Starting out (attention coach)

[brianmerrill]

Dear coach,

I am very experienced weight lifter, I have been lifting for about 6 years now consistently. I recently in the last year have been trying different methods of working out other than iron. I have rings and many other equipment, recently I have made my own workout routine with the knowledge off of your articles. my routine is 4 days a week and it consists of 60 sec holds with planches and levers, currently holding tuck planche for 60 and tuck lever for 60 now on to flat back tuck lever and planche. I am able to do muscle ups but I curious if working on doing them the SLOW style will boost my strength. I also have added pistols with a 5 rep range each leg. Once able to do 5 reps should I start adding weight or start adding holds or slower tempo? And also have added GHR on a stability ball around 3 reps I can do. One last thing should I add the leg lift progession to this routine. I eventually want to proceded to ring strength after I can accomplish all the planche levels and lever levels!

Thanks and I am excited to continue with the gymnastic style of working out

[Joshua Naterman]

If you want the ring strength you absolutely MUST develop your slow muscle up. That is how we are separating beginning and intermediate ring strength at the Seminars now. No slow muscle up, you learn MU development. Good slow MU then you get to learn the next step in ring strength!

The transition will be where your work happens. I have a video on my youtube account that details one method of MU development for the transition and it has worked well for many people. There are other methods and I think you should use whatever you think will work best for you!

I am, of course, assuming you may have trouble with the transition right now. If you don't that's great! I would definitely work it but keep volume low at first. 2-3 reps at the beginning of each workout has done well for me.

[brianmerrill]

I have a extremely good slow muscle up on the lift up but do I go just as slow on the down part of the muscle up? What rep range should I keep my pistols and GHR?

[Joshua Naterman]

Nice!

We all have different opinions, but to me you're better off hitting 7-8 reps per leg with the pistols before moving up in weight.

Tempo depends on what you are trying to develop. I use single leg variations to develop stabilizing muscles and double leg variations to build prime mover strength, so in my case slower is better for pistols and other single leg variations. A 404 or so rep makes sure that I don't skip any weak ranges of motion.

I'd split my time between stability ball and something solid with the GHR, personally. Stability balls will always lower the number of reps you can handle and you'll benefit from higher reps as well as lower. You can always add weight to the stable version and/or start working on single leg GHR if you're doing like 15+ reps!

Since you have a strong muscle up, I would suggest that you keep working on whatever it is you're doing and also follow Coach's iron cross elbow prep. It will work well in your warm ups and will be an excellent complement to what you are doing now if it isn't already a part of your routine!

[brianmerrill]

one more question?

I feel more comfortable doing the 60 sec planche and front/back lever on the rings instead of the planches on ground and levers on a regular bar....

Just curious on your insight on that.

[Joshua Naterman]

I'm guessing wrist issues are the reason with planche. There's nothing wrong with doing them on rings if you want to, but developing planche on the floor with fingers back will help with wrist and hand strength. IF that's what is holding you back, I guess it's more of a personal choice. Just make sure your elbows are locked so that you aren't cheating yourself!

As for levers, doesn't matter where you do them too much! Bar is somewhat easier to me, but that is very subjective.

[brianmerrill]

well I have started the advanced tuck planche progressions, advanced tuck lever, and back lever advanced tuck... My problem is doing them all on the same day. My advanced tuck panche I can get a solid 8-10 seconds before I give out. But by time I finish that for 60 sec, I am like shot and I feel weak for my levers....Should I do each on a seperate day? I feel like that will benefit me more in my progressions. any thoughts?

Amd if I do that what days should I throw my pistol progressions and ghr progressions?

[Joshua Naterman]

You have not read the book, I take it? The details are covered in there.

I will tell you this: you are NOT strong enough to safely train advanced tuck PL more than once every 7-14 days. Until you have a solid 15-20s you should not be trying to do advanced tuck planche. How long can you hold a tuck planche?

[brianmerrill]

60 seconds I can hold tuck planche, tuck lever, and back lever tuck all for 60 sec so I progress onto the advanced tuck now

[Joshua Naterman]

Ok. Here's what I recommend. This has worked for a good number of people now.

3x per week keep working your tuck planche, 2 sets of 30s. 1x per week work advanced tuck, with 6-7 second holds. Do this for a SSC. You should find that you have a good 15s hold for your advanced tuck in around 12 weeks. It may come sooner, but let the gains consolidate. Let your body fully adapt.

