Progress-Regress

[Chris Schwab]

Hello all, 

 

I've been lurking around the forums for a bit, but I rarely make an appearance. That should really change I recently made a thread on handstands, before I could chip in my thanks and thoughts it was locked, so I'll say it here, thank you to all who pitched in there, it was an absolutely fascinating thread!

 

I have a few questions floating around in my mind, so let me explain:

 

I had programmed myself a great routine that was allowing me to progress through my goals at the rate I was looking for and it was working great for me, pre-college. I started the program over the summer holidays and was making some progress as you do. Once college started I of course worked out less and scaled the workouts back, which at first was fine with me I did not need to be doing 2hr workouts 6 days a week, and scaled it back to three one hour sessions. 

 

Now as anyone who has been to college knows I kept getting caught up in the work-party-eat shit-sleep mode for a few months, packed on an impressive number of pounds and lost an equally impressive amount of muscle. I worked out less and less, sometimes there being a week between one workout and the next. It was sometimes 2-3 weeks before a Pull or Push workout. 

 

Anyways, enough whimpering back-story. The main point I am concerned with is that I regressed in all areas, a lot. From holding simple static positions such as the frog stand, tuck planche and elbow lever for more than a minute to trying to vainly hold on for 10 seconds. 

 

However even though I can only hold a tuck planche for a few seconds now I can still how an advanced tuck planche and sometimes a straddle planche (though it is horrendous form and very close to the ground).

 

My question for this part then is should I go and start back with my static positions from square one and work back up to 60s holds with the basics, or try and continue the current progressions and just work on improving the form again. 

 

Also, on a curious sidenote I could never do a full back lever before college but now after 4 months of metabolic rape I can for some reason do a full back lever for 6-10s, even though my pulling strength has decreased somewhat. 

 

Another discussion would be brilliant guys, the last one was very very useful in seeing the different opinions.

 

Thanks, Chris.

[Larry Roseman]

 

          

          It could be that the training break did you some good, allowed your muscles to fully recover and rebuild, and nascent

          injuries to heal. So I'm not completely suprised that you are still strong in some respects. 

 

          That said, it's recommended to go back to the start to at least get back to the basic level in statics. It should come

          back a lot more quickly than it took to develop in the first place. 

 

          But are you done with college or how are you going to avoid slipping back into the same trap or vicious circle?

[Chris Schwab]

Alright then, for the time being that sounds like a plan then. It's a bit annoying regaining lost footing but eh I am hoping that since I weigh more than when I started I can get stronger since I'll be lugging more weight around to train with.

 

How do you guys feel about me training the statics more frequently than before? Since I had previously gotten to a decent level 4 months ago do you think it would be alright to train just the statics almost every day? Previously I did Push statics 2x/week and Pull 2x/week.

 

I am just a Freshman, and will be entering my second semester in January. Even though I knew what to expect coming to college I still fell prey to the traps. I am rather confident that from the second semester onwards I can get back to mostly healthy eating (besides Friday/Saturday nights, of course) and instill a stronger routine habit than I displayed the first semester. I had dabbled in parkour last semester and want to do it again next as well so it's a matter of allocating my time and work juggling GST/Parkour/Social and Work.

[Larry Roseman]

Hard to say. Statics are pretty hard to overtrain. At the same time you

want enough time to recover if needed. Generally 5 days a week training

anything is enough for anyone below the pro level.

 

The part of school for me that was tricky was living off campus second year.

I mean it was good to get out of the dorm, but also too much freedom for me at

the time to handle and I got high too often. I wasn't athletically orientated then

and in retrospect it would have helped if I were. Anyway if you can get a handle

on that now that's great.