Coyle's Log

Hello everyone,

About a year ago I started to follow Coach Sommer's brilliant book. I was a complete novice starting from scratch. I've made huge gains on my arms but feel my shoulders and chest need more work. Im Joining the army so need to be able to do alot of push ups, sit ups, and pull ups. The quantity isn't necessarely relevant to gymnastics but I need to do it. I like climbing and thats why i'm doing the finger tip pull ups and also run 4 times a week. Here are my stats.

Pull ups - 18

Push ups - 60

Sit ups - 80

Finger tip pull ups 9 (1 inch)

Back lever 20 sec

Planche advanced Frog stand 20 sec

Planche advanced Frog stand 20 sec

Front lever flat tuck 10 sec

L - sit 20 sec

Hand stand 45 sec

Thanks for looking I would love the advice of you experienced pro's or even coach sommer. Here is my workout.

MONDAY

Finger tip pull ups(1 inch)

Back lever

Front levers - flat tuck

Push ups XR Bulgarian 3 set 5 rep

Planche advanced Frog stand

V - ups 3 set 5 rep

L - sits

HSPU

HS

TUESDAY

Front lever rows tuck 3 set 5 rep

Back lever

Front lever - flat tuck

Dips XR 3 set 5 rep

Planche advanced Frog stand

HLL half

HSPU

HS

WEDNESDAY - REST

THURSADAY

Finger tip pull ups(1 inch)

Back lever

Front levers - flat tuck

Push ups XR Bulgarian 3 set 5 rep

Planche advanced Frog stand

V - ups 3 set 5 rep

L - sits

HSPU

HS

FRIDAY

Front lever rows tuck 3 set 5 rep

Back lever

Front lever - flat tuck

Dips XR 3 set 5 rep

Planche advanced Frog stand

HLL half

HSPU

HS

You're pretty strong! What you're doing looks fine and balanced to me but I do have a couple of questions:

- Why are you doing HSPU every training day? If that's a specific goal for you I'd include maybe one set in your warm-up or have you grease the groove. Another option is focusing on dip strength for awhile as the carryover is strong.

- How do you train your statics? I've found the best way to incorporate these is a SSC as a part of the warm-up. Do sets of at least 15 seconds with half your max and you'll see steady progress.

- Why do you not include legs? True athletes do not just master upper body feats!

What I'm doing is something similar to the WOD but simpler. 4 days a week containing a dynamic pull-day, a dynamic push-day, a leg day and a max strength day.

On the dynamic pull/push days I'll do something very similar to the dynamic strength days in the WODs. Usually 3-5 rounds of explosive movements. These days I include specific core work as well. On pull days I do many, many rope climbs - these are great! But take a look at the WODs and be inspired! This kind of workout will definately let you do plenty of pull-ups or push-ups when you have to so I doubt you'll have to do specific work for that.

On the leg day I usually do hill sprints on a really steep hill which is close to where I live - these are great too! I'll do rounds similar to the dynamic upper body days and couple with SLS variations. Soon I'll join a gym, though, and start doing heavy squats and deadlifts.

On the max strength day I'll do 5 sets of three to five reps in all three directions of both push and pull. This means a pull-up variation, a horisontal pull variation and a curl variation as well as a dip variation, a push-up variation and a HSPU variation. If you're strong enough you can combine some of the movements if you want to and do either multiplaner movements or combinded pulls and presses. Simply pick a variation of which you can do 3 good reps. Then progress to 5 reps over the course of as many workouts it takes. Then start doing the next harder variation. If you can't do that yet do negatives or use a tempo on the earlier variation. Adjust the reps down if you have to. It's very simple but quite effective!

I you're seeing good progress with what you're doing by all means carry on. I suggest you look into the WODs, though, or do something similar to what I do.