Uzeeh's log (a question about gaining mass in OP)

Hello! I'm a fifteen year old fellow from Finland. I started on gymnastics almost a year ago, but I didn't scale things properly and thus I quit when i didn't progress and became unmotivated. After a few of months of olympic lifting in the gym, I'm back, and I think I'll start better this time.

I'm 187cm and 73kg, so i obviously need more muscle, especially considering that my legs are quite muscled compared to my scrawny upper body. That's why I think I won't do the WODs just yet, but build some more muscle until the summer or so to get a decent base.

Some indicators of my current fitness:

9 chin-ups, chest to bar, with a pause at the bottom in deadhang. I can also do 1x22kg as added weight.

4-5 XR dips

Flat tuck front lever for about 25s (I feel I lack the core strength for more, thus I'll train hollow for now since I suck at it)

About a minute of good wall handstand

5 pushups with 15kg added to my backpack ( :oops: )

Military press 5x42,5kg

15 alternating single leg squats

8 towel slide leg curls

130kg deadlift (sumo)

65kg clean and jerk

2.15 min 800m run

Today's workout:

Pre-FSPs (expect for plank)

5x6 ring pushups with the feet a bit elevated (1min 20s rest between sets)

5x6 ring rows, feet at ground and the back almost touching the ground at the bottom (1min 20s rest between sets)

3x10 single leg squats

This was quite tough. The pushups and rows were done with an explosive concentric and a slow eccentric (about 2-3s). Is this a good way to make the exercises more massbuilding-aligned? I'm planning to progress with 5x5 --> 5x10, keeping the rests between sets about 1 min. I could also add some weight if I felt like it, like 5x5, 5x6, 5x6 + 3kg, 5x7, 6x7, 5x8, 5x8 + 3kg etc. After that, I'd make the exercise harder again.

So, my routine would look like this:

MO: Pushup + row + SLS

TU: Pullups + dips + Hamstring work (sprints, slide leg curls, half GHR, reverse hyper)

THU: Pushups + multiplane pulling ( 360 pulls etc, also probably rope climbs) + SLS

FRI: Rows + various presses (cast wall walks, chest rolls to HeS, things like that) + Hamstrings

My reasoning is that as I'm very weak with rows and pushups (compared to chins, for example), I need to concentrate on those. Doing HeSpu progressions doesn't seem that ideal, since I can't even do box HesPus properly, and doing normal pushup variations would help me with the harder variations later. Does this sound reasonable or should I change the routine? As for the 360 pulls and such, I figured that I'd need strength in those planes as well.

Warm-up: Shot-put and football with my brother for about an hour. Quite light. Didn't have time for FSP's.

Superset: 5x [4 dips on bars followed by 4 slow ring deadhang chinups] with about 20-30s rest after the chinups.

Like yesterday, i did the sets with really little pauses. It feels very strange compared to how I've trained past year - 3-5min rests - but i love the feeling of pump I get. I also think this will help my endurance well.

I'll do the FSP's this evening, plus a lot of shoulder mobilization.

Pre-FSP warm up:

Rev plank 2x30s (actually, i did 2x60s, it felt sooo easy )

Plank: 2x30s

Hollow: 4x15s (getting way better, my whole back is now glued to the ground and I can get my hands to a quite good position already)

Arch: 3x20s (this is getting more comfortable, at first my upper back would be tight for days with these and bridges)

Support hold (on two quite good tree branches): 60s

3x15s german hang

Workout:

6x6 ring pushups (1 minute rests)

3x2,5m rope climb without a negative (about a minute rests)

3x5 slide board leg curl (about 1,5min rests)

felt rather good. The pump from these pushups is great. The rope climb was done without leg support, but I'm not strong enough yet to work on negatives.

Uzeeh said:

MO: Pushup + row + SLS

TU: Pullups + dips + Hamstring work (sprints, slide leg curls, half GHR, reverse hyper)

THU: Pushups + multiplane pulling ( 360 pulls etc, also probably rope climbs) + SLS

FRI: Rows + various presses (cast wall walks, chest rolls to HeS, things like that) + Hamstrings

My reasoning is that as I'm very weak with rows and pushups (compared to chins, for example), I need to concentrate on those. Doing HeSpu progressions doesn't seem that ideal, since I can't even do box HesPus properly, and doing normal pushup variations would help me with the harder variations later. Does this sound reasonable or should I change the routine? As for the 360 pulls and such, I figured that I'd need strength in those planes as well.

Pushups will help you with HeSPU, but you shouldn't omit HeSPU progressions entirely. Plop yourself up into a HS and do some negatives. When I first started, I couldn't even kick up into a HS. That came rather quickly, within a few days and then I tried to a HeSPU negative and that didn't work either. After a couple weeks of training, I could do them and so I did for the next 2 or three weeks. About 2 months in, I was able to 5x5 HeSPUs nose to ground relatively easily. Keep at it! Oh, and I really wanted the HeSPUs so I was using GTG and I skipped Box HeSPU entirely, but that's just me.

I never thought of doing 360 pulls until recently, it's definitely a good multiplane exercise to use. Your routine should serve you well.

Oh and can you actually doing a chest roll to HeS? I can't do it for the life of me, any advice?

Hmm, thanks for the advice. i can actually do a HesPu or two, but they're quite arched. When i try to do them hollow, I just can't for life do them. Maybe I could include negatives on thursdays or Fridays

Anyway, on friday I did five rounds of 6 ring rows (touching my chest every time), followed by a really slow and controlled cast wall walk.

Today's workout:

Hollow: 4x15s

Rev plank: 1x60s

Plank: 2x40s

Arch: 3x20s

5 x 4 Chin-ups to chest, supersetted with 5 deep slow dips.

Felt rather good. Dips already felt much better than last time. Dunno why my pullups don't progress all that much; my maximum weighted ones have gotten way better, but I'm still stuck at about 10-13 rep max unweighted. Maybe I should try slower negatives.