Pre-reqs, FSPs and time

These things have probably been discussed in other threads but I just couldn't find the answers. Like I vented in another thread a while ago I trained the FSPs for about two years or so and then last fall decided to change to the pre-reqs because my progress had stalled for a loong time (especially in the tuck planche). So now I've been doing the pre-reqs for 8 months or so and the progress has been quite slow eventhough I put in the work. I do 3 strength sessions a week and the static part takes 30 minutes (and the FBE part another 30min). The problem is that doing the same static exercises over and over again gets really boring especially when I don't see much progress.

This is what I do at the moment :

plank 60s

reverse plank 60 s

PB support 60 s

planche lean 2x25s

hollow hold 60s+50s+50s

arch hold 60s

hollow rock 30 (not trying to really progress in these before I can nail the hollow hold 3x60s)

arch rock 60

L-sit 2x30s

chinup-grip hang 60s

tuck BL 3x20s (can't do a proper GH due to a chest injury)

tuck FL 3x20s

wall HS 60s

Since the second edition of BtGB is no out yet I've tried to figure out from the forum what I should be doing but I'm not at all sure if I'm on the right tracks. The lack of progress is pissing me off. Is this looking reasonable or should I change the statics somehow? Especially the lack of progress in planche is annoying. I've been stuck with pretty much the same hold times in planche lean since last fall and when I tried the tuck planche (leaning into it, not pushing like I did before) I just couldn't do it at all.

No, they're just a part of my strength training. I also do FBEs and some barbell work (mainly squat and deadlift) in the same sessions. This in addition to martial arts and running etc.

Zach Armijo said:

Without videos or pics it is hard to say, but the most likely culprit to this stagnation is probably form related. After all that time and with a solid regimen, there is no reason to not advance.

I don't know, this guy is doing a ton of work. Lack of food is usually a large part of the reason people stagnate once they start getting strong.

What is your FBE work? Exercises, sets, reps, rest? I think you are solid enough in the hollow holds that you should probably be focusing more on the hollow rocks, personally. Are you doing HLL? Weighted decline sit ups? inverted sit ups? Anything besides the pre-reqs for core?

What does your weight work look like? Sets, reps, rest?

Your nutrition? What are you eating from 1-2 hours before the workout to 3-4 hours post? If your answer isn't including at least 1200-ish calories, with 60-90g of protein and most of the rest from complex carbs, this is probably part of the problem.

Height/weight? approx. BF%?

Thanks for the input guys. Zach it could of course be a form issue, especially since I have no coach to correct my mistakes. Maybe I should try film myself and upload it here.

Joshua Naterman said:

What is your FBE work? Exercises, sets, reps, rest? I think you are solid enough in the hollow holds that you should probably be focusing more on the hollow rocks, personally. Are you doing HLL? Weighted decline sit ups? inverted sit ups? Anything besides the pre-reqs for core?

After the FSPs I do a FBE superset of a pull and a push. I do 5 sets and aim for 5 reps. Rest between sets is about 1 min. After the superset I do a core exercise and sometimes a pull/push variation not from coaches book. These are for 3 sets and 5 reps. For FBEs at the moment I'm doing HeSPU, PPP, single bar dip, inverted pullup, tuck FL row and weighted pullup. For the additional core work I'm doing HLL (normal and circular) and straddle flag.

Joshua Naterman said:

What does your weight work look like? Sets, reps, rest?

I do heavy squat and deadlift once a week (usually not on the same day). Normally I do the squat after FSPs and before FBE and the deadlift at the end of the workout. I'm doing 3 sets for squat and 2 sets for deadlift and aim for 5 reps (when I nail 3x5/2x5 I increase the weight). Rest between sets is usually around 3 mins or more.

Joshua Naterman said:

Your nutrition? What are you eating from 1-2 hours before the workout to 3-4 hours post? If your answer isn't including at least 1200-ish calories, with 60-90g of protein and most of the rest from complex carbs, this is probably part of the problem.

