best & hardest skill(s) for each muscle/bone in body

phrak said:

Because I'm sure Coach and the other moderators have an image to upkeep, I'll say what they can't:

Can we please stop arguing on the internet like idiots? You just look dumb, guys

With a statement like that, obviously you didn't read the T-nation thread that Coach started. "Image to upkeep"...

Bdk1786 said:

As stated before for the OP, his question is a bit unanswerable for this type of training in pin pointing specific muscles and bones and the best exercises that follow. He said he has access to BtGB and it is my opinion that he just needs to spend a little more time in reading it is all and understanding it.

Well, then, just list the exercises that you feel are the answer to his question. It's not that hard. You guys are so busy trying to get people to "buy the damn book" that you totally ignore everything else. He didn't ask for progressions, frequency, pictures, etc. etc. Just the names. Seiyafan said what he had to say and then answered his question. That's how it goes. Not all this other nonsensical ramblings. Some users even stated how many bones and muscles there are in the body?! Really? You honestly think he was referring to every single bone and muscle in the body?? :|

Another general note is it's interesting how the advocate fanboys of Coach always cite laziness as the source of the criticisms attached to the book. "You want Coach to do this for you, You want Coach to do that for you, etc. etc." Now, before Coach was ever doing his thing, people were doing everything that Coach listed in his book. How did Coach learn gymnastics, how did others before him learn it? The same way that people would learn these skills if BtGB/OG/other similar books did not exist. Going and asking a gymnastics teacher. So, basically all of you fanboys are also lazy. Why did/do you need Coach's book/work? Why do you post on this forum? Can't you go to a gymnastics teacher in your area and learn yourself in person? I'm sure that would triumph any progression you would get from a book. Yep, it's your prerogative, that's why. Same way as the others who feel cheated by Coach's book.

I'll stop here. I think the OP received what he was searching for on page one. But I will say this. I do think Coach is milking this. I touched on this in my previous post but nothing is ever a complete work on it's own. Everything is set up to get more and more money. His first book explicitly states that it's not complete until you've bought the other books from him. But you can learn more if you visit my forum, pay me in my seminar and then I'll give you a little bit more. The thing is though, part of me despises the whole setup. But... The business side of me is saying that what Coach is doing is slick, as long as he is able to maintain his customer base. He has seminars setup all over the place, his forum is full of people that support him no matter what is going on, so on and so forth. It's basically like this, Coach doesn't want to reveal everything at one time. And I kinda don't blame him. That's like how these world-class chefs who have their own restaurants release cookbooks but the recipes in the cookbooks are not the same as their signature dishes in their restaurants. Why? Because then people probably wouldn't frequent their establishments as often. Same thing with Coach. But it is still a gamble. The author of OG did just the opposite largely I feel because of the risk Coach took in not releasing a book on the level that a lot of people were expecting. That's why a second edition is very close to being released. And it better be good. Personally, I think the excuse that if Coach were to release one volume listing everything he knows, it would be too big and it would be super expensive, is lame. So, he'd rather release them one every four years. Kinda like putting the release of his books on the same pedestal as the Olympic games or the World Cup. I'd rather get it all now, I can afford it and probably a number of other people can as well.

I noted earlier that the author of OG is really unknown in the field he's writing about BUT quality is quality. If what he produced is the real deal then the future of Coach's book series is going to be in trouble. I dropped the dough on the first book and I will do the same for the second book just because I am super curious to see how it will fare against OG. If it doesn't top it, I'm gone for good and I am pretty sure I won't be the only one. Again my 2 cents.

Can't you go to a gymnastics teacher in your area and learn yourself in person?

Not really. Think about this. For 15-20 bucks per class, you get a 1-2hr class at a gym and sometimes it's basically an open gym that is babysat. Maybe you get a coach that has some idea of the men's events but you'll be lucky to even a get a Journeyman level quality of adult class coach. It can be more of a social, fun, recreational class for about 80% of the clientele.

So that's 100-150 a month which is essentially what one gymnastics book, a pair of rings and a pullup bar cost, a set of bandy things and pvc for a set of parallettes. Lucky enough I coach and get paid poorly but I generally get gym access so that can be worth a lot to me. However, I'm getting old. I think should I coach again, I'm only going to workout before coaching classes with maybe a bit of fooling around while I'm in coach mode. I'd like to just punch in my timecard at the end of the night and go home instead of train.

