Gief's Gym - A Workout Plan and Training Program for Practical Improvement. First Post in a Potential Series.

Welcome to Gief’s Gym. You’ve learned all you can from the SFTU, got your diploma, but your muscles are like twigs! Your execution is puny and your punishes are weak! But do not worry, my friends, your personal trainer, Zangief, has a workout plan to push you as a player. MUSCLE (MEMORY) POWER, FOR YOU!

Characterizing introductions aside, the purpose of this series is to provide practical training methods for brand new players. Guides will be listed out in the form of:

<Name of the Exercise> - <Difficulty and what level of player the exercise is for>

The Workout – Situations you will set up in training mode alone or with a friend, how many reps, and variations on that “workout.”

The Purpose – This will serve as a brief explanation as to why you are performing the workout or why you would want to perform this particular workout. This may also include variations on a workout if any apply.

With that said, let’s continue with a warm up for Absolute Beginners!

Learning Normals - Absolute Beginners

The Workout – In training mode pick Ryu U1 vs Ryu U1. Stun: off. Block: None. As Player 1, walk toward Player 2 by pressing forward and find the exact max range that a far standing light punch (stand jab, Square button on PS controller, X button on Xbox controller) will make contact with Player 2. Hit Player 2 with a max range stand light punch, walk away from Player 2, walk back into max range light punch, and repeat ten times. If the stand light punch whiffs, start back at one rep. Continue this method for every single far standing, crouching, and unique normal*.

The Purpose – This workout will force you to get familiar with Ryu’s normal attacks. Normal attacks are extremely important in fighting games. By finding and knowing that exact max range that a normal will make contact with your opponent is what lies at the very foundation of all fighting games. Later, this will allow you to be confident in walking into and out of the useful range of your normal attacks. Variations include: Picking a different character – This allows you to know the range of different characters normals; Setting the opponent to crouch block – You will notice that the Max range on some of your normals will be slightly increased and that other normals will whiff entirely.

If you have any questions or need a spotter for this particular workout, leave a message in the comments.

*Crouching normals are performed by holding the down direction and pressing an attack button. Unique attacks are character specific attacks that require a specific directional input in addition to a button press – See Ryu’s command list for more details SFIV SFV.