Guidelines for scheduling with new F1 system

Hi GB community,

I would greatly appreciate any advice on crafting a schedule with the new F1 system.

Let's say for someone who just purchased F1 today and had no prior knowledge of the old system.

How would one find the correct balance of volume and recovery?

Many Thanks!

William

Hi Willian,  did you read the Intro of the Course that Coach Sommer wrote  in the main page?

Hi Alessandro,

I'm not sure what content you are referring to, but if you know of a section that answers my above questions, please send me a link.

Here is the link WIlliam: https://my.gymnasticbodies.com/note-from-coach/

Hey Guys,

I have thoroughly read that note and maybe my terminology in forming my question was off.

Quote

Now you have total freedom and flexibility to create your own schedule.  Mix and match the various components in any way and in any order for that week as you choose.

This is great, but how does an individual determine how to create their own schedule?

How many times should I be doing (core, lower body, upper body, etc.)?

Maybe one individual only does core one week and lower body the next. Another athlete may do all of these twice per day.

I'm looking for a strategy/guide on how to approach this and not either severely under train or severely over train.

Remember

Quote

The new format reflects the fact that nearly 70% of Foundation 1 students were unable to complete a single week of their training as they themselves scheduled the week.

So 70% of us need help in this area and I think this is an important part of our success or failure.

Apologies if my question was unclear. I think it is clear now and I appreciate any help with this.

William

your point is excellent, im in the same boat and i appreciated the scheduled structure of seven exercises, mixed up core,legs and upperbody, not all core, cafeteria style training. Im going to stick to the old schedule seven exercises, mixing up core, upperbody and legs. But the whole purpose of this was to let an olympic coach create the routine, not me. What the fuck do I know

I would target all f1 exercises twice per week at least. Possibly three times per week after a few months getting used to the loading.

the old planning system gave me between 3 and 2 times per week depending on number and duration of workouts per week

Thank you Frank!

This is close to the answer I was looking for. Now if we could get a detailed strategy at dialing this in, that would be amazing.

Here are a few of the points I would like clarity on.

1. What are the warning signs that we are doing too much or too little?
2. Should we start out with a very light load and work on form for a specified duration?
3. Should we progress at a certain rate to allow for slower tendon repair or is this not an issue with F1?

Again, I like the new freedom, but some guidelines seem needed for success.

Hi, all

I think the issue is that we have the new programs format, but the info is not fully updated yet. 

William's questions are really good.

The former split routine suggested for 4 days was: day 1:FL, sPL, HBP, RC and day 2: MN, SL, SLS and 3 sets of each took me a while to do it.

I cannot see the routine that couch Sommer mentions (and obviously) nor their classification. It seems that the website is not ready or not working properly.

It would be helpful if you guys provided some guidance.

Thanks a bunch!

Hi guys,

If you were using a schedule that worked well for you before, you can continue to use it with the new interface. The workouts will progress you at the appropriate rate for each movement so that should be your guide. 

Hello Gentlemen,

If you have a favorite schedule from before then simply follow it.  

Once someone is advanced enough to reach F2, and not before, then the former scheduling options start becoming available again.  

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

2 minutes ago, Everett Carroll said:

Hi guys,

If you were using a schedule that worked well for you before, you can continue to use it with the new interface. The workouts will progress you at the appropriate rate for each movement so that should be your guide. 

Completely agree!

However, this does not resolve the ambiguity for someone just starting out (someone who purchased F1 today).

With a community of thousands who present a broad range of athleticism/experience, I don't see how the one size fits all approach will do.

My hope is that Coach Sommer will provide a guide/strategy for dialing in training frequency that we can each personally use to optimize our training.

That old proverb comes to mind:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

2 minutes ago, William Lambeth said:

Completely agree!

However, this does not resolve the ambiguity for someone just starting out (someone who purchased F1 today).

With a community of thousands who present a broad range of athleticism/experience, I don't see how the one size fits all approach will do.

My hope is that Coach Sommer will provide a guide/strategy for dialing in training frequency that we can each personally use to optimize our training.

That old proverb comes to mind:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

 

The way I see it is simple. You said it yourself. The one size fits all approach can't work for everyone, by definition, so how could they write a training frequency guide that would apply unless they just listed every iteration possible? I think that's what the forums are for - questions specific to your situation.

2 hours ago, William Lambeth said:

Thank you Frank!

