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Hey Im Jon-Kenneth from Norway. Pleased to meet you all. Im totally new to bodyweight training, i always been on the heavy side and lifted alot last 2 years and gotten some nice injuries. Im planning on going away from weightlifting and commit fully to bodyweight training / Gymnastic. I have read the guides on the account page. I think i understand everything. Im starting at Intro to go back to Basics , only thing im wondering. I see i can add mobility / rehab to my Schedule. Is there some "guide" on this page saying when you should or shouldnt? I was just thinking some easy all around mobility together with Intro , segment 1 program, 1 - 2 days a week. Also doing some long slow steady bike work for easy cardio, not sure if that will have a big "effect" on the training. Thank you for tips/answers, cheers.

Hello to all of you! Before I get started with all my questions, I want to introduce myself and tell you guys my little story. My name is Chris, I'm 24years old, live in Germany and work at a fitness&health center. I've been doing sports all my life - at the age of 4 i started out with soccer, which I quit after just a year. At the age of 6, I started gymnastics at a local gym in my town (3 times a week / regular competetions at weekends). I really got obsessed with it, I loved all the different elements on the different apparatus, being able to control all of your movements, the perfect form you had to have, the bodytension, strength, flexibility, coordination and so on... After 3 years of training they moved me to a 'performance center', which meant even more fun for me. Training was 5 times a week, the gym was like a huge playground for me, all the apperatus were already set up, different trampolines and floors, i loved being there. I often would stay after practise and you run around and jump on the tampoline like crazy while my dad was talking to the coaches or was waiting for me to get tired. At this time, I started competing 'AK' - which are the most difficult routines you can do on all apperatus at different ages. After 2 years of training and some more competitions I was offered to train at 'Kunst-Turn-Forum' Stuttgart - which is THE gym in West-Germany (Fabian Hambüchen and Marcel Nguyen train there). Since the gym was too far of a distance from my Hometown I only went there at the weekends, so for a little more than a year I trained 7 times a week, 5 at the performance center, 2 at the gym in Stuttgart. At that time I was 12/13 years old... and decided to quit gymnastics. The reason I chose so was because at that age I wanted to hang with my friends more, which I've not done too often before - I always got picked up right after school and went to the gym, after training went home and did my homework before I went to bed. That was the daily routine. So after I quit, I was interested in different sports and started playing basketball, which I was not too bad either. 4-5 times practise a week + games at the weekend. Thats the point when I started lifting weights, mostly for basketball (3 times per week). So, 2-3 years ago I had to quit basketball because of my job, I only played the games at the weekends, never had the time to go to practise. I still lifted weights since I work at a fitness&health club. The more I read and thought about the human body, a strong and healthy body and how to archieve it (because of work + my personal health), the more I realised that gymnastics is THE answer to it. So here I am at 24, 12-13years out doing gymnastics I want to start from scratch. I've had a on/off relationship with injuries all my life (broke right arm, left arm, right leg twice, ankle joint, sprained ankle 5 times, borke a couple of fingers too etc... and you know the good old knee and shoulder hurts here and there thing, dysbalances, trigger points, but nothing too serious as of now. So now to my questions: 1- I really want to increase my flexibilty+strength, so F1 is perfect for me? 2- I just started to go to mixed gymnastics class (beginner+advanced gymnasts), I will definetly go there twice a week if i have the time to do so, but I'm scared to hurt myself because my mind remembers the movements and how to do them but the strength and flexibility is not there. For example, the first time I went there I saw a mushroom and thought to myself 'cool, lets do some cicles!' after just a few tries I got the feeling of how to do them again and did 18 on the 5th try. Felt sooooo good just to move your body freely and controlled, but.. my wrists were killing me! So aside from foundation, how am I gonna know if im ready to do movements like cicles etc.? 3- I would say, after 12 years I can still do a pretty decent handstand. Freestanding for about 20sec. on the first few tries. Am I still gonna need H1? For extra shoulder mobility maybe? Or where does it take me? Going to the gymnastics class again is so much fun and frustration at the same time. I think especially for me... remembering that I once was able to do things like: frontsplit, middle split, thomas-flares on floor, front lever, back lever, flips of all variations etc. to a optical fit, but unflexible, dysbalanced and uncoordinated human being. I really want to fix all my issues by starting from scratch and building a healthy body and getting the feeling of perfectly controlled body movements again. I've been checking this forum for about a month now, almost daily. I highly appreciate this community and how perople from different countries, ages and backgrounds help each other out, this is awesome! Thanks in advance, ck PS: Here is a video of me doing a l-sit hs press on my new parallettes after 12yrs, very bad form but the feeling of being able to do this was crazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFPKSveZdQY

