Overtraining?

Hello Coach, is it possible to overtrain with static strength exercises? I train twice a day, about 2h per workout, in the morning and evening. And I noticed that I progress better in exercises which I do less then the exercises which I do very often :? Is it just temporary, will my body adapt to such stress resulting in strength progression?

I thought that gymnastics is sport with rule "more you train better results you gain" Am I wrong? :?

Is it good to do for example handstand every training? You said in the book that you were doing half hour XR handstand every day.

I have lot of motivation to train, but I am scared about overtraining, can you please explain me that problem?

Thanks in advance!

Are you a gymnast or are you new to this type of training?

Yes, you can over train doing static exercises. If you are just a regular person that is new to this training, you are training FAR FAR FAR too much.

Coaches training, or the training of gymnasts is not something that you should try to emulate. Coach built up the work capacity to do 30 minutes of handstands everyday on top of everything else.

If you are new to all this, the amount of training you are doing is not only unnecessary but counter productive. You should do the least amount of work necessary to progress. Be like the turtle, not the hare.

A beginner can progress on as little as 2 sessions per week, per muscle group, with 2-3 sets.

If we are talking about static exercises, no more than 60 total seconds is needed, a couple times per week.

I would suggest that you scale down to a minimalist program, or just follow Coaches WOD's. Search for killroys program. This is another simple beginner routine.

trianglechoke7 said:

Are you a gymnast or are you new to this type of training?

Yes, you can over train doing static exercises. If you are just a regular person that is new to this training, you are training FAR FAR FAR too much.

Coaches training, or the training of gymnasts is not something that you should try to emulate. Coach built up the work capacity to do 30 minutes of handstands everyday on top of everything else.

If you are new to all this, the amount of training you are doing is not only unnecessary but counter productive. You should do the least amount of work necessary to progress. Be like the turtle, not the hare.

A beginner can progress on as little as 2 sessions per week, per muscle group, with 2-3 sets.

If we are talking about static exercises, no more than 60 total seconds is needed, a couple times per week.

I would suggest that you scale down to a minimalist program, or just follow Coaches WOD's. Search for killroys program. This is another simple beginner routine.

2 times a week? 2-3 sets? I just don't understand how that works.

Let's say all I am training is the planche and the FL. Are you saying that I should only do my planche and FL training 2 days a week, with just 2-3 sets? Won't you take decades to build those skills up with that skimpy amount of training? You probably won't even break a sweat.

I was referring to regular exercises, not static holds when I said "2-3 sets." Also, I said BEGINNER. 2-3 sets 2 times per week per muscle group will stimulate adaptation (i.e. cause strength gains) in beginners. I didn't say that you could keep doing that for years.

Also, let me say that I'm not claiming this is the optimal dose response in regards to volume and strength. I'm just trying to put things into perspective. Take someone off the couch and get them to do a few sets a couple times per week and they will adapt for a little while.

I guess I should also say that you don't have to do the very least that will cause gains, if doing more will cause faster gains. But it certainly won't hurt anything for the long term weekend warrior type, and knowing the minimal threshold for adaptation can be useful information for time crunched individuals.

But the main thing that I hope comes out of this convo is the concept of DOSE RESPONSE.

DOING MORE IS NOT NECESSARILY BETTER!

I rarely sweat from gymnastics S&C unless it's one of those 4 round GB wod's perhaps in the WU.

Perhaps with ring routine strength sets or lower body conditioning.

Mr.MJR,

I just noticed that you are gymnast actually training for competitions. So, my comments can be disregarded.

What I will tell you in general is that "more you train the better results you gain" is only true up to a certain point. Look at the dose response curve. There will be an increasing amount of gain with increasing training, then you will hit a point of optimal volume that is appropriate for you genetics and training history, after which more training will result in LESS gain.

What is the optimal amount? I don't personally know. Someone with experience in training gymnasts will have to answer that question for you.

Rampage said:

trianglechoke7 said:

Are you a gymnast or are you new to this type of training?

Yes, you can over train doing static exercises. If you are just a regular person that is new to this training, you are training FAR FAR FAR too much.

Coaches training, or the training of gymnasts is not something that you should try to emulate. Coach built up the work capacity to do 30 minutes of handstands everyday on top of everything else.

If you are new to all this, the amount of training you are doing is not only unnecessary but counter productive. You should do the least amount of work necessary to progress. Be like the turtle, not the hare.

