Prerequisites?

Blairbob said:

Umm, this is really seminar material in the first place. I've been thinking lately on it but have yet to take any action.

I understand that a lot of the joint & mobility work he does was Seminar stuff so that can be kept 'Covert' until his next book comes.. (Elastic / Liquid Steel™) where he outlines all that.

But cant we at least get a clear outline on what Supports/ Holds are pre-cursors to the FSPs that are already there in the book - Atleast give us the stepping stones to the basic FSPs ?

Hmm, good point. I'll need to take a looksie and determine what material from the seminar corresponds to BtGB, but I can't say right the final decision.

That's basically what i was trying to say BlairBob, can you run it by Coach and see what he thinks?

I will start a thread in Graduate Studies and we can sort of debate and poll it. It would be a hassle to PM it, especially since my PM box is nearly full even when I've cleared out a lot of the messages that I don't need anymore.

Hi, this is my first post here, i've been reading this forum and the book for a couple of weeks, tomorrow im buying my first pair of rings =D, anyways...

Adriano said:

Should these prerequisites (planks, holds, supports) be treated like FSPs; held for 50% max effort until 60 cumulated seconds for entire SSC? When do they become obsolete?

It is stated on this topic that previous FSP variations are held for maintenance for 30 seconds before actual work and I've read on some other topic it was 60 seconds. Which one is correct?

When doing FSP work sets, I rest 30 seconds between sets. Should I rest more?

i have the same question, i cant do the prerequisites hollow and arch hold, and reverse plank for 60s. Should i use SSC protocol until i can reach 60s on those, and, meanwhile, i train the PB support and plank, at 50% max effort? (that would be 2 sets of 30s for me). This would be my FSP training:

Hollow and Arch - 4x15s

reverse plank - 4x15s

Plank, PB support and chin up grip dead hand - 2x30s

should i add something else, like HS or Head stand?

Thanks for your help!

Yes to all of the above. SSC style is the best way to achieve the pre-requisites. You should definitely do both HS and HeS work. You don't need a ton, and if there was one you were going to do less often it would probably be HeS just to save time if you need to.

You should be able to run your pre-requisites as something of a circuit so that you don't have to stop hardly at all.

Something like PB support, hollow, reverse plank, HeS, chin grip hang, plank, arch, repeat 3 more times (dropping the PB support and Chin grip, or replacing PB support with HS on the last two sets if you like).

That serves two purposes. One, it's sort of a check point. If you're working so hard that you can't do that without added rest then you are either in terrible condition or you are working too hard. If you aren't pretty new to physical exercise you would definitely be working too hard if you needed a 20s rest between every other hold or something like that. 15-30s between rounds is better but still shouldn't be necessary. The time it takes you to move from one position to the next should be all the rest you need. This should lead to a very fast and productive warm up. If you aren't sure about whether conditioning is the problem, you shouldn't need more than 6 weeks to be able to do that routine without added rest. If you aren't making noticeable reductions in your needed rest time every other week at least (and this should be happening every week if conditioning is an issue) and are still needing a good bit of rest you may just be working too hard.

Working the positions consistently is more important than meeting that time goal in the beginning. Yes, you need to meet the time goals, but first just find a routine you can easily perform for your warm up without being tired for the workout. If that means doing just two rounds of that at first, that is ok. You will soon be able to add a third round, and then a fourth to your warm up and if you wait until whatever the current warm up is becomes easy then you should be fine when you add the 3rd or 4th round.

Got a few more questions. Please let me know if I am going into seminar material or just missing the answers from previous posts and similar topics.

I just tested myself yesterday after 6 week recovery from left elbow tendonitis during which I did SLS, GHR and HeS sessions.

The results are:

75s plank

134s reverse plank

77s hollow hold

50s arch hold

56s XR support, no RTO (no place to do PB support)

104s chin up grip dead hang

110s stomach to wall HS

50s L hang

53s German hang

43s L-sit PB low

65s frog stand

29s tuck FL

62s tuck BL

I plan on doing prerequisites for 1X60s, except arch hold and XR support for 2X30s. After some 6 weeks I'll retest the last two.

HS 1 minute of balancing off/on the wall or few sets on the wall for time, not sure yet.

Now, with L hang and GH I have some issues. My abs fail during L hang and, as I understand, L hang is prerequisite for FL. My lats have the strength to hold it for longer, but my abs don't. Is this the limiting factor, or it's supposed to be this way? Should I do L hang AND FL, or just L hang for, say, 3X25s?

During GH, I have other issues. My shoulders have the strength to hold it for longer, but there's a psychological barrier; I kinda start panicking about my recently hurt elbow and just come down. I have similar problem with flat tuck BL; I get in the position and I feel like I unintentionally don't give myself into it with full effort to protect my hurt elbow and start dropping from it after some 8 seconds. I should probably train those lightly for few days to convince my brain it's ok, since I don't feel anything funny about elbows. Then I'll try to test them again.

L sit is clear, 3X22s.

Frog stand and tuck BL were interrupted by someone at my doors (what a strange coincidence) and these are not my max times. I am strongly convinced I could hold them for some additional 10 seconds each. Should I just do 1X60s of each or something like 2-3X30s? I didn't even tried advanced frog stand because it gave me tendonitis the last time i tried it, so I was planning to try it after a month or so doing this.

I would work the L hang a few sets, maybe 3, then move on to tuck FL.

There is no need for bravado and ego to cause injury. Stay on your path.

One hint, don't let go and drop off the rings from a german hang. I find the sudden release isn't pleasant. It's better to just pull back to basket hang or lower your feet down on something and release the pressure off slowly.

Use chairs or barstools in lieu of parallel bars. Tables or sawhorses work too.

