F1 Monday Updates/Confusion with new interface (merged)

My first week feedback.

At first i was shocked to see my GST world disturbed - i experienced a change here for the first time. 

Deload - Whatever Coach says will be correct - so i will do that i get suggested

Smiley - I prefered the actual numbers as it gave me the feeling the system will put me exactly where i belong in the next workout

Structure - Definately  better - even though i felt different at first. Gives me more chances to react to events not known at the beginning of the week

Change of PEs - i bet Coach knows what he is doing (as i was stuck with the Bent Arm Chin Hang for a while and got a immediate upgrade to the next level   ). But i am a little bit sad that i get my SLS progressions taken away and have to get to F3 now even though i am on F1 or F2 on the other progressions and probably need to stay there for a while. But i bet i will have to purchase F3 sometime in the Future - until then my plan is to stay with the single leg squats

I also love the feature to submit videos to get easy feedback!

As to the follow along i don´t get where the change is - the videos have been there before?

Otherwise thank you for the great forum and the moderators that are eager to help everyone struggling!

Thank you Coach and Team

Hi!

Just want to say thank you to the GB team to be constantly improving the program and help everyone through the forums when you already have the best program.

Really appreciate it.

Nuno Duarte,

Portugal.

Hey guys,

sorry for being repetitive here, but I'm still confused when it comes to initially testing mastery of an element. E.g. When I reach a new element, the system automatically puts me at step 1. Let's say I'm training each workout twice a week. I somewhere read that clicking the "easy" smiley from the beginning (step 1) will move someone to step 5. Another click on the same smiley moves one to step 9. Can anyone confirm? Within a week, the system does not move one forward. That means, Even if the system would progress one from step 1 to 5 to 9 we would need to train at least for three weeks for one element. Even if we could master it within one go (like in the old system). Do we need to manually set an element to step 9 when we do it the first time (to test mastery like before) and based on that test look for a good starting point ourselves? That however would disagree with the statement, that we should test mastery for each element from week 1, 5 and 9. Still very confusing... I hope someone can shed some light on this...

So long

The smiley has been changed to move you forward by one step only, and there is no "mastery test" support in F1.

You can use settings to manually select a step in order to move forward more quickly and/or implement an "at home" mastery check.

Seems counter intuitive to change the system in a way that spoon feds its students but forces them to create mastery tests themselves. Thanks however.

Today, following the first week of changes, all of my handstand progressions reset to the the first progression easiest/least reps setting despite having clicked 'easy' for all of them last week.

I don't know if this is a bug or if anyone else has experienced similar? I manually forwarded them up to the appropriate progression instead.

Hi Paul,

This was a bug but the issue has been fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

So just for clarification are we not to test mastery any more once we move up an exercise or are we still doing the test then deciding where to start?

If step 1 is easy, put it to step 9. A fourth smiley is added ("too easy") that will bump you up through a progression a bit faster than the one step per week.

1 minute ago, Cory Fair said:

If step 1 is easy, put it to step 9. A fourth smiley is added ("too easy") that will bump you up through a progression a bit faster than the one step per week.

Is it a sunglass smiley? B)

On 9/19/2016 at 3:57 PM, Jeffrey Bailey said:

So, my initial impressions:

• The RC and SLS progression changes are great. 
• The changes to how you progress with the smileys is overall a better system. It helps progress quicker (jump multiple steps) when appropriate, and slows you down when needed. Also, when mobility is holding you up, letting you get to Step 9  for progressing the strength portion while you work on the mobility is welcome.
• The new UI is good for the "casual" GBer but not so great for the people that were really using the old system to it's fullest. The Weekly Scheduler being gone is quite a loss for the people that used that as a way to map out the week ahead of time, and see at a glance what they have done and will be doing. Now if I want to schedule my week, I need to write it down or use another system to manage what is up next? All of my logs are now inaccessible which was  another sudden surprise.
• The communication about the changes in general was sub-optimal. A lot of people I'm sure just logged in today to do their workout and their schedule is completely inaccessible. I think sending out some communication letting people know that these changes were coming would have made go-live a lot smoother for everyone involved.

Overall, I think it's a net positive change. Having some type of at-a-glance view of your week/day, as you define it, should be re-introduced.

