Beat The Apocalypse - Bodyweight Only or Resistance Bands?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
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Gym CLOSED again

Im looking for the ''Beat the apocalypse ‘’ -bodyweight workout.

Do i need something like resistance bands or its 100% bodyweight only ?

thanks !

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Unless you are a complete beginner and new to the omnicontraction system, you will need some extra resistance.

You can use resistance bands but this will make some of the training methods (a lot) harder. If you use the band approach, make sure you have a set and start with the light variations so you can make adjustments.

You could also make your own training tools, use bricks/books/anything thats compact and has a measurable form of progressive overload in a backpack, sandbags etc to overload the exercises.

Some exercises will be challenging enough with BW only.

I’ve done the BTA BW program 2 times, it’s awesome and it works if done correctly.

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what did you had to do it properly?

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Well, you can do the program properly if you respect two conditions:

  1. Prioritize good form on every rep, especially the last ones that count the most.
  2. Make sure you use external resistance if needed to achieve the right intensity parameters for the exercise. If you need to be at an RPE of 9-10 on every set of an exercise that tells you to perform 10 reps, this means you need to come close to or reach failure on that 10th rep. If you reach rep 10 with BW only and you feel like you can do 10 more, the intensity is not nearly high enough. Hence you will need some external resistance.

I stuffed a backpack with bricks to perform my exercises and adjusted the number of bricks depending on the type of exercise (squat vs pushup) and the difficulty level (for ultraslow eccentrics like the darden method on pushups I did not even think of using external resistance, this method is brutal enough on BW alone).

I did not use anything else than a backpack and bricks (they all weighed 4 kg which allowed me to stay in the right intensity zone and properly manage progressive overload), except on pullups. I’m weak on this exercise so in order for me to perform the prescribed methods, I had to use resistance bands for assistance.

That’s it.

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there is pull up and dips too ?

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Yes, but you can easily adjust these exercises if they don’t fit in your environment.

For pullups, use a tree branch, go to a calisthenics park or simply do a variation with resistance bands that targets the lats and biceps.

For dips, pull out two chairs and point the handrails in a triangle towards each others to use as a dipping station, go to a calisthenics park and use bar handles instead. Or simply do a pushup variation (hands on a small table, chairs etc) and use a resistance band for added resistance to make the exercise hard enough.

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i just bought a pull up dips station so everything will be fine :slight_smile:

thanks for your time lou

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Perfect, good luck man. If you like intensity and low volume, this program will work just fine for you.

1 Like
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of course thats what i prefer !!

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It’s 100% body weight. BTW, I just finished writing a new body weight plan which will actually use the OCTS system and promotes both muscular and neurological improvements.

We are doing everything we can to get it out as fast as possible

2 Likes
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nice thanks !

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Coach-
Can you give a ball park estimate when this new BW program will be available?Thanks

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It was supposed to be released today, but I didn’t have time to shoot all the videos. So next Thursday