Looking For Guidance

Hi folks!

I've lingered on these forums for some time now and have signed up now to ask a few questions! I intend in purchasing the book by Coach Summer if I stick with the training, but I have a few questions to ask before hand!

I've been training weights for years and I'm now at a stage where I'm relatively happy with my physique. I have always admired gymnastics from a young age but I've never done any form of gymnastic training; I can do a very poor handspring and a front flip if I use a trampoline, but that's about it! I also have a set of rings which I've used a few times, from which I can do an L sit, skin the cat, dips, pull ups and again, that's about it! (struggle with the transition with muscleups)

I want to start gymnastic training in order to learn a handstand and a planche to start of with, but also want to continue my weight training. I've began doing wall handstands but I'm not too sure how many sets/reps I should be doing. I also need to improve my core strength to help me perform these exercises. I've read the tutorials on the website for handstands and seen plenty of planche videos, but feel I need to develop a base first as even a frog stand is quite difficult! I guess I'm just looking for guidance on where to start.

I appreciate any advice given!

Thanks

Basic HS core drills:

Hollow and Arch hold.

Lay on the floor, chest to floor. Squeeze glutes, point toes. Attempt to suck your belly button off the floor without raising your butt. This works on something called pelvic tilt.

HS on the Wall.

You could try the GB HS WOD. 12 sets of 30s of HS with 45s of rest in between.

I would reccomend many beginners can begin with 2-3m of HS volume. Test to see how long you can hold it on the wall. It does not need to be nearly verticle as a newbie. Find a nice comfortable angle, generally at least 45 degrees off vertical or horizontal.

Box HS is another drill you could use instead of a wall.

Test your max hold. Do work sets of 65-85% of your max hold. If 30s, is your max hold, you would use 20-25s worksets. Probably more like 20. If it was 10, 6 or 7, maybe 8. If it was 20, something like 13-16s is good.

If your work sets are over 20s, go for 2m+. If they are 10s, go for 60-90s. Obviously, if your wrists or elbows start killing you, STOP and back off.

Work on a 60s L-sit and you might be ready for planche work. You can start preparing for the planche by working bent arm strength like pushups, ring pushups, dips, ring dips, handstand pushup variants and the frogstand and planche lean (so long as you can hold a pushup position for 60s [which shouldn't really be that difficult]).

If you need a decent template for a workout program look at the Killroy70 program and add some core work like Lsit, hollow, arch holds and leg lifts and such.

531 is a weights program that you could still lift with but use the gymnastics work as assistance work to some degree.

Hi

came from rockclimbing and started gymnastic 2 years ago.

My goals handstand, Planche and Ringstrength.

handstand: Do it as often as possible. Sometimes i do it everyday.

Try go get a solig to wall handstand for 60 Seconds.

When you habe da solid to wall 30 Sec. Handstand start to train the Free one.

Planche is a hard task. As i started 2 years ago ai could hold the frog for 5 seconds.

Now i can hold a straddle 1 second :oops: It is a long way.

Do it like it is written in the book frog, tuch, adv. tuck.... and do a lot of planche leans and pseudo planche pushups

Headstand pushups (Feet to wall) also helped me

Blairbob said:

Basic HS core drills:

Hollow and Arch hold.

Lay on the floor, chest to floor. Squeeze glutes, point toes. Attempt to suck your belly button off the floor without raising your butt. This works on something called pelvic tilt.

HS on the Wall.

You could try the GB HS WOD. 12 sets of 30s of HS with 45s of rest in between.

I would reccomend many beginners can begin with 2-3m of HS volume. Test to see how long you can hold it on the wall. It does not need to be nearly verticle as a newbie. Find a nice comfortable angle, generally at least 45 degrees off vertical or horizontal.

Box HS is another drill you could use instead of a wall.

Test your max hold. Do work sets of 65-85% of your max hold. If 30s, is your max hold, you would use 20-25s worksets. Probably more like 20. If it was 10, 6 or 7, maybe 8. If it was 20, something like 13-16s is good.

If your work sets are over 20s, go for 2m+. If they are 10s, go for 60-90s. Obviously, if your wrists or elbows start killing you, STOP and back off.

Work on a 60s L-sit and you might be ready for planche work. You can start preparing for the planche by working bent arm strength like pushups, ring pushups, dips, ring dips, handstand pushup variants and the frogstand and planche lean (so long as you can hold a pushup position for 60s [which shouldn't really be that difficult]).

If you need a decent template for a workout program look at the Killroy70 program and add some core work like Lsit, hollow, arch holds and leg lifts and such.

531 is a weights program that you could still lift with but use the gymnastics work as assistance work to some degree.

Thanks for taking the time to reply Blair.

I will follow your advice and begin on the Hollow and Arch holds and try work towards doing 60 second holds. Should I do these in the same format? E.g. Figure out my maximum then do working sets of 70%? How many sets should I perform and what sort of rest between sets? 30 seconds?

Are they any other prerequisites I should do along side these? I had a look through 10 or so pages in the sticky, but it was a bit information overload and there are lots of abbreviations!

I am able to do a handstand with my stomach against the wall and my hands fairly close to the wall ( a few headstand pushups too). I got a little confused when reading all of the percentages you posted! I realise I should complete sets with 65%-85% of my maximum hold, but how many sets should I complete?