Glad to see the effort to keep GB moving forward and constantly tinkering the progressions as you get more info from the community!

I completely agree with needing a calendar/day guide with specific exercises posted like before. This seems much to personally driven and monitored for me and I don't think it's user-friendly at all. I wish we'd been given a choice to upgrade or not - honestly I wouldnt have bought my subscription if your site had been like this originally. It just doesn't work for me and has made me hugely unmotivated. 

Hi Ashley,

To be honest you were already unmotivated.  You enjoy GST, but according to your workout logs have been relatively inconsistent in your training and only recently began training again after almost a month's absence. 

Also you enjoy a moderate degree of guidance, but chose not to use any of the previously recommended weekly templates and created your own.

The new interface is designed to provide ease of use and ultimate flexibility in terms of weekly scheduling while retaining the same curriculum progressions and programming.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

BOOM, you can't fool @Coach Sommer, Ashley  :-) The system doesn't work for you? Work for the system. You Do The Work    Do it the way that works for you. You have all the exercises there…  And if you love the previous layout so much, work hard to get to F2 and you will get it back  That's what I am doing… What others do (people or systems) shouldn't really stop us from what WE want to do, right?  Unless used as an excuse  

I whinged a bit in the beginning in re: having to set my own schedule, but frankly having the videos with the right form and tempo to follow right there AND all of the support/forum/settings options in the sidebar is FREAKIN GOLD.

2 hours ago, Coach Sommer said:

Hi Ashley,

To be honest you were already unmotivated.  You enjoy GST, but according to your workout logs have been relatively inconsistent in your training and only recently began training again after almost a month's absence. 

Also you enjoy a moderate degree of guidance, but chose not to use any of the previously recommended weekly templates and created your own.

The new interface is designed to provide ease of use and ultimate flexibility in terms of weekly scheduling while retaining the same curriculum progressions and programming.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Hi Mark,

Basic information is provided.  For more advanced questions such as your own, a detailed response from customer support with appropriate guidance is only a click away.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

17 minutes ago, Mark Pennington said:

 

To be fair Coach, the system doesn't currently give insight into a few variables that effect training. 

For example, I've been nursing a shoulder injury since I started and am unable to do pushups and planche leans without pain. I"ve marked these specific exercises as incomplete and/or not attempted while managing my workouts. This would indicate at a glance a historically unmotivated schedule which would not be accurate (imo) given the needed time for healing. 

 

I dunno Ashleys situation, but the reason I skipped fundamentals was the complete lack of direction. I wish you could just tell us the ideal outline/schedule for being badass. ie. how many times a week to do which exercises. even if my schedule didn't allow, it would be something to shoot for.

The goal is consistency. Whatever you can consistently do week-in and week-out without getting burnt out, losing motivation, or overcommitting and then not following-through with the workouts is what will get you to being a badass soonest. Start with doing everything once, then slowly add things in until it's a good balance between just right and a little intense. 

Under the dashboard follow the link to the introductory articles to gain a better understanding.

14 minutes ago, Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

The goal is consistency. Whatever you can consistently do week-in and week-out without getting burnt out, losing motivation, or overcommitting and then not following-through with the workouts is what will get you to being a badass soonest. Start with doing everything once, then slowly add things in until it's a good balance between just right and a little intense. 

Hi Daniel,

Your advice seems on point however in this case consistency is assumed. For me the balance you mentioned is best prescribed by a coach or similarly qualified person.  As coach as said in his stretch series, "we're all lazy". I don't feel qualified to decide how much is enough. I want to know how hard to push to progress optimally, safely. 

Just wanted to respond, I'll be consulting customer support as coach advised.

Each one has to be his own teacher and to be for the rest of his life learning. Everyone has to involve himself in what he s doing. I ve never seen such a program, where they are giving us absolutely every progression with absolutely all the tips and they also check your video form. There are tones of threads where you can read very good advices and if your doubt is still not resolved you can ask your own questions. I have passed years watching videos for progressions and exercises before coming to GST, trying uncountables inds of workouts, exercises, etc and learning my body and seeing how it reacts. 

This and online course people. Mom won t be after you telling "go and train", GST requires from you a total give of oneself, to be totally involved and open to be neverending learning. We have to do our own homework, check al videos, check all info, check all forum threads, read articles, adjust your workout, adjust your nutrition, try and a try and try and try and learn.

