Please Clarify once and for all!

I am Confused as @#$! about a lot of stuff I've been reading around here lately. generally just a heap of stuff and pre-requisites that weren't specified in the book and which I Skipped. I need some advice about where to go from here. I've been doing the wod's and training planche, fl, back lever, and straddle L on ssc's. I've had awesome success with this, especially in my planche, which is now a 20 second tuck with perfect form.

Here's the gist of what I've read and conclusions I've come to:

I should be doing arch,hollow,plank,reverse plank, xr support holds and planche leans AS WELL as the other fsp's as a warmup.

I should stop doing Planche work until I achieve a 60 second floor L-sit.

I should work each prior progression as maintenance before beginning my working fsp sets.

My main question: Do I need to cease work in anything? do I NEED to stop my planche work in favour of achieving a 60 L-sit?

Is this what I should be doing:

FSP WARMUP:

60 second arch hold

60 second hollow hold

60 second plank

60 second reverse plank

60 secs planche lean

60 secs xr support hold

60 secs wall handstand (playing with transition to freestanding)

FSP SSC:

(one set of 60 secs pb low before beginning working sets) L-Sit - 6 sets of 10 seconds

(one 60 set of german hang before working sets)Back Lever - 2 sets of 30 seconds tuck (one day a week 10 sets of 6 seconds flat tuck)

(one 60 sec tuck before working sets) Front Lever- 6 sets of 10 seconds flat tuck

WOD

Stretch once a week and any additional work (mu stuff e.t.c)

Once I build up my L-sit to a 60 second max hold, I will re-introduce planche work. I Will also train one set of 60 frog stand each day for maintenance.

With some of the warm up exercises like the arch hold, I can definitely do the 60 secs, but by the end am working fairly hard. is this okay? or should it be less strenuous?

Thanks so much for your help. any my apologies to Blairbob and anyone else who offered me advice in my other posts, I'm a complete dummy, and need everything spelt out for me!

my deepest thanks to anyone who can offer help (hoping Ido and slizz chime in here)

Thomas.

Your list looks pretty accurate.

Each FSP has a progression, and you do each element of the progression until you can meet the requirement. Then you maintain that (this is what you are calling warm up) and begin the next element.

For the lower elements the times are long, but the elements themselves are not hard on the body, its ok if you push them more than 50%.

There is some overlap on the progressions, so L-sit is part of the planche progression, you want to put more energy into meeting that requirement, but you can still work on planche, just don't let it keep you from hitting the L-sit goal. I'm assuming that you are doing frog stand or tuck planche. I wouldn't go past that without a solid L-sit.

I don't remember reading about any of this in the book. Where can I get an explanation or demo of these?

FSP WARMUP:

60 second arch hold

60 second hollow hold

60 second plank

60 second reverse plank

60 secs planche lean

60 secs xr support hold

Semper Fi

They aren't in the first edition of the book, Coach essentially took it for granted that everyone knew them as they are so basic to gymnastics.

He's working on a second edition of the book that will have them all.

Google will find them all for you.

Ring strength work can replace floor/PB planche as for upper body pushing strength. However, the progression is different.

It is supposed to be just a 60s PB support, however doing it on rings can be suitable.

Currently, right now I just do 1m L-sit, hollow and arch holds. These are more than 50%. It depends on time. When I have more time, I think it might be more interesting to do more volume than just 1m with worksets of 30-45s. Maybe 3-5. Same with hollow. Arch is typically much easier than hollow.

Going above 80% in a FSP for maintenance and then working the next progression is hard. It gases my body lever work (current hold is 20s horizontal).

Without a good L-sit, attempting to move beyond a tuck, if you can even do it, is a waste of time. The same can be said of the relationship of L-hang and tuck front lever. I'm working on the frog stand besides ring support mainly to build up wrist strength as I limited in the adv frog stand by my wrists. Here's hoping wallHS will help as well.

I'm having ALOT of trouble with L-sits from the floor. I struggle to even get off properly sometimes but I can do a really solid horizontal L from besa-blocks for a good 40 seconds or so. what is this!? is it a flexibility issue? do L-sits NEED to be trained from the floor? I will bring the planche back into my routine (6 sets of 10 seconds tuck) as long as I don't notice any L-sit progress troubles. should I be doing all those holds at the beginning? (the warmup section). I find they're pretty taxing, so should I maybe break them down and do 45 secs instead of 60? or just see how i go each day and stop when I feel I should.

suggestions?