A beginner can progress on as little as 2 sessions per week, per muscle group, with 2-3 sets.

If we are talking about static exercises, no more than 60 total seconds is needed, a couple times per week.

I would suggest that you scale down to a minimalist program, or just follow Coaches WOD's. Search for killroys program. This is another simple beginner routine.

2 times a week? 2-3 sets? I just don't understand how that works.

Let's say all I am training is the planche and the FL. Are you saying that I should only do my planche and FL training 2 days a week, with just 2-3 sets? Won't you take decades to build those skills up with that skimpy amount of training? You probably won't even break a sweat.

Yes, you should only train each of them twice a week for most people, and 3x a week at the most.

You are not training to break sweats, you are training to get stronger. One has almost nothing to do with the other.You are straining connective tissues, and they take longer to heal. If you stress them before they are healed, you may end up doing more damage than healing. Even when you're doing dips, you'll notice that your performance will improve faster when you're only doing 2-3 work sets (NOT including warm up sets) twice a week. The harder you work, the more rest you need, so as you get stronger and keep increasing the resistance, you're going to need more rest. Keep in mind that part of the reason gymnasts eventually are able to have 3 hard sessions a week, which if you read Gregor's log you will see is all he can handle (he does active recovery stuff on other days, but not much), is because they first build their strength up, as Coach suggests in the book. Once you're strong enough to hold planches, malteses, crosses, etc, you don't need more strength, you need more work capacity and explosiveness. At that point there is no longer a quest for more strength, but rather for more work capacity. The more work you can handle, the more often you can train, and the more often you can train the faster you improve skill work. NOT STRENGTH WORK, SKILL WORK!

That's how it goes. Every athlete is different, some need to train a certain exercise every 4 days, some need to do it every 3rd day, some need a whole week of rest for that exercise, and some need to do things every other day. There are lots and lots of factors that go into this. Sometimes it's different recovery speeds. Other times it is because some people have more advantageous tendon attachments, which means their muscles are doing less work to produce a given movement than most other people. That means they are doing less damage, so even though they may be doing the same thing as you, and might recover at the same speed on a cellular level, they did less damage than you so they are healed a day earlier. That's just how things go, and those factors are unique to each athlete.

There are some universal truths when it comes to physical training, and the most important one is what Triangle is trying to explain, and doing a pretty good job of in my opinion.

There is a point, and it is much sooner than people think, at which you start getting less back for your investment. This is called the point of diminishing returns.

That means that for every set and every rep you do, you do a certain amount of damage and trigger a certain amount of tissue adaptation. As these sets and reps go on, you reach a point where every rep is doing the same amount of damage but getting less of a response for it. What that means is that you are increasing the amount of time you'll have to rest while no longer getting much of any extra strength response. In the end, you have to take so long to heal that the little bit of extra strength has worn off, so now you're just as strong in your next workout either way.

The difference is that when you stop working at the point of diminishing returns, you may only need to rest for two days. If you go past that, and have to rest for 3, 4, or 5 days before your body has recovered and grown, you have taken longer to get the same strength gains. That's just not a smart way to do things.

The only thing dumber would be to try and stick to a set schedule, like working out every other day, even though you need more rest. Then you are not even close to being healed or having grown stronger, so you end up doing even MORE damage. Now your body has to stop the improvements it was making to go fix the new damage. You keep doing this and you end up overtrained. That's how it happens. People do it all the time and never even realize it.

This applies to competitive gymnasts as well as total beginners. Go ask Gregor if you're doubtful. He's National or International level. He even went to the Worlds this past year! Ask him about these things, and he'll tell you the same thing.

trianglechoke7 said:

I was referring to regular exercises, not static holds when I said "2-3 sets." Also, I said BEGINNER. 2-3 sets 2 times per week per muscle group will stimulate adaptation (i.e. cause strength gains) in beginners. I didn't say that you could keep doing that for years.

While my above post is pretty comprehensive, I do want to point out that it depends on how long your sets are. Even with statics, 3 sets can be plenty I do 15-20 second sets of my statics, and I won't go below 10 seconds. Why? I'm trying to protect my joints. 3 sets of 15-20 seconds is all my body needs to make noticeable improvements from week to week. Hell, I'm working with a 52 lb spot right now on flat tuck planche for 20 seconds, and it's gotten me to where I can hold a locked arm tuck planche with full BW for 5-8 seconds without elbow issues. When I started this a month and a half ago I couldn't even pick myself up off the ground because my elbows were so screwed up.

