Opinions on this...especially from Coach Sommer.

[Guest ilove2workout28]

Just to let everyone know, I'm NOT trying to start some war, just want to know what peoples opinions are, and the difference in methods. This is from a crossfit website from a Coach there: "Front Lever:

On the rings, pull to an inverted hang and lower straight body as SLOWLY as you can. Repeat for ten to fifteen reps.

It doesn't matter whether you have to pull to the inverted hang in a tuck or not.

Do this a couple of sessions each week. Always work as slowly on the negative as you can.

Gymnastics moves are learned from negative or eccentric, slowed to static, to, eventually, positive or concentric.

This is an age old progression and super effective - considerably more effective than Sommer's or the Powerathlete's approach. The lat soreness you'll generate is indicative and impressive. You'll get more pull-ups through this progression as well." Also this was stated: "Yeah, it's an opinion formed through having learned, and taught for years, ALL the ring strength moves.

The negative, to static, to positive progression is ancient. It is the natural progression of body weight movements. Think about it - is it easier to lower through the cross than to hold one? Of course it is. Is it easier to hold the cross than pull-out? Again, of course it is.

As a general pedagogical rule, cutting across all fields of endeavor, working from easier to harder is more effective than harder to easier.

I can also attest that the muscles, muscle groups, and contractions used in the eccentric, static or isometric, and concentric variants of a movement are WAY more related, i.e., have greater applicability to acquisition of hold or pull-out, to one another than other progressions or exercises do.

Even the strength moves I acquired with dumbbell assistance exercises (planche, planche press, inverted cross, and inverted cross pull-out, elevator, etc.), I focused on negatives reps three or four to one over positive or concentric movements.

The value of negatives, or eccentric contractions, is an academic dispute that has sucked in weight training communities and not gymnasts or gymnastics coaches.

Moderns have made a complicated mess of learning bodyweight exercises." Thanks for any thoughts.

Daniel

[Gregor]

It's like bb coach knows more about sprinting strength training then sprinting soach itself hmmmm :roll: :roll: ....

Of course negatives are part of a training but not as much as this "coach" talks about. You must combine excentric, cocentric, static adn negative moves as part of your training and include them CORECTLY.

What part of negatives of iron cross is he talking about? To the iron cross or to the hang? if to the hang, then this is meaningless till you are not doing from hang press to cross. If just to the cross, then it's already done in decline before the hold....

His doumbell exercises are just an auxiliary exercises and nothing more...Muscles are working diffrently when you are on the rings and when you're doing it with weights (remember the science article about maltese and its progressions).

Do we do them? Yes we can. I for myself do them at preseason time to strenghten muscles " in my case for maltese", but you wont achieve a maltese simply by doing them!!

It doesn't matter whether you have to pull to the inverted hang in a tuck or not.

It matters...front lever is not just from inverted hang, this is just the easiest full front lever version...

So if you just want to do negatives, of course you can just decline and save energy for declines, if not then...

This is an age old progression and super effective - considerably more effective than Sommer's or the Powerathlete's approach. The lat soreness you'll generate is indicative and impressive. You'll get more pull-ups through this progression as well." Also this was stated: "Yeah, it's an opinion formed through having learned, and taught for years, ALL the ring strength moves.

First: what references about Gymnastic Strength Training™ does he has? Maybe close to nothing?

Second: what strength ring moves? Maltese, inverted maltese, maybe some D-valued elements, E or F? If some people can do basic iron cross at first time they have ever tried it (I was on of them), and I can tell you harder versions are MUCH MUCH harder then the letter in code of points says...

Third: he clearly does not know coah Sommer's strength training and its progressions and what philosophy has he.

The negative, to static, to positive progression is ancient. It is the natural progression of body weight movements. Think about it - is it easier to lower through the cross than to hold one? Of course it is. Is it easier to hold the cross than pull-out? Again, of course it is.

Learning iron cross is not just trough negatives. You must learn how to hold them too. For pull up to support it's used just in spotting versions and on a pully system.

And who said it's learned like that? Mr. Noone and Mr. Nobodyelse!

Iron cross progressions include:

Negatives,

Pully system (also with added weights), decreased lever,

Spotting (most important),

Jumping into iron cross,

Doing an Iron cross without any help (important just as spotting),...

Again nobody said negatives are bad, quite contrary they are well used in gyms.