Do you have a strength issue with the floor L-sit, or a 'clearance' issue? Clearance meaning that it can be hard to lift yourself high enough from the floor if you have relatively short arms and/or well-developed glutes. In that case, I would advise to do first-knuckle or fingertip L-sits.

Ideally, the FSP WU should be light and non taxing unless of course, those FSP's are too beyond your ability. If that was the case, the FSP WU should be focused on.

Lsit from floor is a good idea for proper hip compression, especially for working the straddle-L and MSH/manna later on.

If the L sit is a problem, then first focus on hollow hold and next hollow rock for 1 min. At the same time practise: pb support ( 2 min strict form - shoulders down and pull back) and flexibility / strong hip flexors /abs compression have important role. Sit on the ground like you do for Lsit, straight back or move upper body slightly forward and practise to lift up only legs together or if that is difficult then one by one, and hold it, without lift body from the ground. When you do all of that for 1-2 min without problem, L sit on the floor is much easier. And yes, important notice, keep your bodyfat low.

today for my workout, after doing all the "warmup" exercsies (arch hold e.t.c) My statics were pretty crappy, especially my planche. advice? should I give it a week and see how i go to adjusting to the added work? or should i scale back?

Hence, why it's a better idea to make sure those FSP WU sets are not maximal.

I was only doing half my max holds! 30 seconds each exercise. should I scale back even more?

Not every day is the same, some days half max feels like more.

Its not the end of the world to back off more those days, always keep in mind the entire program ahead for that day, and the rest of the week.

Think cycles in cycles.

Redlac said:

I was only doing half my max holds! 30 seconds each exercise. should I scale back even more?

If you don’t have a problem to do any of mention WU preparation exercises for 60 sec, then change focus.There is no need to do that exercises everytime at the start, if you feel little tired on main workout. Your working ability is not high enough, but this is not set in stone. Those exercises are excellent for preparation for harder movement, but after mastering them, shift gears. Start with planche if thats what you want, but if your max hold is 20 - 30 sec tuck, then go back to advanced frog for at least 60 sec without problem and pain in elbows, tendons etc. Maybe you want to move some of earlier WU preparation exercises at the end of your training as assistant exercises and conditioning. Always determine your priorites and move them to the start. Warm up with lighter version of exercise – skill that you want to accomplish, including some of easier pre – rehab ex.

It gets better in a couple of weeks as you adapt.

So there's no reason for me to go backwards? I'm doing okay? I wont halt progress later on?

Also on the L-sit front, do I have to do these from the floor? I'm more then competent on pb's or anything else, I've read coach say somewhere there shouldn't be any difference between the floor and pb's. what do you think? could I continue to do them on pb's then move onto rings?

Coach is right, there shouldn't be any difference between the floor and pb's, but when practise on PB people often rush through progression start to make this exercise easier, because when tired, they start to go down with hips and lift shoulders up, or they go with bad form from the beginning. In that bad form position they hold 30 or more seconds in Lsit, but after that they wonder why cant do it on the floor the same exercise even for 10 seconds. On the floor with drop down hands cheating is impossible. This is the difference. No wonder why Coach insist on 3 x 1min lsit on the floor before Front lever etc. I made this mistake on the beginning, but that leads me nowhere. Then I throw all shorcuts, adopt basic and easy progression and perfect form, and in much much short time move to harder stuff, compared to one year before of rushing, cheating, injuries etc.

I would move to the floor asap. Don't change your sets or your times just move the L-sit from the PB to the floor. It is substantially harder. If you can't complete all your sets on the floor, mix it with PB L-sit. I was working 4x17s L-sit on PB, moved it to the floor and could only do 4x12s at first. So, for the first week of this switch I would do 4x12s on the floor and then do 2x15-17s on PB. Its kinda like doing a drop set. Within a week I was doing my 4x17s on the floor. Even though it theoretically is the same, I would stop potentially cheating yourself and move it to the floor, it's super hard!