First post. First real workout template. Comments/Help pls

Good tidings and indeed hello. I've been following the forum for a while now and it has been an awesome resource for planning my new workout/finding the answers to almost every question. Many thanks right off the bat to the Coach and all the moderators.

A little background. I have been dabbling around bodyweight exercise for over a year now, getting to the point a little while back of organizing workouts and whatnot. I've been on a revolving 4 day cycle I slightly modded from Bodyweight Revolution(adam steer) with 2 light days, then 2 heavier days. The first heavy day I would do all simple static holds(Lsit, BL, FL, PL) about 6X10 for 60 seconds. The second day doing strength work. After a good 8 weeks I changed slightly just to keep fresh but still had little overall gains. I can hold a free handstand for about a minute fresh, but still cannot even do a HeSPU negative all the way down against the wall(not even remotely controlled after 1/2 way down).

Shorter term I'm looking to increase pressing strength, get to full BL and FL, and Hold a 30s L sit. My upper body is still very weak, so I may even have to simplify some of the work below to negatives and negative holds where I have to.

After looking over a lot of the workouts on the forum, this is what I came up with...a little ambitious, but I can always tone it down. I'm going to try for a 4 day a week program.

WO1 Tuck PL---Pushups---TuckPL

Adv. Tuck BL---Pull ups---Adv.Tuck BL

Tuck FL---Airborne Lunge---Tuck FL

Lsit---RLL stallbar(no weight)---Lsit

WO2 Tuck PL---Dips---Tuck PL

German Hang Pull

Tuck FL---NLC---Tuck FL

Lsit---Vups---Lsit

WO3 Tuck PL---Box HeSPU(neg)/or dive bomber Pushups---Tuck PL

Adv. Tuck BL---Chins---Adv. Tuck BL

Tuck FL---Pistols---Tuck FL

Lsit---Archups---Lsit

WO4 Handstand work

Adv. Tuck BL---Rows---Adv. Tuck BL

Tuck FL---GHR(neg)---Tuck FL

Lsit---RLL headstand(no weight)---Lsit

All integrated static work is half of max hold...possibly embedded as I feel more comfortable. Strength work following a 3s eccentric,1s pause ,2s concentric. With negatives doing a 3-5s hold then slowly going through negative. I'm going to try 3x3-5 for sets and reps. I was just not sure if doing 3x3 would be as good as doing a 3x5 of an easier version.

My warm ups and cool downs are still a little up in the air. I want to include

Wall Bridges

Wrist Pushups(have to do almost completely kneeling/i.e. almost no weight on wrists)

Some Dynamic stretching

Shoulder dislocates

Some German Hangs

PNF split stretching on a few days

Any suggestions/comments welcome and much appreciated.

-josh-

Welcome to the forum!

Ok, honest question, and please don't take this the wrong way. What do you feel is the advantage of your template over Coach Sommer's WOD's?

I guess I was thinking more of having a set routine for while, being that I don't have much strength to begin with, rather than trying a new workout each day. I was planning on throwing in a WOD every now and again anyway, but, to me it just felt like I'd have to not only mod the WOD to my level, but then actually learn the exercise before actually feeling comfortable enough to really focus strength wise on it. I do have time constraints with work as well as having a kid almost here, so I felt that a more set routine would be easier...i.e. could focus more on the tension,strength,etc. That being said, the WOD's will probably become more and more involved in my training as I get more strength. I suppose I also wanted to feel a small sense of accomplishment at creating a workout somewhat on my own for me.

Much appreciated for opening the dialogue .

-josh-

TANSTAAFL, the WOD is not a random workout every day but a rotation that does repeat, same as yours repeats only Coaches rotation is a little bit longer. It's the same rotation that Coach has created over 30 years of experience with thousands of his own athletes. His system has created the most well conditioned gymnasts in the history of the world.

As long as you have the book, any of his workouts can be scaled down to your own level. I know how you feel about creating your own workout, but truthfully, your progress will be much better if you followed Coaches template. If it wasn't so, he probably would of figured out yours already and be using it.

I wasn't aware they repeated. I will def. look at them more in depth. Is there a particular one I should start with or does it matter.

