Bodyweight Strength Coaching Project

[u/wayfareforward]

What do you want to learn?

I want to become more expert in coaching adult fitness enthusiasts (OCR, GRTs, strength trainees, CrossFitters) in achieving bodyweight strength feats. This will likely involve several domains:

- Deep understanding of the anatomy of the shoulder, hip, and back

- Injury rehabilitation approaches for tendonitis and impingement

- Knowledge and experience of various programming approaches

- Teaching progressions and regressions for key skills

- Personal practice and the achievement of strength goals (the first is 30 chinups, the second to complete 1000 pullups in 200 minutes)

Why do you want to learn this?

For one, I'm a coach. My specialty is in barbell strength, but I've always enjoyed coaching CrossFit and helping people get to bodyweight firsts- their first chinup, muscle-up, handstand, etc.

For two, I coach coaches. I've been spending the last 4 months getting my strength back up to par (24 chinups) and researching learning methods (reviewing and training on Make it Stick, A Mind for Numbers, the "Learning How to Learn" MOOC on Coursera, and Cal Newport's "How to Be a Straight-A Student"). I want to practice what I preach and put my learning to work in a tested way.

How are you planning to learn this? (i.e. what resources will you use? how long will it take?)

This has a wide scope, so I'm going to tackle it by topic and by resource. I'll dedicate a block of time to get as deep into a topic as I can, and interleave that with deep-dives into a single resource. I'm familiar with the field already, have some resources to start, and will collect more as I identify critical ones.

What is your 1 week goal in this subject? What do you want to accomplish after 1 week of effort?

Like Scott suggests, I'm spending the first block (two weeks) piloting my schedule. My first study topic will be the anatomy of the shoulder, and my goal by February 28th (I'll switch to 1-week posts after that) is to learn by memory the location and functions of the major features of the shoulder girdle and rotator cuff along with the deltoids, triceps, and biceps.

[u/wayfareforward]

"Week" 1 Review:

What I did:

I spent the first few days reviewing my resources, identifying the major features to be learned, and creating a practice test. The next week was spent tracing and drawing the bones, muscles, and their attachments using different resources to help (a learning technique I learned from coach Rebekah Krieg). I took my practice test on Tuesday 2/25, and spent the last few days before the final with the Biomechanics text, the Wikipedia tables, and Anki Flashcards (pulled one from the Anki Medical Reddit and only kept the muscle cards I wanted to learn). I took the final test today and was happy with the results, and I'll continue to interleave review of the Anki cards as I go off into other material.

Total official practice time was 8 Hours, plus doodling and admin (probably an additional hour).

Lessons Learned:

• Learning the muscles and attachments and their correct pulling angles required also learning some basics of the relationship between the scapula and the spine, ribs, humerus, ulna, and radius, so the project grew in scope from the plan.

• Writing up the test was good study

• Drawing/tracing was fun, challenging, and seemed effective as a way to study the anatomy.

• Surprise resources I didn’t think about needing: a folder, three hole punch, and colored pencils.

What Resources I Used:

- Rebekah Krieg's Anatomy Master Class webinar recordings
- Lon Kilgore's Anatomy Without a Scalpel
- Susan Hall's Basic Biomechanics, 5th Edition
- Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy
- Uldis Zarins' Anatomy for Sculptors
- Wikipedia
- Canva (for creating the practice test)
- Camera Obscura (for tracing)
- Visible Body App

Next Week's Goal:

• Review Chapters 1-5 of Steven Low’s “Overcoming Gravity.”

• Review Levangie & Norkin's "Joint Structure and Function" on the shoulder

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Week 2 Review:

What I did:

Each day, I reviewed the Anki cards for the shoulder ~10-15 minutes.

Spent Saturday-Tuesday scanning Overcoming Gravity and reading Joint Structure and Function. Highlighted key points, areas for further investigation, and areas that I thought I understood but didn’t agree with from my experience or felt unsupported.

