How to Increase Reps With Chin Ups?

13 hours ago, Bas Albinus said:

I don't get why adding (heavy) weight is so important or even "the goal" to most guys. I don't see it as a "problem" as long as one is still capable to execute proper form, but I'm certain it won't help improving ones form if it has flaws. 
Everybody I've seen doing pull ups at the gym was adding more n more weight plates to it. Jerking through the motions, squeezing out single or double reps. On the other hand most couldn't do 3sets of 15 decent dead hang pull ups w/o additional weight...
Nothing wrong with adding maybe 10kg or so to help you get on that next step, but I think If pull ups start getting "too easy" so you need to add heavy weight, you should also be able to do do more advanced exercises like front lever pull ups or one arm pull ups etc. 

My goal is to get to world class level in weighted pull ups just becuase I can. While my straight arm movments are lacking behind and need to be inproved they are by no means weak. 

13 hours ago, Angel Chav said:

You are very strong to do dips with 200 pounds,how long did it take for you to build up for it?My workouts vary depending on what my fitness goals are at the moment.Right now I am focusing more on powerlifting,long distance running, flexibility, and calisthenics.Today I focused on my core and did superman pushups.This Saturday or Sunday I am doing a 12.1 mile run with my girlfriend.I hope to get back into the shape I was in my mid 20's and hope to beat my old calisthenics records.

 

I have been working out on and off for the last 10 years. I got serious about working out 5 years ago after reading gymnastic bodies for 3ish years, basically took a year off, on and off for a year, Now I am serious again and want to hit world class level for weighted pull ups. You can defintly beat your old records. Its just a matter of time and commitment. Do not give up on your goals. 

I disagree. Foundations will not hold you back but rather help move you forward by catching your mobility up to your strength. Foundations is the core of the curriculum. Get it when you can as it is going to help protect you from injury and ensure there are no holes in your physical prep. The stretch courses and F1 are going to be the place to start.

5 minutes ago, Everett Carroll said:

I disagree. Foundations will not hold you back but rather help move you forward by catching your mobility up to your strength. Foundations is the core of the curriculum. Get it when you can as it is going to help protect you from injury and ensure there are no holes in your physical prep. The stretch courses and F1 are going to be the place to start.

If I were to do foundation/stretch series could I do it for a warmup or cool down ? I have been working out for 10 years, so I guess that makes me an expert, but I dont feel like an expert. If I am more mobile that should theoretically make me a little stronger right ?

Also how much endurance does foundation series have ? If it has alot of endurance I would want to modify it becuase that will take away from my workouts. 

1 hour ago, Everett Carroll said:

I disagree. Foundations will not hold you back but rather help move you forward by catching your mobility up to your strength. Foundations is the core of the curriculum. Get it when you can as it is going to help protect you from injury and ensure there are no holes in your physical prep. The stretch courses and F1 are going to be the place to start.

I read multilpe reviews of foundation 1, I heard it's very endurance based(to show mastery) and you get banned if you do modified workouts of it. Is that true ? 

If anything you should get the stretch courses. They are imo the best courses here and are aimed completely towards mobility and flexibility. 

I don't think you would get banned if you did modify some Foundation workouts.  

Hi @waler white, I am by no means a forum coach or very experienced in GST but I will try to address some of your concerns regarding foundation training.

I have been doing the Foundation, Stretch courses and handstand course for about 8 months now. About 1 months ago I went to UK to train with the GB affiliate gym Forma and I plan to stay here for a few more months. I discovered GB after I had been injured and I have had a lot of success in building a foundation and become pain free with the courses.

No I do not think that you will be banned if you modify Foundation workouts BUT I would still be careful doing it because the Foundation courses are not just a heap of randomly assembled exercises, they are carefully put together programs made to be done in a certain order, all of it being based on Coach Summers decades of experience in this field. If you want to modify the exercises I would advice you to make a form check and ask the coaches for advice.