No, you can jump in at any time.

Start sooner than later, scale as necessary.

You can do basic strength and mobility pre-WOD. You'll see that often before a WOD you are supposed to use progressions that are easy than what you would use for the WOD.

Don't just jump into ring levers and strength. I learned the hard way. I like warming up with skin the cats and support holds but then again these are very simple for me so for some that might be alright and for others, it would be too much. Again, scale as needed.

If you have the time and inclination, you can work arch/hollow holds, L-sit (straddle-L/manna[MSH]) besides HS and press HS before.

Nice HS time. Since you cannot do a HeSPU negative, I would like to ask how is your competence with ring pushups and basic dips (be it on P-bars or a dip station or rings)?

Interesting, you can a 1m free HS but still consider yourself VERY weak in your upper body?

Are you long limbed or 6' or 200lbs+?

For your WU and cooldown, most of that stuff is in mine, before and after. It gets a bit tedious at times.

To also note, much of this stuff was before whereas currently my workouts are somewhat limited as I'm trying to stay off my right shoulder. Very boring. I would like to incorporate some stuff very soon but am wondering if I should just stay completely off versus trying to work around it. Till then, ce la vie.

Right now I'm doing a lot of ring type holds on a bar, sometimes using my homemade rings, but they are not very high so I am limited there. My dips and ring pushups are both very weak...I have trouble with regular floor pushups doing 3x5 with a 3-1-2 count and can only do negative ring dips and 1 full ROM dip on bars. I'm 6ft and about 160lbs....not too wirely.

So maybe I should just start scaling WOD's and adding more pre-WOD as I get stronger. Instead of my whole steady state integrated routine perhaps I will just add some of it before the WOD's. Everything's still up in the air until I actually start doing it and see how it feels(hopefully tomorrow)

Thanks for the response....

-josh-

If you think you're ambitious about workouts, check out the first page of my log LOL

If you ever need a laugh, just check near the first few pages XD Even I laugh at it.

Do you have a background with any sort of work besides work outs? Like... rock climbing, working at a hardware store, manufacturing pillows?

Ok, i've decided to start the WOD's scaled down to whatever I can do tomorrow, then add more to it as time goes by/if I feel I want to focus on certain things more than the WOD's are at any given time. As far as other work I used to study kung-fu but it's been many years since I did that. As of now I work as an aide at a school for kids with emotional/behavioral problems as well as watch another kid after that job. So my plate is pretty full as far as time. I am applying for pillow technician as soon as I get my cert. in.

-josh-

My first WOD in the bag. We'll...it was scaled down so much I don't know if it counts, but I did

10s tuck BL to 4 Negative Pulls

12s XR support hold + 5 head to ground push ups(not sure what these are called...kinda hindu pushups except I just do them like box HeSPU with feet on the floor)

12 s tuck FL to 5 wipers

I did all sets 3 times and except for the negative pulls did the 51x tempo for the most part.

I managed about 5 bridge wall walks with some difficulty.

Hopefully I scaled this down ok. any feedback always welcome. Especially negative

-josh-

head to ground push ups

We call these piked pushups sometimes as the point is to keep the shoulders over the hands and hips as close to being over the shoulders as possible.

Welcome to the forum. I also just started doing the WOD and so far I think they are great. I had a routine going on but found it tiresome and repetitive. The good part is that the WOD offer variety which helps fight off the boredom. again welcome to the forum

Thanks blairbob for the info, I was always curious about that. Hopefully I won't have to worry about that for too as I will progress to the next pressing level.

Thanks saber2, and a belated welcome to you as well. Yeah, I was going to start a steady state cycle and was convinced to at least try the WOD's for a while by trianglechoke and others. I fig. I will just scale them down a lot and also start adding some other things as I can.

Second WOD...kinda weak due to a bad schedule on my part but completed...

4 rounds of

15s PB low hold on parallettes

4 neg chair dips

12s XR support hold(as I don't have access to PB bars or dipping station and am so weak in dips to begin with I felt trying it on chairs might end very badly)

almost forgot the wrist pushups but got them in, again with almost no weight on wrists, but they are feeling much better.

took 2m and change break in between.