Started foundations 1 - Very humbled

I want to preface this by my statement to a mate who i told i had purchased foundations 1.

 

"Yeh it looks pretty entry level, ill probably buy foundations 2 straight away"

 

As you can guess I have now pulled that statement back completely.

 

Anyhow I consider myself a strong athletic guy and thought this would compliment my olympic lifting training aswel as allowing me to learn some of the more advanced gymnastics skills (Given that I can already do 3-4 strict muscle ups on rings i thought i would have an easy transition). What I found was that although I'm fairly strong and powerful I am however lacking mobility, work capacity and stabilisation from a lot of little muscles.

 

I only managed to pass one PE1 level with mastery mainly due to lack of quality range of motion and shaking in stabilisation exercises.

 

Couple of quick questions:

 

In terms of shaking I have read that you don't qualify for mastery with it. However if you can get the qualifying time for mastery with shaking am I better off setting up the training phase from either the point at which i start shaking or just week 9-12 until i can complete mastery without shaking?

 

Also as Olympic lifting is my priority I plan on doing 3 days per week of foundations 1 after olympic lifting sessions which will only include a competition lift, a jerk variation and squat or pull variation. How would you suggest I split up the movements in foundations 1 (in half and rotate every day as per 3d/wk in the manual or another method)

 

Really looking forward to learning from the community and challenging myself in a new way.

 

Jacob

 

 

Welcome Jacob!

 

Great that you gave F1 a chance to diagnose some smaller weaknesses/imbalances. The foundation that Foundation 1 gives is so much more than just getting strong for ring movements (although it certainly will help with that!).

 

Shaking often means that your nervous system is working harder than it's used to. All part of the process. If you can do week 11, keep repeating it until the shaking eases and you are comfortable. This will mean you are properly prepared for the next element. It will probably only take a few sessions.

 

Scheduling is a very individual thing and you'll really need to experiment before you find the best split for you. I rotate my days between HS, SLS, HBP, RC one day and then FL, sPL, SL, MN the other days. I used to do 6x/week (cycle these two days 3x) but as I got stronger I found it was just too much grind, so cut back to 4x/week (each element twice a week).

 

But in essence it's about finding your sweet spot - doing just enough to progress as quickly as possible - no more, no less. This will take some trial and error, and if you keep track of 1) how you do and 2) how you feel you will find this personal sweet spot in no time.