Looking for Citicism On My Current Workout Routine.

Hi everyone, For the past 4 or 5 months I've been trying to follow the workout routine below. My Goals are essentially to become a much better hand balancer, increase my strength to weight ratio as much as possible, and increase my flexibility. More specifically im trying to acheive some of the basic gymnastic static holds (planche, front lever, v-sit etc), and be able to do a straddle and pike press to handstand.

I start off each day with either jump roping, or about 10 minutes of running followed by 10-15 minutes of static stretching. During each day i try to combine antagonistic work (chin-ups followed by handstand pushups then back to chin-ups etc).

Day 1

5 - 10 minutes Hand balancing

Pull:

Weighted Chin-ups (3 sets x 4 reps)

Front Lever Progression (total 60 seconds)

Wide arm Pull-ups (3x6)

Push:

Weighted Dips (3x4)

Planche Progression (total 60 seconds)

Handstand Push ups Against Wall (3x5)

Day 2:

30 Minutes Hand Balancing

Core:

L-sit Holds (total 60 seconds)

Body Levers (3x4)

Ab-wheel rollout (3x4)

Superman Holds (3x50 sec hold)

Dynamic Superman Hold (Raising Legs and arms off of the ground repetedly (3x30))

Day 3:

30 Minutes Hand Balancing

Legs:

Weighted Squats (3x4) or Weighted Pistols (3x4)

Hamstring Curls (3x4)

Wrists/Fingers/Forearms:

Fingertip Presses: (starting in push ups position on knees and pressing onto Fingertips (3x8))

Wrist Push ups: (In push up position pressing up onto first knuckle (3x10)

Day 4: Rest

Repeat Cycle

I haven't been as successful as i would have liked to have been following this routine (sometimes only getting through one cycle during a week). But regardless i feel like i've been progressing more and more slowly if at all as time goes on. An example being my tuck planche, which has gone from 10 seconds to 25 seconds max hold, and my L-sit which has actually gone down from 30 seconds to about 25 seconds.

Notes:

-I am 175 lbs, 5'11", 17 years old, and male.

-Im aware that static stretching before a workout can be counter productive to strength training, but im not sure if i should just move that stretching to the end of my workout or if i should replace it with some dynamic stretching (which i no absolutely nothing about).

-Working Legs and Wrists on the same day seems like a very strange combination to me but im not sure where else to put the two

-Sorry for such a long post, any advice will be much appreciated, thanks.

Hi Marlon,

Have you simply tried to get constantly stronger over the last 4-5 months rather than applying an underload-load-overload-rest cycle of some sort?? Failure to do this kind of thing is a common reason for a plateau.

Static stretching before a workout can increase your risk of injury. Better to do some dynamic stretching before your workout, however static stretching is OK to do after your workout.

I am also wondering if your workload is a little high? That of course depends on a lot of factors, but might be worth looking at whether you need to do so much. It's very tempting to try and have all the bases covered on paper, but that doesn't always translate into real life.

Regards,

George.

Hey George, thanks for the response. I'll definitely try to fit some dynamic stretching into my routine. Is there any chance you could explain what you mean by underload-load-overload-rest cycle a bit more? I'm not sure if you're referring to the divisions of my routine in general, or my lack of consistency when i said that I i only get about one cycle in per week at times, thanks.

This is quite an old thread, but should give you food for thought?

> Program design: Overload, load and underload

If you have any questions it might be better to start another thread, since it's been dormant for long enough that bumping it would be best avoided.

George.

Ok, thanks for the link George.

Marlon if you describe what static stretches you do in your WU, I can give you dynamic versions of them and explanations.