A Request

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Hello coach I hope all’s well with you and congrats on your crossfit athletes competing.

I know you don’t give specific programs but wondering if I could share my experiences with your programs and get pointers on where to go next.

For some reason I’ve plateued the last 6 months (no real size gains, abs somewhat visible but don’t look “shredded”). My 1RM-3Rm have improved a bit, nothing drastic and I’m not losing strength, though my ability to handle volume seems to be lower.
But my form on all the big lifts have improved, and I’m solidly executing all of them.

I looked most imressive following your layers program but haven’t hit those heights again,
I’m now doing your indigo strength as the high frequency stength work is great.

As you know i did a lot of ring work and lost focus on big compounds but I’ve regained it since (doing only 5 min or so of ring levers and handstand as warmup and activation before pounding weights)

My diet has been fine. I’m still having caffeine everyday in form of coffee or preworkouts.

Would you have any recommendations for me to gain phsyqiue improvements again? Preferably combining rings/gymnastics and heavy compound lfiting? That doesn’t seem too far from your CF programming as well.

Thanks for indulging, appreciate any guidance

2

Hey Sigil,

Every post I’ve seen of you is focussed about 1)rings and 2)layer system.
Maybe your body is just used to the stimulus, try something else for a few months and see what that does. It seems like you got overly attachted to a method that gave you great gains, and are now unwilling to mix things up.
Rings and layers are still here in 3 months. You can always pick up.

3

[quote]Panopticum wrote:
Hey Sigil,

Every post I’ve seen of you is focussed about 1)rings and 2)layer system.
Maybe your body is just used to the stimulus, try something else for a few months and see what that does. It seems like you got overly attachted to a method that gave you great gains, and are now unwilling to mix things up.
Rings and layers are still here in 3 months. You can always pick up.

[/quote]

@panopticum

He has written that he already does something new, the Indio strength program. He no longer uses the layer system and has reduced rings to a short warm up.
I think he just wants to get a recommendation what he should do to get his “all time best look” back that he reached with rings + layer stystem.

@sigil

After you have finished the indigo training, maybe you run for 8-12 weeks a purely bodybuilding training like John Meadows “reactive pump” training and after that you do your layer + rings again?

4

[quote]Akidara wrote:

[quote]Panopticum wrote:
Hey Sigil,

Every post I’ve seen of you is focussed about 1)rings and 2)layer system.
Maybe your body is just used to the stimulus, try something else for a few months and see what that does. It seems like you got overly attachted to a method that gave you great gains, and are now unwilling to mix things up.
Rings and layers are still here in 3 months. You can always pick up.

[/quote]

@panopticum

He has written that he already does something new, the Indio strength program. He no longer uses the layer system and has reduced rings to a short warm up.
I think he just wants to get a recommendation what he should do to get his “all time best look” back that he reached with rings + layer stystem.

@sigil

After you have finished the indigo training, maybe you run for 8-12 weeks a purely bodybuilding training like John Meadows “reactive pump” training and after that you do your layer + rings again? [/quote]

Actually I just finished writing an article about the update layer system based on my most current findings

5

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]Akidara wrote:

[quote]Panopticum wrote:
Hey Sigil,

Every post I’ve seen of you is focussed about 1)rings and 2)layer system.
Maybe your body is just used to the stimulus, try something else for a few months and see what that does. It seems like you got overly attachted to a method that gave you great gains, and are now unwilling to mix things up.
Rings and layers are still here in 3 months. You can always pick up.

[/quote]

@panopticum

He has written that he already does something new, the Indio strength program. He no longer uses the layer system and has reduced rings to a short warm up.
I think he just wants to get a recommendation what he should do to get his “all time best look” back that he reached with rings + layer stystem.

