A Discussion over at Catalys Athletics

I rarely post, since as a beginner amongst experts my attention is focused on gleaning information; but I feel tailor-made to join this conversation.

In my youth I played capoeira, and trained relentlessly to great effect; the benefit of youth. As I approached my late twenties my method of training wrecked my body, plaguing me with injuries and regressing my skill. Enter Coach Sommer and his marvelous book...

I began utilizing Coach Sommer's method immediately following my thirtieth birthday. I was inspired by the Gregors and the Marlons of the website; they amazed me with the capabilities to perform instant crosses and levers, but that wasn't me. When I began, it looked a little more like this:

Tucked back and front levers

L sit

Frogstand

Jumping muscle ups(practically testing my vertical)

Windshield wipers

Deck squats

and so on. In other words, I started at the beginning.

Now I am thirty-one years of age, my weight fluctuates between 180-185 lbs., and it looks like this:

Full front and back levers

Middle split hold

Straddle planche (3 seconds)

Muscle ups plus 55 lbs.

Side lever pulls

Single leg squats

This is in no way meant to be braggadocio. I am literally shocked at how incredibly fast my strength and physique have changed. I am well set to be BETTER THAN I EVER WAS. All this at an age where athletic retirement seems to be the norm, I'm looking forward to crosses and malteses, to triple twisting layouts and double backs. I am well aware that in the Internet age, it's "videos or it didn't happen", so please look forward to one from me in the next week or two.

Coach Sommer, PLEASE take as much time as you need with your next offerings. What you've done for me is extraordinary, and no matter how long the wait, my progress will be exponentially faster with your guidance.

niftyvt said:

The Virginia Tech Pole Vaulting Team trains with us 2+ times a week. And after talking with them they say their numbers have significantly increased since they started . . . like breaking school records types of increase!

Many of the track and field athletes came into the gym at Univ of Maryland as well.

Also, when we set up our end of the year homeshow in the comcast center and the mens BBall team is there practice and randomly try to get up on rings and do stuff... their failures are hilarious. Everyone underestimates how hard it is to hold themselves in support.

Looks like my account still works.

Good discussion here although I don't think you can compare an average gymnast to an average weightlifter. "Average gymnast" connotes some degree of specificity whereas average weightlifter can range from the guy doing S&C for his sport or the average Gold's Gym nutswinger.

I have always supplemented gymnastics movements in my programs but have long been suspicious of replacing the bulk of my principle strength routine with bodyweight-only movements. Besides slizzardman, who else is a larger (200+) lb. grappler that has used the GB program to good effect? I would like to look at your logs so I could ask better questions here. Thanks.

BTW, my comments/questions on this discussion are here, and my log is here. Always happy to learn.

This is a hard one to answer, because there is no central authority in the Crossfit world. Sure, there's Crossfit Central, but all they do is post WODs.

Actually, that one figure would be Greg Glassman.

They don't enforce trainer education, they don't even require that people opening a Crossfit facility have hardly any experience with Crossfit, and that's one fo the big criticisms of the "program." You can't even call it a program without quotes due to the lack of regulation

Where as it used to be an affiliate could be started with a stipulation that the L1 would be obtained within 6 months, it is now required. As well, L1&L2 tests required a written test to be taken and passed as they are trying to have it ASCII certified.

The program in itself is broad, but there are probably as many flavors of CF as there is Ice-Cream, and what is done at the affiliate level stems anywhere from planned out ahead a month or three in advance to picked out of a hat.

I've seen the videos of L1 and L2 seminars, and unless they have changed they still are sub-par. I hate to be so rough on Crossfit, because the concept is obviously a great one, but the implementation is so ragged... I mean seriously, L1 is crap. You're not fit to teach at that point. Haven't had enough experience with advanced progress. I barely consider myself advanced enough to try and teach basics like the supports and early static progressions. All I can teach is what I myself have done. Sure, I can talk about all kinds of shit, but I can't honestly teach it because I do not yet know what it takes to accomplish a full planche, for example.

