Soft Tissue, which approach?#1205

Somewhat following up from this post:
https://support.hybridcalisthenics.com/742

Background info:
I’m decently far along in the routine and have only modified it slightly to my needs, seeing success for most of the time I’ve been doing it! One question I still have, but have been able to refine, has to do with the best approach for connective tissue.

Over the years, I’ve learned that my soft tissue doesn’t recover as quickly as I’d like. For example, the Reddit Recommended Routine (full body MWF) was fine for my muscles, but my joints didn’t like that pace. Doing the Hybrid Routine 6 days a week has been fine until a few weeks ago. I’ve added back in rows (after pull ups) and added pike pushups/HSPU (before close push ups or stagger pushups). I can honestly say I’ve been as strict as I can be with my form and tempo, and I don’t feel like my joints are screaming, but I do feel them from time to time and wonder if I can take a more optimal appraoch for myself.

Question:
In general, would most people who are able to handle either approach in terms of muscle soreness/repair benefit their soft tissue more doing the 6 day split, or would doing all exercises each session but doing that 2 to 2.5 times a week with more rest days be better for this use case?

Hey again turtle :)

1) maybe it’s time to replace some exercises to stress your joints/connective tissues differently than they have been for quite a while now I assume

2) I’d also have a look at diet if you’re running into these kinda issues and haven’t modified the routine all too much, since it shouldn’t be such high volume/intensity that you really should be running into those issues - though if you notice it especially with one arm things etc, that makes sense, might just be wise to swap those out for heavier/different two arm things for a bit!

3) I definitely see your logic of having more rest days being better, but I figure the fact that it’s simply gonna be 2-2.5x the amount of work that you do is gonna greatly undermine that :D especially doing more per session might cause you troubles

You have a couple of options imo

• change out some exercises that are causing troubles
• maybe take a deload or just tune things down a bit for a while
• temporarily increase the rep range / make things a bit easier on exercises that are causing you trouble, that will help your connective tissues adapt better and take less of a beating
• make sure diet and sleep are where they need to be to best support them too!

You’ll have to experiment a bit to see what works for you - but if you give me more specifics I can give you some more specifics too, if need be! :)

Good ideas!

I realized that on point 3, I wrote in a way that could easily be misinterpreted; sorry about that! I definitely wouldn’t do 2-2.5x the work! I meant to say that I would be keeping roughly the same amount of work (each muscle group about twice a week, but occasionally 3 times if training days line up that way), just with more days that I’m not training at all in between. I was thinking of going full body work every 2-3 days set like M W Sa one week and than Tu Th the next. So, I’d probably just start with 2x weekly at first to ease into it. Definitely let me know if this just sounds bunk, though :D

Here’s my programming right now:
Day 1
Pullups, side stagger squats, wide or archer rows, calf raises

Day 2
handstand/pike pushups, hamstring slides, side stagger pushups, bridging (modified, sometimes hanging)

Day 3
twists, floor leg raises, planks and side planks

The specific joints giving me problems are usually my right elbow and some weirdness around the left lat after doing about 9 or 10 pullups. I think I was a bit impatient with myself after the jackknife pulls stopped challenging my muscles much even with as strict a form as I could apply, so what you said tracks about replacing exercises. I have no pain or discomfort with archer rows (2 sets of 10-12, 45 degree angle) even though they’re later in the workout, so I’m thinking the issue is just that I need more progressions between Jacknife and regular pull ups using progressively less legs while aiming for a similar rep range.

Similarly with narrow squats moving to side stagger, I had some knee discomfort and decided to go back and double down on technique. I recently moved back to side stagger and don’t feel too bad, though I had surgery on an ankle tendon about 10 years go and learned bad habits coming out of that. Strangely, the “good” leg is the one with the knee that didn’t like side stagger. Possible overcompensation in daily life wearing it out? Any tips there?

Diet is about as good as the economy allows (I like bland food anyways), and I’m working on sleep quality. I’ll work harder on that.

