Picking 5 of the 7 skills

After following F1 for some months I've found that my biggest issue is that I can't focus properly on all the seven skills + handstand. So my question is this:

Can you see any problem with a programming where I focus only on these five skills; Handstand, FL, HBP, SLS, and RC?

My thinking is that if I focus on these I will still include the whole body during the workout, and instead of having to split my workouts in two I can include these five skills every workout, two or three times / week.

My goal is not necessarily to become an excellent gymnast, but rather to maintain a healthy body where I include most of my muscles during the workouts, and where I constantly work on my mobility.

I understand your thinking, but I would say stick to doing all 7 as they inter-connect in many beneficial ways e.g an iM for one skill, will help with a PE of another. So you get what you are wanting - an overall balanced body workout.

When I look at my progress (in signature), I sometimes wish to hide the ones at PE1/2 - but they must and should be done! 

Might be useful to tell us why you're having trouble focusing. I know at the beginning I was taking a long time to rest between sets and moving to the next element which effected my concentration and motivation.

I wouldn't drop any but find a way of dealing with the elements you don't like. I moved deck squats to the beginning of my F1b day as I often gave up on them, ABH having sapped all wil willpower.

There's no "fluff" in Foundation. Everything is in there because it's important. What's more, many of the progressions are interconnected: the HBP for example will make use of the scapular strength you develop in sPL and the lower back strength you develop from SL. In the sort to medium term you could have pretty reasonable workouts without MN, SL or sPL, but you would be sabotaging your future progress by ignoring some very important strength and mobility. 

If you don't like having split workouts, you could just do all 7 Foundation elements and Handstand in one workout. Another thing that could help is finding a workout buddy. That way you can keep each other focused.

When you say you can't focus properly on all the elements, what exactly do you mean? Is four workouts in a week too much? Is it that there's too much information to keep in your head at once? 

Thanks for your replies. I just realized I can't even do basic math, since I've only picked four of the seven skills, not five

Yes, to clarify what I mean with not being able to focus. Doing all 7 elements + HS in a single workout is not an option since it will take too much time. I want to keep my workouts within the hour to be able to keep focus.

What I've done lately is trying to hit the gym four times / week, splitting the elements up exactly as written in the 4 days-a-week layout. However, more than too often I find that I can only workout three and sometimes two times every week, which make me feel like I don't work on the skills often enough.

That's the reason I would like ONE workout that include the whole body, which I could do three times / week.

However, when you say I need all the strength and mobility from the other elements I do of course realize there's no other option than working on them all. Maybe the 3-days-a-week setup is an alternative, but it make me feel like I don't work on each of the skills often enough.

Primalisten said:

Thanks for your replies. I just realized I can't even do basic math, since I've only picked four of the seven skills, not five

Yes, to clarify what I mean with not being able to focus. Doing all 7 elements + HS in a single workout is not an option since it will take too much time. I want to keep my workouts within the hour to be able to keep focus.

What I've done lately is trying to hit the gym four times / week, splitting the elements up exactly as written in the 4 days-a-week layout. However, more than too often I find that I can only workout three and sometimes two times every week, which make me feel like I don't work on the skills often enough.

That's the reason I would like ONE workout that include the whole body, which I could do three times / week.

However, when you say I need all the strength and mobility from the other elements I do of course realize there's no other option than working on them all. Maybe the 3-days-a-week setup is an alternative, but it make me feel like I don't work on each of the skills often enough.

Yeah that's a tough situation to be in. I'd say sticking to the 3-day foundation schedule will probably get you better results in the long term. The optimal solution would be to try to find a way to consistently train 4 times a week. What I would do is train 4 days a week when you can, and not beat yourself up if you have to miss a workout due to other life circumstances. If you only get to train an element once during the week, try to hit it twice on the next week. 

Would it be possible to do one long workout per week? E.g. on Monday do FL/sPL/HBP/RC, Tuesday do Mn/SL/SLS/H, and then do them all on Friday? 

Just switch to the 3 per week schedule. If you find an extra day in there work on mobility exercises you're having trouble with or go for a run. Bonus! I certainly wouldn't drop any elements.

The other reason not to exclude any progressions is that if you're anything like me, you're more likely to drop the exercises you find most difficult to progress on. The problem with doing so is that the exercises that you have a harder time with are the ones that will benefit you the most as your difficulty is a sign of a major loss of function/mobility that those progressions are designed to fix (ABH and MN/PE2 for me and many others on the board). 

I would therefore suggest you keep all exercises in there and try some of the suggestions Josh posted above. If you're only doing F1 without H1 or any extra stretching, you should be able to easily finish most of your workouts in 45 minutes or less if you're strict about not resting between sets and exercises. 

If you still can't manage, you may want to consider doing the progressions you're most advanced in once per week and do the ones you struggle with twice per week. For example, looking at my sig, I would do SL, MN, HBP, RC on Mon/Fri, and FL, sPL, SLS on Wed. This way you'll work on your problem areas more often than the things you're already good at. It may be frustrating to do it that way as we all tend to prefer doing things we're already good at, but doing it this way would hopefully fix any imbalances you may have rather than exacerbating them.