With regards to L-sits; I find them very difficult to do on the floor, but can hold them for a short time while supported on pushup bars or hanging from a pullup bar. I have looked at a few tutorials and will just try work on them until I can hold it for 60 seconds.

Thanks again for your reply and sorry about all the questions!

haui said:

came from rockclimbing and started gymnastic 2 years ago.

My goals handstand, Planche and Ringstrength.

handstand: Do it as often as possible. Sometimes i do it everyday.

Try go get a solig to wall handstand for 60 Seconds.

When you habe da solid to wall 30 Sec. Handstand start to train the Free one.

Planche is a hard task. As i started 2 years ago ai could hold the frog for 5 seconds.

Now i can hold a straddle 1 second :oops: It is a long way.

Do it like it is written in the book frog, tuch, adv. tuck.... and do a lot of planche leans and pseudo planche pushups

Headstand pushups (Feet to wall) also helped me

Thanks for your reply. 2 years and still working towards the Planche? Wow. I know it's an extremely difficult exercise but I thought that with 2 years training it should be manageable - perhaps I'm under estimating it!

You can try to use a SSC for the prerequisites but I like doing more than just 1m of volume.

During the seminar, we did the one arm side planks. You'll see this in some of the notes on them. Good stuff, but I wouldn't say there as vital as hollow/arch and front and rear/inverse plank. Depends on time. For boys, I do them, for girls I might do them.

I vary the amount of sets/volume of HS depending on the max hold. Really, find out what works for you. With a lot of the girls I work with, we start getting elbow and wrist issues pop up because they haven't done them really. Not really with the boy's since men's gymnastics is so much about apparatus whereas women's is about basically tumbling. So it's really a matter of trial and error.

For super newbies, 60-90s is fine. Bare in mind, I might have 4-6yo do 5 holds of 15s. Most of them will probably not be true vertical stomatch to wall, but an occasional kid might be. It could just be 6x10s as well or 4-5. I might do the same with a newbie adult. With those little kids, we don't have much time. With adults, you typically have to watch for the wrists because of a lack of wrist flexibility.

For those advanced beginner/beginner intermediates, quite often kids who are starting their beginning years of competition, I like 2-3 minutes. Quite often this is 5-7 sets of Wall HS maybe 20-45s. Some kids can hold it the entire time and other kids can't. It's more efficient to do them in a group and of course you can't really let them do it on their own because they count too fast on purpose or by accident. Look at the GB HS WOD's and it's 6m of HS volume over 15m. So 5-7 sets is 50% of this.

L-hang is a different animal than L-sit. L-sit is easier on parallettes, just make to press your shoulders down. My friend the other day found L-hang to be a lot easier on his hip flexors than L-sit and I would agree with this. I work a lot of L and V-hang with gymnastics mainly because it's necessary for bars.

Some days, I alternate L-hang and L-sit for myself. Mainly because for L-hang, I have to go walk to the pullup bar the next block over. So I might work it when I go over there to do pullups. Honestly, right now my workout programming is just sort of whatever. Do this, do that, enjoy myself. I was doing something a bit more organized back in May/June but not since late June.

For beginners, I often work L-hang a bit more as it seems to be easier. Honestly, I end up probably switching it up just so I don't bore them to death. Straddle L hang work is problematic on bars because of space but easy to work on floor/beam.

You can also work the L-sit on floor on your fingertips and thumb with your palms raised off the floor or on fists. Gives you a bit more clearance.

Planche is a skill that will take a long time. 2 years could actually be under it really. Kind of depends where they start and how much they focus on it.

Yes 2 years is a long time but i have to work and have a family so i have not as much time for training as i would like to have.

The other thing is i'm over 40 years old so it is harder than for a 16 year old boy.

But i think one year is the minium anyone should plan for the planche

Thanks again for your reply!

I tried a few static holds today as it was my day out of the gym.

Hollow Hold - Difficult! Was holding for about 15 seconds each and could really feel it in my abs. My shoulder flexibility isn't that great so I struggled to keep my arms back.

Arch Hold - I found this much easier than the hollow hold, was able to hold it for much much longer.

Straight arm plank: 100 seconds hold. It was my legs that gave way before my core did! Kept my whole body in a straight line and kept my stomach tight. The hardest part was the breathing while keeping the muscles contracted.

Inverse plank: 79 seconds. Again didn't feel too difficult, could feel it stretching my biceps and straining my legs.

Planche lean: (palms facing forwards) 50 seconds and felt quite difficult.

Wall handstand: maximum is about 30 seconds, so Ill try working with 20 seconds for sets and see how I go from there. Again I found it difficult breathing whilst keeping everything tight.

I think I'll just stick with these exercises along with L-sit training on my gym off days and see how I get on.

I did a little L-sit lesson tonight, using a clenched fist for slightly more heigh. Managed 5 sets at 10 seconds each which I was pretty happy with. Could've done a few more sets but thought I would be better to ease into it.

I've been doing a quick hamstring stretching routine for the last week and the difference it has made is incredible! Before I couldn't even sit in the pike position without being in agony, now I can lean forward and almost touch my toes!