This is close to the answer I was looking for. Now if we could get a detailed strategy at dialing this in, that would be amazing.

Here are a few of the points I would like clarity on.

1. What are the warning signs that we are doing too much or too little?
2. Should we start out with a very light load and work on form for a specified duration?
3. Should we progress at a certain rate to allow for slower tendon repair or is this not an issue with F1?

Again, I like the new freedom, but some guidelines seem needed for success.

 

1. You will know. You are an athlete.

2. Of course. Myself as well as @William Trask are beginners but decided to start at step 1 of every element. There is no rush. If it is easy early on, go for a run (the easiness will NOT LAST)... study and practice the form at night if there is extra energy.

3. A slower rate of progress is very rewarding in the long run, if the body is working intensely and is challenged during every workout.

15 minutes ago, Patrick Rentz said:

The way I see it is simple. You said it yourself. The one size fits all approach can't work for everyone, by definition, so how could they write a training frequency guide that would apply unless they just listed every iteration possible? I think that's what the forums are for - questions specific to your situation.

Well, let me try and convince you otherwise.

Let's say I'm teaching you how to perform a bench press. I wouldn't just show you the movement and say "just do that as many times as you want seven days a week"

I would try and give you the knowledge that would allow you to determine the proper work load for yourself.

Maybe give you examples of people I have trained successfully in the bench press who ranged from complete beginner to ultimate stud.

Maybe give you some warning signs of when you might be training too little or too much.

With this knowledge you could self monitor and at least have an idea of a starting point in your journey.

Sound reasonable?

13 minutes ago, William Lambeth said:

Well, let me try and convince you otherwise.

Let's say I'm teaching you how to perform a bench press. I wouldn't just show you the movement and say "just do that as many times as you want seven days a week"

I would try and give you the knowledge that would allow you to determine the proper work load for yourself.

Maybe give you examples of people I have trained successfully in the bench press who ranged from complete beginner to ultimate stud.

Maybe give you some warning signs of when you might be training too little or too much.

With this knowledge you could self monitor and at least have an idea of a starting point in your journey.

Sound reasonable?

Sure. But you would also have to know if that athlete is e.g. going rock climbing, swimming and surfing every week, and then coming in to bench press with you. What's the athlete's recovery time like - is he 20, or 50 years old? Is he a 250lb person with 40% body fat coming off the couch, or an experienced athlete in other areas?

I understand what you're saying, all I'm saying is that any guidelines they're going to give to the masses are going to be extremely general and then give guidance based on how easy/difficult a week was for them. I'm saying this because I remember with the old format they had basically every iteration: How many times per week (1, 2, 3, 4) and how many elements you wanted to do on each day (3 on one, 4 on the next....or all 7 on one day).

And again I see the forums as a place to ask about specific situations.

8 minutes ago, Ryan Bailey said:

1. You will know. You are an athlete.

2. Of course. Myself as well as @William Trask are beginners but decided to start at step 1 of every element. There is no rush. If it is easy early on, go for a run (the easiness will NOT LAST)... study and practice the form at night if there is extra energy.

3. A slower rate of progress is very rewarding in the long run, if the body is working intensely and is challenged during every workout.

Thank you for the response Ryan!

Although I do consider myself an athlete with training experience, I'm going to assume that not all GB newbies are and that they could benefit from some knowledge that an athlete may consider remedial or intuitive. It is my understanding that the update was to explicitly target that very group of people. If I could write a guide for this, I would. Unfortunately, I do not have the experience and I hope someone with the necessary experience will step up. 

38 minutes ago, William Lambeth said:

Completely agree!

However, this does not resolve the ambiguity for someone just starting out (someone who purchased F1 today).

With a community of thousands who present a broad range of athleticism/experience, I don't see how the one size fits all approach will do.

My hope is that Coach Sommer will provide a guide/strategy for dialing in training frequency that we can each personally use to optimize our training.

That old proverb comes to mind:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

 

Hi William,

In this case, the teaching a man to fish analogy is not accurate.  In fact, not even remotely close.  It does no good to attempt to teach someone something they are not yet ready to understand or implement.

I have been attempting to teach beginners how to program and schedule in F1 for multiple years now with over a 70% failure rate.  Meaning 70% of the students were unable to complete a scheduled week's training that they themselves selected and set up.

