Designing Your Own Workouts

[Ian Myers]

Heres an article I wrote on my blog for designing workouts with BtGB. Hopefully it'll be helpful for some beginners!

http://maximalimpact.blogspot.com/2012/ ... rkout.html

Tell me if I left anything out!

I added prerequisites! http://maximalimpact.blogspot.com/2012/04/prerequisites-for-training.html

[Eric Kamhi]

Very nice post that gather information in one place.

Got a quick question for you about FSP progression. I understand the idea of %50 percent of your max hold time to a 60 sec total work time completion principle. But as max hold times come closer to 60 seconds, the reps and sets become weird.

If my max is 40 seconds in a position, I understand that that I should be doing 3 sets of 20 sec holds. This does not seem enough for progression. At least for me, unless I do at least 5 or six sets at the bare minimum, I seem to plateau. In these instances I still to ten sets of 20 seconds and this seems to work better in increasing my max hold time. Any pointers on this? Am I doing something wrong?

[Eric Kamhi]

Hey Zach, thanks for the reply. Would not want to hijack the thread, but your feedback would be very valuable to me. I don't have much problem increasing the number of sets as much as I have a problem increasing hold time total. maybe I'm waiting too long between sets? Or all those years of functional exercise super sets has built up a faster recovery for me?

I can hold a flat tuck front lever for 20 sec for ten sets but I cannot for the life of me progress to the stradde from there without my arms giving out. My core is much much stonger than my shoulders and arms (relatively speaking). Maybe I am focusing on the wrong things, will try to see my max flat tuck front lever again, but I'm pretty sure it will NOT be the required 60 seconds to progress further.

PS: I have 60 sec wait between sets. (gymboss set to 55-5-20 intervals where 5 sec is for me getting in position)

EDIT: In terms of other static positions I do L-Sit on floor (10x10 sec), Tuck Planche (10x6 sec), back lever (half) (10x8 sec) Handstand agaist wall 60 seconds (balance is another story).

Another thing I notices in the OP, is the fact that days are grouped in Push/Pull/Core focus. Is this better than doing a bit of each every day in terms of progression in strength? My workout has Push/Pull/Core FBE every gym day.

[Ian Myers]

Ooh those are important

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

How do you set your gym boss for 3 intervals (55-5-20)? :?:

I've only been able to set mine for two! :|

Fred

[Eric Kamhi]

Hi Fred, on my gymboss in the main menu is the following options: Interval, Intervals, Complex Intervals and Stopwatch. I pick complex intervals and set the first interval to 0:55 x 1, the second to 0:05 x 1, and the third to 0:20 x1. selecting 0:00 for the fourth interval ends the chain and then I set the number of sets (10) select the beep volume, and that's it.

Thanks for the feedback Zach. I tried cutting the rest between sets to 30 seconds yesterday on my FSP work. Yah, that makes a huge difference. By set 8 I was wiped and needed to cheat and wait closer to 45 seconds before doing the next set.

I think you hit the nail on the head, I seem to build endurance more than actual strength. For me at least, unless I "cheat" on the program, I do not seem to make significant strength gains. I will try out the 'to-failure' approach next workout and see my max times. I used my own 'cheats' in order to come to a half back lever, and even now I 'cheat' a little to progress to full back lever.

What I mean by 'cheat' is that I incorporate a proper form full back lever at the start of my first sets. I can only hold it for a few seconds, but those seconds increase by seconds week to week. I start with a few second full back lever and complete the set/workout with half back lever. If I could do a proper straddle front lever, even for a second, I would apply my cheat to that as well but my butt sags and I can't keep the proper shoulder arm positions. I try to make sure the cheat position is at least perfect. I'll try the one leg out approach.

On Workout Structuring:

From what I see in the killroy template is that he would be doing something like pullups only once a week (I go three times a week to the gym). My gut feeling (which is usually wrong when it comes to these matters) is that if I were to work my pull-ups or push ups once per week, I would stagnate more. My schedule is similar in the manner that I pair opposing movements on the same day but follow a A-B-A-- schedule followed by B-A-B--. If one exercise is done once a week one week, it is done twice the next week.

Again, since I lack a lot of knowledge on these matters, I may be going about it the wrong way and three types of exercises A-B-C-- type schedule could be better.

PS: I'm posting these main topics here as I believe someone else reading through might have similar issues and could find help such as I did in countless threads in the getting started section. I'll try to see if I can manage photos and videos and follow through PM's on more personal topics if that is OK with you.

