I've got more time

From what I understand, Foundation series was made for the busy folk. What about us, the people with more free time? How can we use our free time to get stronger? 

I personally wanted to build my own mushroom/PH (no open gymnastics centers here) and P Bars and just practice circles and simple p-bar routines but thought I better ask.

False....Foundation is for everyone who is new to GymnasticBodies and who does not yet demonstrate the mastered mobility of ALL the progression of all seven elements therein. The Foundation 30 minute, two-days-a-week workout scheduler, however, is for the busy folks. If you're that free on time, you could do Foundation four-days-a-week or even five-days-a-week, recovery permitting. I'm currently unemployed (so pretty free on time) and I find that the three-days-a-week suits me really well. No sense in working mushroom circles until your obliques are much more mobile and strong. Perhaps you're to that point yet, but I reckon that you might not be. 

My recommendation would be to first build yourself some stall bars and some P bars, and to improve on H1, H2, and F1-4. Also, to do those two programs: foundation and handstand, as much as you physically can, given your free time. The tendons, ligaments, and muscles, however, don't seem to give a shit about how much free time I have and respond best to their own terms (which happens to be about three days of foundation, the stretch series, one day of movement, and two days of handstand work per week).

Very sound advice from Daniel, Ali. Foundations, and how often you train will also depend on your individual rate of recovery (which you can find out by starting 3-4 days a week and work your up slowly from there). As far as equipment goes I would recommend Stahl bars if you have the means and time.A good place to start is with Fundamentals and Foundations, and get deeper into the other programs from there. Thank you for the wonderful advice to Ali Daniel.

12 hours ago, Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

False

Weird... I read it on this forum a handful of times.

Is there anything to do that will not interfere with recovery? Do things like free running and parkour affect the progression? I'm not really looking to do strength based exercises in the free time that I have, just looking for something to keep me moving.

15 minutes ago, Ali Dawi said:

Weird... I read it on this forum a handful of times.

Is there anything to do that will not interfere with recovery? Do things like free running and parkour affect the progression? I'm not really looking to do strength based exercises in the free time that I have, just looking for something to keep me moving.

Foundation is a program that allows you to get the most bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time. Most "gymnasts" do two-a-days and spend hours in the gym. GymnasticBodies aims to achieve comparable strength and mobility, albeit on a longer timeline and with much less time spent in the gym. The reason being that almost none of the members and customers of this program are gymnasts in any capacity. 

As to your second point about not wanting to do strength-based exercises, I don't understand what you want to ask. You mention whether parkour (which is certainly strength based) will impede recovery but say you don't want to train strength and only want to keep moving, so the two notions seem a little at odds. I can't easily fathom how parkour/free running are not strength-based and furthermore why you wouldn't want to train strength/mobility. I'm guessing you haven't yet delved deep in to Foundations, because, if you had, you would realize that much of it IS geared towards movement with the caveat being that one's movement be limited by their mobility and strength. It would pay dividends in your free running career to take heed and focus on your joints and ligaments with GB and then to get back into free running at a later time. I'm sure the folks at Apex Movement wouldn't wholly disagree. But maybe I missed your point.

13 minutes ago, Ali Dawi said:

Weird... I read it on this forum a handful of times.

Is there anything to do that will not interfere with recovery? Do things like free running and parkour affect the progression? I'm not really looking to do strength based exercises in the free time that I have, just looking for something to keep me moving.

It really depends on your body. In my opinion, it is best to reach Foundation Three in all elements before adding extra curricular activities. By then you have built a solid body to be able to handle additional training. Again this is my experience and it is best to always listen to your body and always strive to master the basics.

Also aside from Foundation Series, there is HS1, HS2, Movement(Tumbling), Stretch Series and the Online Classes. Thats a lot of volume work to be done there and I almost forgot about Rings One.

23 hours ago, Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

As to your second point about not wanting to do strength-based exercises, I don't understand what you want to ask. You mention whether parkour (which is certainly strength based) will impede recovery but say you don't want to train strength and only want to keep moving, so the two notions seem a little at odds. I can't easily fathom how parkour/free running are not strength-based and furthermore why you wouldn't want to train strength/mobility. I'm guessing you haven't yet delved deep in to Foundations, because, if you had, you would realize that much of it IS geared towards movement with the caveat being that one's movement be limited by their mobility and strength. It would pay dividends in your free running career to take heed and focus on your joints and ligaments with GB and then to get back into free running at a later time. I'm sure the folks at Apex Movement wouldn't wholly disagree. But maybe I missed your point.

I've never felt parkour to be strength based since it never winded my out in the same way strength exercises do. But I'll take your word for it and stay away.

I'm not talking about 'movement', I'm talking about keeping active. I just want to know what I'd be able to do during the free time instead of sitting or walking outside (which isn't recommended in the Middle East, it is incredibly hot here). I want to do something fun.

Really no one can tell you what is and isn't possible to add in and even if they could, if you're anything like me, you would just decide on your own anyway 

I'll give my experience and opinions briefly anyhow xD

I strongly angree that the further you are with your foundations the easier it is to integrate extra activities. And no matter what point you are at, it is probably wise to put most attention and focus on your physical prep.

I think almost activity can be a drain on recovery but equally can be quite therapeutic. It depends on how the training is approached. If you go free running trying to nail bigger and more daring jumps, you will quickly notice how your ability to recover is completely shot. However if you just play around; going for a walk and occionally jumping on a rock/ climbing a tree then I tend to feel this is fine (and even beneficial). This can make it tricky to take up coached activities; at least in my limited experience. The "classes" are quite often geared towards a conditioning approach, rather than a skill based and so it definitely piles on the stress. I may have just experienced poor coaching (pretty likely) but good coaching is difficult to find anyway. 

I've kind of rambled on but I think with so much of this stuff it's a lot of trial and error and working with your intuition and just learning along the way; provided you're not being obviously silly and working dangerous skills when unprepared (which I absolutely have done myself......)

Max