That's one of the appeal of BW fitness methods. It's relatively cheap and you can do it at home or at a park/beach.

Various viewpoints are acceptable on these questions, name calling is not.

I suppose i've dealt with enough trainees over the 20 years to have a sense of where someone is coming from, and to leave a little space for them to fill in the details that actually allow their question to be answered.

The original question had total beginner written all over it. Nothing wrong with that, but actually the best thing for him to understand was he's asking the wrong question if he's actually interested in training. It might seem like the right question. So if he were to have followed up on his own thread, showed some real interest, he would have had everything spelled out to him.

As for Coach and milking. Again, i must be getting old, because i've seen milking, and have been milked.

The thing is Coach is just busy, and being a man who trains athletes for many years he thinks on a different time scale. This thing is a process. I guess the other alternative would have been not to write a book and wait until he retired. Personally i'm happy he didn't.

As he's said many times before, no one is really ready for the other volumes yet. There's no milking there, trainees need to get to the point that they are ready for them. Instead he's re writing the first book. Because as we all have noted there is room for improvement regarding the programing etc. The pre-req's will also be in the next ed and all the relevant pre-hab.

Coach had a good idea with the series, but time is a cruel mistress. The second edition will rectify a lot of the issues.

Learning this stuff elsewhere, good luck. Adult gymnastics programs don't cover strength to any great degree.

As Coach Sommer says on the intro page, the thing that is actually unique to his method, is building up a base of strength and flexibility first to layer the skill work on top of. His program is his program, not what every gymnastics Coach does, though of course there are common elements.

I'm on a bit of a roll here -

About the this myth of Coach X only works with kids. I do agree that kids and adults have different learning curves. Personally i think adults need more coaching not less, but they are apt not to listen and to want to do things their own way, and to not build a foundation first, thinking it's more gratifying to skip forward.

The biggest advantage of working with kids is they have no preconceived idea of what comes next or what they should be doing now!

Kids don't really care what comes next, they basically just do what they are told. They might loose attention, but they aren't trying to second guess the program.

Second someone in Coach Sommer's position may get an athlete when they are as young as 4 and have them move up at 16. That's twelve years of continuous development.

It's hard to appreciate what that means, i've been teaching yoga 20 years, and have never had a student to stick around that long. I had a couple get close to my idea of advanced, one ran away because of i was expecting them to do things properly and it was too much for her. The other had to leave to find work. That was maybe 5 years together in those cases. I can't imagine 12 with a really committed student.

So how many people are working on the same program that they were in the year 2000? Could that be the real problem?

By same program i don't mean doing the same thing for 12 years, a program is progressive by definition. Another thing that seems to have been forgotten by many in the fitness world.

One thing is pretty well universally agreed on, it takes a minimum of ten years to get a high level of proficiency with any sport or activity.

Don't know the OP's condition, but most trips are a lot of walking, maybe some hills, and a lot of sitting in buses, planes, trains. Why not get into decent shape to be able to easily run a few miles, some hills, maybe do some all around bw conditioning 3 days a week and spend more time planning your itinerary?

Why are we talking so much and not training?

phrak, that's a simplistic attitude, no offense. We obviously don't train all day every day and have no time for anything but training, but that doesn't mean we're lazy. We have time to discuss things and to exercise our intellect... that doesn't mean we should be training more. Do you dislike discussion?

Because we are older than you just out of HS and in college aged kids.

Patrick Smith said:

Do you dislike discussion?

In general, no. What I dislike is this sort of he-said-she-said raised temper internet posturing. We can sit here and debate all the various ins and outs of training for days, but at the end of it, it's the guy who trains consistently and efficiently that wins out. Everything else is fluff.

Try going to one of the men's gymnastic coach meetings at Congress one of these days. Now imagine what happens when you have a room full of men's coaches (95% male) with free beer.

Then again without the free beer, who would want to come?

DannyCE said:

kman1 said:

the author of OG has some super knowledgeable people in support of his people of his book. Namely, the author of Convict Conditioning.

Not... sure... if... serious... otherwise I need to check out some of the S&C resources in the prison library at Rikers and expand my knowledge base.