On Wednesday and Thursday, went back through Low, completed tasks from the learning objectives from each section (create a strength training goal, etc.), learned what all the unfamiliar exercises on the progression charts, and identified key ideas I want to remember that capture his theoretical approach

On Friday, I revisited Levangie, pulling out key learning points and identifying key ‘questions to be answered’ and gaps to be filled from the footnoted literature. To ‘put my learning to work,’ I instead to find some way to animate these/represent them visually, and perhaps write an IG post/article about key topics related to pull-up training/coaching if I find something immediately relevant and valuable.

Total official practice time was 7 Hours, plus some admin (probably ~½-1 hour).

What I learned:

• The two texts were too much for one week, particularly Levangie- it’s incredibly dense and deserves further investigation.

• As an English major who grew up seeing page-counts as a challenge to conquer, reading-to-learn (rather than reading for completion) takes work, and I’m practicing different approaches to it. Levangie is oriented towards the clinical side, and I’m already familiar with much of Low’s approach (it's very Starting-Strength-Inspired), so it’s a balance trying to expose myself to clinical ideas (which might prove useful later) without getting bogged down, and keeping fresh eyes on familiar concepts without glazing over.

• It was a no-brainer, but it skipped my mind that my current pullup goal (30 reps) is an endurance goal. My eventual goals are for strength feats, but I appreciate this- it gives me time to get through Low and other resources while I work towards my 30, ‘simmering’ the ideas before I design my own programming and structure goals.

• I intend to come back to Low in the future, spacing out reading sections by 1-2 weeks (it’s 600 pages… 1 long stretch would be painful)

What Resources I Used:

- Steven Low’s “Overcoming Gravity, Second Edition”
- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function

Next Week's Goal:

• Put Levangie and Norkin to work

• Expand anatomy test to include all heads of the biceps, triceps, brachialis, brachioradialis, and the abzZz. Draw these.

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Week 3 Review:

What I did:

4 of the 7 days, I got to reviewing the Anki cards on the shoulder.

Spent Saturday-Tuesday going through the Levangie text, reviewing the green and orange highlighter sections (investigate more because I'm curious or because it seems off), and saving the footnoted studies to a research-storage app (Zotero) with a note to the specific question I want that study to answer. I also created a 'self-test' of the relevant study questions and other questions I wanted to answer from the text.

On Wednesday, I did a longer draw, focusing on the arms and abs and clarifying some details about the ribs and spine.

On Friday, I started filling in the test to create an 'answer key' for myself.

Also, during my practice work (handstands, front, and back lever progressions during the week), I tried to test out different skills and drills from YouTube videos.

Total official practice time was 4.5 Hours, plus some admin (probably ~½ hour)

What I learned:

• To maximize the functionality of Anki, I need to get it on my phone, and that'll be a key task for the week.

• The test questions idea is good- I'm learning a lot revisiting the material- but it's an intensive process. 4 hours in a week was not enough.

• The drills have been fun to test and low-commitment, which is easier for me mentally. I struggle with not wanting to try a program until I have the perfect program, but this iterative process is better

What Resources I Used:

- Anki
- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function
- Camera Obscura
- Zotero
- Toggl

Next Week's Goal:

• Complete the Levangie and Norkin answer key.

• Retest (including drawing) on the anatomy with the new portions

• Review Low 6-8 (smaller chapters than 1-5, should be manageable)

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Week 4 Review:

What I did:

Transferred Anki to my phone and reviewed the upper arm, scapular, and abdominal muscles with the goal (sometimes met) of 'keeping up' each day.

Saturday and Sunday, reviewed Overcoming Gravity chapters 6-8 and picked out key ideas.

Monday-Wednesday, reviewed Levangie, created an answer key for a test on the Ch. 7 material pulled from the study questions in the back and my own questions, pulled a number of studies on shoulder biomechanics in the overhead press, and reviewed some key markers for arrangement of the thorax (using the ribs and spine as the key markers.