[Ian Myers]

Added a prerequisite page! still a work in progress :wink:

http://maximalimpact.blogspot.com/2012/04/prerequisites-for-training.html

[Brian Li]

Hi Fred, on my gymboss in the main menu is the following options: Interval, Intervals, Complex Intervals and Stopwatch. I pick complex intervals and set the first interval to 0:55 x 1, the second to 0:05 x 1, and the third to 0:20 x1. selecting 0:00 for the fourth interval ends the chain and then I set the number of sets (10) select the beep volume, and that's it.

Thanks for the feedback Zach. I tried cutting the rest between sets to 30 seconds yesterday on my FSP work. Yah, that makes a huge difference. By set 8 I was wiped and needed to cheat and wait closer to 45 seconds before doing the next set.

I think you hit the nail on the head, I seem to build endurance more than actual strength. For me at least, unless I "cheat" on the program, I do not seem to make significant strength gains. I will try out the 'to-failure' approach next workout and see my max times. I used my own 'cheats' in order to come to a half back lever, and even now I 'cheat' a little to progress to full back lever.

What I mean by 'cheat' is that I incorporate a proper form full back lever at the start of my first sets. I can only hold it for a few seconds, but those seconds increase by seconds week to week. I start with a few second full back lever and complete the set/workout with half back lever. If I could do a proper straddle front lever, even for a second, I would apply my cheat to that as well but my butt sags and I can't keep the proper shoulder arm positions. I try to make sure the cheat position is at least perfect. I'll try the one leg out approach.

On Workout Structuring:

From what I see in the killroy template is that he would be doing something like pullups only once a week (I go three times a week to the gym). My gut feeling (which is usually wrong when it comes to these matters) is that if I were to work my pull-ups or push ups once per week, I would stagnate more. My schedule is similar in the manner that I pair opposing movements on the same day but follow a A-B-A-- schedule followed by B-A-B--. If one exercise is done once a week one week, it is done twice the next week.

Again, since I lack a lot of knowledge on these matters, I may be going about it the wrong way and three types of exercises A-B-C-- type schedule could be better.

PS: I'm posting these main topics here as I believe someone else reading through might have similar issues and could find help such as I did in countless threads in the getting started section. I'll try to see if I can manage photos and videos and follow through PM's on more personal topics if that is OK with you.

You should do strength training instead of endurance then if your stagnating to progress to a stronger variation. For example, take a variation where you can only hold for a couple seconds to 10 seconds and repeat for a few sets after full recovery. I noticed that your rest times are super short, do you have full recovery at those times? If not, then increase to when you feel like you have full recovery which for most people is around 5 minutes more or less. Are you only doing holds or are you doing any kinetic/dynamic exercises? If your only doing isometrics, then you should add some FL rows, front pulls, FL pulls, Yewkis, and negative front levers. Weighted pull-ups and OAC work would also help since you said your arms were the weak link, but the above should be enough.

By the way, how are you cheating on the back lever? If you can hold proper form back lever and you see an increase in time after each week then you making progress on it and getting stronger. I don't see how that is cheating.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

Hi Fred, on my gymboss in the main menu is the following options: Interval, Intervals, Complex Intervals and Stopwatch. I pick complex intervals and set the first interval to 0:55 x 1, the second to 0:05 x 1, and the third to 0:20 x1. selecting 0:00 for the fourth interval ends the chain and then I set the number of sets (10) select the beep volume, and that's it. (...)

Ahhh, thank you very much ksh2o.

As I do not have all these features on my Gymboss, I checked their website; they have a new model (the Gymboss Max); I think that is what you have. The old model that I am using only has the possibility for two alternating interval length I am afraid.

Fred

[Ian Myers]

Did I miss any of the pre-reqs?

[Eric Kamhi]

You should do strength training instead of endurance then if your stagnating to progress to a stronger variation. For example, take a variation where you can only hold for a couple seconds to 10 seconds and repeat for a few sets after full recovery. I noticed that your rest times are super short, do you have full recovery at those times? If not, then increase to when you feel like you have full recovery which for most people is around 5 minutes more or less. Are you only doing holds or are you doing any kinetic/dynamic exercises? If your only doing isometrics, then you should add some FL rows, front pulls, FL pulls, Yewkis, and negative front levers. Weighted pull-ups and OAC work would also help since you said your arms were the weak link, but the above should be enough.

