Greasing the Groove

[Crimsoncross]

SON OF A B@#(*!!! I typed a really good reply and it didnt freaking post. CRAP!

Lol, I know what that is like and it sucks.

[Crimsoncross]

This is why I stopped playing a few video games back in the day when I still played. Save screwed up and I had to redo like 2 days worth of stuff. Screw that.

I can't tell you how many times that happened to me as well, and with games like Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy in which you do a lot of stuff. Sometimes I even overwrited my own save files. Those were death-blows.

[Joshua Naterman]

The one that really sucks is Xenogears. You never want to lose your save. It's my favorite game of all time, and I occasionally read the game script so I don't have to spend the time playing again, but a FAST playthrough is 50-something hours. To really get everything you're talking 120+ hours. Thank god that never happened to me! I had that with FF X though, what a drag!

[Crimsoncross]

The one that really sucks is Xenogears. You never want to lose your save. It's my favorite game of all time, and I occasionally read the game script so I don't have to spend the time playing again, but a FAST playthrough is 50-something hours. To really get everything you're talking 120+ hours. Thank god that never happened to me! I had that with FF X though, what a drag!

I never got to play that one. When I used to play almost every day (4 years ago), I actually bought it used online and the friking thing came screwed. The discs were brand new, without any scratch at all, but somehow it would always get stuck after 5 mins of play or sometimes after a little more.

I had a friend who used to have like almost every single rpg out there and some other genres, and he said that Xenogears was great. I then read many reviews and what most said is that the 1st disc was incredible but that the 2nd was bad or something haha.

Wow 50 hours a "fast" playthrough? That's a lot. Most rpg's took me 10-15 hours tops, just "passing" it though.

[Crimsoncross]

If you're going for mixed strength and hypertrophy(kind of a misnomer, since strength development is really a different type of hypertrophy) then you're going to want to be in the 30-50s work set range. That means 6-12 reps, depending on your pace. at 2120, that's 5 seconds per rep. That means you'd want 6-10 reps. You'd start with something you could do 6 times at that pace and you'd stay there until you can do 4-5 sets of 10 reps. Then you're ready to move on to the next progression. You're going to be looking at 90s-3minutes of rest. Probably closer to 3 minutes at first. If you need more, take more. Taking MORE rest will NOT hurt you when it comes to strength and size. I know there are some people here who will say, and not incorrectly, that there is more to this statement, but I'm keeping it simple. You want to go into consolidation training, go for it. I don't want to deal with it right now. This is the basic principle for the hypertrophy + strength.

I see.

But in the statics, do I have to always do 50% of what I can?

[Joshua Naterman]

It depends on the statics. For planche, I strongly recommend it. For front lever, at least for the first few months yes. For the others, again, for at least the first few months yes. It is hard work, and it takes your body time to adapt. You'll find that you make good progress that way, as strange as it may seem.

As for Xenogears, it's not that the 2nd disc is bad, if anything it's just more of the same good stuff plus more awesomeness, but there's like a solid hour(or close to it) of story that you READ when you switch discs. This is because there are massive changed throughout the world that you have to be caught up on. I love reading, and I love stories, so for me this was fantastic. It helps that the story is actually amazing as well, if it was crap then that hour would be torture. Of course you have in-game scenes the whole time, but it's narrated and you can't skip forward.

[Crimsoncross]

It depends on the statics. For planche, I strongly recommend it. For front lever, at least for the first few months yes. For the others, again, for at least the first few months yes. It is hard work, and it takes your body time to adapt. You'll find that you make good progress that way, as strange as it may seem.

I'll have to try this out. I don't know how I'll be measuring my progress though. Should I start by going 100% and then the rest of the day half of that, or how? I have no idea.

As for the planche, I'm barely in the frog stand heh. And I don't think it's too good, it just doesn't feel right. I think there are 2 ways to do it, I'm doing the one that appears in the article the Coach wrote. I tried doing the other one in which you put your knees like behind your triceps, just above your elbows, behind your arms though, not to the sides like the other one. I tried this one and it felt close to a tuck planche, too hard. I'll try to upload a video of it today and see if you guys can comment on it.

As for Xenogears, it's not that the 2nd disc is bad, if anything it's just more of the same good stuff plus more awesomeness, but there's like a solid hour(or close to it) of story that you READ when you switch discs. This is because there are massive changed throughout the world that you have to be caught up on. I love reading, and I love stories, so for me this was fantastic. It helps that the story is actually amazing as well, if it was crap then that hour would be torture. Of course you have in-game scenes the whole time, but it's narrated and you can't skip forward.