For me and probably for the majority of the people that have some kind of strenght background is the best program I ve ever worked on it!

Hi, I am a 35-year-old male 6'5" & 185 pounds with the CrossFit background. I  have always been intrigued with the gymnastics, but through my CrossFit experience found I have serious lacking in core strength. So far, I have done the fundamentals and have started foundations, and feel humbled by your program but excited.  i would like to keep crossfitting 2 days per week which leaves me with 4 days per week that I can do your program. Two one hour blocks & two 30min blocks per week, and I am planning to dedicate the next three-five years fitness focus to my gymnastics strength and flexibility.  My question is: how should I best use my four days for your programs? Would appreciate any guidance or direction to previous post, thank you.

Personally I think that if you are struggling with F1 especially with core you have no chances to perform in a safe way some of the crossfit exercise. My suggestion it is to perform at least one workout a week for F1, if you can perform the Core work 2 times a week. 

On ‎27‎/‎09‎/‎2016 at 8:32 PM, Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

The goal is consistency. Whatever you can consistently do week-in and week-out without getting burnt out, losing motivation, or overcommitting and then not following-through with the workouts is what will get you to being a badass soonest. Start with doing everything once, then slowly add things in until it's a good balance between just right and a little intense. 

 

Under the dashboard follow the link to the introductory articles to gain a better understanding.

I know what you're saying Dan / Mark.  Actually this is a bit of a revelation as I thought we should be working incredibly hard (almost killing ourselves).  Especially going back to my nemesis chin hangs for 5 x 60s where the response was that the mind gives up before the body does.  What I've found is that I can work very hard for a few sets of one exercise, but if I'm struggling with the very 1st set then chances are I will have no hope in hell with finishing the 5th set for mastery of any particular exercise.  It seems like an art getting this fine balance between working hard and being uncomfortable.........and actually attempting too advanced a time / set of reps for something.

So the question is - how hard should we be working? Hard enough so that our last set of a particular exercise is challenging and we just about hit?

I find that if the last set is challenging, (say about halfway to 3/4ths through--somewhere around the 7th to 11th rep out of 15, or around 35-48 second mark on my 60-second set, etc.)  then that's a good barometer for adaptation. It tells me that I'm working at a level that is "just right." Once I can push through and have the last rep or so be a bit challenging but everything is rather smooth, I go with "easy" and bump it up. Much harder than that and it could be too much. Sometimes, if the last two sets are hard that's okay, of course by "hard" I mean that my form breaks. If I'm feeling, my muscles burn I don't count that as hard, I only count it as too much if I'm physically shot, and I produce crap reps. I've found in my experience that if I'm not recovered enough or if the step is beyond my capacity at that time and I'm having a hard time with the first set that the remainder of the workout will not be that great.

Hi,

Did find something maybe interesting. 

I have worked out while my daughter are at her gymnastic training. There is "normal" gym for the parents. I did everything else from foundation than the rows cause there is no rings in that area (yeah I know. gymnastic facility and no rings). I did rows in different day at home when my daughter coached me  She is 5 and loves to train me. I notised that I dident get the upperbody check mark when all the exersices were not done in the same day. Is this intentional?

And by the way im really pleased with the new system. Found my motivation again now that it is really easy. One thing there is that I dont understand tough. Why to group foundation at all if there is not the right order how to do the workouts? SLS is alone so if all the foundation elements were alone there would be even easier groupings done indivitually.

8 hours ago, Riku Calderón said:

And by the way im really pleased with the new system. Found my motivation again now that it is really easy. One thing there is that I dont understand tough. Why to group foundation at all if there is not the right order how to do the workouts? SLS is alone so if all the foundation elements were alone there would be even easier groupings done indivitually.

Hi Riku,

Easy answer.  

Because most adults new to GST have no idea what manna, front lever or side lever are.  Or what rope climb, hollow back press and straddle planche are.  Nor do they understand the benefits of training for these elements in the first place.  They do however know what 'core' and 'upper body' mean.  

Over the course of the Foundation series they will become intimately familiar with the individual PEs and will gradually gain the ability to program individual elements.  But until then ... first things first.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer