foundation statics

Hi all, i was due to attend the Australian seminar but my brother had to go into surgery so i had to miss out. He is doing well now though.

I will make it to another seminar instead - probably next year sometime. In the meantime Coach has allowed me access to the graduate forum and is sending me the seminar material and i have signed the non-disclosure agreement like all normal seminar participants.

In the meantime while i wait for the seminar material to arrive i was hoping someone could briefly clarify the sequence of foundational statics that lead to the first stage of Back lever, Front Lever, and Planche work. I'd like to spend a chunk of time developing these basic positions before i do anything else.

at the moment i am working these holds in a circuit, going from position to position and taking a 60 sec break in between sets. WIth the aim of building up to the 3 x 60. I'm ashamed to say that just these simple holds are difficult and humbling - mostly the Hollow Hold and the Handstand.

Plank

Hollow Hold

Arch Hold

Handstand

What i was hoping was someone could fill in the skill tree for me as i am close to moving on to the next progressions on Plank and Arch.

From what i understand from reading the forums the skills trees look something like:

Plank, Reverse Plank, PB support, Ring Plank, Ring support.....Planche

Hollow Hold, Hollow rock,.......Front lever

Arch hold, arch rock,.......Back Lever

Also, i was hoping to get some advice in terms of programming, should i be running these as a SSC - or because they are simpler and less taxing than the more difficult holds can i run them more aggressively adding time each week or something else?

I have a huge chunk of work and family committments on at the moment so my plan is to drop all my training except foundational statics and pre-hab / wrist prep exercises.

Any help appreciated!

First off, I could probably send you the GB notes that we had around a year ago. I would recommend reading the new syllabus first though. I went to the seminar in May 2010 I think so I'm probably a bit out of the loop on current training methodology.

Warmup with shrugs in hang and support on PB and plank. Scapular shrugs/pushups ya know?

Then ya got to hit the planks.

There is:

Pushup plank

Rear/Inverse plank (like a crab walk position/"table" but with straight legs

One arm plank on each hand. These are tough when you start trying to make the angle diagonal instead of vertical.

Hollow hold

Arch hold

Hollow and Arch hold really aren't planks.

Then ya got the L-sit. This is super basic. Of course you need to be able to do a PB support before the L-sit and a straight arm pushup plank before the PB support.

After L, is straddle-L, then MiddleSplitHold progressions toward Manna.

I'm not sure if Ring plank is an official PreFSP exercise. It is something that I advocate and have used for my gymnasts and myself when I was rebuilding my support strength.

When the GB WOD first came about in the embedded strength WOD's planche progressions were used. At one point he switched to Ring Support Str and it seems they are back to using planche progressions. I have seen them used planche lean in there as well.

L-sit and German Hang back then were recommended to be 60s but 30s could be doable. I think Coach at that time would have preferred 60s but for fitness enthusiasts might have been ok with 30s. I dunno if that has been solidified as 60s.

Straddle-L I think is 30 not 60. Again, not sure.

Planche progression goes frog stand, straight arm frog stand, tuck, adv tuck, straddle, 1/2 lay. lay 60s until you work on straddle. Their is a bunch of other requisites which I would need to pull the notes up to see.

FL progression was hollow hold, hollow rocks, and then body lever holds and lifts before FL

BL progression was arch hold, rocks, then german hang and 8 360pulls before BL.

Coach did say he would simply have his boys work the planks for up to 10 minutes or so just rotating.

For a rank beginner, I wouldn't just use one minute of volume for them. 2 or 3 minutes of volume broken up as an SSC. This is pretty much what I do with my beginning gymnasts and they hate me for it However, I don't run SSC for them. We just do them in series with very little rest in between. Sometimes they can't hold the full minute so if they need some rest I let them rest 5 or 10 seconds. Sometimes, I just stop the stopwatch from continuing to run. Sometimes I click it back to zero. This will happen if they break form or give up. It depends on what group of gymnasts I'm working with. Sometimes I do 30s holds instead of 1m or 45s. It all depends on the level and I generally do 3 rounds.

If you do this much of the prerequisites it may take the bulk of your workout and a bit of time. I still would do some of the FullBodyExercises in your programming to complement the FundamentalStaticPositions.

To note, I often for myself do wall HS in my prerequisite series because I like to. I don't use bridge in there because I like to get my shoulders and wrists warmed up prior. Sometimes I do bridge wall walks but sometimes I'm lazy and just do backbend and stand up instead.

You could probably work some of the prerequisites at %'s higher than 50% up to 85% but bare in mind it'll be more taxing. 50% isn't that taxing and easier to do some volume. I've also worked some in series like 85-65-50% for L-sit which was 60s,45s,30s,15s or other combinations. Again, this is just stuff for myself.

I think somebody was going to try creating a thread to garner interest for a seminar in the Phillipines. Dunno what has happened about that right now.

After you have gotten the syllabus, PM your email if you want those old notes. You have to kind of go through and sort them out as they come from 3 different sources in 3 different seminars I think (I being one of them).

Thank for the detailed response mate. Much appreciated. One question - in the FL progressions you list 'body lever holds and pulls'

by body lever are you referring to the 'dragon flag esque' move that Coach has a video posted on which he calls a body lever, or are you referring to levers like the Elbow lever?

And by body lever pull, are you referring to the something like the front lever pull? not sure if that was the correct name but the move where you go from a fL to pull up and back that can be worked also at lower progressions of FL with tucked legs?

thanks heaps for the info.

It's very interesting how it all fits into the broader schema

By BodyLever I am referencing a Dragon Flag though the body is straight/hollow and does not allow the lower back to arch.

Body Lever pulls go from vertical (in a candlestick) to horizontal. I think 10 or 15 were required before Front Lever.

Thanks Blairbob. i hope you don't mind if i bug you for a couple of clarifications.

is the body lever held statically for time? i.e _/

and is then the bodylever pull the dynamic part and essentially moving through the motion dynamically from top to bottom and back up?