Some statics you can do more on than others, but you should still keep it under control. In my opinion, and I believe this is outlined in the book, if you can't hold a position for at least 10 seconds in a max hold, you shouldn't be working that position. I know Coach says you should be working 60 seconds total for whatever statics you are working, but if you can only do sets of 5 seconds safely, you are really working hard. You'll find you are better off working 5-7 sets of 5 seconds a few times a week, instead of 12. You start passing the point of diminishing returns when you try to do that many intense sets. You're better off adding a second to one or two sets every other week or so until you're doing 4-6 sets of 10 seconds with perfect form.

As far as non-statics go, I think we can all agree that I'm fairly strong. I'm at least intermediate level, crossing over into advanced in some areas. That's in powerlifting terms as well as what we're doing here. I can do quite a lot of the higher progressions for dynamic work. I'm certainly still a beginner in the planche and manna though! Anyways, I am saying this because what Triangle says is not just for beginners. Even serious advanced powerlifters are not working the same lifts heavy more than twice a week unless they are on some "super supplements" which is a stupid name for hormones, steriods, etc. The hardcore stuff that you really shouldn't be messing with. I've looked at the Westside workouts, even Doggcrapp workouts for bodybuilders. Across the board, no matter how advanced these guys get, they are not working out more than 2-3 times a week for any given lift, and for bodybuilders it's less than that because it takes longer rests to get big, and they aren't doing that many heavy sets. Even with singles, these guys aren't doing more than 5 singles at their workout max weight. Often less.

I work each muscle group twice a week at the most, and never more than once every six days with the same exercises, and I am making stellar progress. I can promise you that while you may be able to do slightly more, depending on factors that I mentioned in my previous post, if you stick to the same basic protocol you will also achieve stellar results. In the end, you'll probably do a number of different things before coming back to this and saying "Geez, I guess this really does give me the most consistent results without overtraining me." And that's ok, there's nothing wrong with that. I did the same thing, as did a large number of other people here. In the end, what we are suggesting here is what will end up giving you the best results.

Best results meaning that you will make consistent progress over the course of your training career, which is hopefully forever. You will not run into overtraining situations or injuries that force you to take time off and start off a few steps behind that goal you barely achieved before getting hurt or so overtrained that you had to rest for a few weeks.

slizzardman said:

While my above post is pretty comprehensive, I do want to point out that it depends on how long your sets are. Even with statics, 3 sets can be plenty I do 15-20 second sets of my statics, and I won't go below 10 seconds.

Most definitely.

Anyways, I am saying this because what Triangle says is not just for beginners. I've looked at the Westside workouts, even Doggcrapp workouts for bodybuilders. Across the board, no matter how advanced these guys get, they are not working out more than 2-3 times a week for any given lift,

This is why I was very purposeful in my wording of "muscle groups" as opposed to "exercises/lifts." Intermediate and advanced trainees may only hit their target lifts a couple of times per week or less and even only 2-3 sets per session depending on the specific lift/stage of programming/whatever, but they will still have more volume per muscle group with the addition of assistance lifts.

Just make things clear.

Thanks for the backup!

:shock: Wow guys, thanks!! You really resolved that puzzle for me! It is very reasonable and logic explanation and I believe you are right, I will definitely cut my work. Thanks again! :wink:

wow very useful information.

definitely going to stick to working GHR/SLS once a week on mondays as I don't think my legs can handle twice a week.

Excellent posts triangle and slizzard! This deserves a sticky IMHO!

trianglechoke7 said:

I was referring to regular exercises, not static holds when I said "2-3 sets." Also, I said BEGINNER. 2-3 sets 2 times per week per muscle group will stimulate adaptation (i.e. cause strength gains) in beginners. I didn't say that you could keep doing that for years.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

slizzardman said:

Rampage said:

trianglechoke7 said:

Are you a gymnast or are you new to this type of training?

Yes, you can over train doing static exercises. If you are just a regular person that is new to this training, you are training FAR FAR FAR too much.

Coaches training, or the training of gymnasts is not something that you should try to emulate. Coach built up the work capacity to do 30 minutes of handstands everyday on top of everything else.

