Go to the main plan and start Phase 0 on the next Monday. Start the surplus this week.
Every remaining session, in order, with the date it lands on if you keep to Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Dates shift automatically when a session goes badly, because a repeat pushes everything behind it. Tap a leg to open it. The one you're standing on is open already.
Each rung is one band mark. The bar shows roughly how much of your bodyweight the band is still taking. A rung clears when every rep stage has been held clean twice.
Change a date, flip a verdict, fix a note, delete a session. Everything downstream recalculates — the ladder, the road and the projected date all replay from this list, so there's no way to leave it in a wrong state.
| # | Date | Rung | Reps | Result | Note |
|---|
| 3 easy scapular pull-ups at your easiest mark.Slow, no effort, purely diagnostic. Anything sharp in the elbow, shoulder or wrist and the session ends there — you do the posture routine instead and try again next slot. A muscle that burns is fine. A joint that pings is not. |
| This runs before the warm-up, not after. The point is to find out whether today is a training day before you've spent any energy deciding it is. |
| Y-T-W raises, lying5 each. Forehead down or lightly rested — do not lift the head. Thumbs up, arms barely off the floor, shoulder blades move gently, no neck strain. Y and T may feel like almost nothing. That's fine. W will feel strongest. |
| Arm circles15 forward, 15 backward |
| Rest 60 s |
| Set 1 — 5 reps |
| Rest 60 s |
| Set 2 — 5 reps |
| Rest 90 s |
| Elbows stay straight. The joint will appear to move because the whole shoulder girdle travels — that's not a bend. Tiny body rise only. You've found this one; leave it exactly where it is. |
| Set 1 |
| Rest 2.5 min |
| Set 2 |
| Rest 2.5 min |
| Set 3 |
| Rest 2 min |
| One cue: clap armpits. If every rep is beautiful you still do not add reps today — the stage advances only after two clean sessions. |
| Set 1 — 3 reps |
| Rest 2.5 min |
| Set 2 — 3 reps |
| Rest 2 min |
| Each repStep to the top · chin clearly over the bar · hold 1 s · lower for 3 s · no swing · chin never touches the bar. |
| Only if the stool setup is clean.If it isn't, replace with assisted top-position practice: 3 singles, step to the top, hold 1 s, step down, no descent. Safety beats ego and this substitution costs you nothing. |
| Easy assisted hang, easiest mark | 10–15 s |
| Doorway chest stretch, left / right | 20 s each |
| Lat stretch, left / right | 20 s each |
| Cross-body shoulder stretch, left / right | 20 s each |
You noticed the cue took a few sets to come back while the strength was still there. Worth knowing permanently: after a layoff the skill returns before the strength was ever lost. A week or two off costs a session or two of re-learning, not weeks of progress. Never panic-restart — re-enter at the same rung and the same reps.
Your routine is good and I'm not rewriting it — breathing mechanics, pelvic control, glute activation, anti-extension, hip flexor length. That's the right five things. One exercise added, one habit changed, nothing else.
| Exercise | Dose | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| 90/90 breathing / rib stackOn your back, feet up, knees ~90°. Gently flatten the low back toward the floor. Exhale slowly like fogging a mirror, feel the ribs come down. Inhale quietly without flaring them back up. | 5 slow breaths | 15–20 s |
| Pelvic tiltsTilt so the low back gently presses down, then relax to neutral. No hard crunch — this is learning control, not training abs. | 1 × 10 slow | 20–30 s |
| Glute bridgesLightly tuck the pelvis first, then lift by squeezing the glutes. Hold 1 s, lower slowly. Never arch the lower back to get higher. | 2 × 10 | 30–45 s |
| Dead bug, easy versionKnees up, low back controlled, one limb at a time. If the back arches, shorten the range. Controlled, not dramatic. | 2 × 5 / side | 30–45 s |
| Thoracic extension over a rolled towel addedRoll a towel to about wrist thickness. Lie back over it at mid-back height, roughly level with the bottom of your shoulder blades. Hands behind the head, ribs down, breathe. This is what the routine was missing — it opens the upper back so standing tall doesn't have to come from arching the lower back. | 60–90 s | 20 s |
| Half-kneeling hip flexor stretchSqueeze the glute on the back-leg side, tuck the pelvis slightly, then lean. The stretch should appear in the front of the hip. If you feel it only in the thigh, or you're arching, you've lost the tuck. | 30 s / side | 10–20 s |
| Tall standing resetFeet hip-width, evenly loaded across big toe, little toe and heel. Knees soft. Glutes at 10–20%. Belt buckle slightly up, not a hard tuck. Ribs stacked over pelvis, one exhale to bring them down. Neck long, chin gently back. Shoulders relaxed wide, not yanked back. Tall and relaxed — never puffed, clenched or forced. | 3 × 20 s | 15–20 s |
Take the Tall Standing Reset out of the routine and into your day. Three times daily, twenty seconds, whenever you remember — waiting for a kettle, in a lift, before you sit down at your desk. Keep it in the routine too.
