Keeping deloads in sync

Let's say this:

I can't meet the mastery for Swivel Hips so after my deload week, I go back to W9 of sPL/PE1

I mastered Hollow Body Holds so I advance to Hollow Body Rocks.  I try out W7 of FL/PE2, I felt it was manageable and I think I can start 3rd mini-cycle of HBR

So today's workout I do this:

sPL/PE1: W9

FL/PE2: W7

So what do I do now?  Do I continue this week with FL/PE2?  What do I do for next week?

Personally, I would have just done FL/PE2's week 5 instead, to keep them all lined up.

Or you could repeat Week 7 another two times and then continue once they're all synced up again.

Do whatever progression you feel comfortable to you, just keep the 4th week as deload. So you can do week 7, week 7+ (maybe 2-3 reps more) and so on untill 4th week when you do half of your reps for 5 sets. This works very well for me.

I know quite a few people seem to be advocating "going off the reservation" in regards to the program design. But the program notes say to begin on weeks 1, 5, or 9, so why not do:

sPL PE1: W9

FL PE2: W5

Yes, maybe W5 won't be super difficult, but it'll give you extra sub maximal practice to perfect the movement. Once you get to W7 you will have the movement down better and probably have a better chance of accomplishing W7 with perfect form.

Do what you want though.

In the long run, the benefit you gain from keeping deload weeks in sync will far exceed what you get from starting one or two weeks further into a mini-cycle on some exercises. Use the 1-2 'easy' weeks to refine your form and technique, or challenge yourself by doing slower reps. 

Keegan Y said:

I know quite a few people seem to be advocating "going off the reservation" in regards to the program design. But the program notes say to begin on weeks 1, 5, or 9, so why not do:

sPL PE1: W9

FL PE2: W5

Yes, maybe W5 won't be super difficult, but it'll give you extra sub maximal practice to perfect the movement. Once you get to W7 you will have the movement down better and probably have a better chance of accomplishing W7 with perfect form.

Do what you want though.

Because how do I know if I could do week 5 if I can't do the mastery for the previous mini-cycle (week 3), and how can i know if i can do week 9 if i can't meet the mastery for the previous cycle (week 7).

Hmms said:

Because how do I know if I could do week 5 if I can't do the mastery for the previous mini-cycle (week 3), and how can i know if i can do week 9 if i can't meet the mastery for the previous cycle (week 7).

I'm confused  . This doesn't make much sense. How do you know if you could do week 5 if you can't do week 3? You know because you can't do 3 so why would you be able to do 5? What people are saying is if you are stuck in between, round down to the next cycle to keep all the deload weeks in line... if you want to do that.

If you're asking what to do if you can't do week 3 but your deload is next week, then just deload next week and repeat week 3 or even go lower and build back up.

Sorry but I don't quite understand your question, did my best to help

DESTINY said:

I'm confused . This doesn't make much sense. How do you know if you could do week 5 if you can't do week 3? You know because you can't do 3 so why would you be able to do 5? What people are saying is if you are stuck in between, round down to the next cycle to keep all the deload weeks in line... if you want to do that.

If you're asking what to do if you can't do week 3 but your deload is next week, then just deload next week and repeat week 3 or even go lower and build back up.

Sorry but I don't quite understand your question, did my best to help

That's not what I'm asking. I'm testing mastery and I tested that I can pass mastery of the mini cycle. So after I tested that I mastered it, what do I do next that still keeps my deload week in sync

You are either way over complicating things, you don't understand the mastery testing process, or you are resisting the suggestions of the course itself out of pride or impatience.

You are supposed to attempt to perform mastery of both the strength and mobility elements of a given exercise pair exactly as the mastery guidelines require. If you fail to achieve either the strength or mobility element, then you are supposed to start you cycle at either week 1, 5, or 9 depending on your performance on your mastery test. Doing so will ensure that all of your Deloads always match up.

All of this is spelled out in the course instructions.

