Why 60 Seconds :?:

I read Coaches article on front lever progressions

and planche progressions and was wondering about

a few things:

-Why work up to only 60 seconds?

-Why only 60 seconds total of work per session?

-Is it bad to work past 60 seconds holding it?

-Is 60 seconds the absolute minimum for progression on to the next stage?

When working statics, you don't want to work too much or you'll get a lot of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Especially wherein you want to be able to work out 4 or 5 days a week and keep improving rather than regressing.

While working with one coach, he told me most kids only need to do about 3 holds of near max to start gaining improvement.

For instance they start at being able to hold a support or flex arm hang for 5 seconds ( obviously we are talking about a very beginning or young gymnast ). To do it once a day will probably keep that skill, while 2x would be 2x their normal workload and so forth. Eventually they'll hit diminishing gains and get DOMS and now you need to wait for that to flush out as more than likely they will be unwilling to strive on.

So, if they're max is 5 seconds and they do this 3-5 times, they will drastically improve after 4 days a week of this over 3 weeks.

Too much workload too soon can be very hard on the joints. Gymnastics is about slow progression not bam-bam-bam. Skills will sometimes come that way but strength does not.

Most people when they are in the middle of progressing through 60 seconds of work will take that 3-5 attempts. As they get closer and closer, it's time to ramp up to the next level. I'm still banking that based on a comparison of ramping up handstand hold time, that Coach S likes to progress slowly to avoid injuries.

I'm sure you can progress beyond holding 60 seconds in some hold positions ( handstand, L sit, Hollow hold, L hang, tuck levers, pistol hold ). Very good way to full proof moving on to the next level.

i wouldnt take 60 seconds as an absolute rule. i found that when i could only hold the tuck front lever for 30 secs i could do a 10 sec advanced tuck lever-so whats the point staying with the tuck when you have a good base of 10 seconds to work with the advanced tuck? id say test your ability on the next progression every now and then and if you find you can hold it for 5-10 seconds then move on rather than working up to the full 60 seconds on the current progression. however if you seem to have stalled on any progression i would recommend going back to the previous progression and improving your strength with that. just saying that this is what woked for me

A long time ago Coach Sommer wrote on dragondoor forum that sometimes he makes his athletes stay even 120sec. in some positions.

I asked a similar question (http://gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22&highlight=) and apart from that I've seen in other forums (dragondoor, drills and skills) people ask questions similar to this and Coach Sommer has said the 60 seconds is a guideline if you can do the next progression then go for it (as long as you can hold it for at least 10 seconds like Ido and many others have suggested).

Another thing I might suggest is, say for example you can hold the tuck planche for 40 seconds and you can just hold the adv tuck planche for 10 but can't handle the volume of working 60 seconds total (or anywhere close). You might wanna do maybe just two sets of adv tuck planches (of 5 seconds) and finish the rest of the 60 second total with tuck planches? just a thought,

Ed

yes this sounds like a good idea, mixing the two progressions together to reach 60 seconds sounds good for improving strength for the harder progression