Beginners Advice/Putting it All Together

[Deuce]

Hello, I'm 16 years old and just beginning Gymnastics training. Every gym around where I live is for womens Gymnastics and treats it as if men don't get involved in the sport therefore I'm attempting to teach myself (with the help of this forum and Building the Gymnastic Body. I have a pretty solid fitness foundation, I am capable of doing 10 ring dips, about 15 pull ups, about 20 chin ups, I can hold an L-sit for approx. 20 seconds, I can do around 60 push-ups and am currently working on my handstands (I've almost got it). I'm lucky enough to have a martial arts/fitness trainer as a dad so our basement has more of what I need. As far as gymnastics equipment goes my setup right now is: Pull up bar - Dips Station - Rings - Parallets - Push up handles - and lots of matts. I'm currently looking to build stall bars and possibly parallel bars (if anyone has any DIY plans for either of those I'd be glad to have them).

Now that you know basically what I can do and what I have available to me I was wondering if anyone has advice for me and/or suggestions as to how to work on and put together the basics in Building the Gymnastic Body. It is one of the best fitness books that I have read and has already helped me on many things however it hasn't given me much on how to train the basics. I figure that the up and coming volumes and WOD will help me with this but seeing as those aren't here yet can anyone help me? Right now I have been looking at the various levels of each positions, finding the one I can do, perfecting it, then attempting the level above. Should I work on all of them in one day? Should I do a training split? If so, how?

Thanks ,

Corwin

[Mark Weaver]

Corwin,

I think the WOD's will be a great help. And, from what I've seen on other posts, Coach has provided everything in his book for a personalized program. It seems like it takes a bit of time to put it all together. I'm in the same boat. I've kept working on the planche and front lever progressions, and have thrown in other exercises here and there: muscle-ups, bulgarian dips, lots of handstands on the parallettes, etc., without a formalized program, and have enjoyed the accompanying strength gains. Just keep doing something, while you put together your workout.

I like the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday Friday schedule, personally. And I think the Front Lever and Planche progressions are great to work on.

mark

[Deuce]

Thanks, that's basically what I figured but wanted some confirmation. Well, off to workout.