Just Finished Week1 - Questions

I apologize for asking what's probably been answered before but can't seem to nail down the answer after reading multiple posts.

I completed week one and it seems like I should be doing more. In some cases I feel the mobility is where it needs to be, in others it is close and some cases I have a ways to go. In all cases the strength is there. Again, it seems I could benefit from more than 3-5 reps, especially in the mobility.

What is the recommended way to proceed? Should I test for mastery in all or maybe in selected ones? Should I just bump the rep count forward? On the first day I messed up and performed the mastery numbers on all exercises. It was tough but I got through it except for the hinge row except did 10's instead of 15's on the last 4 work sets. It was too much and my form was not great but again, seems I should be doing more, starting a bit forther along in the progression.

Again, if the answer is start day one and work through everything, fine. Just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing.

Tony

I suggest testing for mastery for all elements. Workout scheduler will then place you on appropriate step based on your results. Make sure you are doing everything with correct form.

Speaking purely for myself, I am coming from a long period of body weight training and a mindset of overtraining.  Even though I believed I was taking it slowly, I was still doing the basic moves and adding more volume.  Coupled with a busy work schedule, I'd get frustrated with the lack of progress and work even harder until I could barely move, and could hardly face a workout, at which stage I would take a break.  It was after just such a break, and while I was considering restarting on my latest youtube program (that I had also heard about on another podcast, and bought the ebook) on Tim Ferris' show.

I tried the assessment challenge, with the bent arm hangs etc, and got past beginner for each stage, but not quite to intermediate for any of them.  After doing fundamentals, I realised where some of my shortcomings lie.

I decided to start at step 1 for all elements, to hopefully address some of the shortcomings found in fundamentals.  Some of the movements I have not done since I stopped martial arts about 5 years ago, and some are similar, but with different form.  While the workload is a bit lower, I make sure to concentrate as much as I can on the form and the timing, and possibly even more importantly, developing the required habits.  Unless my form and tempo looks identical to the videos, I don't feel I can claim the exercise is easy.  Taking this approach, I did feel that the first deload week arrived a little early, but I take heart in the fact that in the future I will be grateful for the deload week when it does arrive.  I'm only 4 weeks or so in, and I feel better than I did when I was beating myself up bashing out push ups,  chins, and weighted lunges 3 times a week.

I'm hoping to still be training in some capacity for another 30 years, so I'm not too worried about a few weeks at this end.  There isn't a single human being on the planet that didn't have to crawl before they could walk, before they could run.  I suggest giving it a couple more weeks before looking for more work, and make sure you have the form dialed in.

Cheers

If you are completely new to the GST approach then yes you need to start from week one and work through the progression, from week one -> 2 -> 3 etc. Check yourself if mobility improves since the mastery of one exercise comprises also its paired mobility.

Hi Tony, 

It’s great that you’re asking at the beginning! Allow me to cut to the chase: the right thing to do is to post a video, so the forum coaches can OK your form for each element. 

Don’t be too concerned with reps now. FIRST confirm your form is right. Otherwise, risking doing reps with non-acceptable form will never, ever build the required attributes you will need in more advance elements. Once you get a green light on your form, then is the time to think about your rep schemes. 

Yes, you need to test mastery for each element just to assess at which Step/Week to begin. See chart below. You can start at Step 1, 4, or 7 (before we called them weeks), depending on how many reps you can complete in good form. Although for completely new students to GST Step 1 is usually recommended.

The key fact is to sync your deload week every four weeks and for that, you must start each element at the beginning of either Step 1, 4, or 7. That means you could be starting an element on Step 4 and performing more reps than another element that you simultaneously started on Step 1. The step number you start at will typically be determined by your weakness (strength or mobility). Either way it’s a good thing to finally land there so you can work on it! Also, keep in mind that it doesn’t matter whether it takes you one or more weeks to master a step, since you cannot move to the next step until the previous has been mastered.

As a movement coach, I want to make a clarification: there are no such thing as 1/2 reps, pretty good reps (subjective) or other vanilla flavors reps. Reps are measured with binary standards. Reps either meet the requirements of a particular “exercise” or they don’t. And to know the difference you need an educated eye. The above is not exclusive of GST. 

I’ll use myself as an example. I’m a movement professional and (modesty aside) I have a very well-trained eye for movement, yet I still make mistakes or can miss something! Any good coach will tell you don’t be “your own coach.” Not to mentioned that you can’t really judge your own form accurately unless you video yourself. And even then, you may not know all the technical aspects that are required of a particular element. A coach is always thinking 1,000 steps ahead. That’s why we need them. As “students,” we live in the present step and we develop our self-coaching skills in the process of being coached by a good coach, no matter our background/age. Big difference. 

As far as the program structure, the mobility is not there for "stretching” purposes or gains. Think of it as an active recovery and stick to the prescribed reps. Don’t add more as that would mean you’re buying more time (rest) between set! Once you land at your proper Step, it will make sense. Mobility should feel like a warm up, at least at the beginning. Since you already know you could benefit from some focused mobility, you may want to consider introducing the Stretch Series soon. 

I think this covers most of what you were asking. I didn't do a very good job cutting to the chase except perhaps with the first sentence, haha. Good to meet you. Fun times ahead!

1 hour ago, Eva Pelegrin said:

Hi Tony, 

It’s great that you’re asking at the beginning! Allow me to cut to the chase: the right thing to do is to post a video, so the forum coaches can OK your form for each element. 

Don’t be too concerned with reps now. FIRST confirm your form is right. Otherwise, risking doing reps with non-acceptable form will never, ever build the required attributes you will need in more advance elements. Once you get a green light on your form, then is the time to think about your rep schemes. 

