Reddit Recommended Routine (RR)

What is the Recommended Routine?

The Recommended Routine - the RR - is the default beginner program of r/bodyweightfitness, written and revised over years by the subreddit’s moderators and community rather than by a single author. It is free, it is maintained in the open, and it is almost certainly the most-run bodyweight program on the internet.

It trains the whole body three days a week across six fundamental movement patterns, and it replaces the barbell’s add-5-lb-a-session progression with something else entirely: a ladder of progressively harder exercise variations. You do not add plates. You add difficulty.

How a session works

Each session opens with a real warm-up - a few minutes of light cardio, then joint circles, shoulder work and a couple of easy sets of the movements you are about to train. If you want to practise a skill like the handstand or the L-sit, it goes here, while you are fresh and before the strength work has fatigued you.

The strength work runs as three supersets: pull-ups paired with a squat progression, dips paired with a hinge progression, and rows paired with push-ups. Pairing movements lets one recover while the other works, so the session stays short without shortening your rest. Take roughly 90 seconds between the two exercises in a pair, which works out to about three minutes before you repeat the same movement.

The session closes with core work: an anti-extension progression such as the ab wheel or dragon flag, alongside anti-rotation work. Between them the six patterns - vertical pull, vertical push, horizontal pull, horizontal push, squat and hinge - plus core cover the whole body. Expect 45–70 minutes including the warm-up.

Progressions, not plates

This is the mechanic that makes bodyweight training work. Every slot in the routine is a ladder of variations ordered by difficulty, and you occupy one rung at a time. The push ladder runs roughly wall push-up, incline push-up, knee push-up, full push-up, diamond push-up, pseudo-planche push-up. The pull ladder runs scapular pulls, arch hangs, negatives, full pull-up, then weighted or archer pull-ups.

Legs follow the same logic through leverage rather than load: assisted squat, full bodyweight squat, split squat, Bulgarian split squat, shrimp squat, pistol squat. The hinge ladder moves from a bodyweight hinge to single-leg deadlifts and then into banded or eccentric Nordic curls. Your rep range never changes - the exercise is what gets harder.

Rep targets and when to move up

Each strength movement is 3 sets in the 5–8 rep range. When you can complete 3 sets of 8 with clean form on your current variation, you move up a rung, and you should expect to drop straight back to 5 or 6 reps on the harder one. That drop is the program working, not a setback. Some versions use higher reps on the squat and hinge progressions, where 5–8 bodyweight reps is trivially easy.

Progress on form, not enthusiasm. A full push-up with a sagging hip is not a full push-up, and moving up before you own the current rung is the most common way people stall the RR. If a variation is too hard for 3 sets of 5 but the rung below has stopped doing anything, bridge the gap with partial reps or a slower tempo on the harder movement.

The lower-body ceiling

The upper-body ladders run a long way - there is a lot of road between a first pull-up and a one-arm chin-up. The legs are a different story. Once you are doing full pistol squats and Nordic curls, adding difficulty gets awkward, and balance starts limiting you before your quads and glutes do.

The honest answer is that most people eventually add external load: a weight vest, a loaded backpack, a dip belt, or a barbell. That is not a failure of the routine, it is where the routine points you. The RR is excellent at building a strong, controlled body with almost no equipment; it is not a substitute for a squat rack if maximal lower-body strength is the goal.

Who it’s for

The RR is for anyone starting out without a gym, training at home, travelling, or rebuilding control after a layoff. It is also a genuinely good complement for barbell lifters who cannot yet do a chin-up, who want joint-friendly pulling volume, or who are curious about gymnastics-style strength.

It is the wrong program if your goal is a big squat, bench and deadlift - go train those directly. It is also a slow route to maximum size, since bodyweight progressions cap how much load you can put through the legs, and it demands patience: you can sit on the same rung for weeks before the next one opens up.

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths: it needs almost no equipment, it is free and continuously refined by a large community, and it builds relative strength and body control that barbell programs never touch. The pulling and pressing volume is kind to shoulders and elbows, and the six-pattern structure means nothing gets quietly neglected.

Trade-offs: lower-body progress stalls without added load, progress is harder to measure than a number on a bar, and picking the right rung takes judgment a beginner does not have yet. The full session with warm-up and core runs longer than people expect, and skipping the warm-up - which plenty of people do - is exactly how the elbow and shoulder complaints start.

How to run it

Test each of the six patterns to find the hardest variation you can do for 3 clean sets of 5, and start there. Be honest about form; most people should start a rung lower than they would like. Put those starting variations into the spreadsheet below and log every set, because your rep count is the only progress marker you have.

Run it three days a week with a rest day between sessions - Monday, Wednesday, Friday is the default. Move up a rung when you hit 3 sets of 8, and expect the upper body to climb faster than the legs. When the leg progressions stop giving you anything, add load with a vest or a weighted backpack, or run a barbell lower-body program alongside it.

The spreadsheet

Browse the full program below, or open it in Google Sheets to make your own copy and plug in your numbers.

Spreadsheet via LiftVault. If the preview doesn’t load, use “Open in Google Sheets”.

Equipment

This is a barbell program - you don’t need much, but a few pieces make it run smoothly.

Learn the lifts

New to any of the movements in this program? Our lift guides break down technique, cues and the common mistakes to avoid.