Beginner workout (new)

Hi

I have just read Coach Sommer's book "Building the Gymnastic Body" - very good book.

I'm still not quite sure about how to train. I have read through the forum and through some of the logs but it seems like most of you are very skilled and have more advanced programs - but maybe it's just me.

I would be glad if some of you could critique my program.

I'll be training M/W/F

In the beginning I'll seperate FSP and FBE and later I'll do the integrated stuff.

My FSP and FBE will both be done with the steady state cycle.

A little info about me and my goals:

I'm 18 years old and from Denmark. 2 years ago I started bodybuilding/strengttraining in a gym. Half year ago I stopped because my teammate stopped and then I decided to do my training at home.

I do some cardiotraining too - normally three times a week on my bike.

Saturday I ride motocross.

My training plan for the week will look like this:

Monday: Interval training on the bike(30min. - 90 min.) and train

Tuesday: Rest (Work)

Wednesday: Interval training on the bike (30min. - 90 min.) and train

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Long ride (60 min. - 120 min.) and train

Saturday: Motocross

Sunday: Rest/tumpling/skill work

Maybe I'll change my working day so I work on monday and then I can have a rest day on friday so I'm ready for my motocross on saturday.

Goals

Running: 3200 meter in 12 min.

Cycle: Ride 60 km in less than 120 min. (average speed of 30 km/h)

Gymnastic: Doublle front flip, back flip, doubble flick, front flip with 1½ twist to back flip.

Strenght: 100 push-ups, 2x bodyweigth deadlift, 1,5x bodyweight squat, 90 kg benchpress, do one HSPU, one muscle up, one OAC, one Erbs.

Gymnastic skill: Obtain a planche, front lever and manna, human flag for 10 sec

Motocross: Top 10 overall next year - get in top 3 in one race.

I'll shift between workout 1 and 2.

Week 1: M (1) W(2) F(1)

Week 2: M (2) W(1) F(2) and so on.

Workout 1

Warm-up (5-10 min.)

FSP: (60 sec.) Rest: 45-90 sec.

L-sit

Front lever

Manna

Planche

FBE:

3 sets of 3-5 reps

2120 or 3130

Push-up/pull-up

V-ups/Deck squat

Muscle up

Stretching:

Will be like this: http://agt.degreesofclarity.com/stretching/

Prehab:

Wrist

Shoulder

Workout 2

Warm-up (5-10 min.)

FSP: (60 sec.) Rest: 45-90 sec.

Back lever

Straddle-L

Planche

Manna

FBE:

3 sets of 3-5 reps

2120 or 3130

Dips/curls

HSPU/row

HLL/SLS

Archups/GHR

Stretching:

Will be like this: http://agt.degreesofclarity.com/stretching/

Prehab:

Wrist

Shoulder

How much rest between my FBE?

How does it look?

I'm not going to comment on your workout, I'm just going to say this: not everybody here is very advanced (I am not, for example). And even better: instead of designing your own workout, you can follow Coach Sommers' Workout of the Day (WOD). These are posted four times a week and in one complete cycle of WODs (which takes a couple of weeks) you effectively train everything you can think of and more (pushing/pulling/legs/core, both dynamic exercises and maximal strength exercises).

The workouts as they are posted are quite advanced but with the help of the book you can scale down exercises to their easier variations (for example, if the WOD calls for ring dips but you can't do them, do chair dips instead).

I too was planning to create my own routine but I got stuck in overanalysis and now I am happy I decided to follow the WODs instead.

Oh, and the FSPs are not always included in the WOD. It is generally recommended to use the FSPs in your warmup, and follow a steady state cycle (SSC) for them. There are many recent posts dealing with this (most written by the venerable Slizzardman) and I invite you to look for these yourself.

Enjoy the journey!!!

Okay - thanks! I'll have that in mind.

I'll wait and see if someone else have something to say about my workout

Sounds decent.

You might want to look at the Killroy70 workout plan and modify it to include the lower body work as you have included deck squats, archups, and GHR.

Do the WOD for 1-2mo (1 cycle) or at least look at them to get an idea.

I'd do the muscle-ups before pullups in a workout.

Okay thanks for your response!

Would you from my state of knownledge and training exsperience start with the WOD's or my own program?

I dont understand how you mean I should do it like the Killroy - it focuses on one thing each day. How should I then incorporate my lower body?

The main thing I would change is strength training before endurance work.