If you are new to all this, the amount of training you are doing is not only unnecessary but counter productive. You should do the least amount of work necessary to progress. Be like the turtle, not the hare.

A beginner can progress on as little as 2 sessions per week, per muscle group, with 2-3 sets.

If we are talking about static exercises, no more than 60 total seconds is needed, a couple times per week.

I would suggest that you scale down to a minimalist program, or just follow Coaches WOD's. Search for killroys program. This is another simple beginner routine.

2 times a week? 2-3 sets? I just don't understand how that works.

Let's say all I am training is the planche and the FL. Are you saying that I should only do my planche and FL training 2 days a week, with just 2-3 sets? Won't you take decades to build those skills up with that skimpy amount of training? You probably won't even break a sweat.

Yes, you should only train each of them twice a week for most people, and 3x a week at the most.

You are not training to break sweats, you are training to get stronger. One has almost nothing to do with the other.You are straining connective tissues, and they take longer to heal. If you stress them before they are healed, you may end up doing more damage than healing. Even when you're doing dips, you'll notice that your performance will improve faster when you're only doing 2-3 work sets (NOT including warm up sets) twice a week. The harder you work, the more rest you need, so as you get stronger and keep increasing the resistance, you're going to need more rest. Keep in mind that part of the reason gymnasts eventually are able to have 3 hard sessions a week, which if you read Gregor's log you will see is all he can handle (he does active recovery stuff on other days, but not much), is because they first build their strength up, as Coach suggests in the book. Once you're strong enough to hold planches, malteses, crosses, etc, you don't need more strength, you need more work capacity and explosiveness. At that point there is no longer a quest for more strength, but rather for more work capacity. The more work you can handle, the more often you can train, and the more often you can train the faster you improve skill work. NOT STRENGTH WORK, SKILL WORK!

That's how it goes. Every athlete is different, some need to train a certain exercise every 4 days, some need to do it every 3rd day, some need a whole week of rest for that exercise, and some need to do things every other day. There are lots and lots of factors that go into this. Sometimes it's different recovery speeds. Other times it is because some people have more advantageous tendon attachments, which means their muscles are doing less work to produce a given movement than most other people. That means they are doing less damage, so even though they may be doing the same thing as you, and might recover at the same speed on a cellular level, they did less damage than you so they are healed a day earlier. That's just how things go, and those factors are unique to each athlete.

There are some universal truths when it comes to physical training, and the most important one is what Triangle is trying to explain, and doing a pretty good job of in my opinion.

There is a point, and it is much sooner than people think, at which you start getting less back for your investment. This is called the point of diminishing returns.

That means that for every set and every rep you do, you do a certain amount of damage and trigger a certain amount of tissue adaptation. As these sets and reps go on, you reach a point where every rep is doing the same amount of damage but getting less of a response for it. What that means is that you are increasing the amount of time you'll have to rest while no longer getting much of any extra strength response. In the end, you have to take so long to heal that the little bit of extra strength has worn off, so now you're just as strong in your next workout either way.

The difference is that when you stop working at the point of diminishing returns, you may only need to rest for two days. If you go past that, and have to rest for 3, 4, or 5 days before your body has recovered and grown, you have taken longer to get the same strength gains. That's just not a smart way to do things.

The only thing dumber would be to try and stick to a set schedule, like working out every other day, even though you need more rest. Then you are not even close to being healed or having grown stronger, so you end up doing even MORE damage. Now your body has to stop the improvements it was making to go fix the new damage. You keep doing this and you end up overtrained. That's how it happens. People do it all the time and never even realize it.

This applies to competitive gymnasts as well as total beginners. Go ask Gregor if you're doubtful. He's National or International level. He even went to the Worlds this past year! Ask him about these things, and he'll tell you the same thing.

What I meant with "not even breaking a sweat" was going too light or too soft that you won't even feel anything, not literally sweating; 2-3 sets in the whole day 2 times a week wouldn't work for me at all at least.

I'll let the Coach speak for himelf via an answer he gave in a related thread. This might help clear up your question.

Strength training is not a simple linear progression. There is no one size fits all. Depending on the level of the athlete in question, there will be a number of factors which will need to be attended to. For beginners, it is best to simply focus on establishing a solid foundation of basic strength as set forth in Building the Gymnastic Body and to not be overly concerned with assistance work.

