Often times, we stress how important strength training is and we reference the use of barbells and bumpers to achieve this strength.  Even though we’ve posted previously on gymnastics resources, handstand progressions, and talked about the importance of bodyweight exercises, people still only associate strength work with movements like the back squat, deadlift, and press.   While these lifts contribute greatly to developing strength, let’s not forget how effective gymnastic movements are in a strength program.

Coach Christopher Summer of Gymnastic Bodies explains it best:

“First of all, exercise is exercise. Period. The name of the game is resistance. A muscle contracts against resistance and, with perseverance, over time, becomes stronger. For strength to increase, the amount of resistance or load worked against must also increase over time. Hence the problem with bodyweight conditioning – as the resistance (weight of the body) is fixed, how to continue to increase strength? Surprisingly the answer is simple – by decreasing the amount of leverage it is possible to exert on an exercise, the resistance of an exercise becomes increasingly greater. For example, a hanging straight leg lift is much harder than a tucked leg lift. In both exercises the weight of your legs remains constant, however by reducing your leverage (i.e. in this case straightening your legs) we are able to greatly increase the resistance. By straightening the legs we have effectively doubled the difficulty of the exercise even though the weight of the body has remained constant.

Basically, the harder the contraction over a greater part of the body during an exercise, the more effective the exercise. For maximum improvements training to failure is not necessary, but maximum contraction is. One of the main advantages to these advanced bodyweight exercises is that they require a complete full body contraction. In fact, at advanced levels, they are so demanding that it is simply not possible to complete them any other way.

Be prepared to spend at least six months at these exercises to work through the various progressions. What?! Six months?! Yes, that’s right, at least six months. Some people may need to spend a year or more. You wouldn’t expect to bench press 300 lbs. right away. Nor should you expect to build high level bodyweight strength instantly either. Be consistent, be patient and soon you too can be enjoying the benefits of greatly increased strength and athletic ability.”

Today we’ll be working the muscle up progression, handstand push up progression, and the first moves of the planche.   The hardest part for you guys will be having the patience to master each progression, but the strength comes from controlling your body to finesse the movement.  Face planting or rotator cuff tears are NOT progressions!

WOD 03.11.10

Make Up Day

OR

Gymnastics Work: Muscle Up, HSPU, and planche progressions