By the way, how are you cheating on the back lever? If you can hold proper form back lever and you see an increase in time after each week then you making progress on it and getting stronger. I don't see how that is cheating.

Hey B1214N,

I do FSP work after warmup and beofre FBE work. FSP work lasts about 20-25 minutes. The next hour is FBE work. I do rows, pullups, dips, squats, pushups, flies, core work etc. I usually end my workout with either triceps or biceps work. I do SLOW sets of max weight (maybe 3-4 reps max but as slow as possible) for 3 sets for arm work. The back and front lever work has increased my shoulder strength a lot and the dumbbell raises/holds/flies help a lot with that. I'm seeing good strength gains in shoulders.

As for rest times. I usually rest 1 minute between sets. I recently read somewhere on these forums that FSP work should have 30 second rest between them and tried that out. Feels like one giant set. I usually do not recover fully between sets. Doing so would probably increase my time in gym to 3 hours, which is just grounds for my wife divorcing me I'd think.

I recover pretty fast in general. Some exercises, resting 1 minute or 1:30 is enough. I haven't started training sets to failure, I probably will have to rest more for those sets.

I'd always thought that a below 1 minute rest was ideal for static holds and below 90 second rest was ideal for strength work. Would love to hear others opinions on this.

What I meant by 'cheating' was that even though I cannot hold a perfect 60 second static in the exercise below (half back lever in this case) I try to hold a few seconds long full back lever at the very beginning of back lever work. Jumping-ahead would be a better word probably. I've read and re-read that we should not be progressing further up the exercise chain until we hold a proper 60 sec static hold in one exercise. But I'm getting faster results by 'peeking' ahead just a little. Not very good I know, but hey. I'm 'making haste slowly' in any case.

[Brian Li]

I'm pretty sure full recovery is good or needed for strength work. I can understand why you need to keep rest times low at the gym now.

All I did to get full front lever and back lever were by doing high to max intensity holds and reps and full recovery between sets with rarely any long holds. Very occasionally would I put in long holds of 20 seconds or more, I usually move on to a more difficult progression once I get to about 10 seconds. I did most of my work in a GTG style of manner and mostly with negative front pulls from inverted hang to FL or hang. I never followed Coach's SSC to develop my front lever and back lever, that's not because I don't trust it or think it's bad, but because I wanted to experiment with my own programming, my laziness to do a lot of volume, and because I train mainly for strength rather than endurance. So I think 'cheating' is pretty effective.

[Ian Myers]

From a scientific standpoint, resting from 2 minutes to 7 minutes during strength work wont make much difference, as your muscles wont recover completely for days. The rest is just for you to get your breath again, so going over 2 minutes is usually pretty pointless.

[Joshua Naterman]

From a scientific standpoint, resting from 2 minutes to 7 minutes during strength work wont make much difference, as your muscles wont recover completely for days. The rest is just for you to get your breath again, so going over 2 minutes is usually pretty pointless.

This is a patently untrue statement. There is good clinical data that shows that creatine is usually only 60% re-phosphorylated after 2 minutes following a very heavy, pure strength set. It takes a little more than 5 minutes to really hit 100%, and of course that is just an average. With specific training it can happen faster due to enzyme up-regulation.

Now, that's just for strength training.

With anaerobic endurance training the story is a bit different. Usually you get your best training results with 45-90s rests, but up to 2 minutes is ok. Beyond that there does not seem to be a significant advantage in extra rest.

[Nic Branson]

From a scientific standpoint, resting from 2 minutes to 7 minutes during strength work wont make much difference, as your muscles wont recover completely for days. The rest is just for you to get your breath again, so going over 2 minutes is usually pretty pointless.

This is a very untrue statement. Rest periods can drastically change the effects. Your goals will and level of adaptation will dictate which rest period is for you.

EDiT. Josh beat me in here.

[Ian Myers]

From a scientific standpoint, resting from 2 minutes to 7 minutes during strength work wont make much difference, as your muscles wont recover completely for days. The rest is just for you to get your breath again, so going over 2 minutes is usually pretty pointless.

This is a patently untrue statement. There is good clinical data that shows that creatine is usually only 60% re-phosphorylated after 2 minutes following a very heavy, pure strength set. It takes a little more than 5 minutes to really hit 100%, and of course that is just an average. With specific training it can happen faster due to enzyme up-regulation.