However as your training progresses, you will discover that manipulating volume is also quite important. Increasing volume through additional assistance work, at a carefully controlled intensity: stimulates the central nervous system, builds work capacity, builds the capillaries, institutes additional hypertrophy and promotes joint health; all within the targeted area. However you must be at a certain level of development, before you can take advantage of this component of training.

For example, an advanced intermediate athlete (someone still developing their XR planche and iron cross) may perform planche pushups on the XR with a 2 sec static hold on each repetition for 3x5 reps. This would constitute the maximal strength portion of his training for that day. However for his level, this is not enough volume; hence for his assistance work he would also perform 5x10 Russian Dips with additional weight added as needed.

Please note that the above volume of maximal ring strength would be far short of what an advanced ring strength athlete would require; but it will be just about all that an advanced intermediate level athlete could handle and far beyond the capacities of a beginner.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

slizzardman said:

Rampage said:

trianglechoke7 said:

Are you a gymnast or are you new to this type of training?

Yes, you can over train doing static exercises. If you are just a regular person that is new to this training, you are training FAR FAR FAR too much.

Coaches training, or the training of gymnasts is not something that you should try to emulate. Coach built up the work capacity to do 30 minutes of handstands everyday on top of everything else.

If you are new to all this, the amount of training you are doing is not only unnecessary but counter productive. You should do the least amount of work necessary to progress. Be like the turtle, not the hare.

A beginner can progress on as little as 2 sessions per week, per muscle group, with 2-3 sets.

If we are talking about static exercises, no more than 60 total seconds is needed, a couple times per week.

I would suggest that you scale down to a minimalist program, or just follow Coaches WOD's. Search for killroys program. This is another simple beginner routine.

2 times a week? 2-3 sets? I just don't understand how that works.

Let's say all I am training is the planche and the FL. Are you saying that I should only do my planche and FL training 2 days a week, with just 2-3 sets? Won't you take decades to build those skills up with that skimpy amount of training? You probably won't even break a sweat.

Yes, you should only train each of them twice a week for most people, and 3x a week at the most.

You are not training to break sweats, you are training to get stronger. One has almost nothing to do with the other.You are straining connective tissues, and they take longer to heal. If you stress them before they are healed, you may end up doing more damage than healing. Even when you're doing dips, you'll notice that your performance will improve faster when you're only doing 2-3 work sets (NOT including warm up sets) twice a week. The harder you work, the more rest you need, so as you get stronger and keep increasing the resistance, you're going to need more rest. Keep in mind that part of the reason gymnasts eventually are able to have 3 hard sessions a week, which if you read Gregor's log you will see is all he can handle (he does active recovery stuff on other days, but not much), is because they first build their strength up, as Coach suggests in the book. Once you're strong enough to hold planches, malteses, crosses, etc, you don't need more strength, you need more work capacity and explosiveness. At that point there is no longer a quest for more strength, but rather for more work capacity. The more work you can handle, the more often you can train, and the more often you can train the faster you improve skill work. NOT STRENGTH WORK, SKILL WORK!

That's how it goes. Every athlete is different, some need to train a certain exercise every 4 days, some need to do it every 3rd day, some need a whole week of rest for that exercise, and some need to do things every other day. There are lots and lots of factors that go into this. Sometimes it's different recovery speeds. Other times it is because some people have more advantageous tendon attachments, which means their muscles are doing less work to produce a given movement than most other people. That means they are doing less damage, so even though they may be doing the same thing as you, and might recover at the same speed on a cellular level, they did less damage than you so they are healed a day earlier. That's just how things go, and those factors are unique to each athlete.

There are some universal truths when it comes to physical training, and the most important one is what Triangle is trying to explain, and doing a pretty good job of in my opinion.

There is a point, and it is much sooner than people think, at which you start getting less back for your investment. This is called the point of diminishing returns.

That means that for every set and every rep you do, you do a certain amount of damage and trigger a certain amount of tissue adaptation. As these sets and reps go on, you reach a point where every rep is doing the same amount of damage but getting less of a response for it. What that means is that you are increasing the amount of time you'll have to rest while no longer getting much of any extra strength response. In the end, you have to take so long to heal that the little bit of extra strength has worn off, so now you're just as strong in your next workout either way.

The difference is that when you stop working at the point of diminishing returns, you may only need to rest for two days. If you go past that, and have to rest for 3, 4, or 5 days before your body has recovered and grown, you have taken longer to get the same strength gains. That's just not a smart way to do things.