Yes Foundation 1 contains a lot of endurance, but soon enough as you progress trough F2, F3 ect... you will be very challenged strength wise and have a low a mount of reps. One example of an exercise in F1 is that you need to perform 5x15r push ups without any rest between the sets. The time between the sets will be spent on mobility exercises. It is not so easy as one might think at first glance to do 75 push ups without rest and hold a perfect tight PPT, protraction, no piking at the hips, locking out the elbows at the top ect...As far as I understand it the reason for doing so so many reps is that it strengthens the connective tissue in order to prepare us for more challenging moves later on. It is vital to have this prep so that we may prevent injuries on more advanced moves.

Between the strength sets you will do mobility exercises, these are meant to be moves that improve your active flexibility and are supposed to be rather easy. However sometimes one might find that the mobility is even harder than the strength moves, this will most likely be because you are too tight and that needs to be worked on in order to restore normal mobility. Very often we as adults need to spend far longer time correcting the mobility deficits rather than the strength. You wrote that you lack flexibility, then you will benefit a lot from the stretch series and the active flexibility in the Foundation series. This will make sure you achieve normal human mobility witch will prevent injuries and help you stay healthy.

Proper straight arm strength will also be built from the beginning.

I like to think of foundation training like a pyramid of bricks, with a full pyramid representing the ultimate superhuman, strong and mobile. If one builds a strong, broad base or foundation, we will always have this to work from no matter if we drop a couple of bricks. It will be close to impossible to tear down the whole pyramid due to the strong foundation. On the other end if we just pile brick up on brick in a narrow pillar we might reach and impressive height pretty quick but a small amount of wind or a mistake is likely to bring the whole pile all the way down until there is nothing left. A more real example of this would be that if we train the basics thoroughly and spend time fine tuning them we get a good foundation to build from and small injuries or set backs will not take us back far since we have a strong foundation. But if we try to hurry up as fast as we can and for example try to achieve an Iron Cross without proper preparation we will likely get an injury that will set us back many months, perhaps even years. It might be an extreme example but not non existing nevertheless.

I am not trying to bash you, downplay your achievements or anything like that, I am really impressed by your pull up numbers and it is really nice that you can do a one arm pull up. However I believe that Foundation will only BENEFIT you since you will be filling in any gaps you may have in your foundation pyramid and help you stay healthy. If you are worried about loosing your strength achievements you can add a bit of those after your foundation workouts.

If you went some more hand on training I would recommend attending a seminar or going to one of the GB affiliates to train for a short while (or longer).

Sorry for the wall of text, this seemed much shorter in my head when I thought of it.

Johan

1 hour ago, Johan Tideland said:

Hi @waler white, I am by no means a forum coach or very experienced in GST but I will try to address some of your concerns regarding foundation training.

I have been doing the Foundation, Stretch courses and handstand course for about 8 months now. About 1 months ago I went to UK to train with the GB affiliate gym Forma and I plan to stay here for a few more months. I discovered GB after I had been injured and I have had a lot of success in building a foundation and become pain free with the courses.

No I do not think that you will be banned if you modify Foundation workouts BUT I would still be careful doing it because the Foundation courses are not just a heap of randomly assembled exercises, they are carefully put together programs made to be done in a certain order, all of it being based on Coach Summers decades of experience in this field. If you want to modify the exercises I would advice you to make a form check and ask the coaches for advice.

Yes Foundation 1 contains a lot of endurance, but soon enough as you progress trough F2, F3 ect... you will be very challenged strength wise and have a low a mount of reps. One example of an exercise in F1 is that you need to perform 5x15r push ups without any rest between the sets. The time between the sets will be spent on mobility exercises. It is not so easy as one might think at first glance to do 75 push ups without rest and hold a perfect tight PPT, protraction, no piking at the hips, locking out the elbows at the top ect...As far as I understand it the reason for doing so so many reps is that it strengthens the connective tissue in order to prepare us for more challenging moves later on. It is vital to have this prep so that we may prevent injuries on more advanced moves.

Between the strength sets you will do mobility exercises, these are meant to be moves that improve your active flexibility and are supposed to be rather easy. However sometimes one might find that the mobility is even harder than the strength moves, this will most likely be because you are too tight and that needs to be worked on in order to restore normal mobility. Very often we as adults need to spend far longer time correcting the mobility deficits rather than the strength. You wrote that you lack flexibility, then you will benefit a lot from the stretch series and the active flexibility in the Foundation series. This will make sure you achieve normal human mobility witch will prevent injuries and help you stay healthy.