@sigil

After you have finished the indigo training, maybe you run for 8-12 weeks a purely bodybuilding training like John Meadows “reactive pump” training and after that you do your layer + rings again? [/quote]

Actually I just finished writing an article about the update layer system based on my most current findings[/quote]

Do we already have Christmas? haha

6

[quote]Akidara wrote:

[quote]Panopticum wrote:
Hey Sigil,

Every post I’ve seen of you is focussed about 1)rings and 2)layer system.
Maybe your body is just used to the stimulus, try something else for a few months and see what that does. It seems like you got overly attachted to a method that gave you great gains, and are now unwilling to mix things up.
Rings and layers are still here in 3 months. You can always pick up.

[/quote]

@panopticum

He has written that he already does something new, the Indio strength program. He no longer uses the layer system and has reduced rings to a short warm up.
I think he just wants to get a recommendation what he should do to get his “all time best look” back that he reached with rings + layer stystem.

@sigil

After you have finished the indigo training, maybe you run for 8-12 weeks a purely bodybuilding training like John Meadows “reactive pump” training and after that you do your layer + rings again? [/quote]

My bad.

7

[quote]-Sigil- wrote:Would you have any recommendations for me to gain phsyqiue improvements again? Preferably combining rings/gymnastics and heavy compound lfiting? That doesn’t seem too far from your CF programming as well.

[/quote]

It has NOTHING to do with my Crossfit programing at all. I mean, not even close. It uses some of the same tools but if the tools are what makes training programs similar then every program is similar to all others.

For one thing my crossfit athletes train for performance not look.

*They train a lot on the Olympic lifts
*They are not using the same strength lifts
*They are not using lifts from pins (as per the original layer system)
*They have daily conditioning work and/or WODs
*They don’t do ring work, except muscle-ups
*They don’t do as much volume work on the big lifts because they have a lot of stuff to do each day
*They train 2-3 hours a day (some more)

And these are only a few differences.

They also have much different mindset… and yes this makes a HUGE difference in gains. A smart elite trainer once told me that the most important thing to get gains is 100% thrust in what you are doing and be motivated by it. If you have doubts in your training approach you will not progress optimally. If you worry about your (lack of) gains, then you will not progress optimally either.

My crossfit athletes…

*Have an alpha attitude; they have 100% confidence in themselves and in the program. They do not question whether what they are doing will work or not, they just do it as hard as they can, knowing that it will work.

*Do not worry about their look. Sure if they gain muscle and get leaner they are happy. But they don’t stress and worry over it. If their performance is improving then it’s all good. As a result of not worrying about their look they actually improve their look more!

*They don’t whine, worry, complain or compare themselves to others.

From my experience those with an alpha attitude progress a lot more than the betas of this world.

Either you didn’t look at how my crossfit programs are or you are just using the crossfit reference to spark my interest in your question. Either way you asked variations of that question numerous times in the past and I didn’t give you a plan, and it wont change this time around.

8

In all fairness the thread was started more than 3 months ago :slight_smile:

9

yeah, but somehow it popped up to the top of the page the day I responded.

10

Well we gravitate toward what works right?

I just meant how CF workouts setup (gymnastic work, power, strength, metcon) and asked how gymnastics/rings might be paired with layers.

Certainly xmas did come early - the layers is out, its bold, CT is legendary and we should all make some gains

11

[quote]-Sigil- wrote:
I just meant how CF workouts setup (gymnastic work, power, strength, metcon) and asked how gymnastics/rings might be paired with layers.

[/quote]

I don’t use layers with my crossfit athletes. I tried last year and it was too much on top of their other training components.

And I don’t do ring work with crossfit athletes. All we do on rings is muscle-ups and not that often.

Sure they do body weight work, but it’s not the hard skills, which have a much higher neural component.

So asking about layer + rings using my interest for crossfit training as a lure is a gross misconception of reality.

And as I mentioned, building the physique is NOT the goal of my crossfit athletes. Sure some have great physiques, but not all of them have it. Some just look athletic without being that muscular or lean, certainly not to the degree you aspire to.