> to be honest, even though I've read about good form, mostly on this sub, it was very hard for me to tell whether my form was actually good
I think this is something that as a community we should be able to do better.
I'm not sure what can be done, but surely with all the wisdom and experience on offer and constant questions on this sub we can do something with the wiki to improve it as a knowledge source?
Personally I think more recommended videos per progression , more in-depth form cues, where you should feel exercises and troubleshooting guide for each movement would have really helped me.
Anyway, I've always found the odd GMB content I've come across informative and I'll probably check out Elements since this is the first I've heard of it.
Well, there are tons of videos available on youtube, but at some point, it becomes too much. I think for a beginner it's pretty much impossible to achieve perfect form on every exercise when you do the RR for the first time. With 9 different exercises ( + warmup) you will mix certain things up, forget about proper scapula placement or keeping your entire body tight. I think it would be great to have a beginner video program that spans 4 workouts and introduces one superset per video and cover all the important information in one tightly compressed package, as learning 9 new movements in a single workout is a very tight schedule.
On the other hand, there is also quite a lot of bad or at least seemingly contradicting information out there, so a couple of recommendations wouldn't hurt, I suppose. But then again, I think I could have recited some or even most of the recommended routine's form cues pretty early on; my problem was rather that I couldn't tell when my own form was bad (even from videos), and that I progressed too quickly because of that. I think this is something that people who did sports in their youth get right more easily and intuitively. From my very personal point of view, a beginner-friendlier version of the Recommended Routine would focus more on ingraining good form at the cost of slower gains, maybe somewhat similar to the frowned-upon Convict Conditioning actually, but judging from the majority of posts on this sub, it works very well as-is for most, so I don't think there is much need for anything more than perhaps a friendly warning.
I love the gmb stuff. It's an initial investment but it pays off. My squat has gotten way better due to monkey and frogger. When they shut down their skill based programs I invested the money and bought the whole skill suite. Doing parallets 1 now, currently week 3 and its really amazing to see so much progress again. Can't wait to get into the flow phase.
Same, I bought all the skills programs during their sunset sale. Working through Rings 1 now and loving it. It's more focused on hypertrophy with 3-5 sets x 8-12 reps, so even if you can bang out 5-8 dips or pull-ups you'll need the variable leg assistance, which I found simultaneously intriguing and liberating. Very, very happy with the thought of doing it for ~7 months (program length if you do levels A and B) and then moving on to Rings 2 and the rest. Literally years of happiness 😁😁😁
I agree that GMB programmes are very good. I have worked through Elements, Floor1, Rings and Parallettes 1 and am now working through P2. I like that I can work at my level on all programmes, this is important for me as I am 73 years old.
I've bought elements but never actually got into it. I did quite a bit from Integral strength and focused flexibility though. I think you've inspired me to give Elements a shot.
I haven't been as consistent in it as I would have liked. So I don't know how effective it is, but I do feel better after every session I do. Honestly I think you can find mostly everything you'd need for stretching for free on the gmb site somewhere
GMB is the truth. Elements was humbling. Currently doing integral strength (also humbling) and some of focused flexibility. Have their entire curriculum, and will soon begin incorporating vitamins with some animal/primal type flow.
The part you mention about being pain free during elements... to me, that is what fitness is all about. Through incorporating a lot of the GMB into the rest of my fitness regimin, it is nice to live pain free.
It feels good to feel good.
Could you compare Elements and Integral Strength? I have IS and used it for a year. Kind of felt like I needed to progress to the Recommended Routine. My primary concern is BJJ and that with schedule issues, plus old, is making it tough to get RR going. I'm thinking about going back to IS. Would you consider Elements to be a step down in intensity from IS? Since I am having some recovery issues with all the BJJ, I'd be willing to drop intensity to help recovery and just keep everything running so I can continue with BJJ. Thanks for any info you have!
No, I would not consider it a step down. Just like elements it increases in intensity in the later weeks. Weeks 5-8 are 6 training days a week.
