Re-Start

After being in the car accident and taking several months off from training, I am ready to go again.

Since I will be starting a lot of FSP and FBE over from the very beginning due to the injury and loss of strength, I decided I would start them ALL over from the very beginning, including progressions I skipped over before, thinking I was "too advanced"(lol) for them. My training before the accident was haphazard at best anyway, so I want to start fresh, and start right. I have no rings, only a pull up/dip tower, belt and chain, plates, low(about chest height) pull up bar, and push up bars.

Anyway, I still have the ability to do a freestanding handstand for over 3 minutes, although this is not with "gymnastics form", so I will be starting over with Wall Handstands.

I will be starting with the PB tuck L-Sit

Now, here is where the questions begin to rise.

I have very tight shoulders, and find German Hangs to be very uncomfortable. Should I use German Hangs in my SSC instead of Back Levers? How can I progress with the German Hang?

Should I attain the 60s Advanced L-Sit before beginning PL and FL work?

Also, does anyone have any insight as to how to choose my daily FBE? I have read many different recommendations and would like to know what the best option is...

Thanks in advance for anyone with some advice.

StevenL said:

I have very tight shoulders, and find German Hangs to be very uncomfortable. Should I use German Hangs in my SSC instead of Back Levers?

Yes.

Begin with the feet on the ground and then gradually build up to 3x30sec full ROM German Hangs.

StevenL said:

Should I attain the 60s Advanced L-Sit before beginning PL and FL work?

Yes.

I recommend building up to 3x60sec in the L-sit on the floor prior to moving on to more advanced FSP elements.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thank you very much. So to clarify, I should be working on the German Hang as well as the L-Sit as my only statics, and I can choose some basic FBEs to work along with them? Should I choose only 1 push, pull, core, and leg exercise or should I be changing exercises each workout day?

BTW, I finally got the book. Excellent book, and I eagerly await the 2nd edition and all of the other books.

You've pretty much got the idea with the statics! Even stating over again, you can work on the WODs by scaling both the exercises and the volume as necessary, so I would definitely consider that.

In the beginning, as long as you pay close attention to shoulder girdle balance you should be ok whether you decide to do full body workouts or split the workouts into pulls, pushes, core, etc. I think the MOST important thing, as Coach emphasized on another thread today, is to make sure that your horizontal pulling is equal to your horizontal pressing in volume, and do the same for vertical pressing and vertical pulling. Be a stickler for perfect form, as perfect form can not be executed when strength imbalances exist. Perfect form protects you from unintentionally learning bad habits that allow strength imbalances to form. These always result in injury at some point. I know you're not a noob, just thought I would mention that!

I would suggest, as a "beginner" again, that you definitely work your full body each week. Try to work vertical pulling AND horizontal pulling, as well as horizontal AND vertical pressing, for example! A lot of times people try to zero in on one specific goal, and this almost always leads to the problem I talk about in the previous paragraph. You probably already know that but again, I figure I should put that in just in case!

Put a workout together that seems reasonable to you and then take 3-4 weeks to slowly scale into that workout. That way you prevent unnecessary soreness! You'll be sore no matter what at first, so there's no sense in jumping in full speed and being so sore that it interferes with your daily life for a week or two!

Thanks slizz, you always seem to be very helpful.

I have a solid understanding of shoulder girdle health. I have a couple personal training certs to my name as well as being a general exercise/nutrition/health nerd. I did jump in with what I thought I could already do last time, and now I realize that this was a mistake.

I don't have rings, and I understand that this seriously limits not only my exercise options but also my strength potential, so I will have to get some soon. I just don't know where to hang them!

It looks like I have a long road ahead of me, but I am actually really very glad about that. I just want to have a more exact idea of how my workouts should look before I dive back in.