Proper straight arm strength will also be built from the beginning.

I like to think of foundation training like a pyramid of bricks, with a full pyramid representing the ultimate superhuman, strong and mobile. If one builds a strong, broad base or foundation, we will always have this to work from no matter if we drop a couple of bricks. It will be close to impossible to tear down the whole pyramid due to the strong foundation. On the other end if we just pile brick up on brick in a narrow pillar we might reach and impressive height pretty quick but a small amount of wind or a mistake is likely to bring the whole pile all the way down until there is nothing left. A more real example of this would be that if we train the basics thoroughly and spend time fine tuning them we get a good foundation to build from and small injuries or set backs will not take us back far since we have a strong foundation. But if we try to hurry up as fast as we can and for example try to achieve an Iron Cross without proper preparation we will likely get an injury that will set us back many months, perhaps even years. It might be an extreme example but not non existing nevertheless.

I am not trying to bash you, downplay your achievements or anything like that, I am really impressed by your pull up numbers and it is really nice that you can do a one arm pull up. However I believe that Foundation will only BENEFIT you since you will be filling in any gaps you may have in your foundation pyramid and help you stay healthy. If you are worried about loosing your strength achievements you can add a bit of those after your foundation workouts.

If you went some more hand on training I would recommend attending a seminar or going to one of the GB affiliates to train for a short while (or longer).

Sorry for the wall of text, this seemed much shorter in my head when I thought of it.

Johan

 

I appreciate your response alot but I see what you said diffrently than you. 

If the program is how you said, it is inpossible for it, to challenge me strength wise, becuase the program you described is endurance training. It is completly irrelvaent if there are low reps, if there is no rest times between sets it is endurance training.

If it were strength training there would be rest between sets period. There can be no exception to this be definition.

My goal is to be as strong as possible, not have as much strength and endurance as possible. All I have ever trained is for strength. Beyond that i hate endurance training, its so dull and boring

3 hours ago, waler white said:

I appreciate your response alot but I see what you said diffrently than you. 

If the program is how you said, it is inpossible for it, to challenge me strength wise, becuase the program you described is endurance training. It is completly irrelvaent if there are low reps, if there is no rest times between sets it is endurance training.

If it were strength training there would be rest between sets period. There can be no exception to this be definition.

 

My goal is to be as strong as possible, not have as much strength and endurance as possible. All I have ever trained is for strength. Beyond that i hate endurance training, its so dull and boring

Everyone's definition of being as strong as possible is different depending on what they think strong is.For you its being able to do weighted one arm pullups with as much weight as possible.For me its being as strong as possible throughout my body,and this includes a strong lower body,since you are only as strong as your weakest link.As for endurance,it is more impressive to me to be a hybrid althete and be very strong throughout your body,have equal amounts of endurance,and be decent at calenthenics.Anyone can do pullups with a heavy weight,or run a full marathon,or deadlift +500 pounds of the ground with good form,but its difficult to be able to do all that unless you condition yourself to be in that level of physical fitness.With that said,I have done all of the above,have been training for almost 2 decades,was a personal trainer for almost a decade,and I still see much room for me to improve myself,especially in calenthenics.We all have room to improve and we all can learn something from anyone,regardless what are past/current accomplishments are.

9 hours ago, waler white said:

If I were to do foundation/stretch series could I do it for a warmup or cool down ? I have been working out for 10 years, so I guess that makes me an expert, but I dont feel like an expert. If I am more mobile that should theoretically make me a little stronger right ?

Being able to express your strength through a greater range of motion definitely makes you stronger. That's what Foundation One will help you with. 

9 hours ago, waler white said:

If I were to do foundation/stretch series could I do it for a warmup or cool down ?

Yes, you could do it for either.

9 hours ago, waler white said:

Also how much endurance does foundation series have ?

No endurance. Strength and mobility combined to address your work capacity. Essentially you will be training your body to actively recover and perform more work in a given time frame. 

8 hours ago, waler white said:

I read multilpe reviews of foundation 1, I heard it's very endurance based(to show mastery)

It is more strength-endurance which ties in to the work capacity training I mentioned above. 

