A.J. said:The cavalries are out!
(...)
But if you aren't following the programming, then what?
Sorry it sounded that way to you AJ 
This is a good question.
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Why does HBP follow sPL?
Started by u3er, March 5, 2013 · 43 Replies · 2,071 Views
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...?
Good luck coming up with all the new material. You won't even have half the foundation program, and you'd have virtually no introductory work, which is the entire reason Foundation was written.
The approach to many of these movements is radically different from the pathway BtGB paved, in large part because many stepping stones were missing, particularly during the first 60-70% of the journey.
You're absolutely right in saying that ONE of the most important parts of F1-4, and all the products in general, is that they come with a recommended day-by-day template.
You have a clear Mastery goal to meet for each exercise. If you think that you either make the exact jumps you see in the template or you aren't following the programming, then you are as hard headed as a donkey. No offense intended, but people who can't adjust like this, in general, are going to have a harder time in life than they absolutely have to.
A template is, by definition, a general, manageable format to guide one's journey. Complaining about jumping straight from 36 to 48 reps, instead of simply saying "huh... I can do 41. I'll get to 48 soon enough, but I'll do it at the pace my body allows," is not reasonable. It would be like buying a map from one city to another, and complaining that the map doesn't tell one when or where they need to stop and get gas. If someone can't figure out when they need to get gas, they has some basic judgement skills that you need to learn, and if you can't read the road signs that point to gas stations, well... no comment, there.
I don't see this as being much different, though I do think that an update section that details this process is a very good idea. Not everyone will come up with this on their own, even though I think it is obvious.
Laying out a one rep at a time progression would be intimidating and incomprehensible to most people, if put into a neat little calendar. That would be a bad template.
That kind of thing is what personalization is all about, and I do think that it's a good idea to teach people how to do this in the product itself. We will see what happens as time goes on, but keep this in mind:
The forums are here specifically to address concerns like this, and I think that threads like this will keep us aware of what needs to be added, so thanks for posting!.
A.J. said:... But if you aren't following the programming, then what?
Does it make sense, given the above explanation, why I do not consider my proposal for moving from one rep to the next to be a breach of programming?
There is no one size fits all, we all have to customize things. That's the hallmark of every great program, and this is no exception. There's just a lot less math involved here.
There may be only one exercise where this has to be done, who knows? It will be different for each person.
Well, I guess you can do what you want with the course. If you do that then you aren’t going to get much more out of it than the BTGB book. It just becomes mostly a list of exercises and various programming.
However, I am going to do my best to follow the course strictly to the teeth. The programming is practically spoon feeding you skills. I'm going to let Coach Sommer guide my programming, someone who has made and seen the mistakes of strength skill development through an extensive career.
If I had the knowledge to do it myself I would have achieved better results a long time ago. Sommer's Programming has shown serious deficiencies in my strength and mobility. I am very mobile in almost every joint. I have extremely well shoulder flexion; however, my shoulder extension is practically nonexistent. Why? My training overlooked that. And why did it do that? Because, I have not spent my career developing high level athletes and constantly working to improve their physical abilities. I really believe that if I am consistent and follow the program I will achieve results. Trying to make my own or alter it too much is bound to set me up for failure. That's probably true for the majority of people on this forum.
Matt - I don't think what you're saying is at odds with what slizz is saying per se, save for the "follow the course to the teeth" comment. The key to Foundation 1 (and the rest of them) is to demonstrate mastery of the 6 fundamental progressions with proper form and tempo. How you get to mastery will vary from person to person - and that's where the weekly template comes in as a guideline - for you to work from.
So the end goal (mastery) is the same. You can tweak the road a little bit to fit your own needs - and focus on your weaknesses where you need it.
After all, the important part is the commitment to the program. As long as you're committed and you consistently work within yourself, you will see progress from week to week and progression to progression.
There is a very strange thing that happens whenever a program of any kind is released. A certain group of people will become extreme literalists. Loosing focus on the end goal and becoming caught up in the minutia.
Of course the idea is to make every effort to follow the Mastery progressions as laid out. However, it WILL happen that you fail at some point. I highly doubt that there will be a single trainee that doesn't face this at one if not multiple points along the way.
The route out of it is not always going to be completely clear. What is clear, is that if you are overly literal you will now be stuck in a hopeless logic loop.
For myself, I've tired Slizz's approach, and it didn't work for me. I found that getting to the fail point, continuing the programming until the deload, then scaling back, sometimes to week one, has worked well for me. Coincidentally. this is essentially what Coach Sommer's recommendation was.
