H1 Frequency

Just bought H1 and was wondering how many days/week I should start out with?

Little background: 26 year old guy, athletic background my whole life, tried various forms of training in the past (barbells, kettlebells, bodyweight, etc.) So I'm lacking a bit in shoulder and wrist flexibility, but never had any problems with pain or discomfort with either. I've also trained handstands (read: curved handstands, got lucky every now and then and held it for 20 seconds or so) here and there as well as a lot of quadrupedal movements, so I'm no stranger to putting my bodyweight through my wrists and have already been working on my wrist flexibility almost daily for the past few months. 

This will also be the only course from GB I will be training, and I won't be doing much else on top of this that will affect my recovery as far as the wrists and shoulders are concerned. My main goal is mastery of a perfect, straight handstand as described in the program and I really love the simple "do this" layout of this program. With that being said, should I still start out with only 2 days a week and then adjust upwards as needed, or could I start out with 3-4 days a week and be fine?

 

Hi Evan,

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to GymnasticBodies! I suggest starting out with two times per week for your first month of the course. This will ensure you don't rush your joints into too much volume. Even though you are used to bearing weight on your hands, the stretches, wrist strength, long static hold, and weighted mobility in combination is likely going to be very new to you. Just wait it out the 4 weeks to see how your body responds. 

After those 4 weeks, if you are recovering fine and your body feels great, go ahead and add one extra HS training day to your weekly schedule. For each schedule, spend at least 4 weeks before making an adjustment. This will allow you to get a good feel for your recovery while allowing your connective tissue the time it needs to adapt.