Gant: Even with 70% BW work and 30% weightlifting you're doing a good amount of weightlifting. I wouldn't lose your lifts entirely, I would just space them out more to accomodate the BW work. Especially until your elbows let you do XR PPP, wide RTO dips, etc you will honestly need some of the weighted work just to maintain your strength. There is always a period of transition, and in my opinion a grappler shouldn't completely lose the weightlifting. After all, you do sometimes lift a living, breathing weight during your sport.

Slizman do you think BtGB, sprinting a few times a week, and backsquat and deads once a week could put together a pretty solid program for people looking for real life random task effectiveness?

It'd be a good start, but I think squatting and DL every 10 days or so and powercleans and/or KB swings once every 10 days, evenly spaced so it's like power cleans + KB swings, 3 days later squats, 3-4 days later DL, 3 days later KB swings + power cleans, etc. On squat days change emphasis on front and back squats each time, just as powercleans and KB swings are changed. This is just a template for heavy stuff. There's nothing wrong with using really light KB swings and powercleans as warm up for other things like sprint work, that way you get skill work and an effective warm up. We're talking really light though, like 25-30% of work sets. Maybe KB snatch or clean until powerclean gets strong enough to be a practical WU. Even on these days, at least 50% of the total workout should be BtGB. You can always switch which comes first each time the day comes up to emphasize different adaptations.

You can't get the most out of your training without some explosive work, the PC and KB swings/snatch/cleans are really great tools for that. This is just basics we're talking about, and not done to excess like I see in many CF WODs. 5x 20 cleans is ridiculous as work sets. KB swings lend themselves better to endurance work since they are much less technical than PC. The worst thing you can do is try to develop endurance primarily by using a highly technical skill like power cleans. You end up building terrible habits, namely losing focus on form in the quest for numbers. KB swings are pretty hard to screw up as long as you keep your back straight and don't armbar yourself at the bottom.

The only aspect of strength completely missing from this is bent-back strength, which is different. There you're getting into sandbags and whatnot, though you can use Jefferson curls to some degree. In fact, you can do pretty darn heavy partials. I used to do 100 lbs for 12-15 reps with a 100 lb dumbbell at my chest front-squat style, curling to touch my elbows to my pelvis and then straightening up. Even with this missing, the combination of spinal loading from the heavy lifts and body tension from BtGB will still build a good base here.

Hey, what about Big Dave's training? Is he gymnastics only because based off the videos Ido posted, unless that dude has not very good "cardio" (for lack of a better word) his ability to control his body and external loads is really impressive and I would bet that he could attack almost any random real world task and own it. If his cardio does suck, I bet adding sprints could close that weakness.

I think of things like say building a rock retaining wall - moving lot's of heavy and awkward stones, moving wheelbarrows of sand, moving 50 bags of ice melting salt from a truck to a storage cage, putting an aluminum fishing boat onto an SUV, carrying awkward pieces of lumber, climbing a tree to hang a bird house, climbing some scaffolding with a tool belt on, moving furniture, scaling a 25 foot pole to get onto a deck because you forgot your keys for the front door(because that happened to me), etc. judging by the stuff I've seen I bet he'd find it easy to do those kinds of tasks.

The only other stuff would be like running away from a crazy dog or mugger, or having to catch a kid before he walked into traffic, sprinting would take care of that real world stuff though.

Thoughts?

Slizman do you think BtGB, sprinting a few times a week, and backsquat and deads once a week could put together a pretty solid program for people looking for real life random task effectiveness?

It seems to help me maintain my lower body strength and speed levels even on late and worked much better last year when I was implementing it more proficiently and staying on track. Maintain as in a 350BS, 400DL@165. Nothing stellar, but I'd argue it wasn't bad and I'm sure I could bump those numbers up with more focus to the point of approaching 400BS, 450+DL.

Sure, I can talk about all kinds of shit, but I can't honestly teach it because I do not yet know what it takes to accomplish a full planche, for example.

I have no problem doing a hard day's work of moving stuff or labor for 8-12 hours or so when I take on work such as that on the side. I have yet to try hiking yet to see if I could still rock on, though I think I'd be fine. If anything, I think long jogs, distance running would be something out of my ability nowadays (though I should really fit in some running in there somewhere).

