Outstanding Progress by a GB Forum Member

[Coach Sommer]

The following August 2009 Youtube video is from long time GB forum member Marlon. It is excellent. Someone of you may remember Marlon from the slowest muscle up video clip contest some time back.

Here is a description of the video in Marlon's own words:

"These are all clips taken during the week or so after my first real steady state cycle on the gymnastic bodies program. Any and all criticism is welcome.

1. Flat Tuck Planche.

2. Straddle Planche Attempt.

3. Flat Tuck Front Lever.

4. Straddle Front Lever Attempt.

5. Back Lever.

6. Back Lever Pull to Inverted Hang.

7. 360 Pull.

8. Middle Split Hold.

9. V-sit Attempt.

10. One Hand Center Straddle L-sit

11. Tuck Planche Push-ups.

12. Headstand Push-ups.

13. Straddle Press Handstands.

14. Muscle-up + 45lbs

15. 100 lbs Pull-up attempt (fail, chin not over bar).

16. 115 lbs Chin-up

17. One Arm Chin-up Negative Left Hand

18. One Arm Chin-up Negative Right Hand.

19. Single Leg Squats + 105 lbs

20. Hanging Leg Lift (22.5 lbs)

21. Reverse Leg Lift Headstand (15lbs)"

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Thank you for sharing your progress, Marlon. Well done!

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Guest Valentin]

Hi

Thanks for the heads up coach, great vid. Awesome progress. Makes me feel realllllly stink about not having trained lately...

Marlon let me ask you...can you explain your program design? what did you do, how much of it etc... I would be really interested to know for comparison. It seems like an effective protocol, would be cool to try out.

Thanks

[Matt Shoemaker]

Wow. That was really impressive.

[Chris]

really nice, keep up the good work :-)

[lao-ren]

Hi,

This is my 1st post. Wow...... Marlon, I would also like to hear your thoughts about your meals as well as you workouts. Do you find it difficult to get the balance of gaining/maintain strength vs keeping a low bodyfat %?

Great video, truly motivating. Sadly, I have a looong way to go. Happily, I am having so much fun.

You have surely made the Coach proud!

Thanks,

Robert

[Cole Dano]

Very nice!!!

[Animalonfire]

Awesome stuff! Well done Marlon. How long have you been on the GB program for? And thanks Coach for bringing this to everyone's attention. Yet more motivation to train well, I find that this sort of compilation is much more encouraging than hugely advanced Olympic routines or Ido's video's etc (not that they aren't great also).

[Guest Gregory]

All I gotta say is WOW, excellent work! Gives us beginners something to strive for!

[Jason Stein]

Marlon,

Strong work!

Where in heck do you workout? Nice addition with the Swedish bars, by the way.

best,

jason

[Ryan Libke]

Inspiring! Great workout space. MIrror is a good idea.

[Neal Winkler]

Nice, how much weight have you gained?

[Craig Wilson]

Beastly. Awesome. Thanks for the heads up, Coach, and kudos to Marlon on the excellent progress.

[DarrenG]

Wow, that was truly awesome. Very inspiring.

[Marcelo Lara]

Marlon makes it look sooooo easy. Congrats, marlon!

[xi xia]

I had one observation and it is not meant in anyway as criticism of Marlon's abilities. When looking at the video, I was amazed at all that Marlon has accomplished. However, I was shocked at his front lever progression. I'm assuming those were max holds at the time.

I can't do any of the pulling strength moves he was demonstrating - one arm chin neg, BL hold for that long, pull out of German through a BL, weighted pull up. Nor could I do the pressing, static holds, hanging leg lifts with weights. However, my FL hold progression is beyond that. I'm 195, 6'1".

How could that be? I would think that his ability in the pulling movements, if not all of the movements are transferable and connected to the FL in some degree. I was expecting his FL to be stronger.

truly inspirational Marlon! That's great work. Btw, what's your athletic background before GB training?

xx

[Razz]

Front lever is such a specific exercise, even people that can do doulbe bw chins wouldn't be able to do a front lever without specific training. I GUESS (i'm not Marlon) that Marlon just didn't train for the front lever as much yet.

