Newbie questions???

Hey guys. Im new to all of this stuff. I just ordered rings. And i will be mounting them when they come in. I have been doing stuff like Psuedo Planch pushups to build strength for the Planche hold and planche pushups. Ive been doing pretty well, being able to only hold a straddle planche for like 2 seconds. Barely. So im working on the one before that.

So my question is,

A) When im doing the Psuedo planche pushups, i can do so many of them. When you guys say 3-5 reps is best. I thought in gymnastics you don't add weight to things. I thought it was all bodyweight... So should i do planche straddle pushups if the psuedos are getting easier?

B) Also i tend to lean way to far forward and ive camcorded myself and my legs go way high. Is there a way to strengthen my body so when i try to go for the straddle position, my body will be flat like a table? Or will that all come with strength?

btw, ive been lifting heavy since i was 13-14. Im now 18, and im doing this type of training because my lower back has had some issues with deadlifts and squats (bad form too early and lifting over heavy amounts). So im doing this to get strong for my bodyweight because i am going to be doing MMA in about 4-6 months from now. Since stopping lifting so heavy, i have also felt better. Im not sure why. But for some reason, this past week when i rolled with my friend in BJJ, i felt stronger, and ive only been doing this stuff 3 times before we rolled... maybe he had a bad day? Or maybe its gymnastics!

Ive been training off nothing but the things i have read from here. Holds, pushups, HS pushups, ect..ect... 4 days a week, while doing BJJ with my friend 2 days a week.

Im going on my second week of training.

MY GOALS:

- Planche pushups

- Handstand pushup (not on wall)

- Human flag hold (this one is tough..well they are all tough)

- V-sit (manna seems it would take a lifetime to achieve)

- Muscle up (on regular pull up bar and rings)

- Iron cross

- Ill have more as i work with everything.

thanks for your help.

For A you go psuedo planche pushups, then tuck planche pushups, then advanced tuck planche pushups, then straddle, then full.

For B you need to fix that now or your muscle memory will get locked in. You don't say how you get into your planche. Do you lower from handstand or lean into it from a pushup position? If you lower into it you might not be strong enough to hold a straddle at horrizontal and need to go back to advance tuck. Either way you need someone to spot you and tell you or hope you in a correct position so you can feel what horrizontal feels like.

You will always get great results if you start off too easy and slowly work your way up. If PPP are too easy, there's nothing wrong with high volume. That will just be a warm up eventually, but you will keep getting stronger from that for a while. I would suggest starting off with tuck planche push ups on dip bars or parallel bars if you are strong enough to do at least 3. If you can do 3, do lots of sets of 1 with like 30-60s rest, maybe taking a 2-5 minute rest when you finally fail to get that one rep perfectly, then repeat the process. Test your rep max every 2-3 weeks for one set after warm up and before work sets. When you can do 5 you should start doing those work sets with 2 reps. When you can do 6 or 7 do 3 reps. Always at 50% or one rep less than 50% of your rep max. By the time you are doing 5 rep work sets you will probably be able to do 3-4 flat tuck. This is when I would do a few work sets of your tuck planche PU and then work mostly sets of flat tuck for strength.

This will be a slow-ish process, but you should realize that your goal is to get stronger, not to blaze through progressions. Use each progression until it can't make you stronger anymore, don't try to jump up as soon as you can! If you take one piece of advice, please take that one. Squeeze all the progress you can out of something before moving on, do NOT move on the second you can! Only move on when you can no longer make progress without moving on. This sounds completely backwards but it works incredibly well and will lead to maximum injury prevention as well as your best long term strength gains.

slizzardman said:

You will always get great results if you start off too easy and slowly work your way up. If PPP are too easy, there's nothing wrong with high volume. That will just be a warm up eventually, but you will keep getting stronger from that for a while. I would suggest starting off with tuck planche push ups on dip bars or parallel bars if you are strong enough to do at least 3. If you can do 3, do lots of sets of 1 with like 30-60s rest, maybe taking a 2-5 minute rest when you finally fail to get that one rep perfectly, then repeat the process. Test your rep max every 2-3 weeks for one set after warm up and before work sets. When you can do 5 you should start doing those work sets with 2 reps. When you can do 6 or 7 do 3 reps. Always at 50% or one rep less than 50% of your rep max. By the time you are doing 5 rep work sets you will probably be able to do 3-4 flat tuck. This is when I would do a few work sets of your tuck planche PU and then work mostly sets of flat tuck for strength.

This will be a slow-ish process, but you should realize that your goal is to get stronger, not to blaze through progressions. Use each progression until it can't make you stronger anymore, don't try to jump up as soon as you can! If you take one piece of advice, please take that one. Squeeze all the progress you can out of something before moving on, do NOT move on the second you can! Only move on when you can no longer make progress without moving on. This sounds completely backwards but it works incredibly well and will lead to maximum injury prevention as well as your best long term strength gains.

Thanks for the advice man. I agree with everything you said.

Lavastine said:

For A you go psuedo planche pushups, then tuck planche pushups, then advanced tuck planche pushups, then straddle, then full.

For B you need to fix that now or your muscle memory will get locked in. You don't say how you get into your planche. Do you lower from handstand or lean into it from a pushup position? If you lower into it you might not be strong enough to hold a straddle at horrizontal and need to go back to advance tuck. Either way you need someone to spot you and tell you or hope you in a correct position so you can feel what horrizontal feels like.

Yea i lower from a lean. But yea. I think i might be going too far too fast like the other guy said. So im going to do advanced tuck planche holds instead of trying to kill myself getting nearly 3 seconds of the straddle hold. Once i get 40-60 seconds, ill go to straddle. Thanks