Decent progress but not with FL

Hey everyone, this is my first post, I haven't been a member of these forums for long, but I have spent maybe 4 months reading these forums and trying to get started with gymnastics.

This is my background:

6months ago I was into long distance running (15-20km regularly with decent times), a very light 70kg 178cm/5'10" with limited strength - found it very difficult to hold 15s perfect hollow hold/superman.

So after finding the getting started thread, I begun working my way to holding the 60s

Plank, Reverse Plank, Perfect Hollow Hold, Superman, Parallel Bar Support and Dead hang

Some of these were very difficult (particularly the PHH and superman), however within a month and a half I had these under my belt.

I purchased some rings around this time and started a workout based on the killroy template, minus the FBEs due to my limited strength and endurance. And only 3 times a week.

It looked something like this:

Warmup (60s)

Plank, Reverse Plank, Perfect Hollow Hold, Superman, Parallel Bar Support and Dead hang

Workout:

Basic frog stand (15s x4)

Skin the cat (due to my inability to hold tuck BL/FL for very long)

Lsit rings bent (15s x 4)

and 3 Wall handstands until failure (back touching the wall)

After a few months I bought a diary and started taking measurements of how long I could hold each FSP:

and by this time I had progressed a little.

These are my maxes on the 1st of March 2012.

Basic Frog stand 60s - this progressed very quickly

Tuck front lever 5s

Tuck back lever 20s

Lsit XR Bent 25s

Wall handstand (back facing the wall) 30s

At this point since I could hold the frog stand for 60s I moved up to the advanced frog stand which I could hold for 18 seconds.

On the 1st of April 2012 I re-evaluated my maxes with the FSPs:

Advance Frog stand - 33s (I was amazed!)

Tuck front lever - 7s

Tuck back lever - 33s

Lsit XR bent 41s

Wall handstand (back facing the wall) 70s

I was quite amazed with the progress I made in every FSP, however my front lever didn't improve by much at all and I am still finding it very difficult. As of the 1st of April I have gained about 6kg, so 76kg and a fair bit of upper body muscle (especially on the biceps and lats).

My workout looks like this: Warmup (60s of plank, r plank etc.)

Workout

Adv frog (15sx4), Tuck FL (4s x 15), Tuck BL (16s x 4), Lsit XR bent (20sx3) , Wall handstand (stomach to wall now) (20sx 3)

I do this 3 times a week Sunday Tuesday Friday

and an hour stretch session on Wednesday

Sorry to bombard you all with such a big wall of text but I am wondering if I should continue with this program Or do I need to add FBEs? or should I go and do the WODs instead? The reason I avoid the WODs is because I want to build a decent base before attempting them. And is there anything I should do about the FL since it is not progressing?

Thanks in advance.

For the fl, why is it so hard? is it your lats or your core?(i guess probably lats) If i were you id start going for the wods, as the wont hurt you in any way, and seeing as you are improving so fast currently, itll probably be cool to go through the harder progressions of exercises

I don't know its a part of both shoulders (the posterior part that starts to feel like its straining very hard) then I have to let myself down or it feels like my arms will rip out

Are you doing a tuck or flat tuck front lever? Because the posterior shoulder pain is common with flat tuck front lever training, but in a tuck these shouldn't be that engaged :?

You are right, thank you. I wasn't bringing my legs close enough to my chest and it was somewhat closer to a flat tuck. This makes it much easier on my shoulders.

And remember, dont sweat it! It took 2 years for me no get to the point where im able to do a decent straddle front lever for 5seconds. And as i was heavily into handbalancing for most of the time i never did WODs, and still dont. I train mainly skills, and have never done much of dynamic stuff (maybe some 1-2times a week), but i can do muscle ups, full back lever (this is the easiest for me, i can hold it 20+ seconds any day), hspus, hs pirouettes, and my static handstand is 2minutes or maybe a little more on a good day. I train rings, pbars and handbalancing.

Just keep training and the results will come! Only one who has been my Coach is 'handbalancer' (Mikael Kristiansen) from the forum, as ive been to his workshops 2 times and hes been of tremendous help. Basically my handstand went from zero to 2min in under a year because of Mikael. As Cole has said, Mikael is a natural born teacher and a great guy! Of course i trained handstands every day for several hours, but i basically did nothing else for 6months cause i was so eager to get a good solid handstand.

Well, this went little off topik but what the heck.. You get the point

Keep working, and you will get there and beyond! But dont rush it.

awesome to hear! keep up the good work