Pavel recommends BtGB

In his latest newsletter (Issue #185) Pavel Tsatsouline recommends Coach Sommer's book "Building the Gymnastic Body"

Comrade, Building the Gymnastic Body stands out against the majority of bodyweight training books by its focus on strength. What makes it really unique is a wealth of unique exercises which develop exceptional tightness—the foundation of great strength. The range of progressions is broad enough to cover anyone, from a 98-pound weakling to a superman. Get Christopher Sommer's book.

He surely knows what he's talking about 8)

The product stands by itself - if anyone wanted to learn bodyweight exercises picked it up and read through it, they would have bought it.

Right on !!! Great book coach has made available to us. Pavel's endorsement is awesome.

steviec.54 said:

Right on !!! Great book coach has made available to us. Pavel's endorsement is awesome.

********** In his endorsement(Pavels) what does exceptional "tightness" mean?

Brandon Green

I'm the proverbial 97-pound weakling :oops: I'm 37 years old, 155 pounds, 6'3" tall, skinny as all get-out. I bought the book, the personal story from Coach Sommer was really inspiring, and read through the progressions, they look great.

Then I got stuck wondering how the heck to program this. The sort-of offhand section at the end about programming wasn't enough for me.

I've just started up my own strength workouts. Two different programs alternated, 3 days/week.

Warm up:

( jump rope, assisted chins, assisted dips, squats ) * 2

Burgener warm up (24 pound bar)

"A" program:

Warm up

5 x 5 deadlift

5 x 2 muscle up (from my knees, working on raising the rings about every second workout)

"B" program:

Warm up

5 x 5 squat

5 x 5 press

So I'm at the gym around 2.5 hours/week.

The reason I mention my current program is to set a baseline. My personal criteria for any strength program:

- 3 workouts/week

- no more than 1 hour at the gym each time

- whole body

I've got home-made parallettes, and I bought rings online, but other than that I don't have access to a gym so I don't have stall bars or pads or anything otherwise specialized.

Could someone here give me a pointer to how I would program BtGB to improve upon what I'm doing?

Thanks!

Ed, there is something to be said that the forum is kind of like the online support system of the program. Without it, it makes the program a lot harder.

cccp21 said:

********** In his endorsement(Pavels) what does exceptional "tightness" mean?

Brandon Green

I believe he is referring to muscle tightness because many of the progressions require full or near full body muscle contraction, requiring the body to be "tight". I am interested if this is incorrect or could be elaborated on.

Regards.

mobrep said:

cccp21 said:

********** In his endorsement(Pavels) what does exceptional "tightness" mean?

Brandon Green

I believe he is referring to muscle tightness because many of the progressions require full or near full body muscle contraction, requiring the body to be "tight". I am interested if this is incorrect or could be elaborated on.

Regards.

You're correct. Pavel writes a lot about learning how to tense your body because tension = contraction or force or something like that. It's been a while since I've read Naked Warrior.

texas_ed said:

I'm the proverbial 97-pound weakling :oops: I'm 37 years old, 155 pounds, 6'3" tall, skinny as all get-out.

I'm 160 pounds, 6' 2.

Arm span is about 6'4.

I'm making good progress, nothing amazing yet but definite increases.

nickvb said:

I'm making good progress, nothing amazing yet but definite increases.

What is your BtGB workout routine?

I bet I'm posting this question in the wrong forum. What's the right forum to be asking this question?

Where do DIY beginners go to get workout templates?

well I don't really have a strictly templated routine as such, but here are the main things I'm working on:

ring supports, sets of 5-10 sec

pull ups and dips, sets of 3 (i'm a bit of a weakling, but my ROM and timing is fairly strict)

tuck front and back levers - i've really noticed an improvment here as my tuck is starting to open up heaps

hanging leg lifts on stall bars

assisted single leg squats and jumping squats 5-10 reps

standing leg raises

wall handstands, wall handstand pushups (a few inches to go before i can get head to floor)

swings on parallel bars horizontal to horizontal

press shoulderstand, press V sit on parallel bars

if you want help ask in the 'getting started' sub forum

Hey guys!

Coach Sommer mentioned several times that he really likes killroy70's routine and as you can see, his routine is producing great results (at least for him).

You'll find it here:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1957&p=12897#p12897

Good luck with your training!