Why does HBP follow sPL?

I just started on my second 4-week cycle and have already failed on the HBP element.  I'm currently working sPL/PE1 4x12 scapular shrugs, and HBP/PE2 4x12 pushups.  

I have found the jump in volume to be too big for me.  Specifically, the ever increasing volume of the scapular shrugs is pre-exhausting me before I even get to the pushups (which are also ever increasing in volume, especially considering the integrated xiaopengs!).  I'm not sure how to proceed since the book makes no mention of what to do when you cannot successfully complete a workout...

Also, I'm wondering if the pairing of sPL and HBP was intentional?  Would I be better off just changing the order of the exercises in order to allow more recovery time or is it scheduled like this for a specific reason?  If so I am curious to know why.

Thanks in advance!

- Did you master incline pushups before moving on to regular pushups? 

- Are you on the 5 or 4 day schedule? You may not be getting enough recovery time. 

- I'm see no reason why you must perform exercises in the order listed. If you want to do RC and/or FL work in between sPL and HBP work, that should be fine. Another possibility would be to give yourself a few minutes of rest between exercises. 

Like Hari_Seldon said, you can change order of the excersises.  

I passed all previous mastery requirements and am on the 4 day schedule.  I'll try changing up the exercise order and see how that goes.  I'm curious to hear from Coach if this is an okay approach though!

I am interested in this as well...I think that changing HBP and RC exercises is really needed...can coach or moderator confirm these?

I just work on adding one rep per week.

I don't worry about trying to push through to the week's goal, I just do what I can do and take my deload when I'm supposed to, and then start right back where I was. This works well for me.

I don't add another rep unless I feel like it's going to be an easy add. For example, most of my sets of hinge rows were 9 reps this past workout, whereas for the last week I've been using 8 reps. I'll see if I can get all sets with 9 reps tomorrow, and if not I'll stick with 9 reps until I do, and then I'll start trying 10 reps.

Eventually I'll have my 5x15 reps, and then I'll just do these as warm up.

Hari_Seldon said:

 (...) You may not be getting enough recovery time (...)

I doubt it would show on the Monday after deload if that is the case...

I echo what slizz said - I tailor the amount of work I do during a workout to how I'm feeling during that workout. I feel like if you're getting the numbers in, the progress will follow - doesn't matter as much if you do a little more than necessary one practice and a little less the next. Sometimes the skill work I do pre-conditioning is quite exhausting and I'm left with little steam - then I taper my expectations a little. Other times, the skill work is pretty easy, and I feel like I can do a bit extra in terms of conditioning - then you can do a few extra repetitions, or make the repetitions slow enough to be more challenging than usual.

Basically, I think the templates should be used as a guideline rather than as a rigid structure; though most normal days (where I got enough sleep and didn't screw up nutrition - something that rarely happens in college, haha), I end up following them pretty closely anyway.

Use each week's goal as your goal, and if you feel like you can only add one rep per week then do so. Don't start doing week 9 numbers until you have mastered week 8's set/rep goals.

For deload weeks, you could cut the reps and hold times in half, or you can just do 1-2 sets of your current reps, instead of all 3-5 sets.

Deload's goal is to cut the volume by 50-75 percent, while using the same resistance level. This is what allows the recovery to take place, so don't use this as an excuse to go nuts with other exercise!

Joshua Naterman said:

I just work on adding one rep per week.

 

I don't worry about trying to push through to the week's goal, I just do what I can do and take my deload when I'm supposed to, and then start right back where I was. This works well for me.

 

I don't add another rep unless I feel like it's going to be an easy add. For example, most of my sets of hinge rows were 9 reps this past workout, whereas for the last week I've been using 8 reps. I'll see if I can get all sets with 9 reps tomorrow, and if not I'll stick with 9 reps until I do, and then I'll start trying 10 reps.

 

Eventually I'll have my 5x15 reps, and then I'll just do these as warm up.

I actually quite like this approach... intriguing..

Joshua Naterman said:

I just work on adding one rep per week.

I don't worry about trying to push through to the week's goal, I just do what I can do and take my deload when I'm supposed to, and then start right back where I was. This works well for me.

