GB Fundamentals or F1 as a starting point?

Hi!

I'm a 24 years old student from Germany with a height of 1,79m and a weight of 65kg. I have been playing low-level basketball for about 8 years now and I also enjoy doing outdoor sports like (nordic) skiing, canoeing or hiking for example. Climbing is another sport I'd like to engage in in the near future. I trained my strength with BWE and TRX from time to time, but I didn't quite follow through over the years - a few months ago I started training my strength again in order to gain some weight and muscle mass, and as I wanted to approach this project intelligently in order to make training a consistent part of my life I informed myself about different sorts of strength training as well as the importance of nutrition.

Long story short, I found the GB program and saw some interviews of Coach Sommer, which really convinced me to give it a shot. I'm especially impressed by the task identity of your program and the competence behind it. I want to start with Foundation One and Handstand One (also thinking about adding the Stretch Series as soon as possible as my flexibility/mobility and posture aren't quite optimal), but now that GB offers the new Fundamentals course, I don't quite know if that course would be beneficial for me, too.

Is the Fundamentals course rather targeted on people with really low levels of basic fitness or is there another purpose to start with Fundamentals before going with F1? For example I'm currently able to do about 5 clean pull-ups and 40 push-ups, so I'm not a complete zombie, as you like to put it in your basic fitness assessment test;)

Thank you for your help, I'm looking forward to being an active part of this community as soon as possible;)

Yours in zombieness,

Ferdinand

Depends on your goals. If you're hesitant about GST then stick to fundamentals. If you want to jump in head first, then buy the Foundations and Pro+. Further, if you really wanna reap the most benefits, then also include the stretch series (it's a lot of money I realize, so that might turn you off. But for starters I would pursue Foundations and Pro+ after having explored fundamentals). Any help?

Thank you for helping;)

I'm not really hesitant to start with GST - even though I'd like to put some weight on, I've never been a big fan of lifting and typical gym workouts. I'm more drawn to BWE and focusing on core strength as in GST combined with fixing mobility and posture issues. I'm also willing to spend those 500-600$ for F1, H1 and the Stretch Series as I expect these courses to give me a sound guideline to getting my body in shape, and I'm convinced that health and fitness of my body is worth way more money and time than I invested in the past.

I just don't really know about buying Fundamentals because I can't quite imagine what content this course is about. As far as I understand F1 already starts at a low enough level and is designed for people with no experience in GST, therefore I don't know what Fundamentals is about - is it meant to be a starting point for people who may not be up to F1 regarding their level of fitness, or is there a purpose other than just scaling down the difficulty? Hesitancy about GST is not a reason to buy Fundamentals for me!

People need Fundamentals which is why is was written.  Many have found that F1 is too challenging to start with.  As such Fundamentals is designed as a introduction to GST.  Proper terminology, movement, mobility, scapular function, hip function and a daily warmup are all covered in detail.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thank you for the quick response, then I guess I'll start with Fundamentals;)

I'm excited to start the journey and I'm definitely going to report about my experiences with the courses! 

Fundamentals in the scheme of GST and GB is likely the prologue. Foundation 1-4 and H1-H2 are like the introduction to the book, with rings and later programs being the meat of the content. Most of us can't even understand the alphabet of GST which is why it takes us so long to get to those later levels. 

In terms of putting on weight, that'll come but most significantly later on. F2-F4, H2, and H3, and R1 are where you'll see hypertrophy, but F1 and H1 will give you the ROM, flexibility and mobility to allow you to have that added weight/hypertrphy while also being able to be 'smooth like buttah', like a greased-up ninja. That's something most programs don't offer and are only starting to nowadays. So enjoy the rigors of gaining mobility in Fundamentals and F1 (because you'll need to possess a sadistic sense of enjoyment to have both the patience and grit to get through some of the harder elements), so that upon reaching the later stages you put on the strength and size you're looking for. 

What is the time commitment for Fundamentals (days per week and workout duration)?

All told less than 15 minutes per day for Fundamentals

So best bet for total newbies is just do fundamentals at the start, do them well, and don't do anything else for the first few weeks?  Seems to be a variety of opinions on that throughout the forum-- some say get stretches going, too; some say wait......

Depends.  

For many beginners it may be overwhelming to seek to add the Stretch Series immediately to their Fundamentals work.  

Smoothest route would be to focus on Fundamentals alone for at least a week or two.  