I usually try to eat about 3 hours before my workout a good balanced meal with enough protein and carbs. If I feel that it's not enough, I eat a snack 1-2 hours before the workout. 1-2 hours after workout I eat a full meal. Most of my meals are pretty big since a have a good appetite so there should be enough calories. I've been thinking about adding a post workout shake just to be sure.

Joshua Naterman said:

Height/weight? approx. BF%?

I'm 6'4'' and about 210. I would guess (based on some old measurements) that BF is about 15-18. The weight comes mostly from my thighs and ass, which are pretty big compared to upper body (always been that way).

If you could, try and write down your food intake for the day without changing anything and post that. Write it all down first and then calculate the calories, don't do both at the same time! That way it's easier to not accidentally adjust anything.

If you don't know the calories, just be as accurate as you can with the portions. Maybe dole it out and then put it into measuring cups so that you know exactly what you tend to eat.

Nutrition is very much a science, especially for performance, so it is important to be somewhat detail-oriented in this area.

Film would definitely help.

I personally think that you need high rep work mixed in there, but seeing 1 set of all your exercises on film would really let us see what is going on! Any chance of that?

Joshua Naterman said:

If you could, try and write down your food intake for the day without changing anything and post that. Write it all down first and then calculate the calories, don't do both at the same time! That way it's easier to not accidentally adjust anything.

If you don't know the calories, just be as accurate as you can with the portions. Maybe dole it out and then put it into measuring cups so that you know exactly what you tend to eat.

Nutrition is very much a science, especially for performance, so it is important to be somewhat detail-oriented in this area.

Giving exact calories or amounts of my food intake is very hard since I never measure or calculate anything. I just eat enough to feel full, which is usually quite a lot. But I'll try and write something down here anyway.

There are four bigger meals that I eat every day: breakfast, lunch, dinner and evening meal. In addition I eat few snacks. I pretty much only drink water.

- Breakfast is always pretty much the same: one cup (meaning 1 dl) müesli (no added sugar), half a cup of textured soy protein, 3/4 cup of sunflower seeds, one banana and top it all with natural yoghurt. 100g of whole wheat rye bread with a little butter and cheese. Cup of coffee.

- Lunch I eat at the University, which means that there is always not that much protein. One and a half cup of rice, about 100g of chicken, small plate of salad, 1-2 slices of rye bread.

- Dinner: 200g of minced (ground) meat, 2 cups of whole wheat pasta, 2 cups of vegetables.

- Evening meal: omelet with 5 eggs and one cup of vegetables.

- Snack is often two slices of whole wheat bread with peanut butter and cheese or maybe an apple or so.

It might be that I'm underestimating my food intake here but this is very difficult for me, since I'm not use to this.

Joshua Naterman said:

Film would definitely help.

I personally think that you need high rep work mixed in there, but seeing 1 set of all your exercises on film would really let us see what is going on! Any chance of that?

Actually I was talking with a friend of mine (how is an exercise physiologist) and she said that I might be doing too much of the same thing. It might be that 3 times of the same FSP + low rep FBE combo is too hard for me now. I will probably change one of my strenght workouts to something else and see what happens. It will definitely be good for me mentally at least. There's a lot of cool bodyweight stuff that I could incorporate with higher rep range. I'll try to film myself next week and upload it here. It will be very interesting to hear your feedback! Thanks for the help JN.

You definitely need higher reps. If you were a personal client I'd completely change your approach, quite honestly.

Cool bodyweight stuff... sounds like there is potential for wasted energy there but if you make good selections that build a physical foundation then it will work out extremely well for you.

My suggestions are foot supported rows, thick bar bicep curls (standing), hollow push ups, hollow dips, dumbbell shoulder press with handstand form, HLL (probably with bent legs), decline weighted sit ups, arch ups, jefferson curls, front squats, stiff leg deadlifts.

For pre-req work I would have a separate routine in the morning, focusing on hollow rocks 2 days per week and hollow hold 1-2 days per week.

