Last week, I shared a post about applying the 5/4/3/2/1 strength training method to gymnastics.
In the YouTube comments, @MathiasZamecki asked a great question about programming flexibility.
“It would be really helpful if you could share a video on how to program flexibility training, as it can be quite taxing on the nervous system.”
While there isn’t a simple answer, I can share some insights.
Training goals, flexibility levels, strength levels, skill levels, lifestyle factors, and more all play a role in program design. This is why it’s best to have an individual design program tailored to you.
There is no one-size-fits-all best approach to program design. Yes, we can make progress following a general program, but it’ll never be as effective as a tailored approach.
Personally, I train four days a week, combining flexibility, strength, and skill into every session, leaving me with three full rest days.
However, this approach may not work for everyone.
I have clients who like to separate their flexibility on days when they're not doing strength or skill work.
Both ways are fine.
When designing a program, it’s important to consider training goals, injury prevention, recovery, training schedule, training history, assessment, and program design. These are all topics that I discuss with my online clients during our initial enquiry call.
When working with a new client, here are some things I consider before designing their strength, flexibility and skill program.
1. Training goals and priorities.
When it comes to training, it's important to have clear goals and understand their reasons. Simply saying, "I want to be flexible" or “I want to get stronger” is not enough. Your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely (S.M.A.R.T) to be effective.
Research shows that people who set goals are more likely to stick to a plan and achieve success.
I have found that setting goals makes the training journey much more rewarding. Once you know what you're training for and why, you'll have a sense of direction and purpose.
For example, I started doing more specific flexibility training because my lack of flexibility kept me from my gymnastics goals. I had the strength to perform movements like the straddle press to handstand, but it wasn't pretty. No amount of strength training would improve it. I needed to get flexible. This gave me my purpose and direction.
One common problem I see in gymnastics training circles is It's easy to get overwhelmed with a long list of goals and feel like you're missing out on something if you don't train everything (FOMO).
The truth is, it's impossible to train everything at once and expect to make significant progress.
Prioritising your goals is essential to make the most of your training time.
Different goals require different amounts of time and effort. For example, if you want to improve your pull-up strength, you can train it once or twice weekly. But to master the handstand, you'll need to train it three, four, or even five times a week.
Some goals, like improving your pike and pancake flexibility, require similar training. These goals can be combined to save time and energy.
When balancing strength and flexibility training, it's important to avoid overloading your central nervous system (CNS).
Everyone's body is different; some people can handle more volume or intensity than others. Age and lifestyle factors greatly influence how much training you can handle. This is why it's crucial to prioritise your goals and structure your training program according to your individual needs.
When designing a training program, start by setting SMART goals and prioritising them in order. This will help you make the most of your training time, avoid burnout, and reduce the chances of injury.
For most individuals, working towards 2-3 goals in each strength, flexibility, and skill category is adequate.
I wouldn't recommend attempting to achieve more than this at one time.
Concentrating on a few goals will result in quicker progress.
Maintaining strength, flexibility, and skills is easier than gaining them. So, once you achieve a goal, you can switch it to maintenance mode and select a new goal to pursue. It's not like you’re stuck training 2-3 goals for the rest of your life.
World-renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin has mentioned that it takes six times less effort to maintain than gain.
An example could be doing six sets of a particular movement per week compared to one set of a particular movement per week. What goals are you trying to improve in the current phase of training, and what goals do you have on maintenance?
I recommend you dedicate a minimum of 12-18 weeks to each goal. If you're following a good program, you should see progress within this timeframe. You might not reach the end goal, but you'll be closer than when you started.
You can then choose to continue with the same goals or put some goals on maintenance and dedicate the next 12-18 weeks to different goals.
It always comes back to your priorities at the time.
2. Injury
It seems obvious, but I will still add it to the conversation.
Do you have an injury?
If so, what are you doing to rehab it?
What exercises do you need to be avoiding right now?
If you've got a hamstring strain, should you be stretching the fuck out of your hamstring right now?
If you've got wrist pain, shoulder pain, or elbow pain, should you be doing handstands, muscle-ups or back levers?
Injury impact program design, and you need to pay attention to it. if you've got an injury or experiencing pain that might lead to an injury, DO NOT PUSH THROUGH PAIN! That's just stupid.
With intelligent programming, you can often work around the injury. You might need to change priorities for 3-6 months, but that's no big deal.
Fixing your injury and preventing injury needs to be your number one training priority.
““He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day, But he who is battle slain can never rise to fight again.””
