Quick statics question

[Alexander Moreen]

You can split them up however you want

, as long as you get at least 2 sessions per week of each static you should still make progress. The advantage of doing them all together with minimal rest is that it makes it harder to go to intense on them.

[Joshua Naterman]

You COULD do that, but you would be making things far more complicated than they need to be. As you can see in my video, all the statics together will take 10-12 minutes when done properly and function well as a warm up. After that, you'll be ready to build up to the WOD sets, or whatever work sets you end up doing, through 2-3 easier sets. That's it, easy as that!

But, if for some strange reason you MUST try to split them up, keep the intensity exactly as if you were doing them all together. 2x per week is ok, but you really will get more out of 3-4x. The upside to the lower intensity is that you can have more frequent sessions without suffering any setbacks.

[Enchiridion]

The advantage of doing them all together with minimal rest is that it makes it harder to go to intense on them.

How can that be?

[Enchiridion]

You COULD do that, but you would be making things far more complicated than they need to be. As you can see in my video, all the statics together will take 10-12 minutes when done properly and function well as a warm up. After that, you'll be ready to build up to the WOD sets, or whatever work sets you end up doing, through 2-3 easier sets. That's it, easy as that!

But, if for some strange reason you MUST try to split them up, keep the intensity exactly as if you were doing them all together. 2x per week is ok, but you really will get more out of 3-4x. The upside to the lower intensity is that you can have more frequent sessions without suffering any setbacks.

The reason I thought about doing them separately, was because I would probably do "truer" sets, if you know what I mean.

For example, if I do l-sit, then PL, I'm going to be a little tired from the l-sit when I do the PL, but I don't mean tired as in exhausted because I'm obviously not doing the l-sit to failure or anything close, I just mean a little worked up maybe, so maybe I won't hold the PLas much as I would if I did it alone.

What I mean is I'd do them separately to do each one "fresh", but since the SSC intensity is low anyways, it probably doesn't matter doing them together.

[Joshua Naterman]

It SHOULDN'T matter. The reason I pair them the way I do is to minimize any impact from one to the other. I personally don't notice any trouble with the way I have it organized. If you try and to L sit, straddle L, and planche one after the other you are obviously going to have trouble! Paired correctly, you should have no trouble completing your FSP warm up with your correct hold times! Let us know how it goes if you start doing them this way, ok?

[Enchiridion]

It SHOULDN'T matter. The reason I pair them the way I do is to minimize any impact from one to the other. I personally don't notice any trouble with the way I have it organized. If you try and to L sit, straddle L, and planche one after the other you are obviously going to have trouble!

Wait a minute...so you are supposed to always pair your statics when you do them? Doing 3+ statics one after the other would be too much? When I read that Coach said you should do them "all at one time" I thought you had to do all 6 one after the other...that's why I was confused with that, thinking it would obviously be too much.

Let us know how it goes if you start doing them this way, ok?

Sure thing. Already the frog stand feels stronger, handstand too, although I'm training handstand a little harder than the others. It's still SSC but my sets last longer than the rest because I tried my max 2 days ago to train it separately and I found out I increased it by 20s.

[Joshua Naterman]

Great work on your handstand! That's a good increase.

You don't HAVE to pair your statics, if you want to do straight sets of each static before starting the next you can, but that's a time waster. I have gotten much better results and spent much less time by pairing as I've written and so I share with the rest of you! I would be very surprised if Coach felt that what I am doing and recommending as far as the statics go was wrong.

[Deft-Mastery]

You don't HAVE to pair your statics, if you want to do straight sets of each static before starting the next you can, but that's a time waster. I have gotten much better results and spent much less time by pairing as I've written and so I share with the rest of you! I would be very surprised if Coach felt that what I am doing and recommending as far as the statics go was wrong.

How exactly do you do your statics? I've just started doing them and I don't know which would be the best way to do them.

The book says to do them all at once, or at one time (something like that): how is this done? Should I do all the 6 basic statics without rest, one after the other, and then take 1 minute of rest or something, and then do them again? How is it done?

I've tried 2 ways, but I don't know which one is best. I've done 1: Simply do 1 static at a time (e.g. do the FL, rest like 2 minutes and then the BL, or do l-sit, rest 2 minutes and then PL, one at a time) or 2: Pair them. For example: 4 sets of 15s frog stand and tuck FL, with 1 minute rest between sets. In this second method of pairing them I don't know if I should do them like this, do 1 and then the other right away without rest and then rest 45-90s, or if I should do for example: 15s frog stand, rest 1 minute, 15s tuck FL, and so on. Which way is best?