I hear ya. You pretty much have the right idea, it's the same thing I am doing... start at the beginning of everything and move on from there. It can be frustrating at first, but I am quite surprised at how good and strong I feel. As far as FBE go, I think that starting with the foot supported rows and the pull up progressions, xr push ups and PB dips, and HLL and curl up variations for the core. I don't know how you feel about working body levers right off the bat, but the rest of these will probably be ok if you choose to do some sort of a set routine for a while before considering the WODs. Is that what you mean by what to do with the FBE?

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I don't have rings, so I can't do the WOD or XR-well... anything. I wanted to design my own program similar to the killroy template(except not with the rings).

I am in that group who started their static training haphazardly. I actually started with the planche/front lever approach discussed in one of Coach's first articles. Needless to say, my L-sit was not progressed to being able to do 3 sets of 60 seconds on the floor l-sits when I started training the other statics discussed in BTGB. I can't do that now, but I have made some good progress with the other holds. Would it be worth it to forego training the other holds until I can get 3 sets of 60 seconds each? I currently do 3 sets of floor L-sits of 30 seconds each during my warm ups.

I started with the original dragondoor article as well.

I would say to go ahead and start back at the beginning, and work your way back up doing it right. My hopes are that by attaining the Advanced L-Sit hold for 3x60 seconds will bring up my front lever and planche. Also, my shoulders were always sore after working back levers, and would imagine perfecting the German Hang will make back levers much more comfortable to work on.

I plan to progress from the L-Sit and German Hang program to working Straddle L, Back Lever, and Front Levers, and then begin again with Planche work after I can easily hold the BL for 15 seconds.

I have decided to use the M,T,Th,F split and use the Killroy70 template for my FBEs along with statics each day

Wolf with one Ear said:

I am in that group who started their static training haphazardly. I actually started with the planche/front lever approach discussed in one of Coach's first articles. Needless to say, my L-sit was not progressed to being able to do 3 sets of 60 seconds on the floor l-sits when I started training the other statics discussed in BTGB. I can't do that now, but I have made some good progress with the other holds. Would it be worth it to forego training the other holds until I can get 3 sets of 60 seconds each? I currently do 3 sets of floor L-sits of 30 seconds each during my warm ups.

You definitely don't have to stop, but I would say that you consider more of a maintenance phase instead of a focus on progress there. As long as L sit has priority in your program I think you will be fine maintaining your current holds as well. That's pretty much exactly the advice Coach gave us at the seminar. The only reason I'm not working planche to maintain is that I'm basically all the way back at the beginning because of my elbows, and since they are recovering quite nicely I figure I will just go through Coach's ideal FSP development path. If I was still able to do 20s flat tucks without pain I would consider some maintenance but I'm all the way back to advanced frog, and I won't be going any further back than that... I have always been able to do frog stand for about as long as I want thanks to relatively strong wrists and hands.

The funny thing is that I have actually seen quite a lot of improvement despite spending zero time on planche. Coach's ideal path for the FSPs works very well.

Yes, I think I am going to re-gear somewhat, and put my focus on the L-sit. I will do some maintenance work with FL, BL, and PL, either part as integrated training, or independently, so long as the L-Sit comes first. Right now I do 3x30 l-sit as part of my regular warm-up for each workout, so I need to think of way of going forward from there.

That's pretty good, much better than me. I still use the tuck L sit.

StevenL said:

I decided I would start them ALL over from the very beginning, including progressions I skipped over before, thinking I was "too advanced"(lol) for them.

Hey congratulations for getting back on the horse with such a positive attitude. It can be frustrating to be forced into such out of training for lengthy periods, especially through something as traumatic as a car accident! Don't be surprised to find yourself quickly exceeding your previous PB's by starting the progressions over again. I used to rock climb quite seriously, and was forced to stop for about 6 months due to a quite debilitating illness with caused my strength to atrophy significantly. It was not long until I was climbing at a level far in advance of what I was previously capable, as I had no choice but to focus on form and skill.

Good luck and welcome back.

Thanks very much. I appreciate the feedback