Front Lever + Planche Method

This method consists of just train for your static positions this 2 exercices: planche and front lever. This is more explained in Appendix B in book , but have anyone tried this? I will try that method and see what will happen in my strength... looks a good idea and seems like the chinese do something like that, something simpler, like the post of Wangtang6911 confirm:

and take a look in what he said, he said that kid just do bench and rope climb! no waste of time doing lots of pull ups etc...

and like Ido said here:

Ido Portal said:

Also doing too many things is counter productive. I'm more in favor of building brick upon brick and reaching the sky. Build a base with basic movments, advance to more advanced movements and decrease the amount of base work and go on. For example, I know very few elite gymnasts who routinly perform pull ups. Its a waste of their time. they have done it as 6-8 year olds and built a base and now they do not need it. We have a limited amount of recovery ability, you do not want to waste it on something less than efficient, just because it is a dogma.

I think i will cut some FBE of my workout to make it simpler and have better recovery... have anyone experience on this or maybe wanna say what think?

I've been doing something similar.

There are FSPs that i concentrate on, and just touch on the others until its there time, or to maintain them. Once one gets to where i'm satisfied, i'll shift emphasis.

I think having two that are the focus is a realistic amount.

yes, i agree, this is the intention! 8)

I find this interesting. I don't follow the WODs (though may in the future), but do include the FSPs into my warmup. I really like them, and see a lot of carry over. But I do sometimes wonder if I should be more focused. Currently I am working on the handstand, planche, front lever, back lever, and l-sit. I've been debating removing at least the l-sit (I can do 3x30 most of the time, but not up to parallel due to hamstring flexibility). The back lever (tuck) always seems easy, but I like the way I feel after working it.

So I'm interested to hear opinions here. If you were to minimize the FSPs, for a beginner to focus on, what FSPs would they be?

My last few routine had almost no bent arm movements (one arm chin up being the exception). I mostly just pick 4 straight arm elements that I am at the level of working on and do them. Hasn't been a problem so far but then again my previous experience in training was exclusively bent arm movements so I think this is a fair trade. (At some point I'll probably work bent arm strength for a cycle or two)

I found other nice Ido's tip:

Ido Portal said:

Hello.

I do not have the time to design a complete program for you, but I will make a couple of recommendations:

1. With your numbers in the basic exercises, I suggest concentrating on your new goals. any endurance work will take adaptation elsewhere. YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO, FREQUENTLY. It is also a bad time to improve your 10 Km run. Dont spread your goals too wide.

2. Pair planche and f-lever, they are great antagonistic pair.

3. Achieve muscle up before working the one arm chin, again, minimizing the number of goals and also, you have no buisness to work the one arm chin before you can do a couple of mups. Its basic stuff.

4. Use the flag, planche and f-lever progressions suggested by coach sommer as a guide. Read them again and again, the devil is in the details. Many fail to implement these and their progress suffers.

5. Alternate frequent (daily) training with low volume and less-frequent training with higher volume, change back and fourth between them, each 2-4 weeks. You want to avoid stagnation.

I see a lot of programming mistakes around this forum and people are not advancing as rapidly as they should. (If they advance at all)

Ask yourselfs: are you practicing the same positions without a visible improvement for a long time? Many are stuck because of badly planned training programs and many also think it is just a question of practicing the skills again and again. Is it so?? If it was true this forum was full of straddle planche videos and full front levers. It shouldnt take so long to move from progression to progression in a carefully planned program. Consider what I wrote above as guidlines, dont repeat the same things over and over again and expect a different result - this is the definition of madness.

Good luck,

Ido Portal

Hacasa Performance Center,

Haifa, Israel.

What does Ido mean by "alternate frequent (daily) training with low volume and less-frequent training with higher volume and change back and fourth between them?" Could someone give me an example? Thanks

So if front lever and planche pair well together, what other FSPs pair well?

Alternate

Training often with low reps (Intensity / GTG)

vs

Training less often with lots of reps (Volume / Accumulation)

Very good advice here. I have used it (i.e. focussing on only one or two new skills -preferably antagonistic- at a time and alternating volume) during the past year and a half to my advantage to learn some of the basic skills. What’s more, I know by now that I would not have succeeded without that approach. The only thing I can add is to be opportunistic. With that I mean that, when training a new skill on a day that you “get it†or “feel strongâ€, you go for lots of reps even if you know that you will need a rest day or two after doing that. On your off-days, just be happy with a couple of (scaled down) reps. Once you can do the move also on an off-day, you know that you are getting somewhere.