Building basic body shape

Sliz mentioned this in the best/hardest exercises thread. Below is what he said:

Don't get discouraged. The first thing you have to do is build a strong body shape for the skills you are intending to learn. A PROPER plank, reverse plank, hollow hold and arch hold are the beginning. Along with that you will need to be able to hold a proper hollow position in a dead hang with a pronated, neutral, and supinated grip. Obviously this can't happen until you have a solid hollow. A solid hollow includes having the chin tucked and neck retracted simultaneously. This is very hard at first, even when the core part of the hollow hold is somewhat strong. The full proper shape is everything, because it will teach your body the right place to start movement from and how to use your muscles for maximum effectiveness. As your body shape improves, you can start working on push ups, rows, pull ups and dips while holding the right shape. There is no purpose in building strength with a bad shape. I have learned this the hard way.

That basic shape stuff is going to take you 3-6 months. I would spend the majority of your time training gentle flexibility. You will have the time available to spend 30 minutes daily on 8-10 stretches. I would choose straddle pike, pike, bridge, the floor chest stretches, the "king" shoulder stretch and hip flexor stretches as the core of what you work on. Those are the priorities in order. I will recommend that you slowly work on German hangs as well. That will eat up something like 4 hours of your training time, seriously, if you are spending 30 minutes per stretch. You will need good nutrition to keep this up, and you will also need to be gentle and only stretch to moderate tightness and not to even mild pain.

I have a few questions about this:

1. Can't this be incorporated to a less intense degree into an already functioning training program? I can't take off 6 months to work soley on this stuff right now! I have athletic obligations and I have to maintain my current level of athletic function. I know this stuff would yield tons of great results later but at this time I simply have other things I feel are more important. How can one incorporate this into an already busy routine?

2. Did I read that right? 4 hours a day? I already train about 2 hours a day (+ about 3-5 sports/martial arts practice depending on the day)

3. Isn't this the same as doing a TON of FSP work for 3-6 month period before beginning anything else?

Thanks! Anyone should feel free to ask and answer questions or comment on anything in this thread. I'm not asking for my benefit alone. This is a community thread for everyone

I guess you can spend 5-10 minutes in these basic positions or stretches every day. Progress may be slower, but at least it would be better than nothing.

You're probably right lol. I was practically asleep when writing this post... kind of surprised it is readable!

I'd also be interested in what Slizzardman (or Drake) has to say about this. Also a little confused on the volume and TUT for the various body positions and stretches.

In the above quoted post, it's suggested that someone spend their time initially working towards attaining a PROPER plank, reverse plank, hollow, and arch and spending a lot of time stretching. Is the 60 second total accumulated TUT for the prerequisites still the suggested protocol (50% of max time per hold)? Also, would this still be done 3-4 times per week, or is it something that should be done on a daily basis?

In regards to the stretching, 30 minutes per stretch is a loooong time to hold a single stretch. Should this be broken up into several extended static stretches; or a mix of static, active, and PNF stretching on and off for a total of 30 minutes? Also unsure what a "King" stretch is. I realize that the new BTGB book is soon to be released (which I am eagerly awaiting and plan to purchase), so I'm not asking you to give anything up that Coach thinks might spoil the new book, but I also don't want to be jumping ahead when I would be better served putting my effort into this stuff.

For the record I'm currently in my 7th week of a SSC where I'm doing the prerequisites (everything except the hollow hold is becoming rather easy, just can't seem to tell whether I'm doing the hollow right or not, it feels like my back is down, but it seems like whenever I lower my legs past a certain point my glutes want to lift my lower back off the ground and I lose the strong connection to the ground that I have when my legs are higher) as well as doing a FBE press, pull, lower body exercise, and core exercise 4 days a week (different movement progression each day) similar to what is suggested in the BTGB book.

I'm not adverse to the idea of spending however long it takes though to make sure that I do this right and I'm definitely in it for the long haul. So any clarification or help from Slizzardman, Drake, Coach or anyone else more experienced with this stuff would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Keegan

I'm going to be honest with you: I am not going to try and type the full answer here. That's subject matter for an article with pictures, and I will have to run a lot of this by Coach so that I don't put things out here that he might have in the book.

As for Pat's OP question, of course you can work this into your current training. Start practicing shape in your warm ups, this is really what hollow holds and planks are all about when done properly. Those last three words are EVERYTHING!

As for volume, that's up to you. The more the better, but at first you will be inherently limited by your ability to hold a good position due to weaknesses and activation issues that we will all have to varying degrees. As the weeks go by you'll notice that your original volume is just getting too easy, so you add enough quality work to bump the difficulty back up to a 6-7 out of 10 every time it gets below there for a few workouts in a row.

Ok, fair enough, I appreciate the honesty.

Would you still suggest starting with the 60 second aggregate time for the prerequisites and then building up from there as work capacity improves?

Also, any personal preference in terms of static, active (or AIS), or PNF stretching?

Well, at first I wouldn't worry about specifics like that. You can't start using set numbers for total volume until you are able to hold a good shape without too much effort for 20-30s at a time. Until then I'd just do what you have time for, but do shape work every day that you can, preferably 7 days per week. Sometimes that just means trying to get into a hollow while you are standing, with the neck retracted and chin tucked, and all THAT really means is retracting the neck and tucking the chin without letting your back arch.

As for stretching, that's up to you. A combination of AIS and PNF will generally give the best results, but you need to do what works for you. If you don't know, experiment.

Ok, thanks again. Is the neck position you're talkIng about the same as "packing" the neck?

I think so, Keegan.

Yes, packing the neck.

Sorry for the delay, I had to look up the term... never heard that before. It seems there has been a lot of talking about this recently... that's a good thing!

Cool, thanks guys.