Been training GB for a few weeks...

Yo Everyone! I am new here and want to say whats up to everyone, and thank you to Coach Sommer for putting all these great gymnastic training techniques together for us. I have been training body weight style for a bit now, and I have been using Coach Sommer's book as a general guide.

On Monday I usually do a workout of 70-90 pull ups, 30% of those weighted with a 20lb vest. I usually do sets of 8-12 of normal grips, wide grips, and chins. After this I move on to 70-90 dips, again 30% with the 20lb vest. These consist of normal dips, korean, bulgarian,and single bar press ups. I finish with around 30 pseudo planche push ups, kettle bell flys, and shoulder shrugs.

On Tuesday and Friday I do leg work like sprinting, plyo, weighted pistols etc.

Wednesday is core day with sets of glute ham raises, hollow snaps, dragon flags, and L sit walks.

Thursday is ring day, which i usually start with sets of muscle ups, then go through front rolls, and the Basic Ring Strength routines suited to my current ability. I finish up with ring flys, and static holds.

Saturday and Sunday OFF.

I would like some critiques and/or tips of my workout schedule and video!

Train it up! Video here ---> MC-hBkE-xg0

Nice vid!

What I see: You seem to speed through the muscle up transition on the way up and down, do you ever train the transition slowly? Having the power to fly up is great, but if you don't have the strength to move slowly as well you are going to have trouble trying to move on. I also see that you don't straighten your elbows all the way in the ring supports at the top of the muscle ups, do you train ring supports with straight arms? If that is missing from your training, you definitely need at least one set in your warm up. Finally, you seem to have trouble controlling the descent from FL to dead hang. Can you move slowly from the FL to a straight dead hang without having to drop or arch the back at all? 3-4 seconds slow and steady would be great. Same goes for dropping from BL to German hang, if you have trouble with that it will help to slowly get that strength built up. Do you practice your GH?

I know that was a bit of critiquing, but you should know you are doing quite well! I am just trying to help point out a few areas where you can fine tune your training to get even stronger!

you need to develop your levers from the beginning progressions to the advanced ones.

I'm not sure if you can hold them or you are just moving through them for video's sake

Thanks for the critiques slizzard! Like I said I am just starting this journey of GB so I expect to slightly suck at the moment lol. It should be noted that this video was taken at the end of my workout so my strength was depleted a bit. Slizzard, you are right about my arms, they don't look completely straight although I thought they were when i was up there 8) . Haha yes the GH was not very good, my rings were not set high enough for a full straight leg hang so I just went down about half way. I was really just moving through the basic strength for the videos sake, to answer Blairbobs observation too. I will ponder the tips you two have given me today at work and then post a new video to see if I can correct some of these issues. Thanks guys, hopefully you can help me improve! New video to come!

If your arms don't look straight in the video in support then they are not straight even if you think they are, this is exactly what I was doing too, turning the rings out at the top will ensure that you really do arrive with elbows locked and develop that all important bicep tendon strength, are you able to go to dead hang in the false grip between reps on your MUs, really really worth while to get this extra ROM in the false grip for your technique and also for future when doing other things in FG.

You are doing great though. I just like to see everything slowed way down for ring strength elements Keep it up! Thanks for sharing

Yo Breaks. Thanks for the comments and tips! Your right I am not going all the way down to dead hang on those muscle ups, I am glad you brought that to my attention, I am sure I can do that so I will definitely work on it. Here's a new video trying to address the things that slizzard and blairbob brought up...levers are hard haha.

Video -------> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLvwHhZ-WBY

That's some pretty nice work Nikaze, a definate RTO extension in the support, nice control through the transition, do you have a bar to work MUs on? I found this very helpful to help me start to eliminate some of the forward lean through the transition, which I feel you are ready to do.

Seen as this is a gymnastics forum after all i'm going to tell you to point your toes! ;D it just makes everything look so much nicer.

I would really recommend that you try the less difficult FL and BL positions for training, perhaps you do this and just put the more impressive looking ones in videos, which I always like to do too .

Try to eliminate the piking of the hips both in your german hang and in the straddle FL, the straddle FL is laid our straddle not a sitting down straddle atm you are doing a straddle front lever almost like it was a Flat Tuck, but as the legs are straddled it actually becomes slightly easier than the Flat Tuck position.

Hope some of this helps, but all in all as I said before, good strong work! Keep it up!

Well....I don't have an actual bar, but I have this tree branch that I use for pull ups.. 8) I have not tried muscle ups on a bar at all yet, so I will give that a shot and post another video!

I was checking out your vids on youtube Breaks...duuuude you gave me some cool ideas to work on, like those Lsit bulgarians, and those alternating pull ups you did where you went from normal to back of the head to normal. Also, wide grip MU was awesome!

I was watching some other straddle FLs, and I see what you mean about how my hips are not a true straddle, maybe i should just be doing an adv tuck FL and BL?

By the way, what moves do you use to build your biceps? Just curls and pulls? I am also wondering what moves Coach Sommer's athletes use to build chest size?

New video soon...