Does it matter if my workout frequency decreases as steps become harder?

I'm juggling GB and martial arts, which is really strenuous. 

I'm doing a full F1a, F1b and H1 workout every Mod/Wed/Fri.

My problem is that a the week goes on and fatigue accumulates from martial arts, my GB workouts suffer. I'm still making all my reps, but in today's workout I was unable to follow the pace of the follow-along videos and had to take short, but frequent, rests (30s-40s) to make my sets and reps.

My Monday workouts are Fantastic and I always hit my numbers and feel strong. It's later on in the week that Monday's sets and reps get hard.

Does it negatively affect the GB programming if I drop the Fri workout so I do the ful F1a/F1b/H1 workouts on Mon/Wed when I still feel strong in each one? I feel like I may need this 4 day break between Wednesday's workout on the current level and Monday's workouts on the next higher level in order to keep making progress every week, sneaking around higher levels that would cause me to fail at if I tried working out Friday the week before.

Jason, you will have to balance your recovery how you see fit and prioritize which is more important to you.  Certainly, you will make slower progress, but on the other hand, if you do not cut back something you will make even slower progress.  I would make sure your sleep and nutrition are dialed in, and then decide if martial arts should be cut back or GST.  1 workout per week per exercise would certainly be better than none, but for me that puts it into a kind of maintenance phase where you are neither gaining nor losing.  If your experience is fairly recent, you may still see gains for a while.  I do this during my most intense ski and running racing seasons, but I don't really make gains.  After racing season finishes up I get back to 2 per week and the gains come back.  I just know I will get overtrained if I don't cut back, and for me, at that point in time, the endurance sports are my priority.  I think it is always good to cycle things anyway.  It keeps it fresh and variety is always good.  

I've had to cut back on the intense rolling in BJJ to help my GST recovery, replacing it with a higher volume of lower intensity rolling and more drilling. For me less is usually more and doing a deloaded F3/F4 or F7 on my "off" days has really helped increase my work capacity, along with incorporating extra iM's into my BJJ warm ups. I've heard of some people making progress on training each element once a week, maybe try that along with deload work on rest days? You should also check out the thread "Bringing it Together (Jon's Foundation 2.0", it's helped me balance some things in my training.

I would interpret declining results as the week continues as early signs of over-reaching.  The quickest way to tell is to dial it back on the training.  If quality increases you have your answer. Try Monday/Thursday instead of Monday/Wednesday.

Are you doing F1a, F1b and H1 all on the same day? Or are you doing F1a + H1 on one day and F1b + H1 the next training day? 

I'm going to change my workout to Jon's Foundation 2.0 after my deload week.  But I've given up all other forms of training until I exit Foundation One.  You may benefit twice a week training with the BJJ.

On 4/22/2016 at 3:54 PM, Douglas Wadle said:

Jason, you will have to balance your recovery how you see fit and prioritize which is more important to you.  Certainly, you will make slower progress, but on the other hand, if you do not cut back something you will make even slower progress.  I would make sure your sleep and nutrition are dialed in, and then decide if martial arts should be cut back or GST.  1 workout per week per exercise would certainly be better than none, but for me that puts it into a kind of maintenance phase where you are neither gaining nor losing.

That's one of the things I'm wondering. The GST cycling seems to use the exact same principles as powerlifting cycling and lifters don't really care if they go down to 2 or even 1 workout per week if it means they're still going to hit their goals at the end of the cycle. It's all about the amount of iron going up for them.

21 hours ago, Alex Seneco said:

I've had to cut back on the intense rolling in BJJ to help my GST recovery, replacing it with a higher volume of lower intensity rolling and more drilling. For me less is usually more and doing a deloaded F3/F4 or F7 on my "off" days has really helped increase my work capacity, along with incorporating extra iM's into my BJJ warm ups. I've heard of some people making progress on training each element once a week, maybe try that along with deload work on rest days? You should also check out the thread "Bringing it Together (Jon's Foundation 2.0", it's helped me balance some things in my training.

To be honest I can't really make heads nor tails of Jon'ss 2.0 thread. It looks like a MWF foundations split with stretching after the workouts and movement and handstand fit in between. I don't understand what he changed, or why, or... really anything about his warm up.

I'm generally okay if my GST progress slows. As GST starts opening up my body I find myself going back to zero and repeating baby steps because frequently I find myself needing to build up muscles and movements that, previously, had decided to pass the work off to other muscles.

I've been doing F1 for at least two years now and I'm still on the absolute baby steps because my body keeps improving itself. My strength is skyrocketing and my improving mobility is changing how I do... everything. From all those thorassic stretch sessions where I sit with my hands touching behind me and scoot my hips I, literally, have shoulders moving into places I never thought possible and my side delts, which I have struggled to build, have suddenly decided that they're tired of sitting out and they're going to be doing the work on every exercise from now on. It's incredible. It's like I unlocked a new body in a video game, but that means I had to start all over at the 3x3 on the tabletop pushups because my side delts were like newborn baby dears.

2 hours ago, Kevin Herring said:

I would interpret declining results as the week continues as early signs of over-reaching.  The quickest way to tell is to dial it back on the training.  If quality increases you have your answer. Try Monday/Thursday instead of Monday/Wednesday.

Are you doing F1a, F1b and H1 all on the same day? Or are you doing F1a + H1 on one day and F1b + H1 the next training day? 

I'm going to change my workout to Jon's Foundation 2.0 after my deload week.  But I've given up all other forms of training until I exit Foundation One.  You may benefit twice a week training with the BJJ.

F1a + F1b+ H1 all on same day. I've been thinking about this:

Mon: F1a, H1

Tues: F1b, stretching

Thurs: F1a, stretching

Fri: F1b stretching

But I'd like to avoid that for as long as possible because doing F1a F1b H1 all on the same day works much, much better with the rest of my life. So doing them Mon/Thurs, as you suggest, is what I'd like to do for as long as possible.

Hi Jason, 

With Mon-Wed (2 days a week) you can still see gains. I wouldn’t change too many variables at once and I wouldn’t cut down to one-day only. You seem to indicate that Mon-Wed works for you and towards the end of the week is when your performance starts to decline. 

I think one possibility in managing your overall training loads would be to unite, synchronize your GB deload week with a “martial deload week.” Just a thought. What a concept!: Martial Deload Week. As you probably know, it’s not how most MA folks train. 

It makes total sense to wave your volume and to allow your body to recover more fully during an entire week. Maybe focusing on mobility and less physcially demanding skill work, as opposed to ALWAYS “being on," training as usual. Because eventually our fuse burns out! Been there. Done that. More than once. I wish I knew what I know now when I was training MA. I’m saying this because I still see it in my BJJ friends. They train 3-4 hrs a day, they walk like old men, and they don’t think anything’s wrong with this picture. 

Sometimes, we can’t see the forest from the trees. 

Doing all seven foundations in the same day twice a week was one of the templets.  Ever since GB Pro+ launched I can't find that page.  I'm sure it's around somewhere.   I don't remember where handstands fit in.  Regardless, your body will tell you if you're on the right track. 

Adding an extra day between your two workouts (moving from Wednesday to Thursday) may improve the quality of that workout as well.  It should.  And if it does you know you were doing too much too soon.