If this is being handled well in terms of overall workout volume and intensity, then adding stretching to the matrix could be considered.

It may help to remember that Fundamenals is a five (5) day per week course.  Even though the daily assignments average 15 minutes in length, there is still a near daily commitment.  Adding stretch to that would push that particular day's time commitment up to 60 minutes on day's when both Fundamentals and Stretch are scheduled.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Right now I'm seeing a lot of people clamoring about how fit they are on this forum  (not this thread). It's hard to explain how strange it is to see people complaining about being walked through this rather than dropped in to experience trial and error. Coach already did that part. This is a national team coach breaking things down so that beginners can learn a complete system from the ground up. The slower the ramp up, the smaller increments between steps, the smoother and more sustainable the climb --> the further you go. Case closed for me.

What an exciting time to be able to begin GST with all the basic tools available,  plus all this forum support!

6 hours ago, Jon Douglas said:

Right now I'm seeing a lot of people clamoring about how fit they are on this forum  (not this thread). It's hard to explain how strange it is to see people complaining about being walked through this rather than dropped in to experience trial and error. Coach already did that part. This is a national team coach breaking things down so that beginners can learn a complete system from the ground up. The slower the ramp up, the smaller increments between steps, the smoother and more sustainable the climb --> the further you go. Case closed for me.

What an exciting time to be able to begin GST with all the basic tools available,  plus all this forum support!

I think Coach calls this studliness, I call it ego. And everybody always seems to overestimate their abilities, by a lot. Whether regarding one's strength or one's mobility, but seems that one of the two is always lagginng.

It's not uncommon for new GB students without a gymnastics background to vastly overestimate their abilities based on their prior training.  Not to worry, GST™ has a tendency to quickly dispel these illusions.  

Case in point, many of the new Fundamentals students have been completely surprised and crushed by their unexpectedly poor performance on an appearingly simple element like the Crab due to previously unsuspected pec minor, biceps and shoulder extension mobility deficiencies.

Food for thought:  of our current 20,000+ students, many have initially come to the table with the belief that they possessed superior fitness and mobility.  If this were indeed the case by GST™ standards, they could have literally finished all of Foundation 1, Foundation 2, Foundation 3 and Foundation 4 in approx 2 months.  

This has however never happened.  In fact not only has completing F1-4 in two months never happened, neither has someone finishing F1 alone in two months happened.  If they come to the table strong, they usually have the mobility of concrete.  If they come to the table with great mobility, they often have the strength of a kitten.  If they have great endurance, they often have neither strength nor mobility.

The issue is that their prior training modalities often encouraged the development of a single athletic attribute (strength, speed, mobility, endurance etc) at the expense of maintaining a properly balanced physical structure.  Which is fine up to a point, but if carried too far leads to a physical structure which contains significant physical imbalances and deficiencies.  Which in turn leads to decreased performance and eventually ... pain.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I can attest to the above. I was also just turned on to GST by Coach Sommer's podcast with Tim Ferriss. I've been doing powerlifting for the past 5 years and have a 3.1x bodyweight deadlift and a 2.45x bodyweight squat. I'm also not your typical-bodied powerlifter and weigh 173 and have genetically good hamstring and general lower body flexibility. Not so much upper body, though. I went to take the free four step assessment and was able to do and hold all of the positions for the required three sets, but was quite shaky and did not have perfect form towards the end of the third sets. And I failed miserably on the "bonus" abilities, such as chin-up arm hang in an L-sit. Couldn't even hold the L-sit for 8 seconds. It was quite eye opening. I'm looking forward to starting this journey, and being a more well-rounded, functional human being. Not to mention whenever I travel I really bend over backwards attempting to find a gym to get my workouts in...Rings and paralletes are much easier to pack in a suitcase. 

G'day Ferdinand,

Mate all I can say is 'get on board'. Foundation 1 is a whole new ball game. Seriously crushing stuff. Sink your teeth into it and enjoy, knowing it is making you a better human.

Fundementals didn't exist when I got Foundation 1, but if I was starting now I'd recommend you do the Fundemental Course. It isn't going to hurt (well, at least from an overall perspective :D) and won't be wasted money. From there, you can start into F1 and Handstand, or tumbling. Also, I'd be surprised if you are not surprised at the challenging nature of anything published by Coach Sommer.

Callum