If you read this far without a migraine, you have my thanks and an IOU for tylenol. (Seriously, though: thank you!)

I’ll start from the bottom!

Ofc I read it all :p
Glad you’re taking good care of diet and sleep

Regarding the side staggered squats.. hmm, you could simply try assisting yourself a bit as you would with assisted pistols, otherwise maybe some isometric horse stance work, or cossack squats could help you strengthen it up as necessary, but a bit differently - otherwise I can rehab just looking at “E3Rehab” on youtube, they have tons of useful knee (and other) resources to help with pains and rehab

You could try the feet supported pullups described here https://support.hybridcalisthenics.com/714 <- https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XdYlif4ot00 in video form
In case your situation doesn’t allow for feet on the floor, maybe a chair can help :)

And your routine as you laid it out seems absolutely fine as it is, and frankly I think you could likely handle more than that too - but it’s always good to start smaller and build up from there!

And yeah I mean if everything’s the same just split up differently, I doubt it would matter too much but I’d lean towards the less at the same time but more often option in terms of how taxing it should be for your tendons etc. - I’d not aim to avoid volume itself, just maybe as said keep the rep ranges a bit higher! and well, isometrics can do well too :)

I’ll check out all of those squat variations and add back in horse stance (years of martial arts had me thinking I was done with it, but nope!). I’ll also add some upper body isometrics, come to think of it.

Less but more often in terms of taxing the tendons without avoiding volume makes sense to me. Could you clarify a bit on me being likely able to handle more? I am aiming to challenge myself without pain, so I’m on board with any safe way to do that!

Last question: When I’m adding in a progression between progressions I know (e.g., Jackknife pulls to full pullups was fine in terms of rep numbers but elbows complained so I am adding a middle ground of feet assisted pulls), what’s a good rule of thumb for determining rep goals before moving on?

1) you’re neeiiigghhver too good for a horse stance (I had to)

2) mainly in the sense of taxing the same muscles more frequently - just feels like you could do pushups on day 1 and 3 rather than just on day 1, same with rows or pullups; that sorta logic! got plenty of time to recover between after all, more in the direction of the reddit routine, just not quite going there since that in your experience was too much, and still being able to keep more of the variety while overall having less work

So I guess what I’m saying is just find a balance between what you have now and what the routine was, as I feel you may have potentially over-corrected a bit (which for the sake of safety, is absolutely reasonable and good - my gut just tells me you’d be okay with more, especially if you work up to it over a couple of weeks/months)

3) With the example of feet assisted pullups it’s a bit harder to say since it’s so dynamically adjusted and you can always self-limit yourself some more or some less; for the sake of it I’d just stay within.. 5-10 reps if it doesn’t cause any discomfort, otherwise maybe 10-15, and just decrease the amount of assistance gradually

Otherwise it depends on the exercise/situation/reason you’re doing it - if there are no pain issues and you’re building up to a strength goal where you can have incremental jumps, keep the reps towards the low end, if bigger jumps are necessary than you have to go higher for it to suffice, also might wanna work with higher ranges in general if there is pain.. so, a bit of a nuanced rule of thumb but I reckon you can make sense of it :)

10 points for good use of pun :)

Starting from the bottom:

I think it finally clicked what you mean about rep ranges and the connection to both pain and progressions! Also, you’re spot on about overcorrection now that I think of it. I was probably experiencing issues with the progressions being jumps and the rep ranges not fitting the needs of my joints. I still much prefer the progressions from the Hybrid Routine over the Reddit Routine, so taking that with what you mentioned about being able to do more, I’ll try the structure of the RR (everything in 1 day, 3 times a week) with the progressions of the HR (with added progressions as necessary) and the higher rep ranges to keep the joints pain free. After all, I can always dial it back and unpack from that if something goes wrong. Excited to give this a try!

Thank you SO much, Lars! I seriously appreciate your expertise and patience with me; Hope you have a great day ahead!

I hope it all works out well! Have a great day too :)

Happy to help you out turtle!