The facts speak for themselves.  The vast majority of F1 students were unable to effectively implement and follow the former scheduling options.  Those same scheduling options will now begin to be implemented in F2 when students are better prepared to learn and profit from them.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

3 minutes ago, Patrick Rentz said:

Sure. But you would also have to know if that athlete is e.g. going rock climbing, swimming and surfing every week, and then coming in to bench press with you. What's the athlete's recovery time like - is he 20, or 50 years old? Is he a 250lb person with 40% body fat coming off the couch, or an experienced athlete in other areas?

I understand what you're saying, all I'm saying is that any guidelines they're going to give to the masses are going to be extremely general and then give guidance based on how easy/difficult a week was for them. I'm saying this because I remember with the old format they had basically every iteration: How many times per week (1, 2, 3, 4) and how many elements you wanted to do on each day (3 on one, 4 on the next....or all 7 on one day).

And again I see the forums as a place to ask about specific situations.

 

I think the key term here is GUIDE. A guide is general, but give you a place to work from.

Sure. I'll bite. Start with one complete Foundation workout per week for one month: one core workout + leg workout, one upper body or something thereabouts. Maybe also add in one handstand, and one of the stretch series, if you have them. Really whatever of all the programs you have. Was it: Easy? Making progress? F'ing impossible? Only you can gauge that and only you can prevent forest fires. Sorry, got off track. If you don't complete four full weeks of that schedule, though, as has been the case for like 70% of people about whom Coach is speaking then you can't fairly evaluate if you should increase the frequency or decrease it. Let's say, for argument's sake (for ARGUMENT'S sake) that you do complete those four weeks and you're cruising but you've got a lot left in the tank. Then go up to adding one session per week of foundations (for the first month you did Foundations 1x per week: core and lower body - 1, upper body -1; now cycle between doing core and lower body - 2, upper body - 1, switching off in an A/B/A pattern -- you'll end up doing core/lower body 6 times a months, and upper body 6 times a month. In the first month you did each only four times a month -- once per week). After this second month, again, go back. Am I totally wrecked? Do I feel like I just popped some ephedrine and want to run through some walls? And so on, eventually you find a balance where come Sunday you're like phew I'm glad to have a few rest days, but I don't need too much rest and I'm looking forward to getting back to come next week. That's called the sweet spot. 

Foundation is intended to be trained as frequently or as infrequently as your body can recover from. Handstand is preferably done twice a week it seems by a large average of 'normal' folk who dabble in the GST (it's a good balance and serves as good active recovery, plus you need it for later HBP elements and being a generally awesome human being).  The stretch series are each intended to only be done once per week: Front Split Series (FSs), Middle Split Series (MSs), Thoracic Bridge Series (TBs) are each done once. So, essentially that's three more sessions to factor in once you get there, they typically go AFTER your Foundation work (so tailoring to the 3-day A/B/A works well in this regard, but please, feel free to choose your own adventure). Eventually, you'll work all the way up to doing core/legs/upper body in one workout as your warmup before moving on to Rings, you will then defeat Sheng Tsung in Mortal Kombat and ascend Mt. Olympus to join the Gods. (just kidding but getting to rings one does take some years of effort, I hear, I'm a ways off). 

Anyways, hope this answers your question. Do the work, put your head down and listen to your body. If it's craving more work and it's been craving it for a week, then add on. If you are repeatedly feeling broken down over a prolonged period...you bit off too much.

Peace and love.

6 minutes ago, Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

Sure. I'll bite. Start with one complete Foundation workout per week for one month: one core workout + leg workout, one upper body or something thereabouts. Maybe also add in one handstand, and one of the stretch series, if you have them. Really whatever of all the programs you have. Was it: Easy? Making progress? F'ing impossible? Only you can gauge that and only you can prevent forest fires. Sorry, got off track. If you don't complete four full weeks of that schedule, though, as has been the case for like 70% of people about whom Coach is speaking then you can't fairly evaluate if you should increase the frequency or decrease it. Let's say, for argument's sake (for ARGUMENT'S sake) that you do complete those four weeks and you're cruising but you've got a lot left in the tank. Then go up to adding one session per week of foundations (for the first month you did Foundations 1x per week: core and lower body - 1, upper body -1; now cycle between doing core and lower body - 2, upper body - 1, switching off in an A/B/A pattern -- you'll end up doing core/lower body 6 times a months, and upper body 6 times a month. In the first month you did each only four times a month -- once per week). After this second month, again, go back. Am I totally wrecked? Do I feel like I just popped some ephedrine and want to run through some walls? And so on, eventually you find a balance where come Sunday you're like phew I'm glad to have a few rest days, but I don't need too much rest and I'm looking forward to getting back to come next week. That's called the sweet spot. 

