How far apart should foundations elements progress?

[John Filippini]

First, love the program, been using it to help improve my general health particularly in the shoulder girdle with great success. I have some CF background from 8 years ago but pretty quickly transitioned to Olympic weightlifting focused training after about a year of CF. My coach moved away to med school about 4 years into my weightlifting training and within 6 months bad decisions in training happened (wouldn't ya know) and I have some shoulder issues that I was never fully able to repair, only manage. Pretty much any attempt at consistent goal-oriented training on anything other than periodic back squat cycles since my injury have ended prematurely in pain, so I'm pretty detrained. A combination of Foundations, H1 and the stretch series is the best thing that has happened to this point for my shoulders!

My question is related to some disparities in my Foundations movements. After 3 months of consistent training, testing every movement before allowing myself to move on, I was training at fairly different levels for some movements.

My SLS progression was by far the best, mastering all of F1 pretty quickly (my ankle stabilizers fatigue quickly, but hips/legs are still fine and bordering on bored). Side lever is similarly strong due to low back strength from lifting, expecting to progress to PE5 in the next 2 weeks.

However, my lifting experience left me with ZERO spinal flexion control - I can't even pass the second training block of PE1 for the front lever (though it is progressing with every iteration... Slowly). I feel that some of that is sheer muscle endurance, and some of it is having to overcome my natural low back strength/tension which is adding resistance. Similarly, I progressed quickly to the Planche lean, but after a bit of a break from the holidays I decided to ramp up again - I once again can't pass the scap shrugs.

Should I be limiting my advancement on one movement progression to keep pace with a lagging one? If so, what's the strategy?

[Romulo Malta]

As far as I know there is no need to worry about it and it´s normal to advance at different paces for each element. 

 

Of course you have to dedicate to improve the weak points that Foundation revealed and search for solutions if needed (more stretching/mobility, etc.)

[Coach Sommer]

Not at all.  Completely natural for different areas of the body to progress at different rates.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Christian Nogueira]

Just train, it'll be self-limiting. I myself am nearly finished with SLS F2, and yet I'm still on MN/PE2 . 

 

Some things are related though, I think it's pretty hard to advance in sPL SE exercises if you are lagging in the HBP progressions (HBP PE3 mostly).

 

Probably later on RC and FL progressions will be related (probably hard to do front lever pulls if you're way behind in the front lever progressions).

 

Don't worry about it's natural and if you keep at it everything will fall into place.

[Katharina Huemer]

No problem at all.

For me, SLS, Front Lever and Manna Progression was very easy. Took me probably 2-3 months to detect all weak sports and finish F2 on those, the last step of Front Lever maybe a little longer.

But oh gosh, this Hollow Back Press! I am so bad in pushing strength it's a shame. I can do probably 12-15 good dips in a row but then I kind of start pushing more with one shoulder. And overhead pushing is even worse. Same for pulling. 10 good pull-ups on the first set, but then the second set my max is probably 7 or 8 with good form and on the third set I can hardly manage 6 haha.

With leg lifts, 3x10 is no problem at all, even 5x10. So yeah, definitely just a personal thing and normal.