BTGB was good for what it was and Sommer did a fine job on his first book considering his personal life and full-time job - training real athletes. I think you got the idea: "he doesn't have time to keep pumping out books because he is too busy training. Freaking awesome!" BTGB isn't perfect and he is taking the reviews to revise and improve the book based on the reviews he has received. OG is also being considered for a 2nd edition as well and it just came out. No book is completely perfect. I'm sure OG is a fine resource, in fact I will order it tonight just to check it out. This us versus "them" is simply garbage and people should let the various authors fight out their own conflicts. I don't understand all the butt hurt from various customers on reviews, passive aggressive forum and facebook quips etc. Sillyness.

BTGB has the programming info there, like BDK stated - actually READ the book. Maybe the 2nd edition will have charts and monthly programs to spoon feed the information for anyone who can't put 2 and 2 together. Or, you could use the progressions from the book to scale and follow the WODs, which it has been stated are also followed by Sommer's real life athletes. This is recommended ad nauseum on this site - but, like the book, you not only have to READ the post but also UNDERSTAND them. Do you want Sommer to work out for you too?

I do wish BTGB had more information. More detail on positioning, I.E. what your scaps should be doing, or the proper "shape" and alignment that has been hinted in a few recent threads, mobility/prehab etc. This forum helps fill the gaps. However, the book does a good job getting someone started in a subpar environment (subpar in not having a coach physically put you in the correct position). What else did you want? A more detailed programming section may have helped since it seems many people are illiterate. Personally, I would like to have had more detail on Sommers programming theory and background in construction the WODs schedule and training of people of varying age groups. A nutrition section would make it a more complete, yet this is easily a question for Google. Looking forward to what is in the 2nd edition.

Ross is awesome. ALL of his products are awesome (I have them all, paid for them all). Yet, his products get passed around just as much as anyone else's who is worth viewing. The point is irrelevant. BTGB is unique from Enamait's book in both exercises and routine construction so you can't really compare the two. Additionally, Ross has a lot of experience writing books as he has had many different products from the older underground books to the NG/II etc that are more recent. BTGB was a first attempt, and I found it an excellent / unique resource for some BW progressions. The 2nd edition will be better, and I'm sure any future volumes are going to be great. Programming section could have been fleshed out some more, but the info is there for anyone serious enough to put a routine together (if not following the WODs).

The OP was not asking a general question about various skills, but rather asking for specific training advice for unrealistic expectations. Want to know the essential exercises? Buy the damn book, the progressions to what the OP seeks are there:

Building the Gymnastic Body allows you to go deep within the world of Gymnastic Strength Training™. Extremely comprehensive and detailed, with nearly 200 exercises (many of which have never been seen before by the general public) and well over 500 photographs, it is a complete developmental template for building the essential foundation of strength required for all gymnastics success. Whether you are a competitive athlete looking for an edge, a fitness enthusiast or just beginning a healthier lifestyle, Building the Gymnastic Body is the answer you have been searching for.

First of all, that first sentence had me laughing out loud! Now, to be fair there some excellent ideas in CC and the fundamental idea of starting from the very beginning regardless of how strong you are right now is the most correct part of training.

To get right to the bottom of what at least some people are thinking: Coach did not intentionally leave anything out. I'm in somewhat regular contact with him between emails and phone conversations, and we have had some excellent recent discussions about what I have been figuring out for myself in terms of body shape and how strongly that impacts the rate of strength development as well as whether or not you will stall out before you reach your potential. The response from Coach was fairly simple and made tons of sense: "None of us have to think about shape, it happens automatically." That's the core of the "problem:" Coach simply did not realize that we would not know what the right shape was or be unable to achieve it. After all, it's right there in the book and the demonstration videos! Of course, you can not just look at someone and see where they are tensed and relaxed in a move like a planche or FL (or, to be honest, almost anything when it gets down to the postural details that matter) because the muscles that hold the shape are usually underneath other muscles or in a place that is not exposed to the camera.

For example: How many of us feel the upper traps firing from the base of the skull down to the spine of the scapula, and the small muscles of the back of the neck maintaining tension from the base of the skull down to the upper T-spine when performing a FL? Yewki? FL row? Pull up? Muscle up? Push up?

See the point? When you have literally done this automatically for your entire life you simply do not realize that everyone doesn't do the same thing.

It has taken years of forum and personal discussions to discover this, and it is important to understand that this oversight was just that: an OVERSIGHT. The initial inability of Coach to see from a perspective that was not steeped in gymnastics from a young age. He has all the elements in a very logical and correctly structured order, and of course he realized the importance of shape, but how in the world was he to know that people wouldn't be able to do this automatically when he and all of his gymnasts have always done so?