One qualifier that I would like to make is that BtGB is basic strength only. It doesn't include things like handstand presses and other gymnastic work. A gymnast who is able to perform multiple HS presses is going to have good bent-back strength as well. Big Dave seems to have a variety of gymnastic abilities, and I would not be surprised if it was hard to find a random physical task he was not very capable of achieving.

"Big Dave seems to have a variety of gymnastic abilities, and I would not be surprised if it was hard to find a random physical task he was not very capable of achieving."

That's what I thought, judging by the way he moves himself around and the way he moves those other people around as external loads, it would appear that there's really not a random physcial task that would phase that guy.

Does anybody what training he does on top of what would be found in BtGB?

Called out. Somewhat ironic since I call plenty of people out myself.

In any case, the most I've done with stuff from this forum is dabble. Being 41 and usually hovering around 260 makes many of the basic skills impossible to develop without me making radical changes to my body composition and preferred way to workout. I'm not willing to drop weight training and my other work, but I am willing to make room for some of the GB based training and keep an open mind.

I've been meaning to pick up Coach Sommer's book for some time. I will order it next week. I do have the extreme rings, and reviewed them in a few different places.

I respect Chris Sommer and Ido Portal, and have spent time reading material both have written.

I will take some time to catch up on this forum, and look over the early WODs, and will be back to ask for some guidance about how to proceed when I'm ready to go.

For the record, my almost 7 year old daughter is a gymnast. I'm at her gym about 3 hours a week. I have asked in the past, but they wouldn't allow non-gymnasts to train there, and at the time I just wanted to be able to do some kettlebell work in the corner and use the pull up bars and stall bars. It's interesting to watch the young girls and boys develop strengths and skills far beyond their peer group, especially in this day and age, and I've told acquaintances with young sons that it's the best thing they could do do develop a high level of broad physical prowess and prepare for more traditional sports, if that's the way their boys would like to go.

Shaf,

I respect that.

If I can recommend something from my experience of working with bigger guys on advanced bodyweight skills:

concentrate 30-50% of your time initially on weak links conditioning, or else your journey will be stopped earlier than you think.

Specific wrist work as a preparation to handstand, l-sit and planche work.

External rotators, scapula retractors, trap-3 work.

Active flexibility of the shoulders in particular.

Elbow prep specific work before increasing volume on straight arm work.

In my training center I actually have certain rules such as:

if you are not able to perform a clean set of 10 in the wrist push ups (my version), your handstand work is limited to 5 min a day.

What do you do when the rest of the gang continue to work on handbalancing? you go back to more sets of wrist work until the issue is resolved.

I have many other such rules I work with, and I believe they protect my students every day.

One only needs to take a quick glance on this forum, and the amount of posts about injuries, to realize how many people are not approaching their training with the necessary preparation, although it has been highlighted by Coach Sommer from day 1.

Good luck,

Ido.

Just take a look at how much prep work slizzardman has to do

Ido Portal said:

One only needs to take a quick glance on this forum, and the amount of posts about injuries, to realize how many people are not approaching their training with the necessary preparation, although it has been highlighted by Coach Sommer from day 1.

Yes. I am a prime example of this, unfortunately lol! I would like to say that I am also becoming a prime example of how quickly that prep work increases abilities. I haven't even been working on much pressing besides wall HeSPU once a week and all of my pressing abilities are improving, probably due to all the prep work I am doing. External rotator work and scapular work is making all the difference for sure. Even my pulls aren't suffering from lack of work. My slow muscle up, while weaker than when I made the video, actually feels much better now.

Ido, I know you're busy as hell, but do you think you could show a quick rep or two of your version of the wrist push ups sometime? I remember the description, I have that thread about wrist pushups bookmarked, but it would be nice to see it in motion if you get the chance. When you say sets of 10, I assume you mean from a full push up position and not from knees on the ground. Would you say this rule applies regardless of bodyweight? I'm assuming you will, but I'd like to know for sure.