[Joshua Naterman]

Watch my video "My FSP Warm up" or something like that on my youtube account. It's linked at the bottom of this post. That will show you how I do it, and how I would suggest you do yours as well. The most important thing is that you use 50% of your max hold time at the start of the SSC for a total of around 60s, and that your max hold time is a minimum of 20s in perfect position. You must train a position where you meet that criteria. If you don't, you will just be frustrated by your lack of progress and you will [probably] get injured.

[Deft-Mastery]

Watch my video "My FSP Warm up" or something like that on my youtube account. It's linked at the bottom of this post. That will show you how I do it, and how I would suggest you do yours as well. The most important thing is that you use 50% of your max hold time at the start of the SSC for a total of around 60s, and that your max hold time is a minimum of 20s in perfect position. You must train a position where you meet that criteria. If you don't, you will just be frustrated by your lack of progress and you will [probably] get injured.

Yeah. That's how I'm doing it, 50%, and I can hold anything except the straight leg l-sit (not advanced l-sit of course) for more than 20 seconds (more than 20 seconds of course, 30ish), and that's why I'm doing 20s sets of tuck l-sit (my max was around 40 something seconds the first time i tested it) because I'm working the core more that way rather than being forced too much in the straight leg one, which I don't like (the fact that I can't do it with good control yet).

I'll check the video then...

[Deft-Mastery]

Watch my video "My FSP Warm up" or something like that on my youtube account. It's linked at the bottom of this post. That will show you how I do it, and how I would suggest you do yours as well. The most important thing is that you use 50% of your max hold time at the start of the SSC for a total of around 60s, and that your max hold time is a minimum of 20s in perfect position. You must train a position where you meet that criteria. If you don't, you will just be frustrated by your lack of progress and you will [probably] get injured.

Ok I just saw your video.

The first thing I would ask is: why do you call the statics "warm up"? Aren't you supposed to also do them as a workout or something?

#2 is about what you said about retracting your shoulders on the FL. Do you have to do this on every variation of the FL? And is doing this (retracting your shoulders), like pulling yourself up as high as you can but with your arms straight? This is what I did last night, which I hadn't done before at all. It felt better and a little bit harder but I could still do the same times.

And, do you only retract your shoulders with the FL? Or do you also have to do this with the BL?

Another thing I wanted to say is that, the reason I do each static separately is because the book says that you should take 45-90s at the most of rest between sets when doing the statics in an SSC manner, but if I pair them like you do, I would do e.g. 15s tuck FL, then 15s frog stand, and then rest maybe like a minute, and by the time I do the FL again, I'll probably have taken more than 90 seconds rest, so that's why I was doing them separately one at a time.

Maybe it would give me more time if I only took 45s after the frog stand, but I don't know if this would make me too tired after 2 sets.

[Joshua Naterman]

Watch my video "My FSP Warm up" or something like that on my youtube account. It's linked at the bottom of this post. That will show you how I do it, and how I would suggest you do yours as well. The most important thing is that you use 50% of your max hold time at the start of the SSC for a total of around 60s, and that your max hold time is a minimum of 20s in perfect position. You must train a position where you meet that criteria. If you don't, you will just be frustrated by your lack of progress and you will [probably] get injured.

Ok I just saw your video.

The first thing I would ask is: why do you call the statics "warm up"? Aren't you supposed to also do them as a workout or something?

#2 is about what you said about retracting your shoulders on the FL. Do you have to do this on every variation of the FL? And is doing this (retracting your shoulders), like pulling yourself up as high as you can but with your arms straight? This is what I did last night, which I hadn't done before at all. It felt better and a little bit harder but I could still do the same times.

And, do you only retract your shoulders with the FL? Or do you also have to do this with the BL?

Another thing I wanted to say is that, the reason I do each static separately is because the book says that you should take 45-90s at the most of rest between sets when doing the statics in an SSC manner, but if I pair them like you do, I would do e.g. 15s tuck FL, then 15s frog stand, and then rest maybe like a minute, and by the time I do the FL again, I'll probably have taken more than 90 seconds rest, so that's why I was doing them separately one at a time.

Maybe it would give me more time if I only took 45s after the frog stand, but I don't know if this would make me too tired after 2 sets.

Deft, these are really good questions. There are a few really good reasons why the statics are treated as a warm up.

1. Many of the static positions rely at least in part on straight arm strength, which is basically biceps tendon conditioning. Trying to do a higher intensity workout with these positions is just asking for tendonitis and other problems. You can read many, many posts on this forum by people who have done this to themselves. I am one of them.

