Ballast

For those who have finished “Iron Belt” and want to keep building muscle on the bars. You need a pull-up bar, dip bars, a dipping belt and a load: a kettlebell, dumbbell or weight plate. 3 workouts a week, 6 exercises each, 2 minutes of rest. One 4-week stage: week 1 is an intro week, in week 2 the load rises sharply and stays there in week 3, and in week 4 it drops. Next step after the program: “Iron Belt” again from Base.

Weighted pull-ups and weighted dips appear in all three workouts, 3–4 sets of 8 reps. After each set you note how it went, and the app picks the load from those ratings. Squats, lunges, rows on a low bar, push-ups and abs use body weight for 15 reps.

Method: A peak with a load on the belt.
Pull-ups and dips are done with a load on a belt for 8 reps, and the app picks the load from how you rate your sets. Week 1 is an intro week, in week 2 the load rises sharply and stays there in week 3, and in week 4 it drops before the next round of “Iron Belt”. The other exercises use body weight.

What studies found:

• Changing the load from period to period adds max strength and does not affect muscle growth (Moesgaard et al., 2022)
• A deload week did not reduce muscle growth (Coleman et al., 2024)
• Push-ups and a light bench press produced similar gains in muscle and strength (Kikuchi et al., 2017)

The studies tested the principles; the program itself has not been tested in this form.

Log only the load on your belt in the weight field, without your body weight.