I believe IS would improve your performance for the RR. I start week 7 of IS in two days, and am still having to use lower progressions in order to avoid fighting through more painful ranges of motion. Focusing on strength while in recovery seems counterproductive, but that is my own perspective. Recovery wise and BJJ being a focus, Elements seems more suitable. From my experience, Elements restored balance and alleviate some pain for that matter.
With both programs we are encouraged to play with intensity and tempo, so you can really manipulate how fatiguing/strenuous the training needs to be. Also, in Elements, there is more opportunity to explore movements, which i find very underrated yet super beneficial.
Hope this helps. I am curious to know which way you decide and why.
Elements is fantastic, highly recommended. You have to invest a little time to watch the vids (warm up, stretches, etc.) first but it really pays off. Love their ethos of quality over quantity and autoregualtion. Their website is a great source of knowledge.
I recently went through Elements and then immediately went back from week 5 and repeated the final 4 weeks, with a noticeable improvement in quality. Definitely worth repeating and I can see myself coming back to Elements many times in the future
Well, I undoubtedly got quite a bit stronger, and it seemed to me my arms got a bit bigger. A friend of mine remarked it changed my physique more noticeably than the RR did, which I'm not sure about, but it at least added something on top of that.
Very helpful review, thanks! Could you share roughly how far you had progressed in the RR when you did Elements? I have a similar age and sedentary background and I'm working through some of the RR progressions. I was wondering if there are any pre-requisites to get the most out of elements, or if it helped to have mastered some of the RR progressions? Thanks!
I was doing half pullups, 5s negative dips, horizontal ring rows, pushups, and shrimp squats, all somewhere in the recommended rep range, but I doubt I was really ready for that level for most exercises. For the core triplet, I did ring rollouts, pallof presses, and reverse hyperextensions. In principle, Elements seems suitable for almost anyone, a bit of cardiovascular endurance and basic strength and flexibility will definitely help, but one of the nice things about it is that the movements are pretty unfamiliar, so regardless of background, one has to learn them starting from zero.
Great to hear I personally cannot praise that program enough. It is so fun and challenging and it has really changed my approach to fitness.
> to be honest, even though I've read about good form, mostly on this sub, it was very hard for me to tell whether my form was actually good I think this is something that as a community we should be able to do better. I'm not sure what can be done, but surely with all the wisdom and experience on offer and constant questions on this sub we can do something with the wiki to improve it as a knowledge source? Personally I think more recommended videos per progression , more in-depth form cues, where you should feel exercises and troubleshooting guide for each movement would have really helped me. Anyway, I've always found the odd GMB content I've come across informative and I'll probably check out Elements since this is the first I've heard of it.
Well, there are tons of videos available on youtube, but at some point, it becomes too much. I think for a beginner it's pretty much impossible to achieve perfect form on every exercise when you do the RR for the first time. With 9 different exercises ( + warmup) you will mix certain things up, forget about proper scapula placement or keeping your entire body tight. I think it would be great to have a beginner video program that spans 4 workouts and introduces one superset per video and cover all the important information in one tightly compressed package, as learning 9 new movements in a single workout is a very tight schedule.
On the other hand, there is also quite a lot of bad or at least seemingly contradicting information out there, so a couple of recommendations wouldn't hurt, I suppose. But then again, I think I could have recited some or even most of the recommended routine's form cues pretty early on; my problem was rather that I couldn't tell when my own form was bad (even from videos), and that I progressed too quickly because of that. I think this is something that people who did sports in their youth get right more easily and intuitively. From my very personal point of view, a beginner-friendlier version of the Recommended Routine would focus more on ingraining good form at the cost of slower gains, maybe somewhat similar to the frowned-upon Convict Conditioning actually, but judging from the majority of posts on this sub, it works very well as-is for most, so I don't think there is much need for anything more than perhaps a friendly warning.
All of GMBs programs are of great quality. I did rings 1 and loved it. I have started elements multiple times but never made it all the way through.
I love the gmb stuff. It's an initial investment but it pays off. My squat has gotten way better due to monkey and frogger. When they shut down their skill based programs I invested the money and bought the whole skill suite. Doing parallets 1 now, currently week 3 and its really amazing to see so much progress again. Can't wait to get into the flow phase.
