Push-up lack of progress

This last mini-cycle I have been able to add 1 (one) repetition to my push-up training. From 12-12-8-7 to 12-12-9-7. With this kind of improvement the push-ups will take years to master.

Of course I have improved in form but by now I think the repetitions should increase more. I even use a metronome to keep the pace and stop when I can't keep the tempo.

One "problem" might be that I do my planche leans first and I keep adding lean and time to that exercise so maybe my strength increase gets eaten up by that so I can't improve at push-ups also.

Any suggestions? I try to complete  4*12r but stops when I can't keep tempo and form. I do this for all 3 weeks and the 4*6r on deload. Is this a reasonable programming?

Tomas Johansson said:

This last mini-cycle I have been able to add 1 (one) repetition to my push-up training. From 12-12-8-7 to 12-12-9-7. With this kind of improvement the push-ups will take years to master.

 

Of course I have improved in form but by now I think the repetitions should increase more. I even use a metronome to keep the pace and stop when I can't keep the tempo.

 

One "problem" might be that I do my planche leans first and I keep adding lean and time to that exercise so maybe my strength increase gets eaten up by that so I can't improve at push-ups also.

 

Any suggestions? I try to complete  4*12r but stops when I can't keep tempo and form. I do this for all 3 weeks and the 4*6r on deload. Is this a reasonable programming?

I would suggest you go back to the last week that you could complete and then add a single rep each week.  Alternatively, you could add another set instead.  If you really want, you could rest slightly during the set before continuing on.  I know it's not recommended, but it gets your body used to the rep scheme.  Your body will build up to the required reps, and all you need to do is rest less each time.  It's not ideal, but it is fairly effective.

If you keep adding time to your planche leans before you do the pushups, you're getting stronger.  I remember when I used to squat before a short run, and every week my squat would go up but my time would stay the same.  I was still getting faster, I just wasn't expressing it during my training.

I find that when I have trouble making the jump between mini-cycles, it helps to do an "in-between" cycle where each week I do an amount of reps that's increased by only half as much.

Thanks both of you.

I will try this next minicycle, w1 4*10r, w2 4*11r and w3 4*12r. If I fail one week I will continue with the same reps next week until I can finnish it.

Tomas Johansson said:

Thanks both of you.

 

I will try this next minicycle, w1 4*10r, w2 4*11r and w3 4*12r. If I fail one week I will continue with the same reps next week until I can finnish it.

Keep at it Tomas, and know that you're not alone. I couldn't pass 5 x 13, so I went back and did 5 x 10 for a week, then 5 x 11 then 5 x 12, followed by a deload week at 5 x 6. I then stalled out at 5 x 13 again, so I've stayed there for the last three weeks. I was thinking of trying 5 x 14 next week after this week's deload, but my last couple of reps at 5 x 13 are still pretty "grindy" so I may need to stick with 5 x 13 for a little while longer.

I've been working on HBP/PE2 since the course came out in February (after mastering HBP/PE1 on the first day); my body just doesn't seem to want to adapt to high-rep push-ups very quickly.  

Are you doing sPL right before HBP?

I do RC > sPL > FL > HBP

Try changing the order of the exercises and see if it helps.

-MR said:

I was thinking of trying 5 x 14 next week after this week's deload, but my last couple of reps at 5 x 13 are still pretty "grindy" so I may need to stick with 5 x 13 for a little while longer.

Remember that the workouts are not mastery tests. Don't mistake comfort for mastery!

I think that, in some instances, one needs to push to and beyond where the sets get seriously uncomfortable, and where the form begin to break down. Yes, the last couple reps will be ugly, but it triggers adaptation to the increased load. You can then use this increased adaptation to 'clean up' the reps. E.g., for HBP2 I worked up to something like 21-20-15-14-12. Once the volume is up there, you can then begin ironing out those last ugly reps, and work on mastery.

Topic linked below has couple of very good advices (esp from Christian and Coach):

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/12681-flpe5-mastery/

Btw I have similar problem (not only with HBP), where I'm stuck on very early progressions for a long time. I do try other approaches to find something that will work for me and continue working, but it is very annoying to not make any decent progress with F1  for such long time . Couple of things from F2 that I do during my gym sessions (bit more casually) are much better though.

I remember that back before I started following gymnastic bodies exclusively, I was doing Convict Conditioning. It also involves certain mastery levels that have to be achieved, and some of them were quite high rep sets of assorted exercises (eg. push-ups).

I found that the "add one rep every training session" approach worked poorly for me, and that using the steady state approach as advocated by coach Sommer for two months gave me much greater (and easier) gains. Maybe you could try that.

I don't have much experience (yet) with GST. But what I can say at the moment is that if on the one hand F1 is amazing for coupling strength and mobility pairs, and choices thereof, on the other hand progressions to me look quite over-simplified. I don't see much periodization theory applied to the set/reps scheme. Of course, it might simply be not required.

Time will tell.

Ravn said:

Remember that the workouts are not mastery tests. Don't mistake comfort for mastery!