2. You're supposed to be doing sets of half your max hold, with a max hold of not less than 20s for every static UNLESS it is the very first progression. That means your minimum work set time should be 10 seconds of perfect holding, since you should be able to do a 20s perfect hold in the static you are working. Working any harder than that leads to injuries, like I said in #1. Because this is lower intensity, it is a perfect warm up. You'll work just about your whole body and get the blood flowing so that the muscles are ready to perform at their best in the work sets. Since this is how your statics should be done, why would you want to waste such a perfect warm up on a separate session?

3. Coach has all of his athletes do their FSP in their warm up.

About your rest concern:

You won't need as much rest as you think when you are practicing the FSP at the right intensity. I have found that I take a single 60s break after my second set of frog stand. I do straddle L and FL back to back and then I do German Hang and L sit. I find that 20s straddle L, 10s to walk over and to start 30s FL, 10s to walk over and start 20-30s straddle L, 10 seconds to walk over and start 30s FL, 10s to walk over and start 20-30s L-sit, 10s to walk over and start 30s German hang (my back lever work), and so on gives me plenty of rest. If my advanced frog stand doesn't come last, I'll take a 60s rest after my second 30s set, and that just so happens to be between pairs! I promise you it will work just fine.

As for shoulder retraction, FL is the most important place to retract your shoulders. It is exactly as you described it! You're doing it right. Yes, you should be able to do this with all variations. That's actually really important, because when done properly the FL helps protect the shoulder from injury but if you start to let your shoulders go forward you will no longer be building the strength in the scapular retractors to keep the shoulder girdle balanced between front and rear strength. The front strength will start to take over and injuries will develop. That is also why manna work is so important!

As for BL, no, full retraction is not part of the hold. You want to try and keep your shoulders near the middle of the joint and not all the way forward or backwards, even though you will be forced to roll them forward for quite a long time. Eventually, when you have built up a lot of strength, you could possibly do BL with retracted shoulder blades, but I don't know if that is actually possible or healthy! The most important part of BL is to try and not squeeze your arms against your body. The goal is to hold the position with a little space between your core and your arms. You want to think about doing the BL without your arms even touching your lats! It's tough and probably impossible for many people at first, but if you work at it the strength will come. The German hangs are a big, big part of building that ability, which is why you are not supposed to do any back lever work until you have a really good, easy 30s German hang.

The reason some of this isn't in the book is that Coach simply didn't realize just how much we did not know. It's hard to remember that really, really simple stuff in the gymnastic world is still a mystery to many of us who have never been a gymnast. With all the concentration on the book and the progressions, it simply never occurred to the production staff that this might be necessary! That's part of what this forum is all about! There is a second edition of BtGB in the works that will have the necessary updates.

[Leandro]

Hey Slizzardman!

When you say 30s easy german hang as a prerequisite for BL, you mean a german hang that is not fully extended? The stretch of the german hang can be graduated, and the more you put your chest in a vertical position, the harder it gets. I can hold a lot more time if I don't go to my max rom...

Also, how about working BL (basic and adv tuck) with palms to the sides on rings, while you can't hold a german hang for 30s??

[Joshua Naterman]

It's not a GREAT idea, but if you've been doing palms to the side and you feel ok, I guess that's on you. I don't endorse that, but that does NOT mean it won't be ok.

I absolutely mean absolute max extended ROM. It doesn't matter what that ROM actually is, as long as it is as far as you can go with discomfort but no pain. By pain I mean a very sharp pain or tearing. Dull burning or slightly painful stretching is acceptable, though you don't have to push yourself QUITE to that level if you don't want to. You DO have to be at the very edge between discomfort and pain, just before pain. You will find that as your German hang develops you will increase your ROM AND your hold time simultaneously. Until you are comfortable extending maximally into the German hang for 30s you should really just work on that. Once you get there, keep doing that for a few weeks before starting up BL training, and ALWAYS do at least one 30s German hang in your warm up or at the end of the WOD.

[Deft-Mastery]

Alright...I would just add: when should one start to do HSPU's (partial ROM obviously) with the wall? Should you wait until you can hold a handstand for x time, or can you start doing them right away?

Oh yeah and: is this the fastest way to master the statics? Or is this the safest but slowest way?

[Alexander Moreen]

Can you hold a wall HS for 1 minute? If so you can start working on them for sure. Have you tried one before? I'd just try one and see if you can do it.