Posture is not a strength problem, it's a default position problem. Ten minutes on a mat teaches the shape; standing in it sixty times a week makes it the one you fall into without thinking. The mat work alone will plateau. This is the part that transfers.
Four minutes, and genuinely enough on a bad day.
Yes, but it shrinks. Phase 1 already does most of this under load — Romanian deadlifts and hip thrusts train the exact hip extension the tilt is missing, hanging knee raises train anti-extension harder than a dead bug ever will, split squats stretch one hip flexor while the other works. So after unassisted:
Nothing has been undone. Posture work is motor learning, not fitness — you're teaching a default position, and skills decay far slower than conditioning. A week off through illness costs a couple of rusty sessions. Pick it up where you left it, and don't add extra sessions to compensate — that's the impulse that turns a missed week into a quit month.
I can't diagnose from photographs and won't pretend otherwise. But I can tell you what they're consistent with, and more usefully, what your own second photo already proved.
Standing relaxed, there's a mild forward tilt of the pelvis with the lower abdomen carried forward and a lumbar curve slightly deeper than neutral. That is mild anterior pelvic tilt, and it is unremarkable — a large majority of desk-working adults measure some. It is a position, not an injury.
A good part of what reads as tilt isn't tilt at all — it's a relaxed abdominal wall over a normal amount of subcutaneous fat, photographed standing at ease. Those look nearly identical in a mirror and are completely different problems. The first is a habit. The second is answered by the nutrition section of the main plan over months, not by any exercise.
You pushed the hips forward and the stomach tucked in by itself. That means you can voluntarily control your pelvic position — so this is postural and motor-control driven, not structural. Structural tilt doesn't move when you ask it to. Yours moved. That's genuinely good news, and it means the routine you're already doing is aimed at exactly the right target.
Do it once. Again in three months. Not weekly — you'll just make yourself anxious about noise.
You're already doing the first three. Don't go looking for more posture exercises — the internet will happily sell you a forty-minute daily protocol for a problem you're already solving with ten.
And you noticed something real: pull-ups do make you stand taller. Hanging decompresses the spine, and the lats and mid-back you're building are the muscles that hold a tall chest without you having to think about it. The pull-up block is posture work.
The main plan says eat +250 kcal and gain to 70 kg. Do not start that yet. A pull-up is the one lift where your bodyweight is the load. Every kilogram makes every remaining rung measurably harder — you'd be climbing a ladder while someone raises it.
| Rule | During the block | After unassisted |
|---|---|---|
| Protein | ~120 g/day | ~120 g/day |
| Calories | Maintenance. Hold weight flat. | +250 kcal |
| Target weight | 64–65 kg, steady | → 68–70 kg |
| Weigh-in | Every morning, weekly average | Every morning, weekly average |
| Steps | 8,000–10,000 / day | 8,000–10,000 / day |
Keep the protein high — that's what protects the muscle you're building on the bar. Just don't add the surplus. The gaining phase starts the week you get your first clean unassisted pull-up, not before.
| When | What changes |
|---|---|
| That week | Nothing. Finish the week on this protocol. Order the plates and bars if they aren't already on the shelf. |
| Next Monday | Phase 0 begins — full body, Mon/Wed/Fri, four weeks. Your pull-up work becomes line 6, now unassisted at 2 × 5. |
| Same week | Start the surplus. One extra snack a day, +0.5–0.75 kg per month. |
| Same week | Posture routine drops to the maintenance version above. |
| Week 5 | Phase 1 begins — Upper/Lower, four days. Chin-ups at position 2 on Upper A, pull-ups at position 2 on Upper B. |
| Then | At 10 clean unassisted, start adding weight — a plate in a backpack, or held between the feet. |
Your band marks, heaviest assistance first. This is a placeholder — set it to whatever your band is actually marked with. Logged history survives the change.
Every new rung restarts at the first stage and climbs one rep at a time. More stages means gentler progress and a longer road — the projection below reflects it honestly.
Nothing is sent anywhere. Clearing browser data wipes the log — copy the backup line somewhere safe every few weeks.
Block Zero of the home training program. Not medical advice — if something hurts in a joint rather than a muscle, stop and get it looked at.
Revision 2 · July 2026