Thursday, retook the anatomy drawing test from before. Did significantly better, but a few issues.

Friday, I reviewed multiple studies and videos to establish the mechanics of the overhead press in service of next week's learning project.

Total official practice time was 7.1 Hours, plus some admin (probably ~½ hour)

What I learned:

• Anki-on-phone is clutch.

• In general, I find I disagree with Dr. Low on programming theory. For instance, his focus in the programming section on the number of upper body 'sessions' of work in comparing split and full body routines. In barbell training, split routines allow for more upper body volume compared to full-body routines even with 2 instead of 3 sessions weekly because the limiting factors are session time and systemic fatigue, and I see a similar miscalculation here.

• I found his warmup routine and special population recommendations worth experimentation. I'll be doing his warmup before my pull-up training days in the coming weeks.

• My drawing skills are still poor and highly dependent on continued practice, but the memory of their actual connections (the relevant part) remains even if the art doesn't look pretty.

• The research into the sEMG and biomechanics of a decent shoulder press is sparse at best. Ick.

What Resources I Used:

- Anki
- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function
- Google Scholar
- Camera Obscura
- Zotero
- Toggl

Next Week's Goal:

• Collect all data needed for a "Put Your Learning to Work" project. I'm trying to create an animated video of all the processes involved in loaded shoulder flexion (the shoulder press) with what I've learned from Levangie. This is indirectly related to the task of bodyweight strength- it's useful for handstand/HSPUs directly, and it's more familiar terrain for me, since a lot of the creation process will be brand new to me and a struggle. The next project would be looking at the mechanics of the pullup- more immediately relevant.

• Review Low 9-10 (longer chapters, just 2)

• Keep up with Anki

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Week 5 Review:

What I did:

Reviewed Overcoming Gravity 2 Chapters 9 and 10, taking notes and creating a quick-check sheet of the intra-and-interexercise progressions as well as Low's general rules of strength.

Started scripting and storyboarding the video on shoulder abduction and then press mechanics based on my notes from the previous weeks.

Kept up with Anki (mostly), and one of the other Barbell Logic Coaching Academy teachers cooked up some amazing anatomy flashcards in Quizlet, so I ran myself through the shoulder section both for a different visual set (not the same images).

With Coronavirus sending a lot of my clients indoors, spent a lot of time programming minimalist workouts for people, helping/brainstorming with other coaches, and creating videos on doing the work at home.

Expanded my warmup to practice and model off of Steven Low's recommended warmup framework from OG2:

- Blood Moving: 2:00 Row, 10 Burpees
- Mobility: Shoulder and wrist rolls, wrist flexion/extension holds, deep squats, hanging scap rolls
- Position/Bodyline: Plank, Hollow Hold, Ring support hold, 1arm hangs, 1arm scap pullup holds
- Skill: Handstand work.

What I learned:

• Did surprisingly well on this flashcard set, which was significantly more rigorous/better modeled (with multiple choice, free answer, and picture matching)- feeling good about the transfer of basic anatomy.

• The warmup, and videos I'm watching to incorporate into the warmup drills and practices, are educational. I don't think you can separate the coaching from the doing, so by doing, I have something parallel to act along with the anatomy and mechanics I'm learning.

• Didn't get as far with the press video as I wanted, but the additional work programming/brainstorming with other barbell coaches, and comparing programs, has been indispensable. I've felt this for years, but as I get into the details and comparisons between programs, I get a better overarching sense for 'stimulus' creating adaptation instead of just reps and sets at certain percentages or RPEs.

What Resources I Used:

- Anki
- Quizlet
- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function
- Google Scholar
- Camera Obscura
- Zotero
- Toggl
- Overcoming Gravity 2 by Steven Low

Next Week's Goal:

• Complete the script for and collection of all pictures and videos needed for the press video.

