Gymnastic Progressions Question

Hey everyone, I'm new to the whole gymnastic arena, and I was wondering how long it takes on average to achieve the final progressions of these gymnastic moves:

L-sit

Back lever

Front lever

Planche

Muscle up

Here are my current stats of what I do during the static section of my workouts(been trying for about a month now):

L-sit: 15 sec. each

Back lever flat tuck: 15 sec. each

Front lever flat tuck: 10-15 sec. each

Planche frog stand: 60 sec.

I'm in pretty good shape but clearly not gymnastic shape! I finish my running season soon, and I plan to devote a lot of time to gymnastic training. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on the average amount of time needed to achieve the final progression of each of these moves.

Thanks!

Hahaha! It took me a long time to get where you are starting. I remember the 1st time I tried to do the beginner tuck back lever - I almost made a BAD mistake by even attempting it. (Is it natural for the human shoulder to go that far? )

You probably don't want to know how long it takes. Spend a few years doing it and your friends will think you are strong enough that you must have a genetic mutation but if you are in a hurry you probably won't think its worth it. If I had known how long it would take, I'm not sure if I would have done it or not, but I am glad I did. Still wouldn't be considered strong in these circles but I'm sure a few years from now I will be much stronger than I am now.

Try it out. Enjoy the journey. You'll love it.

Oops! Never did answer your question. I have no idea what average would be but I think of it as years not months. Don't know if thats typical or if I am just slow. The guys on this forum are way stronger than most other strength or fitness people. If you could get that way with a few months worth of workouts, it wouldn't be so amazing.

tankman said:

The guys on this forum are way stronger than most other strength or fitness people.

This board has gregor and Ido, who are world class. There's a few talented handbalancers and slizzard is strong but not world class. Everyone else probably falls under an intermediate level of strength or rank beginners. I would say most of the board is composed of naturally skinny kids who are rank beginners, which explains why they are drawn to gymnastics. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this composition (everyone is or has been a beginner after all), just not sure what you mean when you say that this board is stronger than most other strength/fitness circles.

trianglechoke7 said:

tankman said:

The guys on this forum are way stronger than most other strength or fitness people.

This board has gregor and Ido, who are world class. There's a few talented handbalancers and slizzard is strong but not world class. Everyone else probably falls under an intermediate level of strength or rank beginners. I would say most of the board is composed of naturally skinny kids who are rank beginners, which explains why they are drawn to gymnastics. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this composition (everyone is or has been a beginner after all), just not sure what you mean when you say that this board is stronger than most other strength/fitness circles.

It might seem that way because the higher level people post more?

Sternford said:

trianglechoke7 said:

tankman said:

The guys on this forum are way stronger than most other strength or fitness people.

This board has gregor and Ido, who are world class. There's a few talented handbalancers and slizzard is strong but not world class. Everyone else probably falls under an intermediate level of strength or rank beginners. I would say most of the board is composed of naturally skinny kids who are rank beginners, which explains why they are drawn to gymnastics. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this composition (everyone is or has been a beginner after all), just not sure what you mean when you say that this board is stronger than most other strength/fitness circles.

It might seem that way because the higher level people post more?

I think the opposite. Except Slizz. He would post whether he was strong or not If there was an olympic event for giving first class info on the net, he would get it.

Before I could give a guesstimate, age, height and weight, and how much and the quality of sleep and food and time spent to training is necessary.

Another few hints would be how many dips and pullups you can do.

Honestly, it really depends on a multitude of factors.

Interesting. That means I'm not as far off of everybody else as I thought. Sorry. Sure didn't mean to post misinformation. I may have gotten that idea from browsing Ido's blog. Watching his videos makes me think I have a LONG way to go. Reading the WOD can make users of the site seam pretty high level too. I don't know how many do the WOD as prescribed but it seems impressive to me.

When I was comparing to others though I guess I was thinking of a lot of the people that I see in the gym who are doing curls or working on machines. I'm in my 30s and work in an office environment and a lot of the people, even who go to the gym frequently, consider me to be pretty hardcore in my training approach even though I am still just building "basic strength". I guess it all depends on what you are comparing to. This program just seems a lot more effective to me then most of the information I see on the Internet or in the book store.

Perhaps I overstated. I apologize again. I find it very exciting as do a lot of people to have this information available.

Blairbob said:

Before I could give a guesstimate, age, height and weight, and how much and the quality of sleep and food and time spent to training is necessary.

Another few hints would be how many dips and pullups you can do.

Honestly, it really depends on a multitude of factors.

Thanks for the posts everyone.

Hey Blairbob,

Here's some info:

Age:17

Height: 5' 10.5"

Weight: 140

As for sleep, I get anywhere from 6-8 hours per night. It's usually closer to 8.

Dips: I can do 3x5 on the rings

Pullups: 15 is my max number of pullups

I don't know if you can tell me anything based on this information, and if you can't then that's ok.

