Hello and some advice please

Hi everyone,

I have a couple of quick questions on how to best spend my monies.

First the about me: I am 32, female, and have lousy fitness. I can't do a pull up and can barely do a pushup. I can however on occasions hold a plank for about a minute and am up to about 95lbs on my squat, 145 on my Romanian dead lift.

I'm 170 lbs and about 35% bf at 5' 4. Fat loss is my primary goal but so is getting fit for what I hope will be a fairly imminent pregnancy. Hubby and I are practicing hard there

The last time I did anything on rings it was pushups with feet on a box during a jiu-jitsu class. This resulted in a twinged shoulder that persisted for a few months. Seems to be better now but I am wary.

I tried the frog stand that I saw in Coach's planche progressions article and it was umm, interesting. :roll: I have some work to do that's for sure.

So my question, I want to get the book but am not sure whether it is worth getting the rings immediately. If I can spread the cost that would be preferable. Given my current state of not a lot will there be ample ground work to keep me busy developing basic strength for the first few weeks? Or are there applications of the rings that can be helpful immediately?

I did see the link for the pvc parallettes which I intend on making asap as they look helpful and cheap to make.

Thank you in advance, any other starting advice is gratefully received. I've been poking around on various threads but its going to take a while to read through the archives

Victoria

Pull up negatives, or just pull ups in general, will be easier on the elbows on rings then on a bar.

Victoria,

The only application for rings I would recommend for you right now is rows. Don't attempt to do pushups on them until you can do them on the ground with good form and a good number of reps.

You can also do overhead dumbbell presses and the lat pulldown machine or pullups on a gravitron machine. Practice lunges and bodyweight squats. There are many resources online that will show you proper form. These are all good exercises to develop your basic strength in your current situation.

Have a clean diet and be as generally active as possible. It will be much easier for you to handle your bodyweight for the stuff we do here if you get your bf% down first.

trianglechoke7 said:

the lat pulldown machine

Ive heard repeatedly from reliable sources (crossfit being one) that the lat pulldown has little carryover to actual pull ups. I wouldnt risk wasting time with it.

Amebix138 said:

Pull up negatives, or just pull ups in general, will be easier on the elbows on rings then on a bar.

Good to know, thank you.

trianglechoke7 said:

Victoria,

The only application for rings I would recommend for you right now is rows. Don't attempt to do pushups on them until you can do them on the ground with good form and a good number of reps.

Heh, no worries on the pushups. Learned that lesson pretty quick. I am currently doing pushups on an incline, I set my smith bar at the lowest setting which is about knee level and do them on that.

trianglechoke7 said:

You can also do overhead dumbbell presses and the lat pulldown machine or pullups on a gravitron machine. Practice lunges and bodyweight squats. There are many resources online that will show you proper form. These are all good exercises to develop your basic strength in your current situation.

I work out at home so no gravitron sadly I do have a pretty good set of DB's, Kettlebells, and an oly bar set though along with a Marcy Smith machine that has some nice pulley accessories (I don't use the smith bar for squatting, I am hoping it'll make a nice ring mount though ). I've been reading Starting Strength for the free weights, I do my back squats properly. Various Dragondoor peeps for the KB's. Oh have a treadmill too but the two attempts I have made at starting the Couch25k plan have given me an annoying hip pain that I can't figure out. (Swampsville doesn't have such cutting edge things as ART practitioners)

trianglechoke7 said:

Have a clean diet and be as generally active as possible. It will be much easier for you to handle your bodyweight for the stuff we do here if you get your bf% down first.

I am a Lyle McDonald fan for my nutrition, been doing his Rapid Fat Loss plan for a while, down 20 lbs there but I want to get a bit more active than that allows.

Am I understanding you correctly that I should hang off on any of the BtGB until I lose more?

Victoria,

I forgot about what you wrote above when I was typing. I just kinda went into "type standard advice for a completely detrained newbie with little to no resistance training experience" mode. Forgot that you were doing stuff with a barbell already.

Kudos on the SS, Lyle McDonald, dragondoor stuff. All first rate sources.

Since the BtGB static exercises are harder on the joints than common exercise prescriptions, I think it would be a good idea for you to get into the 20's of bf% before you start those.

Amebix138 said:

trianglechoke7 said:

the lat pulldown machine

Ive heard repeatedly from reliable sources (crossfit being one) that the lat pulldown has little carryover to actual pull ups. I wouldnt risk wasting time with it.

It's not a waste of time if you are a female whose current excess body fat makes it highly unlikely that she can attempt a negative pullup. If she can, then good for her. But most women that are carrying over 40lbs. of extra bodyfat cannot.

trianglechoke7 said:

Victoria,

I forgot about what you wrote above when I was typing. I just kinda went into "type standard advice for a completely detrained newbie with little to no resistance training experience" mode. Forgot that you were doing stuff with a barbell already.

Kudos on the SS, Lyle McDonald, dragondoor stuff. All first rate sources.

Since the BtGB static exercises are harder on the joints than common exercise prescriptions, I think it would be a good idea for you to get into the 20's of bf% before you start those.

