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| An interesting variation for me |
Foundations
I’m really enjoying the course I have of these; I’m being
exposed to a huge range of new progressions for strength, mobility and strength
in different ranges of motion. It is an amazingly vast resource but not like
other E-book type deals that just show 10 different grips for each normal
exercise. It exposes your weaknesses and crushes you with them. In particular most
of the starting levels are strength endurance based, which I really struggle
with, this is both good and bad. I thought I had quite strong abs yet the
simple levels were a struggle for me, but I get a little stronger every week
and I’m still enjoying the basics over two years on, and still progressing. The
course is set up to slowly build to some very impressive feats as a side effect
of incredibly strong abs. On the other side I found it extremely difficult to
progress with the bent arm strength elements, since I’m not really built for
strength endurance I struggled to make progress. I ended up sneaking in some
extra strength work to help me along, but I will expand on that in another post. I think this attention to strength endurance will really pay off later,
but it is still a major struggle for someone like me who does better on
something like 3-5 reps. (Maybe I’m just crying about being a unique snowflake).
Where I have broken into more strength work (passed the strength endurance
phase) I am flying through getting stronger and loving it.
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| Not a bounce down and back, this is a sustained hold |
Now a note about my slow progress. The forum which you
get access to when you buy the program is a pretty good resource with helpful
coaches who will do a form check for you. I really haven’t utilised this at
all, and I have spent a long time spinning my wheels because of that. I really
have no one to blame but myself that. I am also planning a post about some of
the hurdles in gymnastic training.
Handstands
This one looks amazing but I’m stuck not being able to
progress due to a lack of shoulder mobility. Now part of this is what I
mentioned before about not utilising the form checks, for instance I was using
a 5-7kg bar for one of the movements, which was really much too heavy. If I
have asked on the forum I probably would have switched to a lighter bar much
sooner and been able to make progress but I didn’t, I spun my wheels for 6
months or more and made no progress. Now using a 2.5kg bar my mobility is
progressing slowly, but well. For me with tight shoulders I really can’t do
many of the exercises and progress, which is annoying, but it points out a huge
hole that I need to work on. Foundations also has something like this where one
of the elements requires quite a bit of mobility which is taking me a long time
to gain (more on this in my post about hurdles in gymnastics training).
Stretch
Now a cynic might say that the mobility blocks in
foundations and handstands are just to sell the stretch courses, I don’t
believe this, but buying the courses is defiantly helping to accelerate my
progress. Now you could buy someone else’s mobility course, or just do your own
stretching, but for myself I had no idea where to start so buying these courses
seemed like a good place to start. They have been really good in that someone
tells me exactly what to do, how long to do it and how often, this is great for
me. It is also set up quite well in that it builds up slowly so you can drop
out when you can no longer keep up; this is kind of good and bad. The way the
scaling in shown isn’t great (in my opinion for what it’s worth), that said I
find within a few sessions you can do more and more of the work until you can
work on everything in a reasonable manner.
Cost
Yes, these courses are somewhat expensive, but I would
say they are either on par with or slightly cheaper than similar alternative programs.
I think they are worth spending the money on, not just for someone like me
using it as my main training, but for most people who either train themselves
or train others. I think if you got just one good piece of information per course
which you then added to your own training, or someone else’s, it would be worth
the money. One piece that pushes you further or that you use over and over; you
will likely find more, but just one should be enough. (I might write another
post on this, maybe focusing on seminar type learning).
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| Again, not bouncing down, but a sustained hold |
So to wrap up
Foundations: Really good, but you might need to sneak
some strength work in if strength endurance isn’t your thing. Also you might
need more mobility.
Handstand: Looks like if will be great but you need some
serious shoulder mobility.
Stretch: I really like and recommend this program, it
will probably be the single biggest factor in speeding up your progress. Now
you don’t have to buy this course, but I think you need a really serious plan
that you stick to, could be this, could be something else, could be your own,
but you have to work on it.
Overall: I think the price is totally worth it and I
started buying these when money was really tight for me. Also you have to
stretch.
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