The only thing dumber would be to try and stick to a set schedule, like working out every other day, even though you need more rest. Then you are not even close to being healed or having grown stronger, so you end up doing even MORE damage. Now your body has to stop the improvements it was making to go fix the new damage. You keep doing this and you end up overtrained. That's how it happens. People do it all the time and never even realize it.

This applies to competitive gymnasts as well as total beginners. Go ask Gregor if you're doubtful. He's National or International level. He even went to the Worlds this past year! Ask him about these things, and he'll tell you the same thing.

************* Have you ever heard of a situation wherein ring dips could only be trained once per week? That's what my trainee and i are experiencing as we are both new to ring dips and are both 250 pounds.

Brandon Green

I only dip once a week. You know, if you take a calendar and start writing down the WODs from here, you'll see that each movement is trained pretty infrequently, and that muscle group emphasis tends to be altered from day to day. I'd suggest that you look at these and implement the general idea, which is to change things up. Since I've switched to once a week for each exercise, rotating emphasis between horizontal and vertical pulls and pushes, legs and core, and once in a while a set or two of MPPU/CPPu, I have been making MASSIVE strides forward.

I haven't even been training for the muscle up specifically, just doing close push ups once a week, and I'm doing them with virtually no effort now. MASSIVE DIFFERENCE!!!

I've gone from 3-4 HeSPU to 5x5. I'm learning handstand pirouettes, though they are far too ugly and with too many steps currently, but it's a start. I'm also starting to learn side to side walking, which is remarkably harder than forward or backward. This is all after literally 2-3 weeks of only once a week HeSPU work, once a week wall handstand holds, and once a week wall runs, with some playing around freestanding thrown in occasionally. The extra recovery time is remarkably effective.

Same thing with SLS, 5 sets of 6 reps per leg on the floor is becoming easy, and that's with 20 lbs in my hands!

Once a week is great, just make sure your volume is high enough to benefit. I've been finding that by spreading my sets throughout the day, I am getting much more out of each set AND I am becoming much stronger and more capable. I even have a pretty flat tuck planche now! On p-bars, anyhow. Floor's... a long way off.

slizzardman said:

I only dip once a week. You know, if you take a calendar and start writing down the WODs from here, you'll see that each movement is trained pretty infrequently, and that muscle group emphasis tends to be altered from day to day. I'd suggest that you look at these and implement the general idea, which is to change things up. Since I've switched to once a week for each exercise, rotating emphasis between horizontal and vertical pulls and pushes, legs and core, and once in a while a set or two of MPPU/CPPu, I have been making MASSIVE strides forward.

I haven't even been training for the muscle up specifically, just doing close push ups once a week, and I'm doing them with virtually no effort now. MASSIVE DIFFERENCE!!!

I've gone from 3-4 HeSPU to 5x5. I'm learning handstand pirouettes, though they are far too ugly and with too many steps currently, but it's a start. I'm also starting to learn side to side walking, which is remarkably harder than forward or backward. This is all after literally 2-3 weeks of only once a week HeSPU work, once a week wall handstand holds, and once a week wall runs, with some playing around freestanding thrown in occasionally. The extra recovery time is remarkably effective.

Same thing with SLS, 5 sets of 6 reps per leg on the floor is becoming easy, and that's with 20 lbs in my hands!

Once a week is great, just make sure your volume is high enough to benefit. I've been finding that by spreading my sets throughout the day, I am getting much more out of each set AND I am becoming much stronger and more capable. I even have a pretty flat tuck planche now! On p-bars, anyhow. Floor's... a long way off.

*********** Thank You.

Brandon

This got me thinking...

Since I'm doing KBs 3 times a week and gymnastics 2 times a week, would it be smart to break those gymnastic days into leg-core day and push-pull day? I'm doing integrated training so appropriate statics count as well. I would add handstand work on leg-core day not to overload upper body all at once. Wall walk also. Is once a week enough for BL, FL, planche and manna at beginner level? Since I'm rotating horizontal/vertical pushes and pulls, that would mean doing the same exercise every 3 weeks. Is that enough? I'm doing gymnastics only 6 months. Also have to take KBs in consideration, don't want to overtrain.

Also, how would that effect my SSC if it would?