Keegan Y said:

You are either way over complicating things, you don't understand the mastery testing process, or you are resisting the suggestions of the course itself out of pride or impatience.

You are supposed to attempt to perform mastery of both the strength and mobility elements of a given exercise pair exactly as the mastery guidelines require. If you fail to achieve either the strength or mobility element, then you are supposed to start you cycle at either week 1, 5, or 9 depending on your performance on your mastery test. Doing so will ensure that all of your Deloads always match up.

All of this is spelled out in the course instructions.

Or maybe you should stop wasting our time, and go and learn some english before trying to figure out what I'm saying.

If you don't know the answer to my question, then don't come here and insult me.

Hmms said:

Or maybe you should stop wasting our time, and go and learn some english before trying to figure out what I'm saying.

 

If you don't know the answer to my question, then don't come here and insult me.

we're all bro's here and a lot of us come from different backround and nationalities, so we all need to learn how to communicate more efficiently. i've made this mistake with another forum member and the sooner we can notice where we lost the message being transmitted, the quicker we can establish the communication we wanted to because as far as im concerned, no one here is here because they want to troll. if they are, they are kindly showed the door. since this isn't the case, let's go back to what you wanted to know.

how do you keep your deload weeks in sync? simple. 

if you start a cycle, for all 7 PE's/SE's, you will either start at week 1,5 or 9. THAT is how you keep them in sync.

now, if you can already master a certain weeks volume (you can do week 1, week 2 but week 3 made you sweat[apply to your current cycle] you will repeat the week until you achieve the reps/tempo. deload. move onto the subsequent cycle for mastery. 

now, if you can do volume for subsequent weeks( week 2-3, 5-6, 9-10) you can start from there, but you'll defeat the purpose of periodization and give you that time to adjust to the volume as you increase your endurance to accomodate higher volume and eventually mastery.

so that means 3 weeks of volume increments and one deload week. rinse and repeat.

I'm not saying anything new, just reiteration of what is currently in your Foundation course.

can you do your own style of cycles? yes. 

should you do it? i don't know. I don't know anything about that, so i'm sticking to the template encased there-in, until a certified coach or athlete notices that I would benefit from a change and would then be open to modification.

so you got nothing to worry about.

let's keep training. 

KeilaniG said:

we're all bro's here and a lot of us come from different backround and nationalities, so we all need to learn how to communicate more efficiently. i've made this mistake with another forum member and the sooner we can notice where we lost the message being transmitted, the quicker we can establish the communication we wanted to because as far as im concerned, no one here is here because they want to troll. if they are, they are kindly showed the door. since this isn't the case, let's go back to what you wanted to know.

 

 

how do you keep your deload weeks in sync? simple. 

if you start a cycle, for all 7 PE's/SE's, you will either start at week 1,5 or 9. THAT is how you keep them in sync.

 

Thanks for helping me.  How do I know whether to start in week 1, 5, or 9 if I've never done the exercise before?

Hmms said:

Thanks for helping me.  How do I know whether to start in week 1, 5, or 9 if I've never done the exercise before?

everyone here is at your service, which is a great thing.

that is where the mastery test comes in. if you pass, just keep going until you hit your physical wall. but that's kind of obvious, if you pass with flying colors, you won't really need a deload week. when in doubt, always film yourself, compare to athlete. if still in doubt, post it in the F forum to get a form check. if you have a doubt and want to get a GB Coach's opinion, solicit a mastery check and get your PE and iM tested. if you don't pass, read the following: 

on the day of your first workout, you were to test mastery on Scapular pushups(5x15) let's say someone does 10,10,9,6,4 (that's 39 total reps and mastery is 75 reps in total with no rest.) you can start from say week5 (4x6, 24 reps total) or week 9(4x12, 48 reps total)

in this scenario, it'd be best to start from week 5 and SEE how you're body reacts. the goal is that once you begin a PE, you do not stop until all your days prescribed sets are done(so if you're starting from week 5 on sPL/PE1, a good day is a day you can do 4x6 with proper form and the only rest you need is the iM.) 