[Joshua Naterman]

Xi xia, I have to say that if anything crosses over to front lever, it is a combination of body levers and weighted pull ups. Well, pull up strength in general, but specifically the weighted regular pull ups. It doesn't magically transform you into a front lever machine or anything, but having strength there makes progress faster. For that reason, Marlon will probably see fast progress when he really trains FL.

He's in circus school now, last I heard! Someone correct me if I'm wrong about that. I can imagine that FL has much less to do with all that stuff than handstand work and planche, so it's not too surprising that he hasn't focused there. Of course, since I don't know anything about his training goals that could be 100% inaccurate, but the most likely reason for his relative lack of progress there is lack of time put into the position.

[Nick Van Bockxmeer]

depends what he goes into. General acro is mostly tumbling, partner lifting and handstand work and of course handbalancing would be all handstand work. If he is doing aerials, FL and BL will be pretty much expected of a guy for individual strength.

[heinrich]

Found his training Log:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2603

I hope he doesn't mind if I post it here.

Damn.. he looks like a well tanned hercules :shock:

[Longshanks]

Bloody awsum! How long has he been training?

[Marlon]

Thanks so much for the kind words everyone, I really appreciate it

@Valentin- The training schedule that I was using this past summer was something like this:

Hand Balancing 30-45 minutes just about everyday

30 minute full body stretching sessions as often as i was no longer sore from previous stretching sessions

Towards the end of the summer I started taking private tumbling lessons (30 minute twice a week)

As for strength training:

3 days per week

Each workout would have 3 sections.

First would be Coach Sommer's wrist pre-hab series, then Fundamental Static Positions. I worked on Flat tuck Planche, Flat tuck Front Lever, Back Lever, and Middle Split Hold. I would cycle through all four positions doing one hold or "rep" of each in a single set, all total it would end up taking 10-12 sets of the four positions to reach cumulative 60 seconds with each exercises.

Second would be Fundamental Bodyweight Exercises. Each of the 3 days of I would go through a different plane of motion for pushing and pulling, a different exercise for legs, and a different exercise for core. 3 Sets of 3-5 reps per exercise

Third would be joint-prehab stuff, Shoulder extensions, Bridge wall walks, shoulder Dislocates, a different one each day.

I also worked on doing some grease the grove stuff for pull-ups, push-ups, and hanging leg lift, but I was never very consistent with it.

@Lao-ren To be honest I have yet to put any real effort into my diet, I have a serious sweet tooth and candy is essentially a staple of my diet at the moment :oops: I'm sure I won't be able to do that for ever but I'm 18 years old, very active, and have a very fast metabolism so Im having trouble really finding any motivation to not just eat whatever I want.

@Animalonfire I've been hand balancing and doing bodyweight strength training in various formats heavily influenced by gymnastic bodies for a bit over 3 years. This past summer was the first time I've actually stuck to a steady state cycle as suggested by Coach, and I have to say that the strength gains that I made during those 3 months were by leaps and bounds the quickest and most consistent I've ever had.

@Jasonmstein It's a gym thats in my garage, most of my father's brothers have been tradesmen at one time or another so they all do favors for each other when it comes to carpentry, electrical work, plumbing etc.

@trianglechoke I'm not sure about the amount of weight that I've gained, since starting circus school I've gained about 5 lbs and I think since the beginning of last summer I've gained between a total of around 10 to 15 lbs, but it may not have been that much.

@Xl xia I ran cross country for 4 or, and wrestled for 6 years prior to starting my GB training.

@Xl xia, Slizzardman, Razz, and nickvb I am in fact in circus school at the moment, and my focus is on Hand balancing and partner acrobatics so pulling strength isn't strongly emphasized, but I'm honestly not sure why I've had such trouble building up my front lever strength, I've put more more work into it than my back lever or planche, but it's come along much much more slowly. Especially in comparison to my back lever which I got without any specific training.

[Joshua Naterman]

That sounds like such a great way to be spending time!!!

How has your progress been?