[Deft-Mastery]

Can you hold a wall HS for 1 minute? If so you can start working on them for sure. Have you tried one before? I'd just try one and see if you can do it.

The last time I tried my max wall HS it was 50 seconds, this was like 1- 1 week and a half ago, so I don't know if I do. I think I probably could by now.

Yes, I've done a lot of wall HSPU's before, the first time I did them my max was like 4 and then a few days later I was doing sets of 5, but ever since I haven't done any.

[Deft-Mastery]

Hey slizzardman! What do you say?

[Joshua Naterman]

Personally, I couldn't do one single rep of a HeSPU to the floor until I had a 45 second wall handstand, and even then it was just one rep!

If you can do at least 1 rep then you should start doing them! There will be SOME progression you can do. After all, if you don't practice it you can't really develop the skill OR the strength that goes with it. When I first build up my HeSPU it took a lot longer than it should have, in my opinion, because I was doing it wrong. What I did was do 3-5 sets of that 1 rep 2x per week. It took me 2-3 weeks to get my second rep and I could do 3 reps after about a month. So, it wasn't too bad, but after that things really slowed down. Why? Well, I hadn't gained all that much strength and yet I was doing a LOT more work with those muscles.

Recently, I've been working on my overhead pressing and HeSPU. Here is my method, derived from a combination of PTTP and many turn of the century and before strong men, which (and whom) happen to advocate nearly identical methods, and here are my results thus far:

Method: As a part of my warm up, right after the FSP I have been doing 1 single set of 3 reps of overhead press with 140 lbs, full ROM squat with 230 lbs, 97 lbs 3" barbell bicep curl, 52 lbs weighted chin up or pull up (alternating every workout). As you can probably imagine, this takes about 90 seconds, mostly because of how cramped my space is. I have also started doing 1 rep of pressing up from a headstand to a handstand. I then follow the WODs with no extra work afterwards as of now.

Results: All of my abilities have been increasing rapidly. Yesterday for the first time I pressed up from the headstand to the handstand in about half a second! I didn't even feel like I had DONE anything! This is very exciting news for me, personally. Last week we had a WOD that required sets of 5 HeSPU at a 313 tempo and I successfully completed that. This was the first time I have ever even been able to do one complete set of 5 HeSPU at that tempo, and I did them all! The combination is magical.

In light of my recent experiences versus my past experiences, I'd recommend that you start doing just one HeSPU at the end of your warm up. You can probably do more than that, so one isn't a big deal. JUST one. Don't do another one at the end of the workout. I know it seems like this isn't enough, but it is hard to argue with results. If you can only do 1 HeSPU touching your head to the floor, do these with a little bit of head elevation by using books, and take away a book every other week or so. Do the handstand WODs when they come up, and consider this single rep as optional on the handstand WOD days. If there are no HSPU variations then I'd lean towards doing it, but if there are I would not do it.

Between what you will build through this practice specifically and what you will build through practicing the WODs regularly, you will build strength both in your HSPU and everywhere else more quickly than you think should be possible, and you'll feel great the whole time!

[Deft-Mastery]

Note: I prefer to call them floor HSPU's, because I don't put my head on the floor when I lower, maybe I just touch with the tip of my nose or something but I don't put my head; I don't do headstand pushups.

Well today I tried after maybe 2 months of not doing any floor HSPU's and I could do 4.

I was thinking of just doing them in the (I think) "classic" way: until I can do 5 sets of 12 reps easy, make them harder, or do the next variation, or do them free standing, and so on.

I was also thinking of pairing them with pulls/chins, but I don't know if doing them separately would be better. Time-wise I think it's better to pair them, but I don't know if you'll get better results doing them separately.

Did you see my other question about the statics?

[Joshua Naterman]

Note: Here, we tend to refer to them as headstand push ups because your head stops at the floor. The last time i checked, my nose is smack in the middle of my head. You can call them what you like, just understand that you will cause a lot of confusion when people read your posts.

As for development, I'm doing much better by following the WODs. One thing I would suggest is to do one single freestanding rep, starting from a headstand, at the end of your warm up. That's it. No more than that unless it's a handstand workout. No second rep before bed or anything like that. Every month you should be able to get away with elevating your hands another inch or so, and in less than a year you should be able to do a full ROM HSPU with ultimate ease.