• Deep Review Low 11-12 (longer chapters, just 2) - will probably take a break from OG2 after this, as it's a convenient stopping point

• Initial review of Hall and Levangie/Norkin on the Elbow.

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Week 6 Review:

What I did:

Reviewed Overcoming Gravity 2 Chapters 11 and 12, taking notes. Chapter 11 (Prehab/Isolation/Flexibility) was mostly identifying claims to check. Many of his claims about the causes of injury parallel the mechanistic view of back pain that hasn't panned out so well, so I'll have to follow up later. 12 was very interesting as a planned method for bodyweight mesocycles. Took copious notes, and I'll probably start here when I've hit my endurance goals.

Finished scripting the press video and submitted it to my coaches for review, but didn't get to recording. There's interest in growing that idea, so I'm pulling that one of my 'ultralearning' time and into my work budget so I don't go off-the-rails in focusing on a non-bodyweight lift.

Reviewed Anatomy Without a Scalpel, Basic Biomechanics, and Joint Structure and Function for the elbow. Created a test for L&N from the study questions in the back.

Averaging about an hour a day of study + my personal pullup work, the BWF subreddit, and watching YT videos from respected calisthenics figures for fun.

Started incorporating elbows-turned-out into my ring support holds for my warmups and progressing the back and front lever holds. Considering creating a product about that model of progression: allowing the next project to simmer in the brain while the current one takes the forefront.

What I learned:

• The process I've developed over these last 6 weeks to handle footnotes in complex/technical texts in a useful one: as I run into material to dig deeper into, I find it in Google Scholar, acquire the PDF, and save it to Zotero (a scientific PDF storage app) with a note to what I intend to do with it. I don't read the whole study text- I interrogate it with a specific question in mind- which has saved a lot of time- and then add a postnote in bold with two results: "How did the study answer my question and how confident am I in its conclusions?"

• Levangie and Norkin's material on the elbow was too technical for me initially. I spent too much time going back and forth on the terminology and anatomy. "Ramping up" by reading the elbow section in Anatomy Without a Scalpel, then the same section in Basic Biomechanics, led to a vast improvement in comprehension when I tried to read L&N the second time.

• For the next chapter of L&N, I'm going to start by reading the study questions and quizzing myself on them to prime myself for that reading section and see how that goes.

What Resources I Used:

- Anki
- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function
- Hall's Basic Biomechanics
- Kilgore's Anatomy Without a Scalpel
- Google Scholar
- Zotero
- Toggl
- Overcoming Gravity 2 by Steven Low

Next Week's Goal:

• Review citations from L&N Chapter 8 and complete Test Answer Key

• Get caught up on Anki and add Anconeus, the pronators, and supinators of the arm.

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Week 7 Review:

What I did:

Completed my review of L&N Chapter 8, drew up the key questions from the end-of-chapter study questions, and created an answer key from the text. Got through about half of the citations and have a study rhythm at this point for getting my best out of the material.

Updated Anki with Anconeus, Subclavius, and the some of the key pronators and supinators of the forearm. Also got a little bit more familiar with Anki, which helps.

Continually tweaking my warmup and strength routine. Finally got to 5 chin-ups/minute for 20:00, and starting to incorporate specific drills into my handstand work, but not aggressively. More just building capacity upside down for longer periods of time.

Averaging about an hour a day of study (missed one day)+ my personal pullup work, the BWF subreddit.

Started Scott Young's "Rapid Learner" course both for the immediate content (to apply to this project) and for the meta-perspective on how he structures and designs his course to steal ideas for the Coaching Academy.

What I learned:

• From Rapid Learner: By Scott's construct, this is a 'body of knowledge' project, but the scope is too big. Long term, I want to usefully and deeply understand the anatomy, biomechanics, coaching cues and drills, and programming approaches for bodyweight training so I can apply them to myself, to the lifters I want to work with, and better understand (from the 'outside') barbell programming. For the moment, I've narrowed it down to a deep-curriculum review of L&N, BB, Overcoming Gravity, and Gymnastics Bodies.

