Starting Foundation One: Abandon old program (weights)?

I purchased Foundation One this week and have been learning / testing my starting point with the exercises with the intent on starting next Monday in earnest.  I'm pretty excited about it.  I'm lucky enough to live near Stanford and went to a couple of their gymnastics meets over the past weeks -- wooooow are those athletes impressive.

I intend to follow the four day program as prescribed.  I'm 46, and have no delusions about being a world class gymnast, but really look forward to "mastering" the various PE levels in at least Foundation One as my goal.

Up to now, I've been training 3/4 times a week similar as:

Day one / three:

Squats (3-4 sets)

Pull ups (3 sets to failure)

Shoulder Press or wide grip barbell row (3-4 sets)

L Sit PullUps (3 sets to failure)

Day two/four

Bench Press (4 sets)

Dips (5 sets)

Incline Press (3 sets)

I've been using this routine for about a year, and have (at least) significantly improved my pullups.  Squats and other exercises have stayed about the same (but I did lose about 60 lbs via diet during all of this -- maybe that's why the pullups have improved ha ha).

I'm considering just keeping the pullups as my "warm up" on a couple of training days.

Does anyone have thoughts on whether I should continue with the squats/shoulder/bench press exercises?  Is it overkill to add this Foundation One -- would you do it during the "like" days (e.g. squats on the same day you work for single leg squat via Foundation One).  If so, would you do it at the end / beginning / does it matter?

Thanks for the advice!

It will be overkill to try and keep that exact schedule, yes.

First, before my characteristic long post, a quick note and the summary:

Note: You should really spend a few weeks to get familiar with F1 on its own, I think. 2-3 weeks should be good. You need to know what your baseline is for recovery, so that you can select the right schedule, and you are going to have a hard time doing that with a mixed workout. Besides, this will simplify your life temporarily (compared to trying to integrate lifting with a new program that you are completely unfamiliar with).

Summary:

Do your general warm up, then if you want to maintain your lifts do a single set with regular working weight, preferably in the 3-5 rep range. Your goal is to feel energized, and eager to do more! Then you will do your F1 work, and go home happy

Finally, make sure your nutrition is on point. I have spoken at length about this here, and I believe the search function will do you a lot of good. I would focus on my posts that are less than 18 months old.

Ok, on to the long post:

I personally front squat and do bulgarian split squats, but that doesn't keep me from doing Foundation leg work.

For me, personally, the lower body strength work in F1 is very easy, so I use it for warm up. I do a warm up set with 3 PE/iM pairs pretty much back to back, because they're not super hard BUT they are movements that I do not normally perform. I have actually had quite a bit of these in my warm up for some time, both because they make me feel better when I actually step under the bar AND because they help me prevent gaps in leg development. This has worked out very well for me.

I want to make one thing very clear: The reason the F1 stuff is a warm up for me is because I can do all the mastery. Some of the mobility is still not perfect, but it gets better every session.

I don't think you should give up your benching or pull ups/dips, but going to failure won't help you if you want to start the foundation program and master it.

Failure is about maximizing muscle mass gain from a single training session. That is pure bodybuilding, and it will directly interfere with your desire to master F1, not to mention the later volumes.

I think that you should do 1 set of your normal weight and reps (NOT to failure) after you finish your warm up, and before you start your foundation work on each training day, up to 4x per week. If you look at the templates, this would basically be on the days you do straddle planche prep, with Manna and leg days being a rest for the upper body weight lifting. I recommend doing this three days per week.

For your leg work, I think that your focus will depend almost entirely on whether or not you have mastered all of F1's leg work. If you have, I'd use F1 as your warm up before squats.

I don't do super high reps of any one exercise, I do something like 5-7 reps of each exercise in sequence. This works out extremely well, because it is fast, it gives you the lighter, higher rep work that helps stimulate cartilage production, and is really a perfect warm up... at least for me.

After that I do maybe 3 sets of front squats or Bulgarian split squats (which are basically weighted speed skater squats, with the rear foot on a bench for balance). That's it, and I keep getting stronger.

This is more than enough to maintain your strength in the lifts, if you are actually doing Foundation work.

So, my basic template for combining weights and Foundation:

1) Warm up. This is usually easier foundation work, but could be whatever works for you if you aren't in a position to use F1 for warm up just yet.

2) 1-2 sets per movement plane. Let me be very clear about this:

• The goal is for me to use my strength, not to get tired.
• To do this, I do 3-5 reps for one set.
• Bench press and incline press are both horizontal presses. DO NOT do two sets of each, do one set of each OR do two sets of flat bench one day, and 2 sets of incline the next. You should use a weight that you KNOW you can do 4-6 reps with, and you should do 1 rep less than that. If you KNOW you can only get 5 reps with 220 lbs, you should do 3-4 reps.
• Your pull ups and dips should not be super high rep if they are being used for strength. I would suggest adding weight and doing them with perfect form for low reps.
• If you want high reps, they should be in your general warm up, should not go all the way to failure, and should only be one set.

At this time I believe this to be the right way to combine, because I find that strength sucks after my 5 sets of F1, but my F1 is as good or better after 1 set of strength.

You are going to have to have the discipline to not turn the weights into a workout. This will get easier with time... old habits die hard. Go in knowing that you will feel the urge, that it is ok to feel the urge, and that you're going to stick with your plan anyways and do your single set followed by F1.

You should find yourself becoming stronger as time goes on in the weights, despite not doing much work, because F1 is going to make you strong, more than making up for any percieved "lost reps or sets" that you may be worried about.