I will also suggest that you start working the standing shoulder press almost the same way. I do one set of 3 reps with about 40 lbs less than my estimated 3RM, starting from the bar being on the shoulders. For me, that's 140 lbs right now. I am finding that working that full range of motion is very good for my other handstand work, AND it wakes me up and gives me a ton of energy in the workouts. I balance this with one set of 3 weighted pull/chin ups and 1 set of bicep curls. Same thing, just 3 reps. Getting that full ROM is important.

I answered your other questions, as far as I can tell. Your frog stand, FL, BL and German hang questions all have my opinion posted. What did I miss? I just re-read the thread and I don't see anything.

[Deft-Mastery]

Note: Here, we tend to refer to them as headstand push ups because your head stops at the floor. The last time i checked, my nose is smack in the middle of my head. You can call them what you like, just understand that you will cause a lot of confusion when people read your posts.

So you don't actually sit with your head and support yourself with it when you call them "head"stand pushups? That's what I want to clear, that I don't lower, get in a headstand, and then go up again, I just do them like you see Hitman doing them.

I answered your other questions, as far as I can tell. Your frog stand, FL, BL and German hang questions all have my opinion posted. What did I miss? I just re-read the thread and I don't see anything.

What I had asked was about training the statics in a SSC, if this was the fastest way to master them, or if it was the safest but slowest way? To maybe add to this, for example: would someone who is only interested in mastering the statics, and will only be training statics and nothing else, still do them in an SSC way? Would they still start with only doing 1 minute of total time for each during the whole day?

I ask because I think that the gymnasts here for example, go slower with them on purpose because they are doing other "heavier" workouts, so as to not get too tired or overtrained or something like that, you yourself say the statics are only warmup.

[Leandro]

So you don't actually sit with your head and support yourself with it when you call them "head"stand pushups? That's what I want to clear, that I don't lower, get in a headstand, and then go up again, I just do them like you see Hitman doing them.

If you look at the first progressions of HSPU in the book, coach refers to them as HeSPU, and the 4th one is kinda a transition, if you do elevating enough, you will do with a HSPU rom.

So, be it either just descending, or ascending (2nd and 3rd progressions), or even going down and up without supporting your head, it's still a HeSPU. A HSPU can only be considered a HSPU if you do it with full rom, get your neck to the same level of the hands.

At least that's how I see it.

[Coach Sommer]

(Regarding HeSPUs) ... I prefer to call them floor HSPU's ...

This is unnecessarily confusing to the other forum members and my preference is for you not to use that terminology on Gymnastic Bodies.

By definition a HeSPU is a half ROM HSPU. Whether or not your head rests solidly on the ground at the bottom of the rep or lightly touches is inconsequential and has no bearing on the ROM performed.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Joshua Naterman]

Note: Here, we tend to refer to them as headstand push ups because your head stops at the floor. The last time i checked, my nose is smack in the middle of my head. You can call them what you like, just understand that you will cause a lot of confusion when people read your posts.

So you don't actually sit with your head and support yourself with it when you call them "head"stand pushups? That's what I want to clear, that I don't lower, get in a headstand, and then go up again, I just do them like you see Hitman doing them.

I answered your other questions, as far as I can tell. Your frog stand, FL, BL and German hang questions all have my opinion posted. What did I miss? I just re-read the thread and I don't see anything.

What I had asked was about training the statics in a SSC, if this was the fastest way to master them, or if it was the safest but slowest way? To maybe add to this, for example: would someone who is only interested in mastering the statics, and will only be training statics and nothing else, still do them in an SSC way? Would they still start with only doing 1 minute of total time for each during the whole day?

I ask because I think that the gymnasts here for example, go slower with them on purpose because they are doing other "heavier" workouts, so as to not get too tired or overtrained or something like that, you yourself say the statics are only warmup.

Ah. Ok. As for the SSC, for probably everything except for FL and L sit, yes it is almost certainly both the fastest AND the safest way. In fact, for Manna I think it's the ONLY way, but I don't know that for sure. FL COULD be approached from more of a strength perspective, but it's still not a great idea. You'll be too tired to get the most out of your WODs. Remember, this is a system that is meant to go together: FSP and WODs together. So, in that sense, SSC is absolutely the fastest way as well as the safest for everything. L sit I tend to say that SSC is the best way to go, but this one is heavily affected by flexibility, so flexibility training will help a bit.

As for the HeSPU, you don't HAVE to stop in a dead headstand. It is a little harder if you do, but that's certainly not required. You just want to barely touch the ground with your head. No need to actually rest on it! The headstand reference is really a range of motion marker. As you start elevating your hands you will get closer and closer to a full ROM HSPU.

LOL I see Coach just explained this in less words.