more!

But there are additional ways in which we can adjust our training to help out, such as:

Working with isometrics

Limiting the range of motion

Or (temporarily) replacing the exercise with a similar one! Such as replacing squats with lunges, pushups with dips, or leg raises with planks - you can read some more about that here https://www.hybridcalisthenics.com/blog/customize-the-routine

A good diet is as important to making good progress as your training itself, so let's cover some basics!

Food Choices - no matter the goal, eating a diet of mostly whole and nutritious food will allow us to be healthy and feel/perform our best!

Getting enough protein is quite important for our recovery and helping us effectively build up muscle and strength - if we want our best results, we should get between 1.5g-2.2g/kg (or between 0.7g-1g/lbs) of body weight a day

Our Calorie Balance is also quite important, especially if we're trying to make changes in our body composition! We either consume some more or some less calories than the amount of calories we use each day, which is referred to as our TDEE and can be easily calculated on sites such as this one: https://tdeecalculator.net/

200-300 calories extra a day to put on muscle and weight (weight-gain rate of 0.2-0.3kg/week (0.4-0.6lbs))

300-500 calories a day less to lose fat (weight-loss rate of ~0.25-0.5kg/week (0.5-1lbs))

Eating at maintenance will allow us to gradually lose some fat and build some muscle if the circumstances are right, but that of course (just like any other approach) needs to be paired with points 1 and 2!

Additionally, aim to sleep around 7-9 hours at night and drink at least 30-35ml/kg (or about 14-16ml/lbs) of water a day to further support your wellbeing!

Yes.