Start here. It takes two numbers.
Everything I actually do, on one page. Where to start, what counts as a rep, what to eat, what to do when it stalls, and the two prompts that turn ChatGPT into your log.
Max Love · weighted calisthenics
1 · Your starting numbers
Two hard sets on the first lift of each day. Three to five minutes rest between them. Everything after the first lift is support and doesn't need careful progression.
2 · What counts as a rep
Half your problem is that half your reps don't count.
Adding weight to a rep you're cutting short doesn't make you stronger, it just makes the number on your log a lie. This is the standard, and it's not negotiable at any weight.
The pull-up
- Start from straight arms. Every rep. The bottom is where the load actually is, and cutting it is cutting the exercise in half.
- Chin over the bar, not level with it. Nose doesn't count. Eyes don't count.
- No kick. If your legs swing, the rep didn't happen. With a belt on, a kick is how a shoulder gets hurt.
- Two seconds down. The lowering half builds as much as the pull, and it's the half everyone drops.
The dip
- Shoulders below elbows at the bottom. Anything less is a triceps press-down with your bodyweight on it.
- Lock out at the top. Every rep finishes.
- Lean forward for chest, stay upright for triceps. Pick one and stay with it so the log means something.
- Control the bottom. Dropping into the stretch is where shoulders get hurt, and the plates hanging off you make it worse.
3 · The one progression rule
Both sets hit eight. Then, and only then, add five pounds.
This is called double progression. Reps climb first on the same weight, then the weight jumps and the reps reset. It's the entire program, and it's why you don't need a new plan every eight weeks.
| Session | Belt | Set 1 | Set 2 | What you do next |
|---|
Repeating a weight isn't standing still. Going from a hard five to a clean eight on the same load is the progress. The plate change is just the receipt.
- Five pounds at a time. Ten if the last jump felt like nothing. Never double it — tendons adapt slower than muscle, and they don't warn you first.
- Missed one rep on set two? Same weight next time. You're not stuck, you're one session away.
- Never add weight to fix a stall. If the reps stopped climbing, more load is the last thing that will help.
4 · A rest timer you can use today
The reason your second set is worse.
Ninety seconds and set two is a fraction of set one — you wrote down two sets and did about one and a half. Three to five minutes and both sets land near what you're capable of. Same two sets on paper, roughly double the work. Leave this page open at the bar.
If you're not resting long enough to get bored, you're not lifting heavy enough to need it.
5 · Two prompts that log everything
I don't use a training app. I use two chats.
One keeps my lifts and tells me what to add. The other estimates and totals my food so I never look up a macro. Both are free, and both answer back, which is the part an app can't do.
- Open two new chats in ChatGPT or Claude. Call them Training and Food.
- Paste one prompt into each. Your numbers from section one are already filled in.
- Never start a third. The whole value is that they remember.
Four words in. A decision back.
| Date | Lift | Wt | S1 | S2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 4 | pull | 20 | 7 | 6 |
| Mar 11 | pull | 20 | 8 | 7 |
| Mar 18 | pull | 20 | 8 | 8 |
Next pull day: 25 lb, target 5 reps both sets.
Eggs, 3 — 215 kcal, 19 g
Today: 855 kcal, 75 g protein
Left: 1,305 kcal, 69 g protein
Today: 1,745 kcal, 137 g protein
Left: 415 kcal, 7 g protein
Every Sunday each one gives you the week: your average weight and its change, your average protein, and how many days out of seven you hit it.
6 · Hitting protein without thinking
Protein is the number people miss. It's also the easiest to fix.
You don't need a diet. You need to hit two numbers with food you'd eat anyway. Pick three or four of these, repeat them, and the number takes care of itself.
| Food | Portion | Protein | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken breast | 6 oz cooked | 52 g | 280 |
| Sirloin | 6 oz cooked | 46 g | 340 |
| Lean ground beef, 93% | 6 oz cooked | 46 g | 330 |
| Salmon | 6 oz cooked | 40 g | 350 |
| Canned tuna | 1 can | 27 g | 120 |
| Cottage cheese | 1 cup | 25 g | 180 |
| Whey protein | 1 scoop | 25 g | 120 |
| Greek yogurt, non-fat | 200 g | 20 g | 120 |
| Eggs | 3 large | 19 g | 215 |
| Milk | 16 oz | 16 g | 250 |
Approximate, and approximate is fine. Being roughly right every day beats being exactly right for a week.
- Protein first on every plate. Decide the meat, then fill in around it. That single order of operations does most of the work.
- The food itself is up to you. Macros over food choices. Keep it mostly real food because of how you feel, not because of a rule.
- Weigh yourself every morning, same time, and only ever judge the seven-day average. One morning tells you nothing except how salty dinner was.
- Cook the week's protein on Sunday. Twenty minutes, and the week's decisions are gone. Decisions are where diets die, not hunger.
7 · When it stops working
Three sessions at the same numbers. Now what?
Everyone stalls. It means one of three things and they need opposite responses, which is why guessing makes it worse.
Something aches the day after
Elbows, front of the shoulder, wrists. The load got ahead of your tendons — they adapt slower than muscle and don't warn you first. Hold the weight, stop each set one rep earlier, and add a light warm-up set. Nothing hurts before you progress.