if you begin on a week that is too strenuous, you need to take it back. by too strenuous, your form completely fails. no taking breaks during pushups, squats, any core exercise, you can't stop at 3 reps, take a breather and do the last 2. un-interrupted, sets and reps. 

we all know our pushups aren't going to look EXACTLY like the athletes, but within yourself (this is where the ego destroying comes in) you have to be honest. if you are finishing 5x15 with form and the only rest is the iM, you can move forward. keep a set in your warm up and move on. 

edit: also, take what Joshua Slocum said to heart. he is FAR more experienced than I am and knows what he is talking about. you won't waste your time starting your cycles with those volumes. you will find it surprisingly beneficial. 

KeilaniG said:

everyone here is at your service, which is a great thing.

 

that is where the mastery test comes in. if you pass, just keep going until you hit your physical wall. but that's kind of obvious, if you pass with flying colors, you won't really need a deload week. : 

that's still not what i'm asking though.  i've already done the mastery test the first day I got foundation a month ago.  my test had me starting at PE1 of each exercise.  So I start at week 9 at some of the exercise, week 3 at some others, etc etc.  A couple weeks later, on week 11, I did it some perfectly and some others not so.

So now I'm using sPL and FL as my 2 examples.  I haven't demonstrated mastery on sPL/PE1>iM's swivel hips so I'm going back to W9 to fix my mobility.  However, i demonstrated FL/PE1, perfectly with 5x60s and I now want to move on to FL/PE2.  I want to do start from W1, W5, and W9.  I can't start at the minicycle for W5 if I can't master the 1st minicycle, I cant start at the minicycle at W9, if I can't demonstrate mastery at W7

then i think you should state your doubt/question one more time, so that we can get this sorted.

if you start a new cycle you begin it at week 1,5 or 9. so you should go to the appropriate week and begin from there. im pretty sure that answers your question and im not the first to state that

Hmms said:

that's still not what i'm asking though.  i've already done the mastery test the first day I got foundation a month ago.  my test had me starting at PE1 of each exercise.  So I start at week 9 at some of the exercise, week 3 at some others, etc etc.  A couple weeks later, on week 11, I did it some perfectly and some others not so.

 

So now I'm using sPL and FL as my 2 examples.  I haven't demonstrated mastery on sPL/PE1>iM's swivel hips so I'm going back to W9 to fix my mobility.  However, i demonstrated FL/PE1, perfectly with 5x60s and I now want to move on to FL/PE2.  I want to do start from W1, W5, and W9.  I can't start at the minicycle for W5 if I can't master the 1st minicycle, I cant start at the minicycle at W9, if I can't demonstrate mastery at W7

Yes you can, as long as you try to achieve mastery of FL/PE2 on your first workout. Let's say that your last WO was about mastery for FL/PE1. Then you achieve 5x60s perfect form and tempo, well you can try to do FL/PE2 mastery 5x60r. Let's say that you do 60,50,45,30,20 you obviously show mastery. Now you find which weeks best suited for you among W1, W5, W9. If you feel W5 the best for you, you don't need to do W1-2-3-4 before because we assume that you can already do that weeks flawlessly. If not, we should all always start at week 1, but this is not the purpose of Coach Sommer. Anyway, you can read "your first workout" in your web-based course which explains plain and simple what I'm saying here.

Hope to help you, Federico

Hmms said:

Or maybe you should stop wasting our time, and go and learn some english before trying to figure out what I'm saying.

If you don't know the answer to my question, then don't come here and insult me.

???

That was not meant to be an insult (many people here, myself included have had to swallow a big humility pill upon starting GST). And I did answer your question.

You keep your Deloads in sync by testing for mastery and then starting at week 1, 5, or 9 on that element depending on your performance during the mastery test.

I think that Hmms is lost because he dont know what is mastery test.

You shoud not do mastery test in every mini. You only do week 11 in new workout and that desides where are you going to start.

In every 4th week is deload. You dont proceed if you can not do the work. You repeat.