8 hours ago, waler white said:

you get banned if you do modified workouts of it. Is that true ? 

Why would you want to modify a world class program designed by a world class coach?  If you modify your own workouts that's your business. I don't see why you'd need to though. 

18 hours ago, Everett Carroll said:

Being able to express your strength through a greater range of motion definitely makes you stronger. That's what Foundation One will help you with. 

Yes, you could do it for either.

No endurance. Strength and mobility combined to address your work capacity. Essentially you will be training your body to actively recover and perform more work in a given time frame. 

It is more strength-endurance which ties in to the work capacity training I mentioned above. 

 

Why would you want to modify a world class program designed by a world class coach?  If you modify your own workouts that's your business. I don't see why you'd need to though. 

The program was designed for begineer to immediate level. I would modify the program becuase I am atleast advance level in multiple movments. For instance I would never do any of the dip progressions when I can do  wide dips with an additional 200lb. I would never any of the strength elements besides manna becuase I am above that level. As for manna I would suspect I am just not even close to flexible or mobile enough. As for the mobile aspect I wouldnt do for instance,any of the wrist or finger training becuase I can already lift 160lbs with my middle finger and hold 45lbs while in a decline wrist plank. 

Strength-endurance I dont understand. I was under the inpression strength and endurance can not be developed optimally at the same time. You mean it goes back and forth ?

On 1/20/2017 at 0:45 PM, Henning Blom 243536 said:

If anything you should get the stretch courses. They are imo the best courses here and are aimed completely towards mobility and flexibility. 

I don't think you would get banned if you did modify some Foundation workouts.  

I think I would go this route. After thinking about it some more I dont really even this program stengthing my joints. After all I can millitary press 100lb dumbells and almost front lateral raise my body weight.  How could it be harder on my joints than that ?

8 hours ago, waler white said:

Strength-endurance I dont understand. I was under the inpression strength and endurance can not be developed optimally at the same time. You mean it goes back and forth ?

Lots of athletes have decent levels of both endurance and strength,its all in way you train.I do long distance running,long distance swimming,powerlifting, and other sports.There's even athletes that run sub 4 hour marathons and have a +1200lb RAW powerlifting total.Powerlifting and Endurance sports are very opposite of each other, so it goes to show you power and endurance can be developed at the same time.

Hello Waler,

In this forum, you do not count as an expert.  You lack flexiblity and mobility.  You lack work capacity.  Your strength is not well rounded.

If you would like to make progress with GST, you will need to start at the beginning.  With no modifications.  

This is necessary to discover and correct gaps in your physical preparation.  Also as a beginner in GST, you lack the proper experience to make meaningful and effective modifications to the programming on your own.

If you are as advanced as you think you are, you should go through the beginning level work fairly quickly in a few months.  If you are not able to, then you are exactly where you belong.

If you would like to add some additional strength work at the end of your day's assignment - feel free.  But the primary focus should be on GST.  If it is not, you are wasting both our time.

If this does not sound like something you would like to do or if you find you are unable to mentally handle taking a step back now in order to move two steps forward later, then this is the wrong forum for you.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Everett is making some very refined points here guys, NEVER discount the benefits of refining basic strength exercises/basics or improving your mobility, both of which are covered extensively in Foundations. When it comes down to the basic thinking of mechanics vs. intensity (intensity being added weight and going heavier in this case). Mechanics in the long term will ALWAYS trump intensity, wether this is in the form of strength gains or bullet proofing injury. Be patient, be consistent and have perfect form with no exception.

On January 21, 2017 at 2:59 PM, waler white said:

I am atleast advance level in multiple movments.

What would be very simple to see your level of expertise would be if you post a few videos of the multiple movements that you have mastered (all but manna, as you said) and I think the amazing coaches here will quickly see if there is a lack of something in your movement. Then you know what to work on. 

Try rest pause reps. i.e. do your 6 good reps then rest for 5 to 10 seconds and pull one or two more. 

You can also try doing negatives after your 6 reps. Jump to the top position and control the eccentric.

Also try using assistant bands to do some extra reps.

You can also try to add volume. if you do for example 2 sets of 6 reps, total 12 reps. try doing 4 sets of 4 reps, total 16 reps.