Yes, you need to test mastery for each element just to assess at which Step/Week to begin. See chart below. You can start at Step 1, 4, or 7 (before we called them weeks), depending on how many reps you can complete in good form. Although for completely new students to GST Step 1 is usually recommended.

The key fact is to sync your deload week every four weeks and for that, you must start each element at the beginning of either Step 1, 4, or 7. That means you could be starting an element on Step 4 and performing more reps than another element that you simultaneously started on Step 1. The step number you start at will typically be determined by your weakness (strength or mobility). Either way it’s a good thing to finally land there so you can work on it! Also, keep in mind that it doesn’t matter whether it takes you one or more weeks to master a step, since you cannot move to the next step until the previous has been mastered.

As a movement coach, I want to make a clarification: there are no such thing as 1/2 reps, pretty good reps (subjective) or other vanilla flavors reps. Reps are measured with binary standards. Reps either meet the requirements of a particular “exercise” or they don’t. And to know the difference you need an educated eye. The above is not exclusive of GST. 

I’ll use myself as an example. I’m a movement professional and (modesty aside) I have a very well-trained eye for movement, yet I still make mistakes or can miss something! Any good coach will tell you don’t be “your own coach.” Not to mentioned that you can’t really judge your own form accurately unless you video yourself. And even then, you may not know all the technical aspects that are required of a particular element. A coach is always thinking 1,000 steps ahead. That’s why we need them. As “students,” we live in the present step and we develop our self-coaching skills in the process of being coached by a good coach, no matter our background/age. Big difference. 

As far as the program structure, the mobility is not there for "stretching” purposes or gains. Think of it as an active recovery and stick to the prescribed reps. Don’t add more as that would mean you’re buying more time (rest) between set! Once you land at your proper Step, it will make sense. Mobility should feel like a warm up, at least at the beginning. Since you already know you could benefit from some focused mobility, you may want to consider introducing the Stretch Series soon. 

I think this covers most of what you were asking. I didn't do a very good job cutting to the chase except perhaps with the first sentence, haha. Good to meet you. Fun times ahead!

Hi Eva,

I've seen around that deload weeks should sync up but isn't it possible that you could have deload weeks that are not all sync'd together on the same week? For example, even if you tested for mastery appropriately and got placed on Step 1, 4 or 7 for each element, you could eventually get to Step 9 (or any along the way) and fail for a single element, while progressing with the rest of the elements. This would take the deload out of sync, wouldn't it? Haven't gotten to a deload week yet so trying to get my arms around it.

Thanks!

The deload is always in sync, basically on deload week you always perform the same number of sets and 50% of the reps of the previous week, so if one element was step 6, you do 50% of step 6, if another element was step 1 because you continue failing that, you do 50% of step 1.

Hi Jeffery, 

I know what you mean about getting your arms around it. It's hard to envision what's not happened sometimes. The scenario you're describing is very likely to happen, but it won't take the deload out of sync. We don't want that. Think of your deload week as doing half of what you're doing every 4 weeks and then you continue with each progression as directed. 

When I said "you must start each element at the beginning of either Step 1, 4, or 7." It doesn't mean that all elements must start at the same step respectively. Two elements could start on step 1; three elements start on step 4; and two elements on step 7. Once you find your starting point, you navigate in blocks or cycles of 3 working weeks + 1 deload week.

If you pass one element (FL) on Step 3 and fail on another element (RC) that you were further up, say, Step 6, the fourth week gotta be deload for every element regardless. After deload, you would proceed to Step 4 for FL because you passed, but you'd stay repeating Step 6 for RC until mastered it (3 more weeks, or more) or you'd go back to RC Step 4 (then 5 and 6), SO THAT you can always line up your "future" deloads with the rest of the deloads for ALL elements e-v-e-r-y four weeks. Keep in mind, you will probably spend more than one week with the elements that challenge you the most. It could take months to go from step 4 to step 9. As long as you start each element at the beginning of a block (step 1, 4, or 7), AND make it a point to DELOAD with 50% volume every 4 weeks, no matter which progression (number of set/reps/sec) you're on, you're good. Mastery is around the corner. That's what I keep telling me. 

This is harder to explain than to do. It certainly challenges my English.

I'll just plan to stick with it from the start. Something is wrong with my scheduler though, it has everything in deload and it should be step2. I did go into setup and change days where it wanted to put everything in deload but I changed everything to step 2, but it did not matter. Something is wrong there, opened a help ticket.

So should my sets or reps increase from week to week except for the deload week?

Am I understanding this correct that I do not advance to step 4 (week 5) on an exercise unless strength and mobility are 100%? Or, should I be moving forward through the first 12 weeks as long as the strength is there and the form is correct  even though the mobility may be limited?

Thanks all for the feedback.

Yes, do not advance until you meet the course video form standard for each pair, which sometimes could take more than a few weeks/months to build up to that! The pairing of the elements is intentional so you spend more time in what's lagging behind, be if strength or mobility.

If you can increase your reps weekly or in a given workout, while you work towards mastery numbers, great. The principle of incremental progression always applies with reps/sec/sets.

So I've finished week two and today will be my first workout of week 3 (step 3). I've been doing the full workouts on Mo/Tu/Th/Fr. I first do a light cardio warmup then the daily mobility and then the F1 workout. I have to say that although week 1 is pretty light I don't feel the need to rush things anymore and this seems like a good progression.

I've also been doing some swimming, paddle boarding and yoga. Will probably try to add some leg work back in.

Unfortunately, I managed to over stretch on the daily mobility (calf/achilles) and somehow tweaked my back a bit in Yoga after Thursday's workout :(. Will need to take it easy on some of these exercises for a bit I guess.

Thanks for the input.

Tony