You will have to fine tune that to your needs, because only you can know what your recovery is, and often you will find out through  future experimentation. Start with what I have given you here, and if that is too much then drop to just one set per plane, and perhaps lower the weight some.

If that is still too much for you, then either your nutrition is very out of line and/or your body simply can't handle that combination of work. I find that it is nearly always a nutritional issue that causes the poor recovery, as I haven't yet run across anyone who hasn't had improved recovery when using my methods.

If you have not read my nutrition threads, I think you should.

I think you will love this kind of training. I myself is 49 and started this type of training about 4 years ago. One of many advantages is that you dont realy need to go to the gym. You can do 95% of it in your own home. This saves alot of time just going back and forth to the gym. In the beginning I mixen body exercises with weights but after a while I stoped with the weights. F1 will buildi a solid foundation, make you strong and mobile!

I realize I should probably say this as a separate post, just so that it's easy to see:

You do not HAVE to keep doing weights, and you may not want to after you get into the Foundation series, but if so what I posted are what I believe to be the best guidelines for prioritizing the F1 program without losing your favorite lifts.

You may also benefit the most from doing one cycle of just the F1 program, so that you have time to really get a feel for it and experience what the programming will do for you, without wondering whether somehow those 3 reps of bench press actually did the trick. F1 is powerful.

What if a primary goal of mine is also to increase my deadlift? How would you program that?

Mats Trane said:

I think you will love this kind of training. I myself is 49 and started this type of training about 4 years ago. One of many advantages is that you dont realy need to go to the gym. You can do 95% of it in your own home. This saves alot of time just going back and forth to the gym. In the beginning I mixen body exercises with weights but after a while I stoped with the weights. F1 will buildi a solid foundation, make you strong and mobile!

I am absolutely loving F1. It really is fun, and you definitely don't need to mix weights in to get excellent results.

Right now my favorite F1 exercise is hinge rows, because they are really helping me with my shoulder recovery. Close second is Xiaopings tied with windmills, because they just make me feel good

I have to say, I enjoy every set of my workouts, and it's fun to watch my body change even more (now that I'm actually doing the full program pain free).

I can honestly say that I never saw results like this when I lifted.

Joshua Naterman said:

I am absolutely loving F1. It really is fun, and you definitely don't need to mix weights in to get excellent results.

 

Right now my favorite F1 exercise is hinge rows, because they are really helping me with my shoulder recovery. Close second is Xiaopings tied with windmills, because they just make me feel good

 

I have to say, I enjoy every set of my workouts, and it's fun to watch my body change even more (now that I'm actually doing the full program pain free).

 

I can honestly say that I never saw results like this when I lifted.

Xiaopengs are the bomb!  Best shoulder stabilizer ever...

The later F2-4 progressions run you through GHR and NLC, which help immensely, but I'd honestly do the same thing I suggested above.

1-2 sets of DL, 2-3 days per week, before you do your Foundation work.

If DL is something that you're ultra concerned about, it is possible to do 3 sets of DL and 3 sets of your prescribed Foundation work, but I don't think I'd push volume past that.

It will slow down your foundation progress a little, but will allow you to keep moving forward ad a decent pace in both exercises.

Unless there's some serious reason why you need a bigger DL, I'd honestly switch to primarily Foundation leg work with a lesser focus on DL once F2-4 come out.

Between arch ups (weighted eventually), NLC, and GHR you will have a strong deadlift.

- Your primary job is to master the GST fundamentals.

- To my mind that means that you are not yet strong enough to benefit from additional weight training.  If you were you would already be able and mobile enough to demonstrate the fundamentals.

- Does this mean that you cannot add weights in later?  Of course not.  But at your level of development you need to take care of first things first.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thank you VERY much for all the excellent information.  I really appreciate it!!  

Great stuff! I'm curious, and forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere; what are the prerequisites for weightlifting?

I would say, at minimum, that you progress to where you are working on specific FSP stuff. Meaning that you're practicing tuck planche (or tuck FL, etc) with perfect form.

Here's the major thing: It is very important that your primary focus be on foundation, because if all you do is get through your F1 work to go lift (for example) you won't be spending the time focusing on form.

There's only so much energy we can put into a single workout and still move forward, and weightlifting will not help you learn form for any GST at all. The Foundation programming is designed to develop all the shapes you need. Once you have progressed to where you are doing SE work and not PE work, you will probably be ready to do the 1-2 sets of weighted work I mentioned.

Coach may prefer that you hold off longer than that, I don't know. If he does, I'm sure we'll hear his recommendation soon.

Right now, I really think that your best results will come from allowing your body to really absorb what F1 has to offer without any distractions.

Coach Sommer said:

- Your primary job is to master the GST fundamentals.

This has been my goal since I became aware of F1. I've scrapped weights until I feel like I have the F1 routine down. Could I add in weights? Sure.  Would I rather work on GST and developing that to the best of my abilities? Yes.  But as they say, your mileage may vary

edit: I'm quoting coach but talking to OP, in case anyone was wondering

Thx for the great information you guys provide.
i have a question regarding some exstra gymnastic work. 
I plan on training 3 days at week, can i add things like (wall) handstand, rondat, salto and flik-flak after the f1 work? 

lykkestrup said:

Thx for the great information you guys provide.

i have a question regarding some exstra gymnastic work. 

I plan on training 3 days at week, can i add things like (wall) handstand, rondat, salto and flik-flak after the f1 work? 

You can do it on the same day, but skill work should come before your strength training work.