I don't add another rep unless I feel like it's going to be an easy add. For example, most of my sets of hinge rows were 9 reps this past workout, whereas for the last week I've been using 8 reps. I'll see if I can get all sets with 9 reps tomorrow, and if not I'll stick with 9 reps until I do, and then I'll start trying 10 reps.

Eventually I'll have my 5x15 reps, and then I'll just do these as warm up.

This actually sounds pretty interesting as it makes sure you never push further than you are capable of. So do you start with the same nr of sets as in the mastery? For hinge rows 5 sets and just try to add reps then?

How do Coach feel about this?

Joshua Naterman said:

Use each week's goal as your goal, and if you feel like you can only add one rep per week then do so. Don't start doing week 9 numbers until you have mastered week 8's set/rep goals.

 

For deload weeks, you could cut the reps and hold times in half, or you can just do 1-2 sets of your current reps, instead of all 3-5 sets.

 

Deload's goal is to cut the volume by 50-75 percent, while using the same resistance level. This is what allows the recovery to take place, so don't use this as an excuse to go nuts with other exercise!

Interesting take on the program Joshua.

I've been working hard to keep up with the prescribed numbers; for instance, on Monday, I did 4x12 reps of push ups, with form break on the last rep of the second set, and failure on the last 2 reps and last 4 reps of the 3rd and 4th set which I finished on my knees. Today I completed all 4 sets without failure, only form break on the last few reps of the last 2 sets.

Are you implying that this is not appropriate? Would it be better to follow what you are saying above?

To me, the big upside of following the prescribed numbers without deviation, is that it shuts down the little voices that are sometimes screaming "this is enough, you can stop there" (Happens quite a bit during Arch Holds...). I know that having the liberty to stop when it becomes hard would soon become a habit impeding progress.

To paraphrase Gohei above, offering the option to bail out in the middle of a set is a sure way (to me) to ensure that you'll never push as far as you are capable of...

Right now, Coach said 48s, so 48sx4 it is, no discussion, no opting out, no little voices, just pure effort, and we'll see where failure occurs, if it does.

Joshua Naterman said:

Use each week's goal as your goal, and if you feel like you can only add one rep per week then do so. Don't start doing week 9 numbers until you have mastered week 8's set/rep goals.

 

For deload weeks, you could cut the reps and hold times in half, or you can just do 1-2 sets of your current reps, instead of all 3-5 sets.

 

Deload's goal is to cut the volume by 50-75 percent, while using the same resistance level. This is what allows the recovery to take place, so don't use this as an excuse to go nuts with other exercise!

While this approach seems okay (it's similar to what I've done in the past) it begs the question of why even bother with F1 in the first place?  (Don't freak out people...)

A.J. said:

While this approach seems okay (it's similar to what I've done in the past) it begs the question of why even bother with F1 in the first place?  (Don't freak out people...)

A.J., I don't follow the leap in logic here... you might want to elaborate.

A.J. said:

While this approach seems okay (it's similar to what I've done in the past) it begs the question of why even bother with F1 in the first place?  (Don't freak out people...)

Because F1 maps out specific goals for you. Because F1 lets you know exactly where you stand in the grand scheme of things (in GST).

Because F1 works.

The exercise set/rep charts are reasonable goals to achieve. Not everyone will hit every goal week after week. If you don't, that's fine, you just keep repeating your week.

It's up to you whether you want to keep doing 36 reps until you can just jump right into 48, which will probably happen eventually, or whether you want to add a rep, when you feel up to it, progressively from one workout to the next. I find that adding a rep every so often works better for me, so I am sharing this strategy.

The 60r and 60s masteries are the major place where this strategy will work well for people.

As you get into 15 rep/sec mastery and below, I don't think this will be an issue.

IcedDante said:

A.J., I don't follow the leap in logic here... you might want to elaborate.

You can create a very similar program to F1 simply by using the original BTGB book and by browsing the forum for 'pre-reqs'.  The main advertised advantage of F1 was that it had all the programming already planned out according to Coach's mastery templates.  So if you're not using the F1 programming, then (as I'm asking) why bother?  I don't understand why people keep getting so defensive about things...?

Joshua Naterman said:

 

Because F1 maps out specific goals for you. Because F1 lets you know exactly where you stand in the grand scheme of things (in GST).

Because F1 works.

 

The exercise set/rep charts are reasonable goals to achieve. Not everyone will hit every goal week after week. If you don't, that's fine, you just keep repeating your week.