If you are going from a 60s hold to an 8-10s hold you clearly have a major weakness that is holding you back. It may be as simple as not knowing proper planche muscle activation. None of us knew until Dillon taught us, and it took Coach forever to teach it to Dillon because Coach's body just did it so automatically that he couldn't understand why Dillon didn't!

I'm not the biggest help there, and words are somewhat insufficient to the task. It really is something that you need to be shown in person. A seminar or a gymnastic gym would be where I would suggest you learn. You will find out that your entire upper body flexes at the same time, and it feels crazy. At first it felt to me like my whole body was trying to crush my ribcage and succeeding.

At any rate, taking the split SSC approach I mentioned above should be a a very good transitional tool for you.

You need to be fully protracting your scaps, fully externally rotating the arms, and fully depressing the scaps at the same time. It's hard. Well, it was for me anyways. The longest part of your lats will flex super hard, as will the rest of your upper body. You have to be doing ALL of that actively at the same time to planche properly. Like I said, it's going to be hard to learn on your own but maybe that will help. I suggest learning from someone who has a planche. They may not even realize what they are doing, but if you feel their lats and the rest of their upper body you'll have a hard time finding a muscle that isn't flexing really, really hard.

[brianmerrill]

what do you think of my intergrated routine?

After all bodyweight exercises I do 10 x 6 sec of simple static movements, currently on flat tuck front lever, flat tuck back lever, frong stand ( real easy for me still working on balance on advanced frong stand ) soon prgress onto that and round back l - sit.

rep scheme is 1,2,3,1,2,3

pulling - tuck xr bulgarian pull ups ( soon L), tuck lever rows xr, chins inverted xr then back lever

pressing - ppp xr, bulgarian xr dips, heSpu negitive from descend then frog stand

legs - sls, ghr half, deck squat distance then front lever

core - hang to L, windshield wipers supine, RLL then L - sit

mon, tues, thurs, fri

currently can hold flat tuck front and back lever for 10 x 6, front stand easy for 10 x 6 ( need to work on balance for advanced), and getting about 8 x 6 on l - sit before form starts to fail

[Joshua Naterman]

You are working too hard on your statics in my opinion. 10 sets is a LOT. I guess if you're used to this and have built up to it slowly you might be ok, but that suggests that your intensity AND volume are high on low leverage movements. That's a bad situation waiting to happen.

You need to find the pre-requisites and work on those as your main FSP training and perform 2-3 sets per workout day of your actual FSP for your 50% max hold time, whatever that is. I HIGHLY recommend not trying anything that you don't have a solid 15s max hold for at the absolute minimum. That means 15s according to a clock of perfect position.

[Blairbob]

Whatever, you end up doing, I just wanted to say a few cycles ago I was working holds of 5s (since my BL straight max was 10) so that meant 12 holds. Not only did it take some time to get through, it was an absolute struggle to get through. No getting away with 45s rest periods for those. Maybe 1m if not a good 90s which I find is still optimal when I want to work 10s x6 reps now. 12 holds means 11 rest periods. Now with 1m rest periods, that mean's it's gonna take you at least 12 minutes if not towards 13-15 for that one FSP.

I have noticed that even doing straight arm work after a bent arm strength day is just crummy all in all, which is why my day 1 is straight arm day followed by bent arm work on day 2. Yes, I use day 3 to get some swing work and bent arm swing movement in theory (but not always in practice as I ended up just sleeping last Wednesday past my nap).

Quite honestly, I think that you should be working some sort of straight arm work (adv frog as a minimum or planche lean or prone support on rings) as well as the frog stand. If you were just doing the straight arm WU FSP's that might do yourself with front and rear straight arm planks, PB or Ring support, etc.

[brianmerrill]

I feel as if I would be gaining more strength with just focusing on static movements rather then intergrated bodyweight exercises with static holds. My ideal routine is flat tuck front and back lever holds, advanced frog stands or planche leans (probably planche leans cause balance in adv frog stand is difficult right now) l-sit and manna progression, handstand hold currently at wall handstand hold for 1:45 seconds progressing to 3 mins, finished off with some air dyne intervals. overall with frog stands I can easily hold it for 15 seconds but advanced I have trouble with balance so I feel plance leans will be a good way to work it straight arm. flat tuck front and back lever I can hold for 15 seconds but struggle with straddles, round back L - sit and msh low progressions are about same with around 15 second holds but struggle with next progressions.