I see. I have no problem with reading either. In fact what I liked the most about rpg's was the story. They were mainly love stories. FFX had an ok story and the soundtrack was fantastic. FFIX had an even better story in my opinion and it even made me feel sort of heartsick (don't know if that's the word). It just sort of "hit me" haha.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

Please some body edit the topic on gtg and use of videogames for rest periods!

[Crimsoncross]

Please some body edit the topic on gtg and use of videogames for rest periods!

lol.

[Joshua Naterman]

Videogames should only be used for rest between workouts, not sets. UNLESS YOU ARE PLAYING STREET FIGHTER! That can be done between sets. It also builds character, and thumb-eye coordination! (and possibly myopia)

[Alvaro Antolinez]

[Blairbob]

Oh and in the 3-5 minutes that you are resting between each set doing FBE, can you do any other kind of exercise in the meantime? Like for instance I'm doing HSPU on the floor against the wall, can I do a pulling exercise while I am resting or is this not recommended?

During sets of FBE, I generally do a push movement, wait 15-20s, then a pull, wait, then a core movement and rest 3-5m.

It saves on time. It's not exactly optimal, but it would be nice to get done before the cows come home.

Imagine 9 sets with 3-5m in between. That's 18-30m of rest vs 6-10m. It's not exactly that cut and dry because generally if I was to do FSP+FBE during a day I will wait some time in between and a bit of time after the FSP to do any assistance work or lower body strength. I could probably do push, pull, core, leg or switch the last 2 but I don't like it. There some who might say I should not tax the core before lower body, especially considering some push and pull gymnastic movements will tax the core in the meantime (lever work, lever pullups, PPPU's, L-PU, anything requiring a hollow body, etc).

But in the statics, do I have to always do 50% of what I can?

For Steady State Cycle, it is 50% of max.

With GTG, you do not do an exercise at 100%. Think 50-70%.

[Joshua Naterman]

Pay attention to what blair said about GTG! 70% is really too high to be working GTG. You should be doing something like 20% of the volume you'd normally do in a set for each GTG set. You should only GTG exercises that you can do at least 5 smooth, perfect tempo reps of. So if you can do 6 pull ups, you should be doing one pull up for each GTG set. GTG is all day, many times. 6-10+, depending on the intensity, and for 4-5 days out of the week. One pull up done 11 times, 5 days out of the week is 55 perfect pull ups a week. If you're normally doing 3 sets of 5 twice a week, you've just doubled the total work. Doubling isn't the goal, I'm just trying to point out the difference between a conventional work out and greasing the groove. That larger amount of work is the reason you have to keep the intensity and volume so low per set. It is replaced by extremely high frequency.

[Crimsoncross]

I don't know what SSC is...

Yeah I know that GTG isn't 100%, that's the point of it.

It saves on time. It's not exactly optimal, but it would be nice to get done before the cows come home.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Taking 18-20 minutes of rest for every workout and for 1 type of exercise just seems stupid.

But for example, I want to work on the FL and the PL. Could I do (in my case) maybe 90% of the time I can hold the tuck lever, rest 90-120 seconds and then go do the frog stand, and do 5 sets of this?

[Joshua Naterman]

You could do what you're describing for the lever and frog stand, but the same rule applies. Before you try to hold longer, make sure that your hold is PERFECT for whatever time, 14s for example.

SSC=steady state cycle. It means doing the same thing without changing for several months. It works best with the statics. Example: you can do 18s tuck front lever and frog stand.

SSC for this: 6 sets of 9s for each. You could do 9s tuck FL, 45s rest, 9s frogstand, 45s rest, repeat 5x. You'd do this for 8-16 weeks, however long it takes to do it all absolutely perfectly for at least a few weeks straight. It is a lower intensity, and therefore higher frequency, version of what I do for my FL. I do essentially use the SSC style, but I use a higher intensity, closer to 70-80% of my max hold. I can hold a perfect flat tuck FL for at least 45 seconds, so I use 30-35s work sets. It takes more rest between sets and I can't do it as many times per week, but I get great results, My body has always responded better to slightly higher intensity levels, so I am not surprised. For planche I stick with 50%. That's just a tough one to develop and injury potential is very high if you don't play it safe.

TO give you an idea of the progress you can expect from SSC, whether lower or higher intensity:

I was working with a spotted floor planche, using bands to take off about 55 lbs. I was using the tucked position for 17-20s per set, 5 sets. I decided to see how this strength was translating over, so I tried to do an unspotted planche on ground. I could hold a5 s flat tuck! On P-bars I can do 4 flat tuck planche push ups. Not bad, eh? I don't do that much, of course, because my body hasn't been scaled into that level of effort yet. I'd get hurt if I tried. You will build a LOT of strength without realizing it.