Now, that's just for strength training.

With anaerobic endurance training the story is a bit different. Usually you get your best training results with 45-90s rests, but up to 2 minutes is ok. Beyond that there does not seem to be a significant advantage in extra rest.

Oooh I'd been making the assumption that anaerobic training would carryover more or less to strength training. My mistake :oops:

[Joshua Naterman]

From a scientific standpoint, resting from 2 minutes to 7 minutes during strength work wont make much difference, as your muscles wont recover completely for days. The rest is just for you to get your breath again, so going over 2 minutes is usually pretty pointless.

This is a very untrue statement. Rest periods can drastically change the effects. Your goals will and level of adaptation will dictate which rest period is for you.

EDiT. Josh beat me in here.

MUAHAHAHA!!!!

[Joshua Naterman]

From a scientific standpoint, resting from 2 minutes to 7 minutes during strength work wont make much difference, as your muscles wont recover completely for days. The rest is just for you to get your breath again, so going over 2 minutes is usually pretty pointless.

This is a patently untrue statement. There is good clinical data that shows that creatine is usually only 60% re-phosphorylated after 2 minutes following a very heavy, pure strength set. It takes a little more than 5 minutes to really hit 100%, and of course that is just an average. With specific training it can happen faster due to enzyme up-regulation.

Now, that's just for strength training.

With anaerobic endurance training the story is a bit different. Usually you get your best training results with 45-90s rests, but up to 2 minutes is ok. Beyond that there does not seem to be a significant advantage in extra rest.

Oooh I'd been making the assumption that anaerobic training would carryover more or less to strength training. My mistake :oops:

Not to worry! It is easy to either forget or simply not realize that there are different energy systems in the body and that the way you train (sets, reps, tempo AND rest time) is based on which energy system is being relied upon the most.

[Ian Myers]

So why are the FSP recommended rest so short? Just because theyre relatively low intensity?

[Joshua Naterman]

So why are the FSP recommended rest so short? Just because theyre relatively low intensity?

I personally don't agree with having short rest times when your holds are under 30s. That is strength zone and does require more rest time for best results, but that is part of why it is a very good idea to have a full FSP/pre-requisite routine to go through before repeating the holds.

When you get beyond the 30-40s mark you are now performing anaerobic endurance, and that does not require AS much rest. It may still be a good idea to get 1-2 full minutes, which is pretty easy when you're doing 60s hollow and arch holds.

[Cole Dano]

So why are the FSP recommended rest so short? Just because theyre relatively low intensity?

I personally don't agree with having short rest times when your holds are under 30s. That is strength zone and does require more rest time for best results, but that is part of why it is a very good idea to have a full FSP/pre-requisite routine to go through before repeating the holds.

When you get beyond the 30-40s mark you are now performing anaerobic endurance, and that does not require AS much rest. It may still be a good idea to get 1-2 full minutes, which is pretty easy when you're doing 60s hollow and arch holds.

Interesting Josh. Of all the aspects of the program, the short rests and long hold times with the FSPs has been the one I've heard the most grumbling about in the 'locker room'.

It took me a while to be convinced about the long holds but now I am. It just took a lot longer than I thought to get there. TBH I always rest until I feel ready, if I tried to time things like that I'd go crazy. Sometimes it's a short rest, but often not. Your post makes me feel a little less GB guilt.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

(...) you are now performing anaerobic endurance (...) .

Did you mean aerobic Joshua?

Fred

[Nic Branson]

at 30-40sec? not even close to Aerobic. Add in the constant tension of a hold....definitely not.

EDIT: As for Coaches rest breaks in a strength gaining situation I do not use rest periods that short, however for many of his athletes it would more for conditioning then pure strength. Also the age of his athletes would have an impact. Just my added on thoughts there.

[Eric Kamhi]

I'm so confused. I feel really ignorant and totally lost, the more I read around. I'm sorry but, right now my mind is very foggy and unsure about my rest times, sets, reps, everything.

I used to train functional weights before starting with GB. I'd either do sets of 6 or 8 reps (depending on exercise) and rest 60s if it was a simple set, 90s if it was a superset. On my core work, I did a circuit with emphasis on ab/back work with 30s between roving from exercise to exercise. This used to work for that type of training. Now with static holds and FBE's I'm getting lost on how to rest properly.