Hi,

I was in a similar situation when I started training these methods properly. My own workout (you can see the log) was adapted from Killroy70's style, but I did more lower body work as well. This gave me the feeling for the movements and sufficient strength to start the WOD's which I do now. Don't get me wrong, I also thought that the WOD's were going to be way too advanced for my current skill level, the beauty of the BtGB book is that you can tailor the movement style and intensity to suit your current skill / strength level.

Your workout is actually one of the more balanced ones I've seen people come up with, so good job on that!

You will get a lot more out of the WODs, I can guarantee that. Your program has no explosive, reactive or plyometric work at all, and you're not working multiplanar exercises. The WODs do all that and more.

If you want to work on a few basic lifts, I'd do them as one set during your warm up. That way the lifting just serves to wake up the nervous system instead of wearing it down, and you'll still be able to do the WODs with full force and not lose any training effectiveness.

The way I am working this, starting today, is this:

General warm up: Some short sprints, and sometimes sled sprints, arm circles, and a sequence taught at the Seminar. Takes maybe 7-10 minutes total.

FSP warm up: 2-3 sets of 30-20s(respectively, to get a total of 60s per FSP) of all 6 FSP. Takes 10 minutes. I pair them in such a way as to not interfere with each other too much. FL and straddle L together, BL and L sit together, and planche and manna together.

Weights warm up:

1 set 3 reps back squat, 225 lbs.

1 set 3 reps standing military press, 139 lbs.

1 set 3 reps standing 3" thick barbell curl, 97 lbs.

1 set 3 reps 44 lb weighted chin up.

WOD!

That's seriously it. I felt supercharged! I picked those weights because they are 30-40 lbs below my known 3 rep maxes. Every workout I'll add 2-5 lbs until I can't do 3 reps, and then I'll knock 30 lbs off of that and start over. That way you are only working a true 3RM every 8-16 workouts, meaning 1-2 times a month. That won't even come close to frying you, and you'll be stronger at the end of every cycle.

You should know that the WODs are a specific type of training cycle called "complex training." It is called complex because you train all aspects of athletic expression in the same cycle. You work maximal strength, strength endurance, explosive strength and reactive/plyometric strength in the upper and lower body every cycle. These "complex" cycles are not a lazy man's excuse to not do his own, these are the very best workouts that exercise science has to offer. Professional athletes literally pay thousands of dollars to learn what Coach is giving us for free.

Thanks for your replys people!

I'll start the WOD.

I see that the WOD's are four times a week - is it possible to scale it down or would you miss something then?

The WODs are really a cycle of workouts (if you read all the WODs of the past few months you will see there is a pattern to them) and I wouldn't recommend scaling down the number of workouts per week (I assume that is what you meant) because you will miss out on some parts of the 'bigger picture'. To perform a complete WOD as prescribed, including warmup and cooldown, will probably not take more than an hour. So four workouts per week should be feasible I think (it is for me and I have a pretty busy schedule).

Good luck and nice to see the number of WOD followers increase I started doing them about a month ago and I haven't regretted it one bit. You will need to play around a lot in the beginning to find out how to scale down the exercises though (it's part of the fun, really)! For example, I can do 3x5 L-pullups if I do them in a session without any other pulling strength work but the dynamic pulling WODs are KILLING me because the tempo and combination of exercises really fries your muscles, even when using very basic exercises such as tuck FL pulls.

Enjoy and please post your experiences in the WOD subforum.

Rasmus B said:

Thanks for your replys people!

I'll start the WOD.

I see that the WOD's are four times a week - is it possible to scale it down or would you miss something then?

You will be scaling down almost every single WOD for quite a while, but you should be doing all 4.

You will absolutely be completely missing a huge amount of the cycles, and there's no way to properly put that anywhere else because each WOD has a specific training effect that it is eliciting. The body does not adapt well to more than one training effect at a time. There is a good reason things are as they are.

Okay I'll listen and do the workout four times a week.

How would you set up my weekly program when I have to incorporate three times cycling, saturday motocross and four times gymnastic training?

Monday: Cycle and train

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: Cycle and train

Thursday: Train

Friday: Cycle

Saturday: Motocross

Sunday: Train

Would you recommend me to do all six FSP's every workout?

Looking forward to start training

Yes, all 6 fsp every workout. Look at my youtube account and watch my FSP warm up video to get an idea of how that should be structured.

Okay - nice video

Can you comment on my weekly program? - How would you set it up?

There's nothing wrong with it, but personally I would keep your WODs and cycling on the same days, and just do separate sessions for the leg WOD days. You're not getting enough rest the way you've got things set up, I don't think. I like the M,T,Th, F set up for WODs, with Wednesday as rest, saturday as motocross, and sunday as rest. You could cycle wednesday if it's a relatively easy cycling workout without screwing anything up. I don't think that schedule would give you any trouble.