This leads nicely into the next topic, recovery.
3. Recovery
I strongly dislike the "go hard or go home" mentality that's often present in the fitness industry. While I used to be guilty of this mentality, I now regret not prioritising recovery.
I won't go into a lengthy explanation about the significance of recovery, but it's common knowledge that training places physical stress on the body. Training is catabolic, meaning it can cause damage to the body. Conversely, rest and recovery are anabolic, allowing the body to adapt and become stronger.
Inadequate recovery can lead to physical breakdowns, such as injuries, burn-out, adrenal fatigue, hormonal imbalances, etc.
It's simply not worth it.
We must implement recovery strategies to prevent overtraining and achieve sustainable training results. Finding the right balance is important, especially for those looking to build strength, increase flexibility and unlock new skills.
Recovery involves managing our CNS and finding the right balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic states. I recommend delving deeper into Joel Jamieson’s (https://8weeksout.com/) work to learn more about this.
What's your approach to recovery?
How many full rest days do you incorporate into your routine, and what parasympathetic activities do you have in your weekly schedule?
Eat, sleep, train, recover and repeat.
4. Training Schedule
When it comes to training, it can be not easy to find the time amidst all the other important things in life.
Look at your weekly schedule and consider when and where you can fit in your training sessions. Be honest with yourself about how much time you can commit to each session and how much time you have available each week.
Remember that the more time you have, the more goals you can include in your program. However, it’s important to remember that you can’t train everything at once and expect to see progress.
Prioritising and making sacrifices are necessary for success.
Consider your most important goals and how much time and effort you will invest.
As mentioned above, some goals require a lot more time than others. Most people can make sustainable progress toward their strength and flexibility goals with one to two sessions for each goal.
If you want to add 10kg to your pull-up, you can achieve this by training weighted pull-ups once a week.
If you want to progress on your pancake flexibility, you can achieve this by training your pancake one to two times per week.
Skills are a little different. As mentioned above, learning to handstand requires at least three days per week.
If you’re not sure how frequently you should be training a particular strength or skill, reach out to some people who have accomplished the skill you working towards. Ask them how often they trained the skill and how long it took them to unlock it. Most people are more than happy to talk about their training success with you.
Take the time to map out your weekly training schedule and revisit your list of priorities to ensure you have enough time to train each.
5. Training History and Assessment
Have you been training for a while now?
How long have you been working on your current goals?
Which training style has given you consistent results?
How often do you train, and what volumes, intensity, and frequency do you use?
What might that look like if you were to change your training program?
For example, before training with me, many of my online gymnastics students had been following high-volume and high-frequency training programs for far too long. Often their progress had slowed due to a lack of rest and too much volume.
A lot of the adults I work with want to increase their flexibility, but they have never really trained flexibility. Maybe they’ve done some mobility drills during warm-ups and static stretching post-strength sessions, but they’ve never dedicated large chunks of their training time to flexibility.
By assessing your training history, we can gain insights into what might be missing from your existing program design and how we can align your training with your priorities.
In order to design a program tailored to your goals and abilities, it is also essential to conduct a physical assessment.
For instance, if you aim to achieve a chest-to-floor pancake, your current pancake flexibility needs to be evaluated. Similarly, if you want to increase your pull-up strength by 10kg, it is important to know your current 1RM pull-up.
When assessing skills, it is advisable to evaluate not only the skill itself but also the strength and flexibility components associated with it.
For example, if your objective is to perform a press-to-handstand, I'd assess your press-to-handstand ability, pancake flexibility, and strict overhead press. This enables us to identify and concentrate on limitations in the program design.
After gathering this information, we can start designing an individualised training program. We then reassess progress at the end of each training phase to decide what changes we need to make in the next phase.
If you're not making progress, we need to identify the problem and make appropriate adjustments, such as reducing or increasing your training volume or changing your training program to suit your needs.
If progress is going well, we may not need to change much. Please don't make the mistake of adding variety when it’s not required.
In my experience, constantly varied training delivers constantly varied results.
I’m not saying that we never make changes. We do. But individual factors need to be considered as you progress towards your goals. This is why we reassess progress at the end of each phase and then decide what adjustments are needed in the next phase.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach and it really depends on the individual.
6. Program Design
Now that you've done steps 1-5, the program will virtually write itself.
It's simply a matter of placing your training goals into your schedule.
Here are some key program design principles that you might like to consider:
1. Train the highest priority goals at the start of the session.
The fitness industry is filled with misinformation and misconceptions about combining different training styles. But program design doesn’t need to be complicated.
