It seems like I get shoulder problems every time I get into doing pullups, and it could be that I never really worked on horizontal pulls, which the PCC (Progressive Calisthenics Certification) folks call "Australian pullups" - basically just rowing your bodyweight. Before I achieved my first pullup, I did lat pulldowns, cable rows, and other stuff on machines in modern-style gyms. My university opened a shiny new modern style gym, which had a pullup-assist machine which I used to build up to my first pullup. I started with like 50lbs assistance and worked down to 0 lbs. I didn't know at the time the old-school way would have been to do rows from under a sturdy table, then progress to jump-to-negatives, half-pullups, etc. Anyway, the Convict Conditioning book argues in favor of working through a progression of an exercise (Aussie pullups, negative pullups, jump to half-pullups, full pullups, etc.) instead of skipping ahead too soon; otherwise the muscles may strengthen faster than the softer tissues and so on, and technique suffers as well. This could be what's going on with why my shoulder pain returns after I start doing pullups on a bar. Pullups on rings does not seem to aggravate the shoulder as much because of the movement they allow in the arms.
So I'm going to work on bodyweight pulls until 2 sets of 20 are easy, then go up the progression. The Convict Conditioning progression standard is 30 reps, but that seems a bit much. GMB would say 30 seconds easy, snappy movement is the progression standard. I'm not sure that's enough work, as there are still GMB programs that advise 12-15 reps here and there. Anyway, I'll arbitrarily set 20 to be the progression standard before moving on to the next exercise in the pullup progression, which is either jacknife pullups or jump-to-negative pullups.
The same shoulder also bothers me when I do full pushups, so I'm similarly going to switch to kneeling pushups. Brachial hanging has made a difference for my shoulder - much reduced pain when I lower myself into a dead hang from the pullup bar.
I have a similar situation with my knee whenever I practice pistol squats. There's no pain during the exercise itself, but hours afterward or the next day, my knee gets sore. During my low back physical therapy, one of the doctors noticed something odd about my gait and found a misalignment between the hip and back, causing the foot to want to turn out more than the other when I stand. She put me through a "reset" but I was later told that a longer term fix would be to strengthen the core and consciously turn the foot back inwards to match the other foot. The misaligned side is where my knee can hurt. So I'm going to switch back to the shrimp squat progression, since that doesn't seem to bother the knee as much.
So this is the modified bodyweight program, influenced by both Integral Strength and Convict Conditioning - the biggest step away from Integral Strength being to drop the circuit training and just do 2-3 sets of each exercise.
Warmup: Integral Strength warmup
Practice:
Inverted Leg Raise
Shrimp Squats - Step-back Lunge
Pushups - Kneeling
Bridge Pressups
Aussie Pullups (love the name)
L-Sit (Dynamic)
Cooldown: Convict Conditioning Trifecta, Hip Flexor stretches (if time allows), Brachial Hang
The Inverted Leg Raise tutorial by GMB includes the best instruction I've seen yet on how to get into a headstand. Everybody else teaches the headstand this way: "Go near a wall, make a triangle between your hands and head, and kick up!"... without any help for people who can't do the kick-up because they lack the strength, flexibility, or motor control. The Inverted Leg Raise temporarily supplants the Inverted Press as the exercise for overhead pressing strength, because I feel like I have a more immediate need for the benefits that it promises: Balance while being upside down, core strength, and upper body strength from isometric contraction (constantly pushing against the floor with the hands to reduce the load on the head and neck). Given where I'm at with the other exercise progressions, the Inverted Leg Raise is the most challenging exercise and thus is the first in the routine.
The Shrimp Squat progression will be followed pretty much as taught in Integral Strength.
The Pushup progression will be as taught in Integral Strength, until I've worked up to multiple sets of 15 full pushups, at which point I'll decide if I want to work on the Hollow Body Pushup or the One-Arm Pushup
The Bridge Pressup progression will be mostly from Integral Strength. At some point I will have to decide if I want to keep working on a Bridge that looks anywhere as good as the GMB coaches demonstrate the course, or if I should progress to one-leg variations as taught by the Kavadlo brothers, who have pretty much taken over propagating the Convict Conditioning system around the world. The book says to work towards a stand-to-stand Bridge, while the Kavadlos instead progress to one-leg, then one-leg, one-arm (I think) bridges.
Aussie Pullups will be trained until I can do 2 sets of 20 easily. I'll probably try Al Kavadlo's idea afterwards of working on regular pullups, supersetted with Aussie Pullups. He says this is great for increasing reps in the pullup, but I'm just looking to make sure the critical shoulder girdle muscles (lower trapezius and rear deltoids) get the work needed to maintain shoulder health.
The L-Sit in most GMB programs is practiced as a static hold This L-Hold tutorial introduced a dynamic version, in which one moves between two positions in the L-Sit/L-Hold progression. I have to add that I don't agree with the prerequisites in the tutorial - one does not need to have performed a one-arm pushup, leg raise, or handstand before beginning. I started working on the L-Sit without having practiced any of those moves. GMB's L-Sit Tutorial gives a more realistic perspective on what needs to be done to work on the L-Sit - lots of great info, but it doesn't have the dynamic movement idea. Anyway, the idea is to practice the dynamic version here. The static version is part of the Convict Conditioning Trifecta. I'm not fully sold yet on the L-Hold being a suitable active stretch for the posterior chain, but I've started trying it as part of the Trifecta.
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