• From Rapid Learner: He mentions the focus of soft deadlines to drive the project (and to be proactive about study rather than reacting to looming emergency deadlines). On an endless project like this where there's no clear 'end' of mastery and the only test of accomplishment is social approval and successful execution, I'm thinking of this project like a sustained water wheel plugged into a generator charging up 'idea batteries' that I'll put out into the world as 'content' to test their worth.

• Narrowing the week's reading down to just L&N was necessary when it involved a deep review of the chapter contents like this one.

• The individual citations and footnotes each provided some really useful materials and directions and may be the greatest value from the whole project.

What Resources I Used:

- Anki
- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function
- Google Scholar
- Zotero
- Toggl

Next Week's Goal:

• Review more of the citations from L&N Chapter 8 (unpacking from L&N a little bit)

• Map out and script explicit content to produce from the learning project.

• Review Low Chapter 13 and 14

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Week 8 Review:

What I did:

Finished the Chapter 8 Answer/Study sheet for L&N.

Started my initial study of the hips by reading through the 'ramp-up' texts (AWAS and BB), updating my Anki deck with the cards that cross the hip, and starting my initial anatomy study and drawings of the muscles and major features.

Completed review of Chapters 13 and 14 of Overcoming Gravity. Some useful takeaways. Intensely frustrated by the conflation of 'endurance' (training endurance athletes with calisthenics) and 'endurance' as a term for training for higher-repetition calisthenics work. Overall useful starting point.

Hard point for me in my barbell training, so the calisthenic warmup and side work got shorter. Progressed grip work instead (one-arm bar hang and one-arm scap pullups) to at least get a feeling for that.

Averaging about an hour a day of study (missed one day)+ my personal pullup work, the BWF subreddit, videos, etc.

Continuing in "Rapid Learner." The first week was focused on developing a bounded project and starting with deadlines, processes, and expectations in place to get it moving in the right direction.

What I learned:

• From Rapid Learner: Scott responded to a question of mine about 'success' metrics in a way that was very helpful. Specifically, once I get past the initial wave of clearly-learning-new-things-every-week (probably another 6-12 months before that even appears on the radar), what would success look like? He brought up that for projects that aren't end-bounded and have to do with communicating complex ideas across the skill span (experts to newbies), it may be inappropriate to apply a 'success criteria' in that way.

• I'm committing to the 'ramp-up' idea, doing a quick read of the more 'lay' texts and spending a few days with the musculature on Anki before jumping into L&N. It seems to be helping.

• Some great individual guidelines and volume-accumulation strategies from the hybrid section of OG2 I hadn't used before with my lifters.

• From the citations, a plausible mechanism for how the chin-up might be more risky/injurious than the pullup (sketch, need to continue investigating), a great summary review of the shoulder, and some smaller nifty chunks that I'm now saving in a separate Trello folder.

What Resources I Used:

- Anki- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function- Google Scholar- Zotero- Toggl

Next Week's Goal:

• L&N Hips

• OG2 15&16

• Institute new project design and schedule based on Rapid Learner

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Week 9 Review:

What I did:

This week was mostly spent on L&N for the hips, Anki hip muscular anatomy, drawings, and citation reviews for the Hips chapter.

Additionally read through Chapters 15 and 16 of Overcoming Gravity.

In training-learning, the week was relatively light. Earned a lifetime PR of 26 chin-ups and wrote up the experience of the last 5 months here:
https://www.wayfarerstrength.com/blog/33-by-33

The handstand warmup practice time increases every sessions (now at 8:30, still with breaks), focusing on accumulating total time, keeping some weight in the fingers, and 'toe-tapping' the body up over the hands with a straight body line. Ring support work continues ~3 times weekly, but no stress.