Like I said, I would completely change the structure of what you are doing. Try to set a schedule where you are working each muscle group 2-3 times per week, but with a different exercise each consecutive workout. Have lighter days with more reps + more time under tension per set and heavier days with less reps per set AND less total time under tension per set.

At least one of each dedicated day per week.

You can absolutely use the GB work as warm up sets without causing problems, but it has to be a real warm up... not a full workout in disguise.

Joshua Naterman said:

Cool bodyweight stuff... sounds like there is potential for wasted energy there but if you make good selections that build a physical foundation then it will work out extremely well for you.

Haha, maybe "cool" was the wrong choice of words. It's just that I've been almost solely focused on movements from BtGB since last fall. There are many other quality excersises that I would like to do and progress in (such as the ab wheel rollout).

Joshua Naterman said:

My suggestions are foot supported rows, thick bar bicep curls (standing), hollow push ups, hollow dips, dumbbell shoulder press with handstand form, HLL (probably with bent legs), decline weighted sit ups, arch ups, jefferson curls, front squats, stiff leg deadlifts.

Thanks for suggestions! I'll probably incorporate most of these in some way.

Joshua Naterman said:

For pre-req work I would have a separate routine in the morning, focusing on hollow rocks 2 days per week and hollow hold 1-2 days per week.

I'm not sure that I want to incorporate a separate routine for the pre-reqs, since there's a lot of non-strength stuff that I'm working on every day. But I will think about it, I'm not sure yet how I will set up my routine. The suggestion about hollow rocks and holds makes sense. How would you recommend to do the other pre-reqs and FSPs? Should I do handstand, FL, BL and L-sit every workout?

Joshua Naterman said:

Like I said, I would completely change the structure of what you are doing. Try to set a schedule where you are working each muscle group 2-3 times per week, but with a different exercise each consecutive workout. Have lighter days with more reps + more time under tension per set and heavier days with less reps per set AND less total time under tension per set.

At least one of each dedicated day per week.

You can absolutely use the GB work as warm up sets without causing problems, but it has to be a real warm up... not a full workout in disguise.

This is along the lines I was thinking. Mon and Fri heavier days and Wed lighter day with more reps. I'm actually looking forward to this, it will bring some nice change to my workouts. 8)

I'm not so sure that you need to do them so often, but twice a week for sure at the least. It really depends heavily on whether your max hold times are greater or less than 35-40s seconds. I'm using that as sort of a cut off to somewhat arbitrarily define a transition from strength work to endurance work. You can, and should, perform endurance work more often than strength work. It is a function of enzyme activity and energy substrate availability as opposed to those plus pushing structural capacity close to its limit. Strength work just takes a lot more time to recover from.

If your max hold times are 20s or under, I'd say 2x per week for the pre-requisites. If they are 20-40s I'd say 3x, and if they are greater than 40s I'd say 3-4x per week in an every other day fashion.

For simplicity, you could just do 3x per week the whole time.

Ok, thanks for the clarification JN. I'll probably cut down on the harder variations.

Finally got around to film myself and edit the video. Took me a little longer than expected because I had to format my piece of crap laptop (twice). Anyway, here you go http://youtu.be/Lnf3XSIXnYw.

Couple of observations that I made myself:

- I don't seem to protract the shoulder blades enough in planche lean.

- My ass is too high in tuck BL.

Any comments?

millhill said:

Ok, thanks for the clarification JN. I'll probably cut down on the harder variations.

Finally got around to film myself and edit the video. Took me a little longer than expected because I had to format my piece of crap laptop (twice). Anyway, here you go http://youtu.be/Lnf3XSIXnYw.

Couple of observations that I made myself:

- I don't seem to protract the shoulder blades enough in planche lean.

- My ass is too high in tuck BL.

Any comments?

Great film!

On your arch hold and especially arch rocks, try to get more arch in the thoracic spine. You could also pull your neck back (but not tilt the head back) more.

You definitely don't protract enough in planche leans but you do have lat activation which is good. During your PPP you lose the hollow for most of the movement, that will have to be addressed with regular hollow push ups at first I think, and slowly work the hands backwards once you get those down so that you are doing hollow PPP.

