Bringing it Together (Jon's Foundation 2.0)

Awesome Jon, thanks. 

On 25/4/2016 at 5:25 AM, Jon Douglas said:

Well, i start standing with arm circles, German arm swings, some twisting variation. 

Then down onto matt for wrist stretches, then all HBP ims for 5-10reps, table rocks, supine shoulder extension, then s2s squats, 2 bounce/2pike, front split, middle split, seated pancake.

As sls warmup I do 10r Hawaiian squats (long since passed but i love the stretch) and 10r of all sls ims before getting to work.

I'm good to do a set of lat flyes and jefferson curls after that,  and that's all I need. I just work head to toe.Find what works for you, your needs may be slightly different to mine

 

Have been doing something pretty close to this for the past three weeks, and the results have been mindblowing. 

It feels like somebody just released the handbrake on me - Pike work is fluid and painless. Press handstands are way more controlled in the bottom pike position, with a slow, deliberate lifting of the feet from the floor..

A real eye opener, so thanks, Jon!

15 hours ago, Mikkel Ravn said:

Have been doing something pretty close to this for the past three weeks, and the results have been mindblowing. 

It feels like somebody just released the handbrake on me - Pike work is fluid and painless. Press handstands are way more controlled in the bottom pike position, with a slow, deliberate lifting of the feet from the floor..

A real eye opener, so thanks, Jon!

Funny isn't it? I wouldn't have believed just being consistent with a mild stretch/rom could make such a difference but it truly does.

Same with pancakes, jefferson curls and dislocates, been emphasising consistency more than intensity. If I'm having a tight day or something then it's a day to just tick the box, not push it. But after a couple months , that becomes quite a substantial amount of time and volume you've put into mobility work. It adds up and the body thrives!

Whilst i have tweaked my strength training gently by far the biggest difference has been the inclusion of intelligent and **consistent** mobility work. That means a limber every day, j-curls 3x a week, dislocates and pancakes 2x, push those stretch sessions. That's been all it has taken to unlock the fast track.

The biggest thing has been taking ego out of the mobility as well-- not hunching in pancake to get your chin on the floor etc, but dialling back in everything to the last place you could do it with perfect form and emphasis on the right muscles, and working from there. Sounds obvious. Should be for most

Addendum, now that I have a cold flat pancake on the floor am putting more and more reps into straddle and pike compressions. Having passive flexibility is vital but working on making it active is where its at.

The body loves constant movement. It is always adapting to what forces we place on the body. So by constantly making it adapt to new ranges over time will make a huge difference.

Makes me want to go stretch lol

On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 10:19 AM, Ronnicky Roy said:

Makes me want to go stretch lol

Most of us probably should

No real updates; progress is constant and wow fast on this 6day/week training. The 3day split of all things; it makes you strong, plus it is fast and allows a comprehensive warmup/stretch and keeps up the motivation to race the clock.

I now do H1 prone dislocates with 12.5kg working weight and 15kg last set; pancakes with feet elevated on the edge of a yoga block and stomach on ground with 25 kg for good morning reps; and building up F3 HBP freestanding reps.

Handstand is incomparably better. Three-way splits. Middle split hold with elevation without working for it. Standing straddle press to handstand. Back rolls to HS with straight arms. Steady improvement. Feels awesome.

Mobility is strength.

On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 3:23 AM, Jon Douglas said:

 

- Coach also mentioned Leo (Trinidad)'s strategy of restarting a progression every time he hit a failure. This has a massive appeal to me as an incredibly simple / effective approach that automatically incorporates waving loads etc. Similarly I'd hit some plateaus and wanted a shake-up to find where my gaps were.

Jon, do you mind adding a bit of clarity here.  I hit a failure and wondering if I should drop back to step 1 in that element or go back to PE1 and re-test my way back up?

Pretty much as it says. I'd not drop back based on failing to get the rep count on a single workout, or as long as I could objectively note improvements in performance, recovery, perceived rate of exertion. If however I was genuinely spinning my wheels, especially after a deload week, it does make sense to fall back to the beginning for that stream and look for strength and mobility that weren't quite achieved the first time through.

Mine was also prompted by outright fixing some issues- primarily the shoulder impingement i mentioned. With something major corrected like that the mechanics of movements change and compensation for the problem had taken the stress off smaller muscles. I was able to complete lower level elements without issue, but wasn't laying quite exactly thr foundation needed to go further.

Doing this also forces you to spend time with mobility you may not have worked for a while, and to work at a lower intensity than currently, possibly for a few weeks or month as you test back through. Given the way I approach my training, in which if left to.my own devices I'll work way too hard to be productive, this is also a plus. Sometimes it's just being honest enough to work at a slightly slower level for a volume cycle, and then there is no plateau going forwards

Hi guys,

I've been away for about a week travelling and studying; I've come back to a number of changes and revisions, and a forum active like I've not seen for a while!

