Right before we left for Nicaragua I received a hell of a Christmas present:
The Building The Gymnastic Body Series, including Book and companion DVD’s.
As a little background I first met Coach Sommer in person at the CrossFit Level 1 cert in Golden, CO back in early 2004. At that time Coach Sommer was studiously working on a multi-book series that would allow the rank novice to benefit from the tremendous strength & conditioning potential of gymnastics. If you recal he had some VERY interesting and popular articles on sites like Dragon Door and T-nation. Folks could see the obvious potential of an S&C program relying heavily on gymnastics principles…but the barrier to entry has always been the morase of “how do I make progressions? How do I chop these seemingly impossible movements into workable pieces such that I might progress?” Well, the way has been made clear. Here is how the system works:
The book offers detailed written instruction of the movements including execution, scaling, program design, periodization and progressions. The periodization and programming sections of the book could warant the price of the book for that content alone…it is VERY good.
The DVD’s offer real-time examples of the movements. Theses are instructional exmples of the moveemnts performed correctly, they are not detailed analysis of the movements…that’s what the book provides.
I tinkered with this material in Nicaragua (until I cut a tendon in my finder cutting Chicken…I will be gettign surgery for that in aweek) and it’s FUN. My gymnastics has not progressed beyond some very rudimentary ring skills, handstand walking and some of my old capoeira skills because I’ve lacked the progressions and motivation to stick with this stuff. The jumps in skill are often quite slow and it does require some patience to wait out the progress. With the book and DVD’s I feel like I have the tools to make progress AND stay motivated. I’ll mix this with the CA-WOD up to my recovery ability and see how things go.
Thanks goes out to Coach Sommer for his diligent work on this project and his continued freindship and support.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Waiting for my Christmas present to get here. I can’t wait to get the boys (4 & 7) into some progressions, they already love to play on the rings, but I have no clue how to guide them along.
dammit, i want one
in the meantime i think i should probably work on my freestanding handstand
Sounds like you’ve been taking food prep lessons from Aimee.
I know…that or Jack-the-Ripper.
i’ve been checking out the gymnasticbodies.com site for a while now and pre-ordered the book a couple months ago. I’m really happy to see that you got it too because it sort of validates the connection between my crossfit world and my learning gymnastics progressions world.
Now that I’ve graduated from Chico I hope to have time to come out to Crossfit Norcal to the MWF class. Is that still $200/month?
Brandon-
We have a special going for January due to our 5th anniversary in business: $80 for the On-Ramp class. Normally that beginner class is $199 so it’s a great time to get started. From there continuing classes run $135-$250 depending upon your frequency of training.
See you soon!
Hey Robb,
Wondering if a subscription to Charles Poliquin is worth the $15? It looks like he could possibly have some interesting articles on low-carb nutrition, protein sources, etc.
Cheers!
Ben-
I’ll be kicked out of CF for this, but yes, I think it’s well worth the $15/year. If you think about it, how valuable is a nice chunk of info, movement analysis, or critique of a piece of research? I know Poliquin does not “get” CrossFit but this is no reason to dismiss the guys material out of hand. Is all of it legit? No, I think a sizeable chunk is hyperbole to sell supplements…but if one has a brain in one’s head some critical thinking can be applied and good info/ideas can come to the fore.
One of the biggest dangers I can see is for a group, or an individual to think they have everything figured out…
I have the book and I think I’ve read the thing 5 times already. I’m now following the gymnastic bodies WOD.
Rob, do you have a sense for how the progressions might work for a tall heavy person? The levers involved make it anywhere from difficult to impractical. Difficult is fine…Impractical doesn’t warrant a purchase.
conor-
Our guy Adam Lambert is 6’3″ and 205lbs. He has progressed to front and back levers, some tumbling etc. Just depends on how hard you go after it!
This looks awesome!! I checked out their website http://gymnasticbodies.com and they have a WOD. Can that be used as a CrossFit supplement? Or is supposed to be stand-alone? If stand-alone, any suggestions on scaling to be used as CF supplement? (Maybe that last question is better suited for their fourm, sorry). You said you are going to mix this with CA-WOD, any details on how you will be doing that yet?
You going to be writing up a more detailed review once you are done with the books/DVDs?
Jared-
Their forum is phenomenal, Im a MOD in the nutrition threads (when I get over there) shoot this stuff to them!
I’m just hitting as much of both (CAWOD) as feels good. So far, so good.
I agree the book and DVD are great!
Coach Sommer has been talking about this book for years and I have been waiting for their arrival.
It is well worth the investment. Although, honestly, I still think a lot of these moves are just impossible! 🙂
Hey Robb,
Being frugal, I was just wondering whether you would recommend the books or the dvd first? Thanks so much.
Nick
Book, the DVD’s are great fro seeing the movements but the book is the “how to”.
Nice going there, Bobby Flay! I should talk, I did the same thing to an extensor tendon in my l/h cutting the smashed end off a garden hose back in Sep. Let me know if you need ideas for 1-hand w/o’s or rehab tips.
All kidding aside, my doc was adamant that surgery be in 24-48 hrs to keep things from healing in the wrong place. You getting that?
Tony
Nice review.
Right now the Gymnastic Bodies WOD’s are a work in progress. For the short term, they are smaller than they would be normally for a general day to get the populace to ramp up. Recently, Coach Sommer has expanded them to be a little more in depth and branch from the other material that has been released as articles on the site but not from the other books in progress.
just got my book in the mail yesterday. it is awesome!!
Hi Robb,
I have been reading your blog for some time now and thought I would ask a question that is related to this gymnastics entry. I have got Sommer’s book, DVD’s and rings and loving them. But what I was wondering is what sort of post workout nutrition I should follow when doing Coach Sommers WOD’s. The parameters very much seem like mainly strength training (almost always 3-5 reps so doesn’t cause as much structural damage as hypertrophy training).
Most of the info on PWO nutrition I have found by Poliquin etc seems to be related to hypertrophy training more so should someone like myself who does gymnastics strength training highly consider protein intake and consume possibly a form of whey protein or is glycogen replenishment and other factors more of a concern here?
Many thanks and I love your blog keep it up!
For work that is low volume and predominately strength oriented the need for additional carbs is REALLY small. A quasi-ketogenic diet (50-100g/day) seems to work great. Check out Ido Portal’s work for more info on this.
Hey Robb,
I’m back from Italy. The trip was great, but I won’t go into detail here, I’m writing a piece for the blog on it. Anyway thanks for your recommendations on the supplementation (sorry, not intended, well maybe a little!). Congrats on getting the book, I’ve got it. It should be interesting to see how the WOD’s evolve. Unfortunately I’ve been sick since I got back (Sunday the 11th) so I haven’t been able to try them out but I just bought the 5th season of the shield to consul me 😀 .
Best wishes for the finger,
Ed
goooooooooooooooooooood
what does gymnastic eat??
Soup.
Honestly, Jiaxuan, here in the US it varies from horrible to detailed. As well it will depend on economic budget.
Many will eat a lot of just anything if they work out hard and frequently.
I WANT THIS BOOK