 

It's up to you whether you want to keep doing 36 reps until you can just jump right into 48, which will probably happen eventually, or whether you want to add a rep, when you feel up to it, progressively from one workout to the next. I find that adding a rep every so often works better for me, so I am sharing this strategy.

 

The 60r and 60s masteries are the major place where this strategy will work well for people.

 

As you get into 15 rep/sec mastery and below, I don't think this will be an issue.

Thank you for your input.

A.J. said:

You can create a very similar program to F1 simply by using the original BTGB book and by browsing the forum for 'pre-reqs'.  The main advertised advantage of F1 was that it had all the programming already planned out according to Coach's mastery templates.  So if you're not using the F1 programming, then (as I'm asking) why bother?  I don't understand why people keep getting so defensive about things...?

No... you really can't.  Where are the mobility exercises listed in BTGB?

Everybody on here had years to come up "a very similar program to F1" on their own while F1 was being worked on and nobody did, and a lot of people just ended up hurting themselves and not making progress.

A.J. said:

You can create a very similar program to F1  (...)

I don't think so...

F1 is so brilliant that it appears very simple, but as you dig deeper into it, you start to see some of the intricacies, complexity and even compromises that had to be considered in its formulation; IMHO, the only way you could re-create a program that could come near, would be after reading F1, and trying to reconstruct it from memory ... But even then, in all likeliness, you would fall short.

The rep/time progressions in F1 are great, but as Joshua mentions, there might be other strategies to progress that could be worth a try on a sticky point, or if a step is too wide to be bridged at once.

Now, maybe you have some of Coach Sommer's genius AJ? Why don't you give a shot at formulating F2, 3, & 4 before they are published?

THAT would give credit to your claim!

A.J. said:

While this approach seems okay (it's similar to what I've done in the past) it begs the question of why even bother with F1 in the first place?  (Don't freak out people...)

In my case, I picked up F1 because I wanted to have a clear set of ordered progressions of what to master. Selecting regressions for non-gymnastic movements is pretty straight forward but I didn't have much luck scaling GB related things years ago when I was training with these movements. Integrating the joint pre-hab stuff was another big question mark that I was wanting F1 to answer. Despite having attended a seminar I was still at a loss on some of these things and F1 filled that information gap for me.

Currently, I am completing week 4 after having decided to give the programming a go as written. My experience thus far has been that some things were paced a bit aggressively for me and that others are nowhere near where I need them to be. Kind of what I expected would happen trying to fit everybody into the same template when we all have different baggage we are carrying from past experiences/injuries.

The templates are a great guideline, and for some folks they are working great. Others are posting of their struggles meeting the numbers. That inevitably happens with a rigid approach. I don't think it helps that the course doesn't make clear:

1. Standards of form mastery *prior* to starting to train a movement. I think this is what may trip us up the most, when form is so far off at the start that as it improves and the volume scales the two haven't meshed together well. Seems we should be repeating the first X (whether X is week or micro-cycle I dunno) until form is good before moving forward, but some clear recommendation would be nice.
2. Dealing with what happens when you can't meet the numbers for a given week. This is something which should be easier to handle than the first point as it is less subjective.

The above listed items have been addressed in bits and pieces throughout the forum posts, but it would be great if one of the future updates could clear up the confusion and integrate a full response into the material.

I am still up in the air about continuing a full cycle with the programming as designed or merging it with the Gym Movement approach I was previously using for training non-gymnastic related stuff and simply take advantage of the clearly ordered master X before Y information. I may do a write-up on my application of the protocol to F1 training when I get to that point for any who are interested.

This post ended up being a lot longer than I intended but hopefully it gives you insight as to why somebody may want F1 and not necessarily utilize the programming numbers as set forth in the material.

- Chris

FredInChina said:

I don't think so...

F1 is so brilliant that it appears very simple, but as you dig deeper into it, you start to see some of the intricacies, complexity and even compromises that had to be considered in its formulation; IMHO, the only way you could re-create a program that could come near, would be after reading F1, and trying to reconstruct it from memory ... But even then, in all likeliness, you would fall short.

 

The rep/time progressions in F1 are great, but as Joshua mentions, there might be other strategies to progress that could be worth a try on a sticky point, or if a step is too wide to be bridged at once.