I'm planning to run Upper, Core, Lower each morning then repeat, in that order, each weekday morning. So each week I will do 2x two workouts and 1x the other, which will automatically stagger it. This works because with my favoured warmups and whatnot, each workout comes out shorter and I can slot it in before work.

I like this because at my current level, not so strong but fairly conditioned, handstands and press handstands are the priority; my afternoons are now free for a Handstand and weighted mobility session 3-5 days a week.

This means shorter workouts more often, an overall small increase in volume, and an increase in focus on handstands for skill work, this is ideal.

This structure has reasonable volume; it could easily be adapted down to however many days a week is appropriate; just setup a simple rotation and tick off workouts. I'm a fan of the structure tweaks, which are more freeing than limiting in my view.

Depending on what you what to accomplish and how your weekly commitments look, just take the LEGO blocks of workouts and stack them, put them together, or split them up as you like

I also considered something a bit more complex, like including Handstand in the rotation so there would be 4 workouts total to rotate through, which I'd execute in however many workout 'slots' I had open in a week (say before work Mon, after work Mon, after work Tues, etc...). It should be pretty easy to sketch out a week using either of these approaches, and tick off workouts as they are actually completed (not planned on being completed ) But this handstand-centric structure suits me, and is flexible because it's no trouble to move a short workout from AM to PM if time gets away from me.

How creative have people gotten with the new system? Let's kick some ideas around and see what productivity we can come up with

I'm working on trying to do lower body three days a week, upper body+HS/pHS twice, core twice, movement once and then all three stretches. 

Mon - lower/core/fss

Tues - HS/limber

Wed - upper/lower/tbs

Thurs - HS/limber

Fri - core/lower/mss

Sat - movement/upper/limber

i find that this gives me enough volume and rest between the different pieces. 

Love the sound of your schedules Jon and Daniel. I've always loved the idea of high frequency training; almost romanticised it in my head but I really struggle to recover well from it. In that light I've come up with this, slightly rogue, schedule:

Monday; sPL, MN and pHS with MSs

Tuesday; H1 and gentle mobility

Wednesday; FL, HBP and RC  with TBs

Thursday; H1 and gentle Mobility

Friday; SL and SLS with FSs

Saturday; Movement (and possibly handstand)

Sunday; off

I found that often the weighted Mobility is what leaves me most sore, namely the weighted pike work. 

I also felt like these pairings work well together from a strength perspective; things feeding into one another nicely.

I know that breaking up the handstand course is probably not considered best practise, but I figured I would experiment a bit; especially as I find the press work to be quite strength based already, never mind when I get further along 

If anyone has some feedback I'd love to hear it, potential pitfalls or possible tweaks

Max

I just find that if I can keep my workouts under a certain amount of time, then I can usually recover well. I also feel like the frequency, will enable me to keep the same schedule week-in, week-out. I did the core+upperbody work yesterday, and it was longer than I'm used to (especially with a few elements at 5x60 reps or seconds). The lower body work as I posted elsewhere, is the base for me now. I'm working on regaining my squat, so I feel like frequency is best (the new iMs are perfect for medial glute strength which I still lack). My levels are quite a beginner, but I see noticeable benefits in body composition, strength, and recovery. Just takes time.

I think that your schedule is probably fine. Whatever works is what works, but not sure about splitting handstand, I find that they're paired well, especially with the wrist work before it. My thing is I want the whole workout to be as holistic as possible that way I know it's balanced to one degree or another (so the days it's core and legs, a lower body stretch series works well; vice versa for the TBs and upper body work). Anyways, things to think about. Chime back on how that schedule works for you in the long term. 

3 hours ago, Maksis Riley said:

I know that breaking up the handstand course is probably not considered best practise, but I figured I would experiment a bit; especially as I find the press work to be quite strength based already, never mind when I get further along 

Go for it.

I seperated pHS from H1 when I started getting into the longer free hs holds (>90s) as I felt I wasn't giving the press my full capacity or attention after 4 or 5 sets. It also meant I could save some time on H1 days by not warming up pancake so much and as you note, get some recovery time on that weighted mobility. FWIW, I've actually paired HBP with H1 for quite a while now as I felt the balance for PE17 was a bit more dialled in after longer holds. 

Really? I much prefer to do h2 after h1 as recommended, everything's warmed up and it feeds straight in.

The schedule you laid out is very similar to what i was doing previously.

@Daniel Taylor-Shaut that's quite a bit of volume, how have you found that? 

27 minutes ago, Jon Douglas said:

Really? I much prefer to do h2 after h1 as recommended, everything's warmed up and it feeds straight in.

The schedule you laid out is very similar to what i was doing previously.

@Daniel Taylor-Shaut that's quite a bit of volume, how have you found that? 

You may well be right to keep them together, the main incentive for me is save my hamstrings, having manna iM press HS iM and the stretches on different days just leaves me with a permenant case of hamstring DOMs. I thought sPL would pair nicely for the warmup of the shoulder girdle. Plus the sPL iM works nicely with middle split work. I will give it a go but am very open to switching back if it proves unsuccessful

Max

Jon, do you still do movement only once a week? Have you tried more often?