[Blairbob]

It's not that you really get "stronger" in many of these skills. It is simply that you become more neuro-efficient at doing them. Recruiting more motor units, etc. Frog stand really is about balance but it also has do with wrist strength when done on floor. Besides balance it's one of the limiters in execution of the movement for longer times.

Quite often when training longer duration holds of frog stand or PB support, plank support, wall HS; it's that the joints such as the wrists, elbows and shoulders start getting sore before the muscles fatigue out. As we have said before, you're only as strong as your joints (&connective tissue) in the GB method.

Working embedded movements that incorporate a hold and movement through ROM is for those people who have mastered those positions in the first place.

[brianmerrill]

ok well what do you recommend for a static hold routine based off of my information?

[brianmerrill]

I am just going to go back to working on 1 m holds of everything like the orginal article building a olympic body says....So I will continue this week with tuck front and back levers for 1 min.....frog stand 1 min, l sit bent leg and hsm bent for 1 min as well as handstand holds

[Blairbob]

I personally think doing HS shrugs and balance holds in your WU is fine. I like the idea of dedicated HS work for about 5-15 minutes but that's up to the individual.

I think the cycles of 30s on, 45s off for HS conditioning for wall HS work well for 12 rounds. It's programmed in the GB WOD. Personally I've been trying to get to this lately but perhaps at a volume of 5-6 sets with 45s but I should probably test to see what my exact max is and use 50-75% of that.

For awhile there ( I haven't lately because I've just forgot ) I would do 1m of frogstand after my 1m SSC of FL, ring support, and BL.

If you have rings you should probably work a 1m rings turn out plank support but if you can do 1m, progress on to the 1m ring support and then 1m ring L-sit and HS. I work 2x30s of this in my WU before FSP's but I don't know exactly what my max time for PL on swiss ball or rings is. 2x30s on swiss ball is before that in front and rear plank. For rear plank it's a good warmup before german hang.

As Coach S has pointed out, Ring L-sit is not the same thing as floor/PB L-sit. It's a step for ring strength and bicep training.

For the 1m of frogstand work, I would simply build up to 1m of time however many attempts are necessary with enough rest. It depends if you feel it strength taxing or balance taxing. If it's starts hurting your joints, progress then with a 50% SSC for it. For me, it's something I was working nearly 20 years ago so I wasn't concerned about my wrists with the HS work I currently do.

[brianmerrill]

ok so today I did 12 rounds of 30 second wall handstands with 45 second rest with ease, should I progress to longer holds? After that I completed a minute each of FL tuck, ring support, and BL tuck. After that I did a 1 minute frog stand, all of those statics were done in full one minute holds. After that I worked on l - sit on floor with bent legs and I got 3 sets of 20 seconds. with the ring support, should I progress onto ring l - sit or no because I do floor l -sits?

[Joshua Naterman]

Post video of ring support if you can, please. If your elbows aren't locked and your rings aren't turned out through shoulder external rotation then you haven't mastered ring support, and it's impossible to determine if that is done correctly through text alone. A good indication is locked elbows that are pointed forward completely.

[brianmerrill]

Ok I will post vid tomorrow but yes my elbows are pointed out and arms are locked

[Joshua Naterman]

Cool. I'd probably go to 35-40 seconds with the handstands for the next few weeks, starting with 35 and if that's easy then try 40 next time. Keep bumping it up 5 seconds per workout until you start running into a moderate challenge in the later sets. At that point I would recommend keeping that time until the holds get easy and stay easy through the last set for 3-5 workouts in a row before slowly progressing the time up again. You NEVER want to lose form (shoulder activation as well as body line) in your handstand, that's why we're looking for a moderate challenge instead of failure on the last set.

Maintain that ring support! Don't ever stop practicing that, it is totally foundational.

It sounds like you're ready for adv tuck BL and FL and it sounds like you're doing the right thing with the L sit as you are. At this point you should start practicing ring L sit but continue on floor as well, they are separate. You really need a solid floor L sit to have a hope at a decent one on the rings, so consider XR L-sits the next step in support work!