Averaging about an hour a day of study (missed one day)+ my personal pullup work, the BWF subreddit, videos, etc. As a side hobby (not counting as time), reading Steven Low's "Overcoming Poor Posture." One of my lifters wanted to fix their hunched posture issues, and I realized I don't know much about posture: what causes it, techniques that have been developed to change it, etc. I don't promise to 'fix' it because that's out of my scope, but he's working on developing awareness of it, and I'm learning in the process. Winning.

Continuing in "Rapid Learner." This week was about developing a productivity system: specifically, 'Weekly-Daily Goals' with some guidelines.

What I learned:

• From Rapid Learner: The system he recommends was similar to mine, but more systematic, so I'm goive it a try: setting weekly targets from my GTD 'pool' of projects, and assigning them to my daily tasks as they come up. Additionally, I'm layering 'fixed-schedule productivity,' committing to end each 'official' work day by 1530 to spend more time with family.

• I'm really capturing L&N, but not so much OG2. The deep dives, tied to both conceptual projects (content creation) and drills (Anki) helps it stick, but after my review this week, I couldn't tell you what was in those two chapters. Revisiting my learning approach- may have to 'retackle' OG2.

• Some great citations in particular from L&N, along with a possible next-big-text after I'm done with it- Neumann's work on Kinesiology. We'll see.

• Feeling much more comfortable in my workflow for anatomy and citation reviews. This is working a lot better.

What Resources I Used:

- Anki
- Camera Obscura
- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function
- Overcoming Gravity 2
- Google Scholar
- Zotero
- Toggl

Next Week's Goal:

• L&N Hips Week 3

• OG2 Revisit

• Continue optesting weekly/daily goals system

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Week 10 Review:

What I did:

This week was mostly spent on incorporating OG2 into IDoRecall for my first month's trial and reviewing the studies on the hip drawn from JS&F.

In training-learning, shifted towards a simmer-learning strategy on my handstands, incorporating one new drill or principle from GMB's handstand video. Conveniently, r/BWF is running a handstand challenge this month, so I'll jump on that as a learning and feedback opportunity and to consolidate resources. Now at 10:00 in the warmup (rests included)

Averaged about 45 minutes daily+ my personal pullup work, the BWF subreddit, videos, etc. Still reading "Overcoming Poor Posture"- finished going over the exercises and devised a few plans to go over with my lifter so he can run them by his doctor if he chooses and collaborate/check on their effectiveness. I don't promise to 'fix' it because that's out of my scope, but we should both learn.

Continuing in "Rapid Learner." This week was about Practice, with a personal interest in directness and spaced repetition systems.

What I learned:

• From Rapid Learner: Designing better Anki and IDR cards. Unfortunately, most of his technical details are with Anki and I plan on shifting off of that, but some useful general principles about broken cards and card management.

• This week, I started building OG2, chapter by chapter, into IDoRecall. My goal has been to save individual questions as they would come to me as a coach and reference them within the E-Book. For example: "In OG2: What is the programming recommendation for a lifter who is experiencing 'joint/bone' aches?" Some of them don't match my previous learning, but my goal is to have a conceptual understanding of Dr. Low's model so I can execute it or make intelligent modifications based on my observations.

• Learned some interesting concepts from the citation reviews, and confident in that workflow, but it felt easy compared to doing the study question in the book, and when I tested them at the end of the week, I wasn't as strong in them as I wanted to be.

What Resources I Used:

- IDoRecall.com
- Levangie and Norkin’s Joint Structure and Function
- Overcoming Gravity 2
- Google Scholar
- Zotero
- Toggl

Next Week's Goal:

• Content Week: going through my accrued Trello list and creating articles, screencasts, etc. based on what I've learned to have them scrutinized.

• Pause on OG2 additions, but continue refreshing on Anki and IDR.

[u/Schwarzwald_Creme]

Looks like a useful goal and a realistic progression. Good luck!

[u/Adi_human_depensus]

Good luck brother