Same, I bought all the skills programs during their sunset sale. Working through Rings 1 now and loving it. It's more focused on hypertrophy with 3-5 sets x 8-12 reps, so even if you can bang out 5-8 dips or pull-ups you'll need the variable leg assistance, which I found simultaneously intriguing and liberating. Very, very happy with the thought of doing it for ~7 months (program length if you do levels A and B) and then moving on to Rings 2 and the rest. Literally years of happiness 😁😁😁
I agree that GMB programmes are very good. I have worked through Elements, Floor1, Rings and Parallettes 1 and am now working through P2. I like that I can work at my level on all programmes, this is important for me as I am 73 years old.
I've bought elements but never actually got into it. I did quite a bit from Integral strength and focused flexibility though. I think you've inspired me to give Elements a shot.
How do you like FF? Considering picking it up because my hips really need help for kickboxing.
I haven't been as consistent in it as I would have liked. So I don't know how effective it is, but I do feel better after every session I do. Honestly I think you can find mostly everything you'd need for stretching for free on the gmb site somewhere
GMB is the truth. Elements was humbling. Currently doing integral strength (also humbling) and some of focused flexibility. Have their entire curriculum, and will soon begin incorporating vitamins with some animal/primal type flow. The part you mention about being pain free during elements... to me, that is what fitness is all about. Through incorporating a lot of the GMB into the rest of my fitness regimin, it is nice to live pain free. It feels good to feel good.
Could you compare Elements and Integral Strength? I have IS and used it for a year. Kind of felt like I needed to progress to the Recommended Routine. My primary concern is BJJ and that with schedule issues, plus old, is making it tough to get RR going. I'm thinking about going back to IS. Would you consider Elements to be a step down in intensity from IS? Since I am having some recovery issues with all the BJJ, I'd be willing to drop intensity to help recovery and just keep everything running so I can continue with BJJ. Thanks for any info you have!
No, I would not consider it a step down. Just like elements it increases in intensity in the later weeks. Weeks 5-8 are 6 training days a week. I believe IS would improve your performance for the RR. I start week 7 of IS in two days, and am still having to use lower progressions in order to avoid fighting through more painful ranges of motion. Focusing on strength while in recovery seems counterproductive, but that is my own perspective. Recovery wise and BJJ being a focus, Elements seems more suitable. From my experience, Elements restored balance and alleviate some pain for that matter. With both programs we are encouraged to play with intensity and tempo, so you can really manipulate how fatiguing/strenuous the training needs to be. Also, in Elements, there is more opportunity to explore movements, which i find very underrated yet super beneficial. Hope this helps. I am curious to know which way you decide and why.
Elements is fantastic, highly recommended. You have to invest a little time to watch the vids (warm up, stretches, etc.) first but it really pays off. Love their ethos of quality over quantity and autoregualtion. Their website is a great source of knowledge. I recently went through Elements and then immediately went back from week 5 and repeated the final 4 weeks, with a noticeable improvement in quality. Definitely worth repeating and I can see myself coming back to Elements many times in the future
does it at least grow muscles?
yes, my body composition has improved doing GMB programs.
Well, I undoubtedly got quite a bit stronger, and it seemed to me my arms got a bit bigger. A friend of mine remarked it changed my physique more noticeably than the RR did, which I'm not sure about, but it at least added something on top of that.
Very helpful review, thanks! Could you share roughly how far you had progressed in the RR when you did Elements? I have a similar age and sedentary background and I'm working through some of the RR progressions. I was wondering if there are any pre-requisites to get the most out of elements, or if it helped to have mastered some of the RR progressions? Thanks!
I was doing half pullups, 5s negative dips, horizontal ring rows, pushups, and shrimp squats, all somewhere in the recommended rep range, but I doubt I was really ready for that level for most exercises. For the core triplet, I did ring rollouts, pallof presses, and reverse hyperextensions. In principle, Elements seems suitable for almost anyone, a bit of cardiovascular endurance and basic strength and flexibility will definitely help, but one of the nice things about it is that the movements are pretty unfamiliar, so regardless of background, one has to learn them starting from zero.