Simon Ata (aka Simonster) is a world leader in bodyweight training. Starting gymnastics at an early age, he became passionate about mastering control of the body and immersed himself in the world of bodyweight strength training. Attaining a Bachelor of Physiotherapy degree alongside personal training qualifications, furthered his understanding of the body from an academic side and accelerated his training methods and skill.

About the program

This four-week program is to build back strength. If you’ve just finished the beginner back program, we’ll be utilising more challenging exercise variations in this program. We’ll only be using bands for the lever, all other pulling exercises will be performed unassisted.

Getting the most out of each workout

We need to continue applying all the principles we learned in the beginner back strength program. For those that missed it, this involves moving through a full range of motion (ROM) because strength is joint-angle specific and developing ‘packed shoulders’ through scapula control. Don’t worry too much about lowering tempo for now – that was just to help get a solid understanding of the technique. It will be hard enough to perform some of the exercises in this program as is.

In this program, we’ll be introducing slightly more advanced principles. There will be the idea of MVC (maximal voluntary contraction) to get the most out of every single repetition, the Valsalva Manuevre which is a breathing technique that strength athletes use and learning how to increase force production by performing the concentric part of repetitions quicker.

Intention.

You should now understand that strength development is more about increasing the intensity, rather than exercise variety. Much like the beginner strength program, we will continue to use a handful of exercises throughout the entire program, and make them more challenging each week. The above principle will also influence the movement intent; that is, we want to exhaust the maximal potential out of every single repetition.

Weekly overview

Back exercises in this program

Rows (horizontal pulling)

Chins (vertical pulling)

Lever (straight-arm pulling)

Getting feedback

If you have any questions about the programming or exercises used in the program, please post them in the questions selection below and it will be answered within 24hours.

START WORKOUT ONE

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There is a tendency to perform just enough; it’s the body’s way of conserving energy. We want to oppose this natural tendency by activating the most amount of muscle groups we can for each exercise. Before performing each rep, try and squeeze the bar as hard as you can – you should be able to feel all the muscles in your upper body begin to generate tension before the movement begins. This is known as ‘irradiation’.

Workout summary

1a. Chin-up

1b. Single-leg hip bridge

Perform this superset 4 times w/1.5min rest

2a. Tuck front lever

2b. Bulgarian Split Squats

Perform this superset 4 times w/1.5min rest

3a. Feet elevated row

3b. Hollow body hold

Perform this superset for 3sets w/1min rest

4a. ISO pull-up hold

4b. Dips

Perform this superset 3 times w/1min rest

Workout recap

You’ve made the workout significantly harder by putting in more every rep. Squeezing the bar hard before you begin your rep is a great hack to activate all the muscles in your upper body before the lift begins.

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After you understand how to perform the exercise correctly, you should now have mastered how to maximise the potential of every repetition. We achieve this through being ‘inefficient’ That is, we want to do the most amount possible every single rep. You should try and apply these three principles to every strength exercise you perform.

Irradiation: trying to activate all of our muscles prior to the exercise beginning. We squeeze the bar as hard as we can before and during the rep.
Acceleration: we try and perform the upward part of the lift explosively (fast concentric contraction). Revert back to our quick physics lesson; force = mass x acceleration, by increasing the acceleration, we increase force production.
Valsalva: we reinforce whole body tension by holding our breath. The pneumomuscular reflex is theoretical, but there is a good chance you should feel stronger.

Chin-up test

Testing is an important part of programming used to monitor progress objectively. Because we don’t max out in every exercise, and when we do perform exercises using an AMRAP protocol, we may carry some pre-fatigue from exercises performed earlier in the workout that use the same muscle groups.

We want to perform tests without any fatigue, to give us an accurate indicator of our top-level performance. While we do want to perform the absolute maximum number of repetitions, it is on condition that technique is performed strictly. Go to dead hang between reps and make sure your chin goes over the bar, otherwise it doesn’t count!

Start position

End position

Fails.

What’s next?

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