Regardless, if you want to try your schedule then go for it! There is no real way to know until you do it for a month and see how you feel and perform.

I too began doing the WODs posted here and am so glad I quit trying to do my own thing and started doing the program that has helped create world class athletes! I scale nearly all the movements down but never miss a workout because 4 workouts a week is more than reasonable.

Thanks for your replyes

I'll start a log as soon as everything runs smooth.

One last question

Do you recommend to do some handstand work in my warm-up - considering it's skill work?

If you do, I'd only do 1-2 sets of freestanding work, because handstand is pretty tough on the shoulders and even 1 minute will have quite an impact on your workout unless you are pretty advanced with your handstands. If you are, then doing a few holds probably won't hurt, but you'll have to see. I personally don't, because that is like me holding 200 lbs overhead, at LEAST. That's a lot of weight, and definitely doesn't qualify as warm up for me lol!

Haha okay - thanks for your decent replyes. Very helpful!

A lot of great information on this particular post.

I am new to BtGB and was looking around for information on how to warm up and this post had that and more.

Thanks to slizzardman for the videos and Rasmus B for his own ideas on training planning.

Is there a way to move this up higher on the "getting started" topic? a lot of new people would benefit from it.

Goals

Running: 3200 meter in 12 min.

Cycle: Ride 60 km in less than 120 min. (average speed of 30 km/h)

Gymnastic: Doublle front flip, back flip, doubble flick, front flip with 1½ twist to back flip.

Strenght: 100 push-ups, 2x bodyweigth deadlift, 1,5x bodyweight squat, 90 kg benchpress, do one HSPU, one muscle up, one OAC, one Erbs.

Gymnastic skill: Obtain a planche, front lever and manna, human flag for 10 sec

Motocross: Top 10 overall next year - get in top 3 in one race.

Don't mean to be a downer but your goals are all over the place. Endurance, strength, skill, even plyo. If you try to work on all of them all at once it'll greatly reduce your chances of obtaining them. A double body weight deadlift just does not go hand in hand with running 3200 in 12 minutes. Of course its possible but much much harder. Like everyone has said following the wods is definitely the best idea but I would be careful as to how much extra work you pile-on on top of them.

I'm a beginner and am glad that I found a workout that will allow me to rapidly improve! I've been doing the WOD's for about 3 weeks now and can def. tell a huge difference in my conditioning and strength.

A double body weight deadlift just does not go hand in hand with running 3200 in 12 minutes.

Ehh, there are plenty of crossfitters who can probably do this besides other fitness enthusiasts, etc. However, you will probably need to do some minimal work to get there. It sort of depends on where you are starting out at.

That 2mi and DL besides the flip and gymnastics strength will all need their due training.

Now a few months from my start of gymnastic training I would like to give some inspiration to beginners. So far the training have been great and I really love it!

First of all thanks to coach as well as all the helpful people at this forum - hope I might join you at a seminar in the future.

An example of my training:

Sunday and wednesday:

Warm-up:

Jump-rope 3 min.

Ido's squat clinic x 1 set

Wrist and ancle routine

10 dislocates

FSP: (60 sec.) Rest: 45-90 sec.

L-sit (parrallel tuck)/Back lever (tuck) 2x30s/2x30s

Front lever(tuck)/Straddle L(bent) 3x20s/4x15s

Manna (MSH bent)/Planche (frog stand) 3x20s/2x30s

Wall Handstand (back against wall) / Ring support position 2x30s/2x20s

WOD

Prehab

2x10 dislocates

2x10 shoulder extensions against wall

Monday and thursday:

Warm-up:

Jump-rope 3 min.

Wrist and ancle routine

10 dislocates

Locomotion conditioning

FSP: (60 sec.) Rest: 45-90 sec.

L-sit (parrallel tuck)/Back lever (tuck) 2x30s/2x30s

Front lever(tuck)/Straddle L(bent) 3x20s/4x15s

Manna (MSH bent)/Planche (frog stand) 3x20s/2x30s

Wall Handstand (back against wall) / Ring support position 2x30s/2x20s

WOD

Prehab

2x10 dislocates

2x20s german hang

10 bridge wall walks

10 seated pike compressions + 10 sec. static hold

30 sec. weigted pike stretch

Leg-days:

Warm-up

Ido's squat clinic x 1 set

Prehab:

Hip extensions 2x10 front, back and to the sides.

2x30sec - front split and straddle split

Seated pike compressions 2x10 with 10s static hold at the end

2x30 sec. weigted pike stretch

'Rasmus'