 

Foundation is intended to be trained as frequently or as infrequently as your body can recover from. Handstand is preferably done twice a week it seems by a large average of 'normal' folk who dabble in the GST (it's a good balance and serves as good active recovery, plus you need it for later HBP elements and being a generally awesome human being).  The stretch series are each intended to only be done once per week: Front Split Series (FSs), Middle Split Series (MSs), Thoracic Bridge Series (TBs) are each done once. So, essentially that's three more sessions to factor in once you get there, they typically go AFTER your Foundation work (so tailoring to the 3-day A/B/A works well in this regard, but please, feel free to choose your own adventure). Eventually, you'll work all the way up to doing core/legs/upper body in one workout as your warmup before moving on to Rings, you will then defeat Sheng Tsung in Mortal Kombat and ascend Mt. Olympus to join the Gods. (just kidding but getting to rings one does take some years of effort, I hear, I'm a ways off). 

 

Anyways, hope this answers your question. Do the work, put your head down and listen to your body. If it's craving more work and it's been craving it for a week, then add on. If you are repeatedly feeling broken down over a prolonged period...you bite off too much.

 

Peace and love.

Daniel you are the man! This is the kind of Guidance/Suggestions I was looking for. I want that sweet spot you speak of

Now we have one last thing to sort out and I hate to even say it. Do forum coaches agree with Daniel? Can we get the stamp of approval on this approach?

12 hours ago, William Lambeth said:

Daniel you are the man! This is the kind of Guidance/Suggestions I was looking for. I want that sweet spot you speak of

Now we have one last thing to sort out and I hate to even say it. Do forum coaches agree with Daniel? Can we get the stamp of approval on this approach?

 

I mean, finding the sweet spot is what it's all about. They mentioned it in the previous introductory articles here...https://my.gymnasticbodies.com/intro/. What yours happens to be will vary, as Coach and all of them mention. The important thing is you get shit done. Don't let life get in the way, or, if it does, see my first post about being beaten down (if life persists to get in the way of your workouts, then you have too many workouts planned for your lifestyle or you're not being honest with yourself about putting in the time. Anyways, another forum thread for another day).

Review the crap outta those articles in that link I posted. Like, a lot. Like, A LOT a lot. Specifically subsection 3, articles 1 and 2 (kidding about the legal lingo, not kidding about reviewing the third subsection on training cycles and cycle examples), it'll answer your scheduling concerns to further detail. I, myself, am reworking my sweet spot since the exercise organization shifted. The upper body workout used to be four exercises. Anyways, my sweet spot seems like it'll end up looking like:

Monday - core/lower body/FSs

Tuesday - handstand 1 and 2/limbering

Wednesday - lower body/upper body.TBs

Thursday - handstand 1 and 2/limbering

Friday - core/lower body/MSs

Saturday - Movement/Upper Body/limbering

Sunday - limbering

I feel I need more work on lower body because, life. As a person I tend to use my legs for things often, so I feel they need more attention. My lower body joints suck, too, as little as I like to admit it. Regarding limbering: yoga. I do yoga to limber. The app, yoga studio is my fave of faves, but the daily limber from Fundamentals is pretty gosh darned clutch. Anyways, roll the dice, do the work, find your magic number. Cheers.

Thanks Daniel!

@Daniel Taylor-Shaut How the heck did you find that section? I can't seem to find it from the main page. 

3 hours ago, Coach Sommer said:

I have been attempting to teach beginners how to program and schedule in F1 for multiple years now with over a 70% failure rate.  Meaning 70% of the students were unable to complete a scheduled week's training that they themselves selected and set up.

The facts speak for themselves.  The vast majority of F1 students were unable to effectively implement and follow the former scheduling options.  Those same scheduling options will now begin to be implemented in F2 when students are better prepared to learn and profit from them.

 

I almost suspect that the failure rate number will be quite similar even with these new changes… some people won't have the discipline to schedule their own things, and if they do, then they still will lack the discipline to stick with it. Like with any other Mastery in life, not everybody is a high-achiever… those who tend to achieve, they will do it, whether you give them the scheduling or take it away.