Bundle advice

[Charel Marais]

Hi guys,

I'm looking for some advice on sensible combinations of course material. Does it make sense or is it even feasible to follow the content of the "most popular" bundle (FUNDAMENTALS, FOUNDATION ONE, FRONT SPLITS, THORACIC BRIDGE, MIDDLE SPLITS) simultaneously? I know that fundamentals is the starting point and that the rest follow, but cannot find any advice on the interaction between or possible combination of the above-mentioned courses.

How much time is required per training session? How many recommended sessions per week for the individual courses? What could a possible training week look like for following the entire bundle? Would any of these courses limit or promote specific progress in any other or are they specifically designed to function as a unit with multiple facets?

Thanks in advance to the community for the support!

Best regards

[Pauline Taube]

Hi Charel, 

Thanks for reaching out.

Great questions. The Fundamentals course is a basic introductory course to GST. This is a great course to begin with in order to get better body awareness and discover weaknesses and imbalances before moving on to the other courses. This is a four weeks course and you will get one lesson every day until the course is completed.

I recommend to finish the Fundamentals course before moving on to Foundation One. You can begin with the Stretch courses straight away with your Fundamentals course. Each stretch series should be performed once a week. You can do them on any day you'd like, after completing your Fundamentals lesson. 

The Fundamentals lessons require less than 15min a day. All you need is to follow along with the lesson for the day, and you can always add some practice to the previous lessons you had trouble with. 

The Stretch series takes about 45 minutes each. 

Once you've completed the Fundamentals you have all the necessary tools to achieve great success with Foundation One. The duration of the sessions will increase as you advance in your training and the exercises changes in terms of sets and reps. The workouts can last from 20-60 min depending on your schedule. 

Most students continue to do the movements from the Fundamentals course as daily limbering and also use these for a warmup before their Foundation training. After you workout you can cool down with one of the Stretch series. You can also perform these on a separate day.  

It's highly recommended to do the Stretch series simultaneously with Foundation One. In Coach Sommer's recommended schedule for beginners Stretch series, Handstand One and Movement Series are all trained simultaneously with F1. 

Please let us know if you have any other questions  

[Charel Marais]

Hi Pauline, 

thank you for the detailed reply! 

I'm a little unsure of what a typical training week would look like when follow so many programs. Is it realistic to follow all of them at once? Stretch Series once per week per program means 3 days and as far as I can tell, Foundation One contains multiple GST exercises with progressions toward planche, frontlever, back lever, side lever, manna, hollow back press etc. with training sessions of up to 60 minutes per session. So if training progressions for all of these exercises and the stretch series, how does all of this fit into each training week without spending 3 hours per day training 7 days a week? 

Could you please give an example of a typical training week for someone following all the programs in the bundle? 

Thanks again for taking the time to give a clearer picture of GST training! 

[Everett Carroll]

Hi Charel,

Each stretch workout (there are three total) takes approximately 45 minutes. The three Foundation workouts are shorter than that, though the exact length is not fixed as Foundation workouts are always adapting to your progress. Your Foundation workouts will start off quite short and gradually increase in length/difficulty.

It would not be unreasonable to, at first, fit a Foundation and Stretch workout in, back to back, in about one hour. This means that you could fit your popular package training into three one-hour sessions per week. 

There are plenty of other ways to spread these courses out, however, and the scheduler allows for complete flexibility with course integration. Coach Sommer even has his recommended schedule built into your weekly planning tool that shows you how you could fit in all of the beginner level courses each week. 

If you need any more help, please let us know. 

[David Leal]

Hey

 

I have similar question, i feel that if i just do fundation it is really short, and i am not sure how to combine or what to do first with the other courses? some of the streaches are like 45 min which i will assume it takes a whole day of training for me( nomally i can do 45 to 1 hr of training), any advice will be awesome

[Alessandro Mainente]

Hi David, how many courses do you have?

[Antonio Alías Montoya]

The minimum time you need to work the whole beginner courses (no pre requisites), doing everything once a week, is:

Foundation Core - 45 min

Foundation Upper - 45 min

Foundation Lower - 15 min

Middle Split - 45 min

Front Split - 45 min

Thoracic Bridge - 45 min

Handtsand 1+2 - 30 min

Movement - 30 min

This sum up a total of 5 hours a week, so you certainly don t need to spend the whole day in the gym. Actually the great thing is that you can do almost everything at home. The workout time for Foundation includes 5-10 minutes warm up. 

On the opposite, the maximum time working out for a beginner would be around double of this, around 9-10 hours a week, by adding twice a week Foundation, Handstand, Movement and some extra mobility (not the whole strecht series). More than this is probably unnecesary for a beginner or even counterproductive.

[Guido Franchetti]

In my experience, F1 + H1 + 3 Stretches + Movement is feasible, but in my case just barely and often I don't manage to do everything. It also depends on how many times per week you do F1 and how you split it.

A good strategy can be to cycle the stretches doing only 2 (or even 1) per week.

So how much you will be able to fit profitably is quite personal. However I would surely recommend to start with one or two courses (say F1 and one of the stretches) and get used to the exercises and workout format. Once you are familiar with those courses add another one (a good rule of thumb could be to add a stretch course when you can remember the whole sequence of the one you are already doing). When you are still learning names and reps format and you need to review the videos before each workout is much more time consuming and confusing.

Regarding the F1 or H1 workouts don't be fooled by the fact that the early steps are quite easy and quick to complete. When you move to later steps/progressions both the time needed and the intensity will increase quickly.

TLDR buy whatever bundle you like, it saves you money and you'll find the courses useful sooner or later. It is possible to fit many of them in a weekly routine, but introduce them gradually starting with one or two.

[David Erwin]

I'm currently doing the three Foundations and three stretch courses once per week (with an occasional extra Foundations class when I feel like it). I hadn't been doing any regular workouts before. They really don't take very long and fit well together. I often get best results pairing a Foundations course with a Stretch course, which takes me less than 1 1/2 hours to do at a comfortable pace.

If you can afford the cost (which is significant) I recommend trying all of them with the 30 day refund policy in mind. Time aside, there's a lot I've been learning in the strength courses that help me in the stretch, and vice versa. They integrate nicely and will help you get into the positions and stay there.

[Alessandro Mainente]

Hi David the most beneficial results can be obtained by pairing strength work with stretch work. The strength needs a range of motion and the stretch must be supported by strength in the range of motion. so go for both.