I have to apologize, I know I'm a pest with all these questions, but I'm new to gymnastics and very excited about it so I just have to question about everything.

I think that the answer to your question will vary from person to person, but I will say that if you're only working each static once a week you're going to need a higher volume for that one workout than if you work them twice or three times a week.

As a beginner, I don't know, but I think that you'll find 2-3x a week will work better. They don't all need to be super hard, you know. You could have one main day, and on one or two other days you could do easier variations. You'll be maintaining your strength gains from the main workout and possibly making additional gains. This will take some experimentation. I think to start with, see how once every 4-6 days works for you. If you aren't making gains AND you are not feeling worn down, then once every 2-4 days will probably work better.

slizzardman said:

Rampage said:

trianglechoke7 said:

Are you a gymnast or are you new to this type of training?

Yes, you can over train doing static exercises. If you are just a regular person that is new to this training, you are training FAR FAR FAR too much.

Coaches training, or the training of gymnasts is not something that you should try to emulate. Coach built up the work capacity to do 30 minutes of handstands everyday on top of everything else.

If you are new to all this, the amount of training you are doing is not only unnecessary but counter productive. You should do the least amount of work necessary to progress. Be like the turtle, not the hare.

A beginner can progress on as little as 2 sessions per week, per muscle group, with 2-3 sets.

If we are talking about static exercises, no more than 60 total seconds is needed, a couple times per week.

I would suggest that you scale down to a minimalist program, or just follow Coaches WOD's. Search for killroys program. This is another simple beginner routine.

2 times a week? 2-3 sets? I just don't understand how that works.

Let's say all I am training is the planche and the FL. Are you saying that I should only do my planche and FL training 2 days a week, with just 2-3 sets? Won't you take decades to build those skills up with that skimpy amount of training? You probably won't even break a sweat.

Yes, you should only train each of them twice a week for most people, and 3x a week at the most.

You are not training to break sweats, you are training to get stronger. One has almost nothing to do with the other.You are straining connective tissues, and they take longer to heal. If you stress them before they are healed, you may end up doing more damage than healing. Even when you're doing dips, you'll notice that your performance will improve faster when you're only doing 2-3 work sets (NOT including warm up sets) twice a week. The harder you work, the more rest you need, so as you get stronger and keep increasing the resistance, you're going to need more rest. Keep in mind that part of the reason gymnasts eventually are able to have 3 hard sessions a week, which if you read Gregor's log you will see is all he can handle (he does active recovery stuff on other days, but not much), is because they first build their strength up, as Coach suggests in the book. Once you're strong enough to hold planches, malteses, crosses, etc, you don't need more strength, you need more work capacity and explosiveness. At that point there is no longer a quest for more strength, but rather for more work capacity. The more work you can handle, the more often you can train, and the more often you can train the faster you improve skill work. NOT STRENGTH WORK, SKILL WORK!

That's how it goes. Every athlete is different, some need to train a certain exercise every 4 days, some need to do it every 3rd day, some need a whole week of rest for that exercise, and some need to do things every other day. There are lots and lots of factors that go into this. Sometimes it's different recovery speeds. Other times it is because some people have more advantageous tendon attachments, which means their muscles are doing less work to produce a given movement than most other people. That means they are doing less damage, so even though they may be doing the same thing as you, and might recover at the same speed on a cellular level, they did less damage than you so they are healed a day earlier. That's just how things go, and those factors are unique to each athlete.

There are some universal truths when it comes to physical training, and the most important one is what Triangle is trying to explain, and doing a pretty good job of in my opinion.

There is a point, and it is much sooner than people think, at which you start getting less back for your investment. This is called the point of diminishing returns.

That means that for every set and every rep you do, you do a certain amount of damage and trigger a certain amount of tissue adaptation. As these sets and reps go on, you reach a point where every rep is doing the same amount of damage but getting less of a response for it. What that means is that you are increasing the amount of time you'll have to rest while no longer getting much of any extra strength response. In the end, you have to take so long to heal that the little bit of extra strength has worn off, so now you're just as strong in your next workout either way.

The difference is that when you stop working at the point of diminishing returns, you may only need to rest for two days. If you go past that, and have to rest for 3, 4, or 5 days before your body has recovered and grown, you have taken longer to get the same strength gains. That's just not a smart way to do things.