There have been a couple of steps that I've been stuck on, and I simply ramp up, doing to some degree of proficiency. Ramp down and improve.
Note: this is not the same as discounting Josh's approach.
Thanks Cole Dano for sharing your perspective & experience here
A.J. said:... But if you aren't following the programming, then what? ...
- If you are not following the programming then you are on your own. The programming was provided for a reason.
- Cole's evaluation of how to proceed when encountering sticking points is spot on.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
Coach Sommer said:- If you are not following the programming then you are on your own. The programming was provided for a reason.
- Cole's evaluation of how to proceed when encountering sticking points is spot on.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
If that approach is what is recommended regarding failure/sticking points, why not create a section in the course material outlining such rather than having it buried in a handful of different threads?
- Chris
chobbs said:If that approach is what is recommended regarding failure/sticking points, why not create a section in the course material outlining such rather than having it buried in a handful of different threads?
- Chris
You can be reasonably certain that the relevant questions asked in the fora since F1 (and H1) came out will be addressed in coming updates Chris.
The forum works both ways: As a place for us to ask questions and get directions, AND as a feedback mechanism that helps the team make the course better.
A.J., my apologies, if my comments were belittling.
Forum post like emails etc, have a way of reading harsher than they were intended.
FredInChina said:You can be reasonably certain that the relevant questions asked in the fora since F1 (and H1) came out will be addressed in coming updates Chris.
The forum works both ways: As a place for us to ask questions and get directions, AND as a feedback mechanism that helps the team make the course better.
I get that Fred. I am sure it will be a much smoother process too now that it is an online format. The issue I am having though, and perhaps I am alone in this regard, is that it often feels like a black hole. How do we know this particular topic would make it's way into the updates? Perhaps we could get a locked sticky at the top continaing a list of forthcoming updates?
The second thing I consider an issue is relying on old threads for these answers in the interim. At this point the material is still new and when a question is asked a half dozen well meaning members chime in with their answer and occasionally Coach offers up clarification on a specific point. However, for many of us, trying to collate that information is tricky - which posts do you keep and which do you toss? Once everybody has a lot more experience under their belt I think it will be much more effective, but at this point it seems we get a lot of shooting in the dark.
I am sure Cory and Coach can come up with something, I am just tossing these out there as it seems like a deficiency that could be remedied to make things smoother.
- Chris
Cole, that is also a very viable solution.
A lot of people don't realize HOW far they overestimated their abilities, because this isn't something that any of us can really feel, it is something that we sort of learn to recognize through experience and how much work we have done lately.
It is much, much easier to keep the muscle and strength that you build during that first cycle than it was to build it initially, so even if you scale back to week 1 you're still going to make gains.
The big difference is that you are comparatively doing an extended deload, and stepping back into what your true training zone should be. For people who may have severely surpassed their recovery ability, and thus stepped into overtraining (instead of over-reaching, which is really doing too much for just a few days, instead of weeks or months), this will be the ONLY way they can make progress, and is absolutely the right thing to do.
What I do works for me because I know that I can't trust my own snap judgements regarding my long term recovery abilities, so I started off really easy and built up slow. I under-estimate, and have made better progress because of it. When I went from 4x36 reps of FL/PE6, which I could do, to 4x 48 reps I didn't even try to do 48. I just did 40. Now I'm at 44-45, two weeks later, on a pretty consistent basis, and that's with pretty big legs and big arms, which makes things a bit harder than an average body. I don't think I'll hit week 11 goals for... I don't know... a long time Maybe by the Seminar. And that's ok with me
I am glad you did the right thing for you, and I think that this is another important strategy to keep in mind. There are going to be a lot of people who should probably just go all the way back to week 1, because they're going to push too hard at first, and as long as people get where they need to go I am happy.
So I guess what we're saying is that the program is set the way it because that is the way it is.
I don't see harm in putting HBP before sPL, but the real answer is you're not used to the volume or the movements yet. If you were it wouldn't matter.
Klaudius Petrulis said:So I guess what we're saying is that the program is set the way it because that is the way it is.
I don't see harm in putting HBP before sPL, but the real answer is you're not used to the volume or the movements yet. If you were it wouldn't matter.
I'll scale back to W5 on HBP and report back in a month... hopefully after a month of repeats I will have better luck with the W9 programming. Thanks
Joshua Naterman said:Cole, that is also a very viable solution.
A lot of people don't realize HOW far they overestimated their abilities, because this isn't something that any of us can really feel, it is something that we sort of learn to recognize through experience and how much work we have done lately.
