Old WODs?

[Alexander Moreen]

Hey all,

Its been about 5 years since I've been here and there seem to be some changes in the mean time (like a lot!).

I'm wondering if the old Coach Sommer WODs are still archived somewhere?

[Alessandro Mainente]

HI Alexander, the old wod's are no longer available to the general fitness world since one should reach an intermediate level on GST physical preparation. The WOD's where too advanced for the vast majority of the students.

[Edgar Hernandez Celli]

Hi.  I have two questions:

1. what is considered intermediate level in GST

2. when you reach this intermediate level and prove it will you have access to this WODS?

 

I´m no way near the intermediate level (Im just rebeginning my GST journey, actually i´m in PE1 in every exercise), I´m  asking just to know and  have something more to look forward to. Thanks in advance.

[GoldenEagle]

1. If dedicated rings apparatus training is considered intermediate even for actual gymnasts... For fitness enthusiasts, first complete the entire Foundation series plus Handstand one and two.

2. Only Coach Sommer can answer that one.

Kindly remember... A number of elite level gymnasts have been training their body, to do what they require of it, since they were maybe five or six. 

[Briac Roquet]

1. Probably nearing the end of Foundation and a solid Handstand,

2. As far as I know, they just don't exist anymore. WODs were good when it was just the book Building the Gymnastic Body, which didn't really have programming in it. Now with Foundation and all the courses, even when you're intermediate, you're just better off continuing with them.

[Alessandro Mainente]

Well I think that my personal experience can be relevant. prior to my firs GB seminar long time ago I was constantly training under the WOD approach and strategy including rings , movement, swinging.

what I've obtained was: extremely tight body and injuries. simply my body was not capable of holding all this stress. take the example of the pulling strength. You can be invited to perform a couple of RC, then 10 front lever pulls, then 10 L-sit chin up then some rows, with 20-30 seconds rest. this is conditioning and no matter how much strength you have already build up with 3-4-5 years of self training, joints  and body must be prepared to hold this volume of stress and if not , your body will tell you that for sure, my elbows and my shoulder spoken by themselves. Now that i've completed the most of the foundations FBE/FBP I can manage the old WOD's with no problem but I do not have the mobility of 8 years ago or the joint preparation. 

the complete difference in therms of body adaptation and good preparation it is reflected also by the volume of my training on rings. only doing some muscles up on ring strength series with old WOD (so no big focus on SA strength) I had a bicep tendonitis in 3-4 weeks, by doing rings once a week. now that i've included practically all the advanced SA exercises, I train them 2-3 times in a week. no injury in the last 1.5 years.

trust me that the most intelligent thing I did in the past was to stop with wod's. they are very good and I like their structure but only now i'm in the situation to manage them.

[Boban Ilievski]

The wods could be scalled to your level of strength. That's how I and most of the people here did them. Few people did them as they were written, the coach himself always stated that those workouts need to be scalled down to the individuals capacity. They were a lot of fun, and had variety, you were doing tons of different exercises, not just focusing on one push/pull exercise.

[Leo Trinidad]

I also speak from experience. Before all the GB Courses, I tried doing the GB WODs and yes you can scale it down. The main problem with scaling it down is the proper form, execution, tempo, etc. The vast majority (that includes me) could not scale it correctly/properly. Even by doing it wrongly, I felt stronger and better but then I thought to myself, what if my I had Foundations and proper form and execution? I guess the strength gains will be exponential. When they put it down, I focused solely on Foundations and I would say that was the best decision I've made. Because now, my mentality towards training is far more better than before and am in my best shape ever. There is so much more to fix/refine/strengthen/tweak in the Foundations that is more important than doing intermediate stuff in my opinion. 

My guess is the requirement to be able to perform the GB WODs would include completion of Foundation 1-4, Handstand 1&2, Rings 1&2. 

 

 

P.S. - i still have some of the GB Wods but even on my level, I can't do them properly. 

and i recall that GB Wods should be done after the strength training part. 

[Jon Douglas]

People could certainly scale down the wods.

Next to no one scaled them down far enough and there wasn't enoughmobility and basics performed. Good fun and I got pretty strong for the general population but as Ale said no chance of getting the comprehensive prep and efficency to complete actual conditioning under Coach's eye. 

The programming basically presupposed Foundation completion. Coach at that timewas I think still struggling to believe how unprepared adult beginners could be  so current and exgymnasts (and those who got more comprehensive information on joint prep from seminars) thrived.

That said from my records I use the leg strength and dynamic leg wods as post F4 training