BL ass height is fine, I mean you are high but that's how most of us start. If you can, you may want to try it with palms facing the other way. Try starting in a chin up (palms facing you) grip.

The FL could be less protracted, but overall pretty good. Hard to REALLY tell with the shirt on, but if you start in inverted hang and retract before lowering down you may be able to hold a more neutral shoulder position. Good work with the locked arms!

Thanks a lot for the comments JN! Very helpful. I will concentrate hard on correcting my mistakes. Just out of curiosity, how can you see the lat activation? I'll continue training for a month or two and update here how things are going. If I don't see any progress, maybe I'll just switch to bodybuilding or running marathons.

For the planche lean, try to go more forward if possible. I think that if you improve that, it might help unblocking your tuck planche. Otherwise, you might want to go through a phase of cutting a bit of fat, being something like 5 pounds lighter might also help you to progress a bit faster. It's like when I went traveling and lost 10 pounds. Man, that one arm chin lifted fast!

Thanks for the tip Vagabond. I'll have to figure out how to hollow properly before leaning more forward. Was training the proper hollow in front of a mirror today and it helps a lot. The last two months (or a bit less) have not been too good training and nutrition wise. Might be that I'll lose some fat, when I get back on track.

Joshua Naterman said:

My suggestions are foot supported rows, thick bar bicep curls (standing), hollow push ups, hollow dips, dumbbell shoulder press with handstand form, HLL (probably with bent legs), decline weighted sit ups, arch ups, jefferson curls, front squats, stiff leg deadlifts.

For pre-req work I would have a separate routine in the morning, focusing on hollow rocks 2 days per week and hollow hold 1-2 days per week.

Like I said, I would completely change the structure of what you are doing. Try to set a schedule where you are working each muscle group 2-3 times per week, but with a different exercise each consecutive workout. Have lighter days with more reps + more time under tension per set and heavier days with less reps per set AND less total time under tension per set.

At least one of each dedicated day per week.

Hi, millhill. I hope you don't mind if I "hijack" your thread for a sec. I think it's relevant to what's been said here and should provide further analysis that could increase our understanding.

So: If someone is doing a 3 day / week routine (because of simplicity of 2-3 times a week per exercise), then would the following routine mostly cover everything?

(Note: Workout A is the high TUT/reps workout, B is the low TUT/reps workout, and C is a moderate TUT/reps workout)

Workout A:

Short FSP routine 2 hours pre-Workout after waking up

1a. 3x10 Foot supported rows (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

1b. 3x10 Hollow push ups (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

2a. 3x10 Dumbbell shoulder press with HS form (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

2b. 3x10 HLL with bent legs (with as much control as possible, not exceeding 2 sec. up and 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

3a. 3x10 Front squats (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

3b. 3x10 Arch ups or RLL (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

4a. Medium TUT active flexibility drills

5a. PNF stretching routine

Workout B:

Short FSP routine 2 hours pre-Workout after waking up

1a. 5x3 Hollow dips (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

1b. 5x3 Pull ups (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

2a. 3x5 Single Leg Squats (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

2b. 3x5 Stiff legged Deadlifts (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

3a. 10 sets of 10-15 seconds stomach to wall HS with perfect form + 20-30 second rest between sets

4a. PNF stretching routine

Workout C:

Short FSP routine 2 hours pre-Workout after waking up

1a. 3x7 Thick bar bicep curls (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

1b. 3x7 Decline weighted sit ups (2 sec. up + 2 sec. down) + 2 minutes rest

2a. HeSPU program (from Boxer thread)

3a. 10x3 Pull ups program + 20-30 seconds rest

4a. 3x10 Russian barbell twists + 90 seconds rest

5a. Medium TUT active flexibility drills

6a. PNF stretching routine

Thanks!

Follow up edit: Members here have suggested ABA, BAB or ABAB to beginners here, but since my routine is ABC, I might do ABC, BCA, CBA, ABC, etc. Just cycle backwards...