It is much, much easier to keep the muscle and strength that you build during that first cycle than it was to build it initially, so even if you scale back to week 1 you're still going to make gains.
The big difference is that you are comparatively doing an extended deload, and stepping back into what your true training zone should be. For people who may have severely surpassed their recovery ability, and thus stepped into overtraining (instead of over-reaching, which is really doing too much for just a few days, instead of weeks or months), this will be the ONLY way they can make progress, and is absolutely the right thing to do.
What I do works for me because I know that I can't trust my own snap judgements regarding my long term recovery abilities, so I started off really easy and built up slow. I under-estimate, and have made better progress because of it. When I went from 4x36 reps of FL/PE6, which I could do, to 4x 48 reps I didn't even try to do 48. I just did 40. Now I'm at 44-45, two weeks later, on a pretty consistent basis, and that's with pretty big legs and big arms, which makes things a bit harder than an average body. I don't think I'll hit week 11 goals for... I don't know... a long time
I am glad you did the right thing for you, and I think that this is another important strategy to keep in mind. There are going to be a lot of people who should probably just go all the way back to week 1, because they're going to push too hard at first, and as long as people get where they need to go I am happy.
hahahah i remember at the helsinki seminar that Coach test us with this element....I did not give up and I reached the 60 repeats and after i I thought "what the hell is that exercise"...was the first time i did it for 60 reps, and definitely now is something that i'm using with some clients to lower down their EGO!
A.J. said:I'll scale back to W5 on HBP and report back in a month... hopefully after a month of repeats I will have better luck with the W9 programming. Thanks
I definitely think you will see some improvements, and who knows, maybe you'll blow W9 out of the water!
Good luck with your training
I am learning too much too fast on these boards... I think I will step back a little and rest my mind a bit, otherwise I risk a brain sprain!
I hope I'm not reigniting a completed discussion...
My training is the same as Slizzards, in that I'll aim for the Week X set/reps scheme, but if I can't reach it, I'll just add a few reps on each week. Seems more logical to me than staying with a mastered time, as it seems the smaller stimulus (by not progressing) may lead to stagnation or detraining.
On another note, does anyone try different deloading schedules? Still early days but I'm thinking my body might prefer deloading every 6 weeks as I recover pretty well. I don't look forward to deload weeks, and usually don't follow it. Eventually I guess my body tells me it needs rest and I naturally train less despite not planning for it. I would like to have a more structured schedule though.
Cole Dano said:There is a very strange thing that happens whenever a program of any kind is released. A certain group of people will become extreme literalists. Loosing focus on the end goal and becoming caught up in the minutia.
Of course the idea is to make every effort to follow the Mastery progressions as laid out. However, it WILL happen that you fail at some point. I highly doubt that there will be a single trainee that doesn't face this at one if not multiple points along the way.
The route out of it is not always going to be completely clear. What is clear, is that if you are overly literal you will now be stuck in a hopeless logic loop.
For myself, I've tired Slizz's approach, and it didn't work for me. I found that getting to the fail point, continuing the programming until the deload, then scaling back, sometimes to week one, has worked well for me. Coincidentally. this is essentially what Coach Sommer's recommendation was.
There have been a couple of steps that I've been stuck on, and I simply ramp up, doing to some degree of proficiency. Ramp down and improve.
Note: this is not the same as discounting Josh's approach.
Cole Dano said:There is a very strange thing that happens whenever a program of any kind is released. A certain group of people will become extreme literalists. Loosing focus on the end goal and becoming caught up in the minutia.
Of course the idea is to make every effort to follow the Mastery progressions as laid out. However, it WILL happen that you fail at some point. I highly doubt that there will be a single trainee that doesn't face this at one if not multiple points along the way.
The route out of it is not always going to be completely clear. What is clear, is that if you are overly literal you will now be stuck in a hopeless logic loop.
For myself, I've tired Slizz's approach, and it didn't work for me. I found that getting to the fail point, continuing the programming until the deload, then scaling back, sometimes to week one, has worked well for me. Coincidentally. this is essentially what Coach Sommer's recommendation was.
There have been a couple of steps that I've been stuck on, and I simply ramp up, doing to some degree of proficiency. Ramp down and improve.
Note: this is not the same as discounting Josh's approach.
Cole,
Could you expand on this post a little bit? I am not quite sure what you mean by "getting to the fail point, and continuing the programming until the deload." Are you saying that if you fail at let's say 4 sets of 48 reps, you continue doing that many sets/reps until the deload, then scale back to 4 sets of 36 reps after the deload?
Just a little confused here.
Thanks!