 

Now, maybe you have some of Coach Sommer's genius AJ? Why don't you give a shot at formulating F2, 3, & 4 before they are published?

THAT would give credit to your claim!

chobbs said:

In my case, I picked up F1 because I wanted to have a clear set of ordered progressions of what to master. Selecting regressions for non-gymnastic movements is pretty straight forward but I didn't have much luck scaling GB related things years ago when I was training with these movements. Integrating the joint pre-hab stuff was another big question mark that I was wanting F1 to answer. Despite having attended a seminar I was still at a loss on some of these things and F1 filled that information gap for me.

 

Currently, I am completing week 4 after having decided to give the programming a go as written. My experience thus far has been that some things were paced a bit aggressively for me and that others are nowhere near where I need them to be. Kind of what I expected would happen trying to fit everybody into the same template when we all have different baggage we are carrying from past experiences/injuries.

 

The templates are a great guideline, and for some folks they are working great. Others are posting of their struggles meeting the numbers. That inevitably happens with a rigid approach. I don't think it helps that the course doesn't make clear:

1. Standards of form mastery *prior* to starting to train a movement. I think this is what may trip us up the most, when form is so far off at the start that as it improves and the volume scales the two haven't meshed together well. Seems we should be repeating the first X (whether X is week or micro-cycle I dunno) until form is good before moving forward, but some clear recommendation would be nice.
2. Dealing with what happens when you can't meet the numbers for a given week. This is something which should be easier to handle than the first point as it is less subjective.

The above listed items have been addressed in bits and pieces throughout the forum posts, but it would be great if one of the future updates could clear up the confusion and integrate a full response into the material.

 

I am still up in the air about continuing a full cycle with the programming as designed or merging it with the Gym Movement approach I was previously using for training non-gymnastic related stuff and simply take advantage of the clearly ordered master X before Y information. I may do a write-up on my application of the protocol to F1 training when I get to that point for any who are interested.

 

This post ended up being a lot longer than I intended but hopefully it gives you insight as to why somebody may want F1 and not necessarily utilize the programming numbers as set forth in the material.

 

- Chris

Hi Chris,

Thanks so much for your reply!  Your experience has been very much the same as mine.  And like you, my questions have come from the fact that no mention of how to tweak the program for individual circumstance is given in the book.

EDIT: I look forward to reading your write-up!

A.J 
If you are on your second 4 week cycle then (unless of course you started from week 4) you should be in week 5 and the rep scheme for those exercises this week are 4x6 not 4x12. Just thinking that perhaps you jumped too far into the cycle and haven't given your body time to adapt to the stresses the mobility put on your body, I found these to be much more draining than I imagined, or have possibly misread the instructions in the book.
 

spinelli said:

A.J 

If you are on your second 4 week cycle then (unless of course you started from week 4) you should be in week 5 and the rep scheme for those exercises this week are 4x6 not 4x12. Just thinking that perhaps you jumped too far into the cycle and haven't given your body time to adapt to the stresses the mobility put on your body, I found these to be much more draining than I imagined, or have possibly misread the instructions in the book.

 

Hi Spinelli, thanks for your reply.  You are right to assume that I started on Week 5.  In my case, I was able to pass the week 3 AND week 7 mastery requirements for both HBP and sPL but decide to start my programming at week 5 anyways in order to gain some extra volume.  I have always been conservative in choosing my starting point, but starting at week 1 would have been far too easy in this instance.

I think I am having difficulty specifically with the volume, since it has increased across the board...

I believe that you are meant to only test mastery for week 11, if you're close then you start week 9, not very far off start week 5, miles off start week 1. I was also not far off achieving mastery for a few of the PE1 but I decided to start everything from week 1 due to the massive increase in volume over my previous training. I'm sure that by the time I have achieved mastery of all the PE1s I'll be able to start PE2 from week 5 or even 9 as It'll be an increase in intensity and not volume and I'm quite capable of performing most of the high intensity exercises from PE6 already, just not for the reps prescribed (this is of course assuming that the mobility is not a problem for me, which I'm sure it will be) 
I'd advise that you drop back to week 6 for next week and then complete the mini cycle before in 4 weeks time moving back to week 9 in which time you should have the required endurance