TL;DR

DO BASIC EXERCISES! They may seem simple, but they helped me break through plateaus and achieve new progress.

Introduction

Hi there! 🙋‍♂️ In this post, I will tell you about the progress in my workouts, the type of training and what was helpful for me, in order to improve.

I’ll start with a short story about how I began working with a personal trainer, followed by the progress I’ve made during and after his supervision. And will also share some rusults during his guidance and after that.

The beginning

For many years (I think around 7-8, not sure), I’ve been training on my own, figuring things out as I went along, but that’s not the main topic in this post.

During my training journey I had the chance to meet many people with the same passion for training as me. One of them was a friend which I met in Germany. We’ve been having workouts together many times. And eventually he got a training certificate which allowed him to teach people.

One day, he posted that he was looking for people to teach so he could improve his skills as a trainer. I decided to take him up on his offer, just for fun.

After some time, we had a call and discussed my goals. I wanted to increase the repetitions of my handstand pushups (a type of pushup done while in a handstand position, which is great for shoulder strength and balance) ↓.

And to improve my straddle planche hold (a gymnastics move where you hold your body parallel to the ground, balancing on your hands, see the picture below).

And after saying my goals, he gave me a personalized workout, that I had to do 4 times a week.

Honestly the workout was pretty brutal, because it was mostly hard exercises, tons of volume, and almost no basic exercises. But yeah… I was grinding it.

At the start, my muscles were aching constantly (I see this as a great sign that I am doing things right), but after some time doing it, they’ve stopped.

Nonetheless, with this workout, I saw some progress almost immediately (in the third or fourth week), but I think it’s expected, because it’s something new, and my body has not got accustomed to it.

Also, another thing he made me do, in parallel to his workout, was to film myself during the workout. This was done with the intention of sending him the videos, so he can give feedback on them. Basically what I am going wrong or right, or how to improve something.

I would say that this was a game changer for me. Because even without sending him the videos, I could see by myself what could be improved or be done differently, and on top of that, the feedback that he was giving me was helpful too.

My advice to anyone workinging out is to record your workouts regularly, it’s a powerful tool for tracking and improving your technique!

After

Soo yeah… I’ve been doing his workout for 2-3 months (i think), and the end of it came. He was not going to be teaching me… ☹️

We had one final call, which was about saying my opinion on the workouts he gave me, some things that could be improved in his teaching and so on…

Right after he stopped being my trainer, I started going to the gym, because the weather was terrible (people living in Germany know 😆). The first couple of workouts, stuck to his old training and did it a couple of times, but afterward I changed it with something else. Mostly basic exercises and legs 🤮.

The basic exercises consisted of weighted pullups and dips (different variations), and exercises with the gym equipment, to target specific muscle groups, that I decided were necessery for planche.

Then after some time had passed just doing basics and legs, I decided to try and do his (of the trainer) workout once more. And suprisingly it felt easy 🤯. This was strange because I haven’t been doing this workout for a while, and somehow I got better at it. I think I should give the credit to the weighted exercises, but not completely sure, or maybe the leg workouts also helped somewhat.

Results

After doing all things mentioned above, here’s a quick summary of my proggress:

• I’ve increased the number of straddle planche to handstand raises (see below what exercise I am talking about).

(Here I am doing 3 repetiotions with 45kg or 50kg of help, and usually I struggle to do 3 with 55kg of help)

• I reduced my assistance bands from 55kg to 40-45kg within 3-4 weeks. This was a huge, as it shows that I gained the strength and can rely less on assistance while working toward the planche. I also went from struggling to complete three straddle planche to handstand raises with 55kg of band help, to managing three reps with only 45kg. It’s been a clear sign that basics like weighted pull-ups and dips made me stronger overall.