Preserving mastery on earlier progressions

What is the official stance on maintaining your mastery of earlier elements?

When I first tested myself on foundation, I failed as many others did on some of the high volume elements such as ABH and HBH. Several months in, I now finished F4 on some elements and am not far from finishing the others.

I tested ABH and HBH again and only managed to do as much as when I first tested these.

Should I work back up to mastery and try to preserve it considering my training time is quite limited at the moment?

I have somewhat similiar problems. I have a solid 10s+ full side lever, both back towards ground and side towards ground, and the arch holds in F1 are still killing me like there's no tomorrow!

Just working on the arches and other stuff on the side.

i have a similar situation, i've mastered the HBH and rock at the end of september after long period passed to master them but now it is not possible to maintain all the elements. of course you will lose some endurance on high reps exercise.

Aren't you technically doing Arch Holds and Hollows all the time when you're in F4?  (Arches for Bridges, Hollows for Hollowback Press, Handstands, Front Levers etc.)

I'd assume they get easier not harder cuz of leverages

The times are much shorter than the first pes though

I'll use Pseudo Planche Pushup as an example.  When someone eventually gets to PPP warmup sets of 21, i think 60 reps of incline pushups is easy even if 60 reps of inlcine pushups take longer than 21 reps of PPP

I certainly don't feel that way for most exercises yes the easier progressions I am able to do some more reps but not considerably more and you train ppp to 10 only and only 5 for later progressions increasing ppp to. 21 warm up set would be a side goal if anything.

Also when comparing sl progressions to abh then there is quite a big difference. While I can easily do pe6 sl for mastery and then some I still struggle with more than 24 second abh.

In saying all this if you have truly mastered every progression to f3 or f4 then you will probably get the endurance back on previous progressions considerable fast if you haven't maintained them. I like the idea of keeping one set of mastery of sticking points in my warm up.

I think once I've mastered abr for example then I will probably keep one set of mastery in my warm up for ever

I actually really the like amount of freedom we are given with past progression stuff. It gives you the chance to dial in on your weaknesses and tailor your program to your individual needs rather than just hitting mastery and then never training that element again.

The trick is doing this with elements that make it as time efficient as possible when you have multiple factors. Happily, the progression to more complex exercises also caters to this. You can't tell me alex's 5*5 hbp won't result in a whole lot more than 15 pushups for eg

ausswe said:

I certainly don't feel that way for most exercises yes the easier progressions I am able to do some more reps but not considerably more and you train ppp to 10 only and only 5 for later progressions increasing ppp to. 21 warm up set would be a side goal if anything.

Also when comparing sl progressions to abh then there is quite a big difference. While I can easily do pe6 sl for mastery and then some I still struggle with more than 24 second abh.

In saying all this if you have truly mastered every progression to f3 or f4 then you will probably get the endurance back on previous progressions considerable fast if you haven't maintained them. I like the idea of keeping one set of mastery of sticking points in my warm up.

I think once I've mastered abr for example then I will probably keep one set of mastery in my warm up for ever

According to the Course:

https://gymnasticbodies.customerhub.net/f1-details

You're eventually to progress to warm ups of doing schemes like 21/15/9.  It's under the Warm-up subsection.  In my opinion, pseudo planche pushup is definitel an exercise you keep as part of your warmup, so if you keep it, its expected to get as high as 21 reps (even though mastery is 5 sets of 10 reps).

You don't need to look at progressions of Side Lever for Arch Holds.  The progression of Arch Holds would be a Bridge which would be the Integrated Mobility of Front Lever.

After mastering the whole foundation course you will find the earlier progressions considerably easier In most aspects such as hbp but with front lever for example it starts off with strong abdominal development and then works more into late and back development. After eachieving mastery of front lever that doesn't translate to still having mastered hbr unless you keep some maintenance you will probably have to go back and spend time on it again. Not much time though it isn't like you will be starting from scratch it might only take a couple of weeks. This also depends on where you are at with other elements such as the manna. I would assume having mastered the manna then hbr really would seem like nothing.

There is a lot of integration with the elements in foundation once you have the whole series mastered then I'm sure any earlier progressions would seem like nothing but mastering some of f4 and being stuck at f2 for others may mean that even though sl is mastered you might have lost that endurance for things like abr. it's not as simple as okay I can do this really hard exercise for x amount of reps so this easier exercise I should be able to do a tonne more. Before foundation I got to the point where I could do fl for 5x5 but hbh were still very taxing trying to do multiple 1 minute sets.

Personally I think some exercises, especially sticking points should be incorporated in a warm up as maintenance. Like I said for me it will definitely be abr for a long time. I can easily hold multi bridge sets for 30 seconds although not perfect they are considerably easier than abh IMO.

Handstands, Straddle Planche, and front lever are all performed in hollow positions. Manna is a pike movement

Arch body holds and bridge are the same movement pattern: spinal extension. Coach also considers bridge to be a passive flexibility compared to active flexibility like bridge walks or limbers

Hmms said:

Aren't you technically doing Arch Holds and Hollows all the time when you're in F4?  (Arches for Bridges, Hollows for Hollowback Press, Handstands, Front Levers etc.)

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hollow back press is performed with an arching back, right?

Ravn said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hollow back press is performed with an arching back, right?

There's a thread on this somewhere, relatively recent. Even Coach chimed in. Hollow is hollow was the conclusion.

Christian said:

There's a thread on this somewhere, relatively recent. Even Coach chimed in. Hollow is hollow was the conclusion.

The athlete in the video definitely arches, although it is an admirably small arch.

Edit: He arches a tiny bit during a certain phase of the push back to vertical, but for all practical purposes, his body is straight. It was not meant as a critique, as his form is near flawless, as far as I can tell. Many youtube videos displaying this skill features backs that arch like sickle moons.

Ravn said:

The athlete in the video definitely arches, although it is an admirably small arch.

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/12737-playing-with-hbp-while-maintaining-my-f2/?p=124572

Ok, sorry for derailing the thread, and thanks for the pointer, Christian.

I assumed the warm up was a multiplier 1.5x / 1x / 0.5x i.e. if the mastery set is 60s you do 120s / 60s / 30s so PPP would, depending on where it was in your warm up, be either 15r / 10r / 5r.

Also with the warm up I wasn't aware you had to do the most recent elements (PE4/5/6 as warm up for PE7) but could use any of the earlier PEs (PE1/3/6 as warm up for PE7). For example you might always want to keep scap shrugs/swivel hips in your warm up even though they're the first PE/IM, same with the ABH and ABR.  

Is this correct?

You decide which of the prior elements are most appropriate for inclusion in your warmup based upon your own training needs.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I had to remaster HBH several times.  Very frustrating.  I have found that it takes me doing 60 seconds at least twice a week to keep it up.  Some things like that are almost purely endurance and if you don't keep them up they will start to disappear.  However the strength moves that are 5 reps I have had no problem keeping.  I might not be able to get all 5 sets out but at least a few are fine for me.  

About the only thing that I never have to do is arch body holds.  I know you guys probably hate me for that, but I can do these all day.  I remember jumping up from  them during the testing at a seminar feeling fresh as a daisy.  I hadn't practiced them specifically except the first time I saw Foundation 1.

So it just depends on how you are.  As my limbs get thicker HBH seems to get even harder.  Focus on the things that you know you will be weak in.