I’d suggest organising your training sessions based on your priorities. If your goal is to increase flexibility, it would be best to place your flexibility training at the start of each session. On the other hand, if you aim to enhance your strength, prioritise strength training at the beginning of each session. If you're working on specific skills, put them first.
It's essential to note that the first thing you train in each session is what you’ll most progress on.
For the last 2-years, I have prioritised my flexibility. So, my training sessions started with flexibility, followed by strength and skill.
However, I've recently decided to prioritise my strength; therefore, I’ve placed strength training at the start of each session.
My priorities may change in the future. If I decide to prioritise specific skills, I'll place skill training at the start.
One caveat to this can be skill training. It’s important to ask what is the limiting factor holding you back from achieving the skill to the desired level. If flexibility limits your skill goal, prioritise flexibility training before skill training. On the other hand, if strength is holding you back, prioritise strength training first.
Once you have the strength and flexibility to perform the skill how you want it to look and feel, you can perform your skill training at the start of each session to increase consistency and endurance.
Skill training doesn’t have the same CNS demands as strength and flexibility training, so we don’t often place skill training at the start of a session. You want the most neurologically demanding exercise to be placed at the start of the session when your energy, strength and focus are at their greatest.
2. Don't train high volume and high intensity simultaneously.
It’s not effective to train with high intensity and volume, as it can confuse the muscles.
A common mistake in bodyweight training is to consistently bash out high-volume of training.
But before starting a training phase, it’s essential to determine the goal. Are you training to improve strength, learn a new skill, build lean muscle mass, lose body fat, enhance muscle endurance, or recover from an injury?
It’s important to note that intensity and volume have an inverse relationship. When one increases, the other must decrease.
Cycling between accumulation and intensification phases is a great way to manage volume and intensity while continuing to see progress.
3. Don't train more than two days in a row.
It's important to note that training for more than two consecutive days can impede progress. Though you may initially see some significant gains, your progress will eventually decrease.
What is the minimum dose-response?
In other words, what's the least amount of training you can do to see results? It's not worth wasting your time and energy on training that hinders your progress.
Keep in mind that training is catabolic, while rest is anabolic.
If you're struggling to progress with your training, you're likely pushing yourself too hard.
4. Don't put lower body flexibility training on the day after a heavy legs session.
This should be a pretty obvious one. Trying to relax and lengthen tight and sore muscles will never work. It's best to rest or do upper-body strength training the day after a heavy legs session.
If you choose to combine lower body strength and flexibility training in one session, it is advisable to prioritise strength before flexibility. Combining both can be exhaustive for the CNS, and lower body training tends to involve lifting heavier weights, and stretching larger muscles, making it more demanding.
Flexibility training is a form of hypertrophy training. It damages the muscle fibres. We often perform static and dynamic flexibility drills for long periods of time, 60+ seconds. The total time under tension (TUT) fits the hypertrophy range; hence we often feel the delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS) after a good flexibility session.
Overall, combining lower-body strength and flexibility is more challenging than upper-body strength and flexibility.
5. Don't be afraid to experiment
Ultimately there is not one program that works best.
There are some general rules around program design, but most of the time, you need to do the work.
Consistency is king.
Be willing to play around with your training program and experiment with different styles and formats.
Find what works for you.
My only advice is to stick to one style or format of training for a minimum of 12-18 weeks.
This is the minimum time that it takes to see progress.
6. Have fun.
Your training should be enjoyable and something you look forward to.
Everyone has their preferences when it comes to workout styles.
Some people enjoy high-intensity training, and others hate it.
Personally, I prefer to focus on building strength, increasing flexibility, and unlocking new gymnastic skills.
However, this type of training may not be suitable for everyone as it requires time and patience.
Over the years, I’ve changed training styles multiple times. How I trained in my 20’s and 30’s is very different to how I train now in my 40’s.
Finding a workout routine that makes you happy and keeps you motivated is the most important thing.
I hope you found this post helpful and that it's given you more confidence about combining strength, flexibility and skill training.
If you've got any questions, let me know.
If you are still confused about program design, I suggest you hire a coach to help you with your program. One of my best investments is having a coach write my training programs. I’ve worked with a lot of different coaches over the years, and I’ve learned a lot from the process.
You can try to figure thing out by yourself, but in the end you’ll save a lot of time and frustration when you hire someone who has the expertise you need.
Until next time, happy training.