Why does coach sommer lead you step by step? Just ask Slizzardman what can happen if program is to quick adapted to your strength level and not thinking about your connective tissues!

I THINK I CAN DEBATE ABOOUT THIS, DUE TO TALKING ABOUT RING WORK!!

[Neal Winkler]

(1) There is no scientific evidence to back the claim that doing negatives only is better than Coach Sommer's progressions.

(2) Therefore, we are left with personal experience and the testimony of coaches.

(3) Coach Sommer, in my estimation, has more authority over this than someone I have never heard of and who as far as I know has never produced a single successful athlete in the sport of gymnastics. Don't you think that if doing negatives only was superior that Coach Sommer would of figured this out over 30 years of tinkering with his athletes? This guy, whoever he is, may very well be right (it's possible) but I would need far more evidence than his testimony before I deviated from Coach Sommer's methods.

(4) Gregor makes a great point, even if negatives only was faster, faster is not necessarily better because it may not allow for an adequate adaptation of connective tissue.

EDIT: Ah, I just searched for this and I see that it is not from A coach, but THE Coach.

Still, Glassman hasn't produced the athletes in gymnastics that Coach Sommer has.

[Gregor]

You will never hold maltese, just by doing negatives...

[Neal Winkler]

Well, reading over it again he did not say that he did only negatives, but he does say mostly.

[Guest ilove2workout28]

To trianglechoke7, you said that you looked for the person, and it's not A Coach, but THE Coach; what did you mean?

[Neal Winkler]

The poster of the information is "Coach," ie, Greg Glassman, founder of Crossfit.

[Nick Van Bockxmeer]

crossfit doesnt teach strict pull ups or muscle ups. Therefore they are probably the best authority to learn from ever. :roll:

rgH_ZoMOht8

(language warning)

apart from what has already been said, its worth noting that negatives can be very damaging to the body. If you are doing an eccentric that you cant even come close to handling in concentric you will be doing a lot of damage. Probably more damage than the strength you will gain. Putting a beginner on rings and telling him to negative crosses is foolish. Look at Coach Sommer's athletes. Their abilities are amazing and they are strong enough to be able to handle doing this day in day out. Learn from the very beginning. Then when you get to the end you will be better off.

[Cole Dano]

I find a few things about the post disturbing. Without needing to pretend to have any expertise in the FL.

First he supports his claim that his method is superior due to the deep lat burn.

Getting a muscle to burn has nothing to do with gaining strength! This Coach should read some of Pavel's excellent books on strength training.

As for doing solely concentric work. The thought of a beginner (e.g. me) trying to do a full FL via falling is very unsound, and an injury waiting to happen. Sure eccentrics have their role, but they must be controlled! If you can't do an exercise at tempo, its best to find one you can.

Another misnomer in the fitness world is muscle soreness. When i was a kid we were told its was due to Lactic Acid. Now many believe its due to micro-tearing which is considerably higher in eccentric movement. This is something i know very well from yoga, as it is working eccentrically. I had a period while working the 'advanced' stuff that i was basically sore all the time. Honestly i don't think thats a good thing. So soreness doesn't always mean good workout. To does mean your tearing up your muscles.

However what disturbs me the most was the need to call out Coach Sommer and PowerAthletics by name. Its one thing to give out a possible method and leave it at that, but it shows no class to single out the others guys selling rings by name in order to self promote. Esp when one of them has a proven track record and is and acknowledged expert in the field.

[JL]

I recall reading an article about strength science which determined that nervous system (EMG) was higher with concentric than static or eccentric. So, that would mean doing a lower front lever progression for more reps would be favored over full front lever using eccentric, based on that study. Another study showed concentric was better for increasing concentric, static was better for static, and eccentric was better for increasing eccentric strength. Eccentric training seems to provide the greatest overall strength increases, meaning total percent increase of concentric, static and eccentric, but I never saw a study having eccentric training beating concentric training at improving concentric strength. With what Gregor says, it appears his coaches have used all three. Probably the safest choice.

[JL]

Even the strength moves I acquired with dumbbell assistance exercises (planche, planche press, inverted cross, and inverted cross pull-out, elevator, etc.), I focused on negatives reps three or four to one over positive or concentric movements.

I would like to see the proof that he achieved all that, period.

[rubadub]

but I never saw a study having eccentric training beating concentric training at improving concentric strength.