Nothing hurts, you're just flat
Sleep is short, work is heavy, you feel slow warming up. That's recovery, not training. Take the week at one session instead of two, same weight, then come back. Almost everyone reads this as needing to train harder, which is exactly backwards.
You've been cutting a long time
Strength stalling in a deficit is normal and not a failure. You can't build much on low calories forever. Eat at maintenance for two weeks — bodyweight times about 13 — and the bar usually starts moving again within a session or two.
Never add weight to fix a stall, and never skip the dead hang to buy one more rep. Both are how six-week injuries start.
8 · What to buy, and the free version
| Thing | Roughly | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Dip belt | $30–40 | The chain has to clear your knees or the plates swing into them. Not a weight vest — a vest changes how you move; a belt hangs the load and leaves the movement alone. |
| Plates | varies | Two 10s, two 25s and a 45 cover the first couple of years. Add two 2.5s, because most jumps should be small. |
| Chalk | $6 | Stops your grip being the limit on a set your back could have finished. A block lasts a year. |
| A bar | free | Any park. A doorway bar works. This is the whole gym. |
The free version, for month one
A backpack with books in it does the same job as a belt. Weigh it on a bathroom scale — stand on the scale holding it, subtract your bodyweight — and log that number like any other. Buy the belt once you've proven to yourself that you'll show up.
9 · Your first week, hour by hour
Do exactly this. Change nothing for eight weeks.
- Sunday, 20 minutes. Cook the week's protein. Put the belt or the backpack by the door.
- Sunday, 5 minutes. Open the two chats and paste the prompts. Send your bodyweight to the food one.
- Monday, 40 minutes. Pull day. One easy bodyweight set, then two hard sets on the pull-up. Log it the moment you're done.
- Every morning, 10 seconds. Weigh yourself and send the number. Ignore what it says day to day.
- Thursday, 40 minutes. Push day. Weighted dip first, same two sets, log it.
- Sunday again. Read the weekly summary. Change nothing based on one week.
- Then repeat it seven more times. Twenty-four sessions is where a body visibly changes. Most people quit before they find out.
10 · The questions everyone asks
Is two hard sets really enough?
For the first year or two, comfortably. You don't have a volume problem, you have an intensity problem — most people do sixteen sets that all feel like a seven out of ten because they know more sets are coming. Two sets you actually mean, fully rested, beat that. Add volume later, once the weight has genuinely stopped moving and nothing hurts.
Can I do this entirely at home?
Yes. A pull-up bar, something to dip on, and a backpack is the whole requirement. Parallel bars exist in most parks. The accessories — rows, presses, curls — can be dumbbells, bands, or skipped in month one without much cost.
What if I can't do a single dip yet?
Do the top half only, from lockout down to about halfway, and control the lowering. Three sets of five. Add an inch of depth each week. You'll have a full one inside a month, and the same eight-clean-reps rule then applies before you add weight.
What about cardio?
Optional for fat loss — the diet does that. Walk if you like walking, and it helps your recovery and your head. Don't add running on top of a deficit and two hard sessions and then wonder why you're flat.
Do I need supplements?
No. Creatine is the one with real evidence behind it: five grams a day, any brand, cheap, and it doesn't matter when you take it. Protein powder is food, not a supplement — useful if you struggle to hit the number, useless if you don't. Everything else is optional at best.
How long until I see something?
Strength moves first — you'll notice the weight going up before the mirror does. The mirror follows, then other people say something, in that order and never faster. Judge the count, not the reflection: if you're twenty-four sessions in and the belt is heavier, it's working, whatever the mirror said this morning.
Should I bulk or cut first?
If you can't see any abdominal definition, cut first. You'll build plenty of muscle while losing fat at this training age, and you'll enjoy the result sooner. If you're already lean and small, eat at maintenance and let the strength do the work.
Do I need a deload week?
Not on a schedule. Take one when the signs show up — flat sessions, poor sleep, aches — which is what section seven is for. Deloading every fourth week whether you need it or not is a solution to a problem two hard sets a week doesn't create.
What if I miss a session?
Nothing. It happens to everyone who has ever trained. Missing two in a row is the one that matters, because that's what teaches your brain the plan is optional. On a day you really don't want to go, do the twenty-minute version: one hard set of the main lift, log it, leave.
Can I add exercises?
You can, and it's usually the wrong move. Every exercise you add takes intensity out of the first one, which is the one that's actually growing you. If the weight on the belt is still going up, you don't need anything else. If it isn't, adding a movement won't be why.
Where the AI stops
It logs. It doesn't coach.
- It can't see you. It has no idea whether your chin cleared the bar or your legs kicked. It'll happily record a rep that didn't count.
- It knows you stalled, not which one it is. Section seven has three causes with opposite fixes. It'll ask. It can't tell.
- It doesn't care whether you show up. That has never been an information problem, and it's the one most people actually have.
If you want me watching it
Everything above is what I do, in full, for free. What it can't give you is someone checking the log with you, telling you which of the three stalls is yours, and adjusting your numbers as your bodyweight moves.
Twelve weeks, one-on-one. Five founding spots.
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