Front lever: First off, this has always been my baby. It seems like I am meant to own the lever. I've been working SSC with 28-35s sets on flat tuck FL for two months or so. I have gone from being shaky past 20s to being rock solid on all but my last set or two right to the end. In two months time I've gone from not being able to hold a proper straddle FL to holding a 15s nearly perfect straddle FL this morning. Notice that I am not considering myself ready to train the straddle directly! I will continue to work my flat tuck for a while, and in a month or two I might start doing one of my middle sets as a straddle for 10s. When I can hold a really solid, sub-maximal 20s I will start training straddle directly.

I can mostly only speak from my own experience since I haven't really trained anyone with this stuff, but I'd suggest that you follow a similar training path. It works really well.

[Crimsoncross]

You could do what you're describing for the lever and frog stand, but the same rule applies. Before you try to hold longer, make sure that your hold is PERFECT for whatever time, 14s for example.

I can hold a perfect tuck FL for almost 60 seconds right now, maybe in the low fifties, and the frog stand I can hold it almost 40s I think, but I still can't do it with straight arms, not even for 1 second. This is all crappy, and it's because lately I have been very terrible at organizing my time; I have a lot of time in my hands but I go to bed very late and wake up somewhat late too most days, so I haven't been able to train as I would have liked, and the FS is the least that I've done. Organization has just been terrible lately, I don't know what the hell's wrong with me.

SSC=steady state cycle. It means doing the same thing without changing for several months. It works best with the statics.

I see.

Example: you can do 18s tuck front lever and frog stand.

SSC for this: 6 sets of 9s for each. You could do 9s tuck FL, 45s rest, 9s frogstand, 45s rest, repeat 5x. You'd do this for 8-16 weeks, however long it takes to do it all absolutely perfectly for at least a few weeks straight. It is a lower intensity, and therefore higher frequency, version of what I do for my FL. I do essentially use the SSC style, but I use a higher intensity, closer to 70-80% of my max hold. I can hold a perfect flat tuck FL for at least 45 seconds, so I use 30-35s work sets. It takes more rest between sets and I can't do it as many times per week, but I get great results, My body has always responded better to slightly higher intensity levels, so I am not surprised. For planche I stick with 50%. That's just a tough one to develop and injury potential is very high if you don't play it safe.

Yeah, that's seems too low of an intensity for me. I definitely don't like doing anything less than at least 70% with these kinds of methods, I like to "feel" my workouts.

TO give you an idea of the progress you can expect from SSC, whether lower or higher intensity:

I was working with a spotted floor planche, using bands to take off about 55 lbs. I was using the tucked position for 17-20s per set, 5 sets. I decided to see how this strength was translating over, so I tried to do an unspotted planche on ground. I could hold a5 s flat tuck! On P-bars I can do 4 flat tuck planche push ups. Not bad, eh? I don't do that much, of course, because my body hasn't been scaled into that level of effort yet. I'd get hurt if I tried. You will build a LOT of strength without realizing it.

Front lever: First off, this has always been my baby. It seems like I am meant to own the lever. I've been working SSC with 28-35s sets on flat tuck FL for two months or so. I have gone from being shaky past 20s to being rock solid on all but my last set or two right to the end. In two months time I've gone from not being able to hold a proper straddle FL to holding a 15s nearly perfect straddle FL this morning. Notice that I am not considering myself ready to train the straddle directly! I will continue to work my flat tuck for a while, and in a month or two I might start doing one of my middle sets as a straddle for 10s. When I can hold a really solid, sub-maximal 20s I will start training straddle directly.

I can mostly only speak from my own experience since I haven't really trained anyone with this stuff, but I'd suggest that you follow a similar training path. It works really well.

Yeah that is good, I wish I could do flat tuck PL pushups...

[Joshua Naterman]

I would be cautious despite your enthusiasm and preference for "feeling" your workouts. You WILL feel it at 50%, but I really do think you'll get better long-term results by taking it slow and steady in the beginning.

Regardless, no matter what you do, stay steady with it. Do NOT try to go for improvements week to week. Only try to improve your form, that's it. This is a hard mindset to adopt for anyone coming from a weight training background, but it is absolutely vital. I have found this out the hard way. You're welcome to do the same, I am just trying to convince you to learn from my experience and not your own. If you learn from your own you'll just have similar stories of injury, time off, and frustration as you try to build back up to your previous bests. It is not the way I recommend to go lol!