Dillon Zrike, one of Coach's athletes who started gymnastics at age 15, also had many of these issues and he and I have been making many of the same discoveries in tandem regarding the importance of being able to use the upper back and neck musculature "correctly." It is very, very important to know these details but Coach had a tough time teaching Dillon IN PERSON how to do these things because Coach and the others never remembered having to LEARN! They have done this stuff automatically since they were 5-6 years old, so why would they ever think about it from a voluntary perspective?

It is time for those who have viewed these problems as being a voluntary withholding or "milking of street cred" to (I hope) understand that this is simply not the case. These "omissions," or more correctly these unintentional instructional gaps, are being corrected in the 2nd Edition and if anything happens to be missed there it will be covered in all detail here on the site.

The reviewers are all going to be doing their best to make sure that this 2nd edition is as complete as possible so that hopefully it will be the FINAL edition. That is the goal. Whether everything ends up in the book or whether some things simply need to be added to the Tutorial section or other appropriate section of the site, I believe that this edition is going to go so far beyond expectations that it will seem almost ridiculous to be able to access such a complete program for so little financial investment.

As for the OP's question and other responses, I have given him what he needs right now. If he can't do the basics correctly he is never going to be able to do anything else correctly. He will end up being able to do quite a few things INCORRECTLY and this will end up causing injuries down the line, just like it has with every single one of us.

Kman, while I am sure you believed what you wrote when you wrote it I hope that you have a little bit more of a realistic perspective after reading this post. Realistic in the sense that you perhaps understand more of what was going on with the first edition, not in the sense that you were somehow crazy.

If most of us were to give our opinions they would just be that: opinions. I think differently of mine in that I think my answer, which is my opinion, is actually the most correct because it covers what he actually needs right NOW, which is a baseline.

When I started here I was just like everyone else. I wanted planche, FL, all the cool stuff. Guess what? I got my FL in 4 months. That was almost 3 years ago now, I think, and you know what? I just started being able to do FL while feeling my upper traps and neck working about 2 weeks ago. That means that I have been doing it WRONG for 3 years. 3 YEARS! I haven't been doing strength work, my muscles are smaller, I'm 206-208 instead of 225. I've started at the beginning, doing EXACTLY what I am recommending, and my FL is back despite me being considerably weaker in the larger muscles compared to a year ago or 3 years ago or, god forbid, 2005 when I was doing +120 lbs for 50 reps on dips and 10-12 reps on deadhang pull ups in all grips.

These beginning exercises are unbelievably important and I happen to have a uniquely well-formed perspective because I have a detailed knowledge of musculoskeletal anatomy as well as neuromuscular function and personal experience with both the "right" and the "wrong" ways of approaching this program, as well as many others. I'm not the man or anything, at least in my head I'm not. I'm just a guy who has had a long and frustrating journey, and I try to make sure that all of you are at least informed enough to not have to go through the same thing unless that kind of experience is what you really want.

Random opinions from our various forum members, however well-meaning, will only serve to steer the OP wrong and make it harder to identify what it is that he or she actually needs to be working on.

The OP literally asked for every muscle and bone. At some point this got modified and now says muscle groups. We all should, perhaps, have just left him on his own to the mercy of whatever random opinion he gets, but in my stupidity I felt that it would be a good idea to try and point out why what he asked for made no sense, and to provide the beginning for what he needs. There is literally no purpose, from a performance perspective (which is EXACTLY what he is asking for), to do any strength work whatsoever without proper shape. I provided exactly what he needs right now, which is to learn proper shape and build a general level of decent flexibility. After that, the prerequisites. And so on. It's all there for him, spelled out.

That's it, I'm typed out. And done with this thread. If this nonsense continues I'm locking it.

I'm not afraid to say much of anything, I'm just too busy to check everything every day, but in my opinion this thread has run its course. Thank you all for your opinions and discussion, OP has what he needs, discussion over. Move on.

I just want to say one thing...

I CAN'T WAIT FOR BTGB 2nd EDITION!

Bdk1786 said:

I actually started BtGB from Ross's work and saw much better, stronger results. This is just my personal experience.

Which book is that? I am just curious to read.

I just did a search on Amazon to read some reviews about the books and saw one chapter on Pushing Strength and Power mentioning pushing cars and trucks. Now I know why those dudes I see at the gas stations are so HUGE, 'cause they got their 18-wheelers to work on.