The only thing dumber would be to try and stick to a set schedule, like working out every other day, even though you need more rest. Then you are not even close to being healed or having grown stronger, so you end up doing even MORE damage. Now your body has to stop the improvements it was making to go fix the new damage. You keep doing this and you end up overtrained. That's how it happens. People do it all the time and never even realize it.

This applies to competitive gymnasts as well as total beginners. Go ask Gregor if you're doubtful. He's National or International level. He even went to the Worlds this past year! Ask him about these things, and he'll tell you the same thing.

I found your post very information, but I have a question:

so you mention that 2-3 times per week MAXIMUM for static holds is all you should have. Why is it that there is so much praise for Killroy's template then? He does the SAME 4 static holds 4 times a week, 7-10 sets EACH. I am just wondering why you feel 2-3 x a week is enough for the static holds, while killroy's template that is so often recommended says 4 times a week. Do you really feel 2 times a week is enough for the static holds?

I suppose what I say should be kept in context with my size. I'm big, about 30 lbs heavier than Killroy. No matter what angle my arms are at, the forces are far greater, and each degree adds more force, than it does for someone smaller than me. I do think that what I am doing is plenty, because it works very, very well for me. 4x a week won't work for me. I've tried. I do think it's too much for a lot of people, but check this out:

Killroy70 did 4 FSP's followed by 2 FBE, 4 days/week. That's it. That is nowhere near what I do, my total volume is much higher both on static time and on the dynamic work like dips, HeSPU, etc., and that plays into it somewhat. The more total work you do per session the less often you can train. Killroy also started out from scratch, and your first few months are always the fastest progress.

He did make good progress, but I don't think it's out of this world. That's not meant as an insult, just an honest observation. He obviously programmed for specific results, and focused mostly on statics. That's where a lot of his progress was, and that makes sense. My focus was pretty even, and I got to doing full lay FL for 8s within 4 months. I did a hyrid lifting and gymnastic approach while already having fairly high strength in the weight room, so my progress was even faster than his, but I did not account for joint strain from planche work and that ended up setting me back to the point where I couldn't train anything straight arm for like 6 months. I'm just now getting back into it. It's ridiculous how much that sucks, but I've learned a lot from the experience. I am starting to find that bent arm strength work leads to very fast progress with the statics, particularly front lever. Unfortunately I let myself get out of muscle balance due to my 6 month limitations, and tweaked my right shoulder a little, so I am letting that recover. I expect that when I can do weighted pull ups again I will be making very fast progress with FL and muscle ups again.

killroy70 said:

the majority of the volume of my training has been geared towards the static positions (lots of focus on creating a strong base to move on from)

Speaking of the statics, the "1/2" FL is deceptively easy. It's easier than a 90 degree flat tuck, I can tell you that for certain because I can easily do both and I know what feels easier. My friends here at home also agree on that. The "1/2" that Killroy does is great for learning to "feel" the full leg extension for the straddle and the full lay, but it's not anywhere near as hard as a straddle, even a wide one, for example. I do think that Killroy's lower body weight and focus on the statics(which do less damage) has made the higher frequency less of a problem. His planche progress is really good, and if he's smart and doesn't jump ahead like I did he'll keep making good progress. I could hold advanced tuck on floor after about 3 months, but my elbows weren't ready, and then I started jumping into straddles. Stupid... I'm just too heavy to be doing 4x a week. Perhaps at some point in the future that will be possible for me, but right now 3x per week works better with sub-maximal holds. My 2x per week protocol is for holds that are around 80% of max hold instead of 50%. That makes a huge difference, hence the extra rest.

If you are specifically looking for static progress, you are going to need to do what Killroy did and really program around that. Killroy has a good protocol, I'm not knocking it. I am certainly focusing more on the statics now, at 3x per week for L-sit, planche, and front lever with 5 sets of 20s FL(flat tuck)/PL(advanced frog, nearly straight arms... this is my elbow rehab. It's working great!), 15s L-sit and 60-75s rest. I'm rehabbing my elbows so I won't be working BL for a while, but when I do I'll be making progress fairly quickly. I have the strength to easily do a full one, it's all about the elbows for me.

In short, Killroy focused on a specific goal and got very good results. he is a heavier guy like me and was careful not to do too much. I would not expect to make the same progress unless you have prior strength training history like he and I did, but you should still make very good progress.

Don't let anyone tell you what you can't do. If you feel you can handle more volume.. more training.. Do it. It is all in your head.