[Crimsoncross]

During sets of FBE, I generally do a push movement, wait 15-20s, then a pull, wait, then a core movement and rest 3-5m.

So when you train like this, what it is for? And what % do you do of each exercise?

[Joshua Naterman]

I dont' know what intensity he uses, but because he is using 3-5 minutes of rest you can guess pretty accurately that he is doing 3-5 reps, so high intensity. No matter what the intensity is, this kind of work is to save time. Instead of resting between each set, blair is doing a few exercises that are using different muscles back to back. That way he cuts his workout time by 2/3. Pretty good way to spend time, don't you think?

[Crimsoncross]

I dont' know what intensity he uses, but because he is using 3-5 minutes of rest you can guess pretty accurately that he is doing 3-5 reps, so high intensity. No matter what the intensity is, this kind of work is to save time. Instead of resting between each set, blair is doing a few exercises that are using different muscles back to back. That way he cuts his workout time by 2/3. Pretty good way to spend time, don't you think?

Yeah, that's kind of what I've been doing the last 2 days, although I took more rest between exercises and I only did 2 exercises.

For example I did 9 reps of what I believe are called XR elevated rows, which are these (my feet are a little bit higher than the rings when I do them though, as opposed to this picture):

But with the rings almost in a chinup grip (palms facing what would be me if I were standing) instead of the neutral which the one in the picture is using; and 5 relatively-close-stance HeSPU on the floor to target my triceps more (they were actually harder with this stance), with 90-120 seconds of rest between each exercise. I did 5 sets I think, maybe 4.

I did as many as I could with perfect form, which was 1 rep before failure/max/jerking I think.

But I feel that maybe I took too much rest between exercises. What do you think?

[Adriano Katkic]

Instead of resting between each set, blair is doing a few exercises that are using different muscles back to back.

Excuse my lack of erudition on the subject, but how does that affect creatine recovery? Does it compromise full recovery and thus strength gains? If not, should it be practiced with integrated training or dynamics only and why?

[Joshua Naterman]

Instead of resting between each set, blair is doing a few exercises that are using different muscles back to back.

Excuse my lack of erudition on the subject, but how does that affect creatine recovery? Does it compromise full recovery and thus strength gains? If not, should it be practiced with integrated training or dynamics only and why?

The long rest is to allow ATP/Creatine Phosphate regeneration. This is only of primary importance when working in the strength range: 3-5 reps, 10-30 seconds(maximum, for a highly conditioned strength athlete, for many people this starts off at 20 seconds max).

What do you mean by full recovery? In terms of creatine regeneration between sets, it allows as much as is possible. In terms of from one workout to the next, that's purely determined by your nutrition and your rest.

By nature, integrated training tends to take longer per set, which means it's better suited for strength-endurance rather than maximal strength. It should be one of the cycles everyone who wants to build strength should go through. Integrated training can still be very focused on maximal strength work, but not to quite the same degree as single focused sets.

Don't overthink things, all you need to do is remember that if you're primarily working maximal strength, even if you cross into the strength endurance zone a little bit in the process, that you're going to need to rest more between sets. It's really that simple. To avoid wasting time, you can do one or two sets of other exercises that are using different muscle groups while you rest. This will require slightly more rest between set #1 and set # 2 of a particular exercise, but it cuts down on the total workout time, because 3 sets of 3 exercises is taking 15 minutes intstead of 40 or 45 minutes.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

I dont know if I get it finally, gtg will increase your maximal strenght or just train your nervous system to perform better the movement or both?

[Joshua Naterman]

More emphasis on nervous system adaptation, though almost any work can improve maximal strength to some degree, however small. GTG done properly can improve work capacity quite a lot.

[Adriano Katkic]

I apologize for going offtopic, but...

@slizzardman

The thing is, I want to build a solid base of maximal strength. I was and still am practicing integrated training since November, but in light of your answer to my previous question, I am starting to question that. I don't want to dabble in strength-endurance with gymnastics for now. Does that mean I should separate static work from dynamic? If so, I presume that would mean at least 4 hours of rest between them and doing statics half the max time of accumulated 60s work.

Since I'm doing KBs 2 to 3 times a week, I wonder in what measure (if any) does that affect muscle fiber conversion regarding my gains from gymnastics? I stated above my primary goal for now is to build maximal strength. I would rather drop KBs for time being then gymnastics.

P.S. Sorry once more for going offtopic and harassing you with questions, but your knowledge and willingness to share it is inspirational as it is enjoyable to read.