Hi, My name is Kenji. I bought the H1 and F1 starter pack and have been doing H1 for the past 3 months or so, and I am currently at the weighted dislocate mobility portion. I will also be doing the GB Seminar in Singapore this March, which I am extremely excited about. Introduction 27 years old, 5'9, 66-67kg, powerlifting background, did well enough in competition. My build seems conducive to powerlifting - long, thin arms and really thick legs. Historically, my shoulders are my weakest bodypart and I tended to have weaker pushing movements because of the length of my arms. Goals for 2015 - That said, my goal for 2015 is to hold a 30-second freestanding handstand anytime within that year. - My very lofty goal would be to perform one freestanding handstand push-up within 2015, or early 2016. I have tried doing F1 and H1 in tandem according to the templates, but could not due to time constraints - the volume and time of doing F1 in tandem with H1 really adds up. Choosing one to start with, I opted to do H1 first before I dive into F1 fulltime. After listening to the podcasts, the general consensus seems to be the need to build a foundation with F1 before all else. Should I continue on with H1 and do F1 after I get the handstand, or should I do the reverse and start with F1 instead? I will have a better idea of programming once I do the GB Seminar this March, but I'd like to already come into the event with the most conducive mind (and body) possible. Depending on the answers in this thread, I'll modify my training in the next 4 months to get the most out of the GB Seminar. I look forward to meeting you all, and I look forward to your feedback as well. Thanks and best regards, -Kenji

Howdy y'all, I've been lurking around here for a week or so, and thought I'd post an intro. Some background on me. I live in Texas, enjoy physical activity, and over the last 2 1/2 years I've done some barbell lifting (starting strength, Rippetoe) and more recently programs by Ross Enamait (Never Gymless & Infinite Intensity). Ross warmed me up to the idea of bodyweight lifts, so I've been working on pushups, pullups, and various core exercises for the last 3 months. I did gracie jiu-jitsu in college, and would like to pick that up again once funds allow. I have enjoyed heavy barbell lifting, but had to get a triple hernia repair (2 inguinal, 1 belly button) December 2012. The inguinal hernias were rather large. Since then I can't lift nearly as much weight as I used to without getting pain in my incision sites. The surgeon told me that the lifting wouldn't hurt the surgery, but I'd like to avoid lifts that cause ongoing pain. I also got into a car accident spring 2013, so my neck is still having issues from that (one of the vertabrae popped over to the side). I can't do neck bridges, heavy back squats, or similair exercises without getting bad neck pain anymore. Side note, I'm 6'1" and am currently holding 170lbs (by eating 3k cals a day). The natural weight I hold is 130lbs (if I don't lift and just eat what I feel like eating). Barbell lifting and heavy eating (4k cals a day) got me to a fat 190lbs; I switched to "Ross Training" (November 2013), lowered cals to 3k/day, and now I'm at 170lbs and not fat (but not lean either). I would like to get rid of the remaining fat on my gut. It's annoying because my upper ab muscles are slightly visible, but I've still got pudge on the lower ab region. Last year I just focused on eating a ton of food, but now I need to figure out a better diet so that I can maintain or slightly increase my weight without putting on fat. Lately I've been eating 3k cals a day and getting ~45% of cals from fat, ~30% carbs, ~25% protein. I try to eat most of my carbs on strength exercise days, and eat a lot less carbs on non-strength days. This approach seems to let me maintain my bodyweight without adding on anymore fat. I would like to get stronger with bodyweight exercises, and progress to be able to do things like L-sits, planche, handstand pushups, etc. Right now, I can only do 4x7 chinups (not strict, but not kipping), 4x20 pushups, and can only do dips on a bench. I can do 1-leg squats if my legs have a couple days to rest from the previous workout (balance is the issue). Triceps are a weakpoint for me. I'm basically starting from scratch when it comes to bodyweight exercises. It looks like F1 and H1 are my starting points. I don't have the money to spend on that right now, so I need to find some stuff lying around the house to sell. In the meantime, do y'all have any advice on exercises to focus on now before I start F1 and H1?