Thanks

It sounds like you will benefit to some degree that though you are tall and lanky and most likely have long limbs, you're still a beanpole so you don't have as much leverage working against you.

You seem to have a good base of upper body strength so far, but your progress in the levers will depend a lot on your core strength. I've seen it often with a young guy your age who may have very good upper body pulling or pressing strength but can be limited with levers due to length and core strength.

So keep on working that core strength!

Strength is kind of a strange concept. It means different things to different people. As triangle said, I certainly am not posting any world class lifts at the moment. I think the closest I came was a 205 barbell curl, pretty strict but not perfect, at 210 lbs BW. Even that is not outrageously good for someone my weight, quite honestly. There's a guy my exact build at the time who was doing 250 strict and 300 cheat. THAT is frikin' crazy.

I think the best thing we have going for us is that our program translates extremely well to overall athletics, more so than any other one program I think. Obviously some tweaks, especially with leg work, have to be made to get maximum performance in certain sports, but the core and upper body parts of this program are pretty top notch.

To give you some idea of where you will end up, Jeff of CFST taught them the jerk as Coach is looking into whether some olympic lifting will improve his advanced athletes' performance, and within 10 minutes they were all putting up like 185lbs. I don't think any of them is over 140 lbs, and none of them ever touch barbells except perhaps for some occasional cuban presses ( but I don't know if they use the BB or DB for that). Jeff was telling me that it was nuts, he certainly didn't expect that. I mean the Jerk is apparently pretty technical, and the funny thing was that a lot of the guys were still doing a lot of muscling the bar, so that 185 is nowhere near what they would do after a few weeks of training and neurological adaptation.

Jeff can clean me up on the particulars, I know that this general summation isn't perfect since I was in my hotel and not at the gym for this episode, but that should give you an idea of where you are in terms of untrained physical strength in other arenas as a result of gymnastics training.

Everyone here who sticks with the WODs, picks up the subsequent volumes and follows the program as it is prescribed, and perhaps attends a few seminars will absolutely be able to achieve a similar level of ability. I am getting pretty crazy strong myself, and my training with the WODs has only just begun. I'm not even 2 months in yet. Where will I be in 5 years? *shrug* All I know is people will be saying "!@^*$*&!"

Thanks everyone!

slizzardman said:

To give you some idea of where you will end up, Jeff of CFST taught them the jerk as Coach is looking into whether some olympic lifting will improve his advanced athletes' performance, and within 10 minutes they were all putting up like 185lbs. I don't think any of them is over 140 lbs, and none of them ever touch barbells except perhaps for some occasional cuban presses ( but I don't know if they use the BB or DB for that). Jeff was telling me that it was nuts, he certainly didn't expect that. I mean the Jerk is apparently pretty technical, and the funny thing was that a lot of the guys were still doing a lot of muscling the bar, so that 185 is nowhere near what they would do after a few weeks of training and neurological adaptation.

That makes me really sad Slizz... I weigh 175 and the most I've put up on the Jerk is 180lbs... . Although I do hope to change that next week when I go for a new max, especially after that seminar. Still that is pretty absurd to put up 130% BW overhead with almost no training.

I did 165 at a bodyweight of 145 the first week I started o-lifting a couple years ago.

That is pretty awesome! Are you still O-lifting?

No, I can't say that I am. And it was probably more like 4 years ago that I did this, come to think of it. A few months of front squatting to get those numbers up and I could probably put up around 200 with no o-lift training at a bw of 158. Of course, I may be drastically over-estimating my self!!!

That would be SWEET! I am doing a few reps of super light full cleans to teach myself form, I am doing really well! I like how O-lifting feels, it is so fast! I'm only using 95 lbs now, but it's perfect for focusing on form. I need to learn the jerk this way too, I just read the link Jeff@CFST posted and I am very excited now!!!

In HS, I got my jerk to 185 around 150. I was limited to only working it after cleaning it. I'm sure my clean technique wasn't great but it was way better than my snatch.

Nowadays, I can jerk around 215. It comes and goes. I'm probably between 160 and 170 now. It's hard to say. My friend at around 170-175 is hitting 250s now I think.

My friend's kid who was a training L10 is jerking 110kg now at around or under 150. I think he is a jr or sr. jXpMUPtwRFg

I read that whole page that Jeff linked to and started practicing the c&j with a proper jerk. I have only gone up to 105, which as you can imagine feels ridiculously light to me, but it's great for working on the full clean technique. I'm learning fast. I'll have to post a video this week to get some feedback, because I can't see myself when I lift and I would like to know what more experienced O-lifters think of my technique.

Lizard, you can get some pretty good feedback over at PerformanceMenu but feel free to show it here.

I will have to check that out when I make my video. Thanks!

Just had a break through on my quest to muscle ups. I have been doing muscle ups on rings and the transition just clicked for me. I had watched a video of one of Coach Sommer's kids who did a muscle up starting with his hands facing inwards towards each other. For whatever reason, that made the transition click! I know this won't work on a straight bar, but I'm really excited to be able to get one on the rings