I think that, in some instances, one needs to push to and beyond where the sets get seriously uncomfortable, and where the form begin to break down. Yes, the last couple reps will be ugly, but it triggers adaptation to the increased load. You can then use this increased adaptation to 'clean up' the reps. E.g., for HBP2 I worked up to something like 21-20-15-14-12. Once the volume is up there, you can then begin ironing out those last ugly reps, and work on mastery.

Thanks for the advice Ravn. At 5 x 14, I end up grinding out the last few reps of the 4th set, but then can only do 8 or 9 reps on the 5th set before complete failure. That was a couple of weeks ago though, so I'll see what next week brings when I reattempt 5 x 14.

federicoC said:

I don't have much experience (yet) with GST. But what I can say at the moment is that if on the one hand F1 is amazing for coupling strength and mobility pairs, and choices thereof, on the other hand progressions to me look quite over-simplified. I don't see much periodization theory applied to the set/reps scheme. Of course, it might simply be not required.

 

Time will tell.

At the level of strength covered by Foundations 1 and 2, you don't really need to get fancy. Progressive increases in difficulty punctuated by deload weeks works fine. 

I second this ^^^^

glad to hear this! Thanks guys!

For comparison, my experience with this PE sounds very similar, so you're not alone. I was able to complete 5x10 + im at the beginning of F1 when testing so started on week 5 to keep it nice and easy. I hit a disproportionately hard 4x12 in week 9 (4 weeks in) so backed off to repeat the second microcycle. Long story short, I've now been doing this PE for 15 weeks and have actually gone backwards- 5x9 is now my limit. It is difficult to find motivation when this happens. Think I'm going to have to go all the way back to week one, which seems a bit nuts, or use 2 12 week 5-rep templates to move from 5x5 to 5x15 in 24 weeks. I'm not confident that will work though

Historically I've found waving the load session to session (heavy-light-medium) within each week has returned the most consistent results for me; I've never been that successful with linear progressions and monthly deloads, so maybe I'm always going to struggle with Foundation! I've never worked with reps as high as 15 and rest so minimal when performing a non-ballistic movement though, so maybe I just have poor conditioning when it comes to these more endurance based elements.

Irritatingly I also had satisfactory overhead pressing strength prior to F1 (multiple clean & press's with a pair of 32Kg kettlebells @bw 70Kg). I struggle to press a pair of 28's now. Hopefully this will return when HSPU variations appear (assuming I can pass beyond PE2, that is and the strength I did have doesn't completely vanish in the meantime!).

ajgregory said:

For comparison, my experience with this PE sounds very similar, so you're not alone. I was able to complete 5x10 + im at the beginning of F1 when testing so started on week 5 to keep it nice and easy. I hit a disproportionately hard 4x12 in week 9 (4 weeks in) so backed off to repeat the second microcycle. Long story short, I've now been doing this PE for 15 weeks and have actually gone backwards- 5x9 is now my limit. It is difficult to find motivation when this happens. Think I'm going to have to go all the way back to week one, which seems a bit nuts, or use 2 12 week 5-rep templates to move from 5x5 to 5x15 in 24 weeks. I'm not confident that will work though

 

Historically I've found waving the load session to session (heavy-light-medium) within each week has returned the most consistent results for me; I've never been that successful with linear progressions and monthly deloads, so maybe I'm always going to struggle with Foundation! I've never worked with reps as high as 15 and rest so minimal when performing a non-ballistic movement though, so maybe I just have poor conditioning when it comes to these more endurance based elements.

 

Irritatingly I also had satisfactory overhead pressing strength prior to F1 (multiple clean & press's with a pair of 32Kg kettlebells @bw 70Kg). I struggle to press a pair of 28's now. Hopefully this will return when HSPU variations appear (assuming I can pass beyond PE2, that is and the strength I did have doesn't completely vanish in the meantime!).

I don't think you're losing strength per se, probably just losing the habit of pressing overhead. That would come back very quickly, within two-four weeks, if you went back to KB pressing.

To get out of the rut you're stuck in, why don't you try aiming for doing just one rep extra, every workout. Doesn't matter too much which sets you add the extra reps to, what matters is getting to the point where you can do high volume. Once there, you can always rearrange to do 5x15.

Tomas, push ups respond very well to greasing the groove. Give that a try and you'll be there in no time. If you're not familiar with the concept, I believe it was introduced (to me at least) by Pavel Tsatsouline. You try to do small amounts of your exercise multiple times a day so that by the end of the day you've done a lot, but you're not overly exhausted from it. For you, that might mean you drop and do 5 or 6 push ups 10 or 15 times a day. by the end of the day you may have 50 or more push ups done without the fatigue of stringing them all together. do it in the morning, at work, whenever. it only takes seconds to do so it's no big deal. You'll get over that hump quickly. I use this sporadically when i'm stuck on something. the caveat is that you don't want to do it too long or with too many exercises as you can develop overtraining with this technique. at the early stages of foundation i wouldn't expect that to be a problem. Hope that helps.