Is this a good routine for starting out?

Started by lschmidt, December 27, 2011 · 5 Replies · 2,472 Views

lschmidt

First, some quick background. I'm 24 years old, I swam competitively for 10 years, ran cross country in HS for 2 years, and have done triathlons for 6 years now. I used to be in pretty good shape (at least by my standards), but have been mostly inactive now for 6 - 12 months. I'd like to start the "Gymnastics Bodies" way of training as I start to get back into swimming, biking, and running. In particular, I'm hoping the strength gains will transfer over to my sprint swimming ability. I'm not going into this with any expectations, and also just want to achieve positions like the front lever, back lever, planche, L-sit, etc. for the inherent challenge. My plan is simple:

Work up to being able to hold the following static positions for 60 seconds, all consecutively, with minimal rest (~15 - 30 seconds in between each hold): L-sit, plank, reverse plank, handstand (against the wall), front lever, hanging L-shape, back lever, inverted hang, arch hold (superman), hollow hold. Those 10 exercises cover both the push and pull straight-arm component for the arms in 12 o'clock, 9, 6, and 3 o'clock positions (if viewing your body from the side). Then the additional 2 arch hold and hollow hold make 10 in total.

In order to do this, I will simply hold the positions for a total time of 60 seconds each, and taking rest when I need it. The positions I can't do correctly in it's final form are scaled back, ex:

L-sit -- I have my feet on the ground currently.

Handstand -- Either against the wall, or my partner holds my feet.

Front Lever -- My feet are supported by a chair-back and I try to take tension off of the chair.

Hanging L-shape -- Either tucked feet, one leg out, or feet supported by a chair and 5-second spurts of no chair support.

So, I will call 60 seconds of work in each of the 10 positions my "static work". In a given workout, the static work will be followed by rep-work in a single plane of motion and either push or pull. These will be evenly rotated. So the rotation might look like this:

Day 1 - static work followed by pushups

Day 2 - static work followed by rows

Day 3 - legs only

Day 4 - REST

Day 5 - static work followed by HS presses

Day 6 - static work followed by pullups

Day 7 - legs only

Day 8 - rest

Day 9 - static work followed by upright rows

Day 10 - static work followed by dips

Day 11 - legs only

Day 12 - REST

That would complete a full rotation. The only rep work that is skipped over is rep work in the reverse plank/back lever position because I'm not sure what rep work to include there. Every other plane of motion is covered in the rep work for both push and pull.

I do a general warmup as well which includes jump roping, jumping jacks, rotator cuff exercises, bodyweight squats, and pushups.

Additionally, I am working fingertip pushups and wrist pushups on a near daily basis.

Any suggestions?

Blairbob

Do you care at all about attaining a bridge?

lschmidt

Yeah I wouldn't mind going for the bridge as well. My goal was to come up with a repeatable workout template that I can just rotate through. Ideally exercises will be grouped up into similar movements, so for example on Day 5 (from above) you would just choose a FBE from Group B (and group B would be exercises that have a pushing component in the over-the-head direction). Any suggestions with that in mind?

Oh, and I do have a set of rings.

And I forgot to add, in order to mix in dynamic movements you could do one full rotation with non-dynamic FBE's and then a full rotation with dynamic exercises.

Blairbob

HS presses or any other HSPU variant should work fine.

lschmidt

Thanks for the reply. I meant to ask for suggestions on the template as a whole, not just on over-the-head pushing exercises :)

Is the volume too high, too low, etc? Or does it seem decent?

And to clear up my original post, "static work" on each day means 60 seconds of *every* FSP (10 min. of total static hold time per workout).

As for FBE's, what exercises would be pushing and pulling for when the arms are in the position of reverse plank and back lever?

Blairbob

Seems pretty doable.

As for FBE's, what exercises would be pushing and pulling for when the arms are in the position of reverse plank and back lever?

My friend tried to come up with one that was basically a form of a chair dip. I honestly wouldn't work too much about it. Do some 360 pulls, korean dips or BL curls if you really are that concerned.