Blairbob said:

One hint, don't let go and drop off the rings from a german hang. I find the sudden release isn't pleasant. It's better to just pull back to basket hang or lower your feet down on something and release the pressure off slowly.

I know that doing this helps me feel much less vulnerable. Before I slowly released pressure I would always feel like if I was going to hurt myself it would be when I released the hold. I sometimes wonder about why that is. I guessed its because maybe on a small level you actually contract hard and pull yourself up to get clearance to let go of the rings even though in your mind it just feels like "letting go". Like a defense mechanism to keep you from allowing yourself to just fall.

What about frog stand and tuck BL? I can hold them for 60+ seconds, but don't plan trying advanced FS and flat tuck BL yet, since I'm recovering from tendonitis. Should I do them 1X60s or aim for 3X30s? Also, GH before or after BL?

Blairbob said:

I will start a thread in Graduate Studies and we can sort of debate and poll it. It would be a hassle to PM it, especially since my PM box is nearly full even when I've cleared out a lot of the messages that I don't need anymore.

How is this going? Has anything come out of this for us non-graduates?

if you have time to dig into this forum I think you'll gather many helpful info.

I try to make a concise summary from my understanding and experience.

first goal:

6min total, 1min each, no rest between:

-plank (feet shoulder height)

-reverse plank

-hollow

-arch

-pb support

-chin up grip hang

work toward this with the usual 50% max hold time with perfect form using just as many sets as you need to complete a 60sec aggregate time on each position.

once ready to progress, I advise you to use those as a warm up for this.

start working basics FSP to 60sec aggregate

- wall hand stand

- l-sit (tuck obviously)

- support (on parallel bar first, then when that's become easy advance to ring planks and then to ring support)

- german hang (360 pull in and out, meaning go as low as you can then pull yoursel out of it).

start working basics FBE at the easiest progression to 5*5 rep/set

- ring push ups and rows

- deck squats

- tuck hanging leg lift

from there start adding other more advanced FSP and FBE

-tuck back lever

- tuck front lever

- pull ups

- dips

- windshield wipers

- archups

obviously you need to work on your joints as well, wrist pushups and stretches from knees, shoulder band routines, hips mobilization (lunges, adductor flies, hips extensions) ankles exercises and stretches, shoulder bridges and spine stretches.

depending on your age, background, starting level, etc, but it took me months for all of this.

@Swarovski: While this is an excellent summary of currently released material, I was referring to the other prerequisites to BtGB

Thanks , Nick F

German Hang before BL in WU.

I still haven't gotten around to it, I think.

BB -

Slizz -

Yoga -

Have a look at this Google Docs Diagram.

Its just a bunch of blocks showing / mapping Pre-reqs for the 'STARTER' / Initial Progressions/ Variations of the exercises from BtGB.

Can we work together on this and make this a One stop shop thats clear & not very confusing.

We can avoid any BtGB Book Information & the GB Seminar info. Just simple small normal stuff that are building blocks / pre-reqs towards getting to the INITIAL progression of each: PL, L-Sit, FL, BL..

I just started it with some blocks. Thoughts?

Its a nice way to display the information, the only problem, and i think we all see it this way, is that putting this out there like that requires Coach Sommer's explicit ok. Without that i'm not at all comfortable filling in the blanks.

Exactly.

Mr Brady said:

Its a nice way to display the information, the only problem, and i think we all see it this way, is that putting this out there like that requires Coach Sommer's explicit ok. Without that i'm not at all comfortable filling in the blanks.

Okay. Coach - What say?

Brady, BB - Why not you guys ask him?

Especially, for people who have the BtGB & are super beginners that get lost & injured because they are not clear/ sure on the direction to take before starting off.

guys,

here's my point of view, for how much it can count...

In sports endeavour, probably like in everything else, there are no magic formulas or potions, as coach has stated:

"Start taking care of business today and tomorrow will take care of itself"

"If all of us waited until we were perfect at something prior to attempting it, most of us would spend the majority of our time doing a great deal of nothing"

For scaling WOD as well as for designing your own routine, you have to test yourself with what you can perform with bearable form and you can sum up sufficient workload with it, you know, for instance if performing a single pullup is an epic struggle, you may have to train negatives or band assisted in order to have the right volume or better keep focusing on rows as a pulling ex. for now.

It's pretty clear that core strength is mandatory for all thing gymnastic and FSP development in particular. so training FL or PL without having solid L-sit and shoulder full ROM strength is just not time efficient, you're gonna get stuck at some early stages.

Focus on what you can do, work hard and make consistency your best ally, monitor your progress, adjust your plan accordingly when the cycle comes to an end. It's all about periodization like in any other sport. macrocycles-mesocycles-microcycles. Set goals as far as those are challenging yet reachable within the given timeframe if all it matters is finding the shortest route to a specific goal.

Anyway I agree that coach should publish an errata on prerequisites or something, it took me ages on this forum and a real gymnastic class to gain some understanding, I paid good money for a book and a dvd set after all, which left me wandering at least. Though, having seen me around the gym for some time now, I've gathered first hand advice from proficient gymnasts.

Probably in 2nd edition. Dunno.

Blairbob said:

Probably in 2nd edition. Dunno.

Is this coach's definitive answer on this subject? Or are we still waiting on it?

The May seminar is coming up, hopefully there will be an opportunity to discuss it with him then.

Just a quick question: if i have a max hold of 20 seconds of advanced tuck planche (for example), i should do 6 sets of 10 seconds, right? How i'll do this in warm up without kill myself, if i have others FSPs to training?

I'd suggest just doing 3-4 sets. When your max hold is 30s you can do 4 sets of 15 for the full 60s. Right now I think you'll find that going for 3-4 sets works much better.