Heh, no worries, thank you for the frank advice. I think I'll bring some KB work back in for my cardio. Won't aggravate my hip and the swings should help my core which is decidedly weak. I've been struggling somewhat to find a routine that keeps me interested and motivated to work out. I've always been in awe of what gymnasts can do and what little we did in high school I loved. If there had been more gymnastics and less hockey and netball (UK style) I probably wouldn't be struggling with my weight so much. That long lost love is what brought me here.

@Amebix: trianglechoke7 is correct, even negatives are very difficult. Most of my strength is in my legs, my upper body not so much. My bench is pretty pathetic and as said above pushup's are minimal, I can just about do 1 or 2 on my toes if I am fresh. I can knock out 3 sets of 10 on the incline though so I am improving.

Victoria,

You should focus on the easiest push/pull/core/leg progressions utlizing the killroy70 template. For static work, you will probably find that substituting the plank, reverse plank, straight arm support and perhaps inverted hang are sufficient for now. At this time, there is no need for more advanced static work. As in all things, patience and moderation are key.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach Sommer said:

Victoria,

You should focus on the easiest push/pull/core/leg progressions utlizing the killroy70 template. For static work, you will probably find that substituting the plank, reverse plank, straight arm support and perhaps inverted hang are sufficient for now. At this time, there is no need for more advanced static work. As in all things, patience and moderation are key.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thank you very much. My book just arrived about 10 mins ago so I am going to go and absorb it and then apply your advice.

Much appreciated.

One of the benefits of rings is that it can be easier with elbow and shoulder issues when doing pullups.

You can also use the rings as an assist when working air squats or SingleLegSquats by holding them. You'll want to have your base foot underneath the rings, not behind or in front of them. It sounds like you can probably do an airsquat just fine with that leg strength.

Victoria, instead of working on the frogstand, I would recommend on working on something we call the planche lean. From a pushup position with your arms vertical you will try to lean forward so your shoulders lean forward over your hands.

Please be careful with these as quite often trainees will find the position they can hold at most and then have their arm collapse. Smashing your nose is not fun. Try it first on your knees if you have to.

Blairbob said:

One of the benefits of rings is that it can be easier with elbow and shoulder issues when doing pullups.

You can also use the rings as an assist when working air squats or SingleLegSquats by holding them. You'll want to have your base foot underneath the rings, not behind or in front of them. It sounds like you can probably do an airsquat just fine with that leg strength.

Victoria, instead of working on the frogstand, I would recommend on working on something we call the planche lean. From a pushup position with your arms vertical you will try to lean forward so your shoulders lean forward over your hands.

Please be careful with these as quite often trainees will find the position they can hold at most and then have their arm collapse. Smashing your nose is not fun. Try it first on your knees if you have to.

Thank you, yes air squats are easy enough. Single leg not so much, having seen a lot of the pictures in the book now I definitely see where the rings will be helpful for even some of the simpler moves. I'll be ordering a set tomorrow most like.

Thank you for the planche lean recommendation, that looks like a great stepping stone to the frog stand which I am definitely finding a little tough. (I found some video's by slizzardman which were most helpful)

I am no expert on BtGB but I've done 2 years of serious Yoga & am now a yoga Teacher.

I'd say for the kind of goals you have Yoga would be fabulous. Suryanamaskars / Sun Salutations. Do 12 a day and see the energy & toning that happens. It will make you strong and COMPACT / LEAN.

If you want to get seriously "STRONG" & bigger like GYMNASTICS MALE strong / want to do Gymnastic Skills, then you can do the Statics / Dynamics (from the Book). Some of the statics are similar to advanced yoga moves (which I myself cant do as yet).

Amebix138 said:

trianglechoke7 said:

the lat pulldown machine

Ive heard repeatedly from reliable sources (crossfit being one) that the lat pulldown has little carryover to actual pull ups. I wouldnt risk wasting time with it.

Only partially true. When I was in high school I only did pulldowns. Once, I could do the stack (about 180 lbs.) at a bodyweight of about 168 lbs. for 2-3 reps, I was able to do 2-4 pullups, at least. I don't think it is a wise way to train for more than 4 reps, but it is a good tool to get you started.

Lat pulldowns are best used for therapy, not strength training.

If you have or buy elastic bands you can use those for pull up assistance. You'll need the really stretchy good bands from elitefts or Iron Woody. From what I hear, Iron Woody is the best.

You can also try assisted negatives on pull ups by using a chair and putting your feet on it, kind of like an L-sit pull up but you use your legs to help control your weight on the way down.

Whatever assistance method you use, don't try to pull back up until you are able to do some good sets of 5-6 good 4 second negatives all the way to dead hang. Instead, once you're done step up a stool, chair, or something else to get you back to the top of the pull up.

Ease into these, they will be tough at first!

Edit: As Coach says, simple hangs may be enough at first. If you can't hold your bodyweight on the bar in a dead hang for 30 seconds, build up to that before you mess with assisted negatives.