Here is one on negative only training.

https://www.rpfit.com/pdf/Negative_Case_Study.pdf

No doubt some will find flaws in it, as with all studies! Or question its authenticity completely.

CONCLUSIONS

After thirty years of teaching high school weight training in a high intensity fashion, I have learned to expect a 10-15% strength increase during a semester (16 weeks). The 15% improvement is generally from the students that are supervised the closest.

The negative workouts averaged 11 minutes per session. From a time standpoint, negative workouts are a very attractive way to train. In a high school setting, where having enough time to get everything done with athletes is a problem, negative workouts may be the answer.

The eight football players showed an average strength increase of 25% from nine negative workouts. Inclement weather forced the closing of school for several days, reducing the workout days from twelve to nine. The next step is to train a group for 16 weeks with a negative protocol and document the results. The next question to answer is at what point do the workouts need to be reduced from two times per week to three times every two weeks.

I like negative training and am surprised it is not more popular. I do them when I am not feeling my best as I feel I can get a decent workout with little effort. On many forums people all jump to recommend negative chinups/pullups for beginners and they work really well, then they seem to forget all about them.

I think negatives are avoided for 2 main reasons,

1 -since people overdo them and end up with terrible DOMS. I am still not convinced about the theory that the negative causes more DOMs. I think people try to get the same intensity and so overdo them, if you go to failure on negatives you are almost guaranteed to be sore the next day -so simply do not do it!

i.e. If you hooked up some machine that told you how stressed your muscles are I think you would breeze through negatives, like if you went to failure on 10 regular chins it might only take 15 negative only chins to mimic the same response as those 10, and I think this would be a breeze to most people. The problem is if you went to failure on the negative only reps I think you would have put far more stress on the muscles than going to failure on normal ones. e.g. You might be able for 25 negative only chins to failure while 15 might have equalled your 10 normal ones, so by doing 25 you have destroyed yourself, and gone well beyond your usual failure.

2. -They are far too easy to do, so people do not feel they are doing a real workout -like how some people might like DOMS to "know" they worked hard, or people want to at least break a sweat or go 1-2 reps prior to failure. Being too easy then goes back to point 1 again.

[Gerald Mangona]

Even the strength moves I acquired with dumbbell assistance exercises (planche, planche press, inverted cross, and inverted cross pull-out, elevator, etc.), I focused on negatives reps three or four to one over positive or concentric movements.

I would like to see the proof that he achieved all that, period.

Before Glassman was known for Crossfit, he was a competitive athlete in gymnastics. Not sure if that was in high school or college. Crossfit's famed workout, "Fran", was actually designed by him because he was trying to duplicate the physical exertion of a two- to three-minute ring series as part of his conditioning.

As for the theory on using negatives in lever training, doesn't Coach Sommer already advocate doing so by including 360-degree and Multi-plane work in the programming? I never thought that the FSP's were meant to be the only programming designed to get you to a front lever.

I do disagree with Glassman's citing of Coach Sommer's work without seeming to fully understand Coach Sommer's theories on programming.

Either way, a pissing match this does not need to be. Right or wrong, Glassman has always been a controversial figure. Let us not fall into the trap of feeling emotionaly attached to having anyone sign on to our own beliefs. If you're here, you probably believe Coach Sommer knows what he's talking about. Let's hear his response and move on.

I think we're all more interested in training the front lever than debating theory. In the unlikely event that any one belief proves itself be overwhelmingly more effective than another, I'm sure its efficacy will become known soon enough.

[Jason Stein]

Just ask Slizzardman what can happen if the program is too quickly adapted to your strength level and not ... your connective tissue!

THIS

Also, the context --- the intended audience, the original conversation --- of the quoted post should not be forgotten.

There was a period in which Glassman was introducing rings and gymnastic training techniques to an audience that had only used Nautilus machines and done bodybuilding.

best,

jason

[John Sapinoso]

First impressions:

DOMS and CNS fatigue will impede progress from doing too many negatives. SAID principle, you need to do statics at the specific joint angle, not just pass through it. It's a helpful tool, no doubt, one that many of us already employ but should not be the sole source or even majority of your work.

[Razz]

Front lever might be one of the few positions that's actually possible to attain through eccentric work only.. (when I say possible I mean that it won't take 10x as long as doing it other ways)