Coach Sommer's Progress: too much volume for me (frequency/sets/timing question)

Started by TheSecondName, August 2, 2013 · 6 Replies · 3,875 Views

TheSecondName

Hi there!

Been on Coach Sommers progress since about 2 months now.

Skills I wanted to focus on were: (besides weight lifting and other bodyweight skills like one arm pushups , dragon flags, leg raises , weighted chinups and pistol squats):
A1 V-sit (tucked)
A2 Planche (tucked)

B1 Back Lever (tucked)
B 2 Front Lever (tucked)
A1 + A2 and B1 + B1 are done back to back (staggered)

In week 0, I tested my max hold in every static position.
Planche tucked: 12 sec.
V-sit: 12 to 13 sec sec.
Back Lever tucked: 12 sec.
Front Lever tucked: 10 sec.

I started my cycle by cutting my max time in half and perfrom as many sets as needed to get one total minute under tension as Sommer suggest in his book ''Building a gymanstic body''
So it looked like this:
A1 Planche tucked: 10 sets of 6 sec.
A2 V-sit tucked: 10 sets of 6 sec.

B1 Back Lever tucked: 12 sets of 5 sec.
B2 Front Lever tucked: 10 sets of 6 sec.


I did this 2 times per week (tues and friday) but I had a hard time to recover since it is a lot of volume/sets. It often took me about 35-40min to get the planche, vsit and lever work done and next session I wasn't that strong enough at all to complete al the sets with proper form.

For the last 3 weeks now, I cut the volume in half to a total time under tension for 30sec insetad of 60sec.
Planche tucked 5x6 sec.

V-sit tucked 5x6 sec.
Back Lever tucked 5x6 sec.
Front Lever tucked 6x5 sec.

This seems to work well for me....
I still do them 2 times per week (tues and fri)

Is there anything wrong with my schedule? Is it ''bad'' to cut the total volume to 30 sec total instead of 60 sec. as Sommer suggest??

Thank y'all.

P5yx

Cutting the 60s into half is temporarily legit. Once you feel strong enough move back to the 60s template.

Coach Sommer

After years of working with adult GST students, I now consider the programming as presented in BtGB to be for those of intermediate ability and above.  For beginners, the programming as presented in the Foundation courses is currently my best advice.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Joshua Naterman
Coach Sommer said:

After years of working with adult GST students, I now consider the programming as presented in BtGB to be for those of intermediate ability and above.  For beginners, the programming as presented in the Foundation courses is currently my best advice.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I have taken this advice, and it is working out well. 

TheSecondName

Thanks for your advice. I appericiate it.

At the moment I can't effort myself the foundation courses books, unfortunatelly.

Joshua Naterman
TheSecondName said:

Thanks for your advice. I appericiate it.

At the moment I can't effort myself the foundation courses books, unfortunatelly.

All you'll need is F1. Skip a few meals, save the dough, and pick the course up in a few months.

Bipocni
Joshua Naterman said:

All you'll need is F1. Skip a few meals, save the dough, and pick the course up in a few months.

I second this.  It can be hard to find the money, but it's worth it.