So am I right with walking away with this:

FSP:

If my static holds are below 30 sec per rep, I should rest around 60s? If my holds are above 30 secs I should rest 30 secs? I have a feeling this will be extremely challenging when I reach 30 sec hold times on levers and l-sits. How would one apply the 60 second total hold time to an exercise you can hold 30 seconds? Just do two sets? Or are we talking about an entirely different routine there?

FBE/Strength work

For my FBE work, ring pulls/dips/pullups squats, etc. My usual rep range in FBE's is 6-8 reps per set depending on exercise (3-4 sets). I do some very low rep (3 rep) work with added weight for areas I feel weak in. I'm totally lost on Rest times for this. My Gut feeling would be 60 sec rest time between sets but that seems inadequate from what I read.

How does one rest 5 minutes between sets? I mean my body temperature would come down, my sweat would dry off, if I waited that long. Do you work circuits instead? Since most of the FBE's work many groups of muscles, would that ultimately not be too tiring? I mean should I do for example 1 set of a pull-up, followed by 1 set of a HSPU, and go back to the pull-up and repeat for the desired number of sets? Is this set-to-set pairing better than doing the sets of pullups followed by HSPU's? I see no other way to rest that long between sets.

[Joshua Naterman]

I'm so confused. I feel really ignorant and totally lost, the more I read around. I'm sorry but, right now my mind is very foggy and unsure about my rest times, sets, reps, everything.

I used to train functional weights before starting with GB. I'd either do sets of 6 or 8 reps (depending on exercise) and rest 60s if it was a simple set, 90s if it was a superset. On my core work, I did a circuit with emphasis on ab/back work with 30s between roving from exercise to exercise. This used to work for that type of training. Now with static holds and FBE's I'm getting lost on how to rest properly.

So am I right with walking away with this:

FSP:

If my static holds are below 30 sec per rep, I should rest around 60s? If my holds are above 30 secs I should rest 30 secs? I have a feeling this will be extremely challenging when I reach 30 sec hold times on levers and l-sits. How would one apply the 60 second total hold time to an exercise you can hold 30 seconds? Just do two sets? Or are we talking about an entirely different routine there?

FBE/Strength work

For my FBE work, ring pulls/dips/pullups squats, etc. My usual rep range in FBE's is 6-8 reps per set depending on exercise (3-4 sets). I do some very low rep (3 rep) work with added weight for areas I feel weak in. I'm totally lost on Rest times for this. My Gut feeling would be 60 sec rest time between sets but that seems inadequate from what I read.

How does one rest 5 minutes between sets? I mean my body temperature would come down, my sweat would dry off, if I waited that long. Do you work circuits instead? Since most of the FBE's work many groups of muscles, would that ultimately not be too tiring? I mean should I do for example 1 set of a pull-up, followed by 1 set of a HSPU, and go back to the pull-up and repeat for the desired number of sets? Is this set-to-set pairing better than doing the sets of pullups followed by HSPU's? I see no other way to rest that long between sets.

Sorry about the confusion. If your max holdss are in the 10-30s range you will probably do your best with 120 seconds of rest on your work sets. You aren't going to failure, but you are still going pretty hard. This time range, which means 5-15s work sets (50% of max) is going to be strength oriented and will require a strength-oriented rest period. As your max hold moves to 40s and above you will not be using so much creatine anymore, since your glycolytic system will have adapted to the point where it can provide most of the energy. In other words, as your endurance increases your body will shift from having to use creatine for a large portion of the work (which limits hold times) to being able to use sugar (which releases energy more slowly but lasts a good bit longer).

To get the rest you need it is totally ok to do a different exercise. For example, planche lean -> arch hold -> hollow hold -> hang -> some mobility work like wall slides. Then repeat 3-5 times. You are wasting no time, getting plenty of rest, and building strength quickly. It is not adviseable to do more than six sets this way, with four providing enough work for many to make good progress.

That was for strength work (10-30s max), as that should give you a good 2 minutes from one planche lean (the example I use, could be a FL hold or whatever) to the next.

As you get to the 40s max hold, you are in endurance territory and will need to start altering the rest times. You can just create two shorter series instead of one long series: Planche lean, arch hold, hang, repeat x 2-3. Then hollow hold, wall slides, BL, band warm up for 30s. Just an example. Each of those work sets would be a minimum of 20s, which gives you more like 60-90s rest, plenty for endurance work.