I think right now my plan is to just get all the workouts checked off once a week on progressions i was currently working on, and at the same time work from PE1 on relevant skills and work through getting video reviews done. for instance, i'm currently working on F4 SLS, so i'll do that once a week at least, then do pe1 and up. SLS will go quickly, might get back up to F4 within a week, while others like FL might go slower. We'll see how well this works lol.

1 hour ago, Jon Douglas said:

Really? I much prefer to do h2 after h1 as recommended, everything's warmed up and it feeds straight in.

The schedule you laid out is very similar to what i was doing previously.

@Daniel Taylor-Shaut that's quite a bit of volume, how have you found that? 

 

Still toying with it. This week I did it a bit differently (as it's the first week with reorganized workouts), but I fathom that doing four elements Monday/Wednesday/Friday is not so bad, with the added upper body work on Saturday. I'll report back how it goes. As I move up elements it becomes harder to push it each session, though I still can (just requires more effort). So, all things considered, I may move back to an A/B/A schedule with core/legs and upper body, alternating days. I was making good progress with that. The reorganization of the progressions got me motivated to try and change things, but in reality, it's likely that I don't need to. 

Edit: Cooler heads have prevailed. I'm just gonna go back to the A/B/A split mentioned above. Need to remember to not get ahead of myself when progress is being made (which it is). You see progress one or two elements and you wanna throw the kitchen sink at your training -- it's just better to stay the course and keep your pants on. haha

15 hours ago, Jon Douglas said:

I'm planning to run Upper, Core, Lower each morning then repeat, in that order, each weekday morning. So each week I will do 2x two workouts and 1x the other, which will automatically stagger it.

Can you clarify this? I'm having a hard time understanding your schedule.

5 hours ago, Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

Still toying with it. This week I did it a bit differently (as it's the first week with reorganized workouts), but I fathom that doing four elements Monday/Wednesday/Friday is not so bad, with the added upper body work on Saturday. I'll report back how it goes. As I move up elements it becomes harder to push it each session, though I still can (just requires more effort). So, all things considered, I may move back to an A/B/A schedule with core/legs and upper body, alternating days. I was making good progress with that. The reorganization of the progressions got me motivated to try and change things, but in reality, it's likely that I don't need to. 

 

Edit: Cooler heads have prevailed. I'm just gonna go back to the A/B/A split mentioned above. Need to remember to not get ahead of myself when progress is being made (which it is). You see progress one or two elements and you wanna throw the kitchen sink at your training -- it's just better to stay the course and keep your pants on. haha

I know that temptation well!

1 hour ago, Jonathan Horowitz said:

Can you clarify this? I'm having a hard time understanding your schedule.

Wk1 M Upper T Core W Lower T Upper F Core

Wk2 M Lower T Upper W Core

Etc...

5 minutes ago, Jon Douglas said:

Wk1 M Upper T Core W Lower T Upper F Core

Wk2 M Lower T Upper W Core

Etc...

 

How many elements are you working through when you do this? I know you're up in F3-F4, so are you doing lots of warmup and maintenance/ post-mastery work on things like Jefferson Curls or Xiaopengs in these workouts (or Hollow Body revisits?)

4 minutes ago, Jon Douglas said:

Wk1 M Upper T Core W Lower T Upper F Core

Wk2 M Lower T Upper W Core

Etc...

Nice. That was my plan, as well considering the new changes. Basically F7 twice a week (almost). I feel like I can focus more on the elements not doing all 7 in one day, and maybe even do some extra afterward to nail down form. Had a great upper workout this week adding in some additional planks and playing around with the planche position.

You're doing Stretch and HS along with those, right? Seems like HS will work well on Upper days, although fatigue may be a factor at higher levels of Foundation.

22 minutes ago, Jon Douglas said:

I know that temptation well!

Mine is badly dented...

9 hours ago, Jason Dupree said:

Jon, do you still do movement only once a week? Have you tried more often?

I think right now my plan is to just get all the workouts checked off once a week on progressions i was currently working on, and at the same time work from PE1 on relevant skills and work through getting video reviews done. for instance, i'm currently working on F4 SLS, so i'll do that once a week at least, then do pe1 and up. SLS will go quickly, might get back up to F4 within a week, while others like FL might go slower. We'll see how well this works lol.

No, I've not tried that. I think it would go well generally, but once a week is sufficient until dynamics become a focus after basic strength; doing fine in conjunction with my other activities.

3 hours ago, Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

How many elements are you working through when you do this? I know you're up in F3-F4, so are you doing lots of warmup and maintenance/ post-mastery work on things like Jefferson Curls or Xiaopengs in these workouts (or Hollow Body revisits?)

I keep things pretty lean. I do jcurls every f session, xiaopengs every hbp session for that matter  i just warm up with 1-2 elements as rxd and get into it.