Intro Hi everyone - I just wanted to introduce myself to this great community before (hopefully!) posting some more :-) I'm a French 32 yo guy currently living in Sydney with his wife and 19 months daughter. Regarding training, I will train F1 and H1 in a cycle currently being determined. I'm coming to GST to continue improving my fitness, with the double constraints of 1) no more than 1h a day to dedicate - fully - to training, and 2) being able to work from home, or a park close by. 2 is a direct consequence of the main time constraint: I did go to a crossfit gym for a while. It was fantastic, but the 30mins bike rides each way were just making it too time-consuming with regards to my lifestyle. I've found that 1hr each day is the best I can do for formal training alone. On top of that, I'm sprinting uphill each day for 5 mins to pick-up our daughter at the daycare center and seizing every opportunity while playing outside with her to do some quick holds and stretches. Yes, even if that means doing it while pushing the swing or attracting funny looks while keeping an eye on her in the middle of all the other parents sipping their lattes on benches... Heck, when we're alone I'm chasing her in a bear crawl. She still escapes me and I still don't really dare to do it with more than 1 or 2 other parents present in the playground... ;-) Regarding my athletic background, I did train in competitive gymnastics back when I was a child, but had to stop after 4 years after a serious injury done while stretching my middle split with our national-level-ass****-trainer on my back. I'm quite exceptionally rigid but they weren't convinced I was doing my best... Well, that put a stop to any competitive ambitions I had for any sports, but that did not stop me from remaining very active and training in basketball, judo and mountain-biking. All things outdoor as well. I almost completely stopped any fitness activity during my higher-education studies, done in the most competitive field in France. I just didn't have time to do anything else but work, eat and sleep - week-ends and holidays included. It did pay off and I went to the best school. But there I subbed work by party and fitness-wise it stayed the same. Except that I moved everywhere in Paris through rollerblades, raining or not, drunk or not. Not wise in retrospect, but it did gave me solid leg strenght and good balance. Then I went to work for a company which made me work and travel a lot, so it was more like work-travel-sleep. Not that hard a pace regarding work, but commuting between Europe and the US does take a toll. Then at some point I read Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan (which I highly recommend btw). In it, he mentionned Art de Vany's blog, which at the time (around 2007 I think), was an excellent resource for what is now the Paleo/Primal/Evolutionnary/insert your own buzz word lifestyle. I read everything, changed my diet, and started to exercise again. I wasn't overweight or out of shape by any means, but quickly discovered I was a skinny fat and lacked real strenght. I started to exercise using the "Never Gymless" book by Ross Enamait. I really liked his style, and I needed something to work out and train to took into account my time in planes and hotel rooms. When my wife got an impossible-to-pass on job opportunity in Sydney, I had to quit my company/career. I took a 6-months break which recharged me completely, with plenty of sleep, outdoor activity and absolutely zero travel. I started Crossfit in a box here in Sydney. It was not your typical CF box, they have an individualized approach (and the price to go with it!). They were fantastic, but when our first daughter was born, I quickly discovered that spending 1 hr total to go to and back from the gym wasn't going to work... I had promised to myself NOT to stop training after the birth, no matter how tired I would be. In my plan, that meant CF at the gym. Well, that would have been ideal for me, but not possible. So I just went back to working out at home whenever I could have an at least 20 mins block for myself. So now, that's what I mainly do. Lots of bodyweigth exercises, with rings work in the park or under my stairs. High intensity, but slow and cautious progress to higer exercises. I discovered this website while googling some exercises and was blown away by the quality of the posts and the material posted by Coach Summer. And now I've jumped on the F1/H1 bandwagon ;-) I'm looking forward to interacting with you guys :-) - Julien