Gymnastics for Sport

[Liam]

Hi there,

I have been strength training in the conventional sense for a while and never really seen much progress, and I have been wondering about the benefits of gymnastics. I was hoping you could answer some questions for me:

1) I work best when I have a set routine I can work to. Will the upcoming book on basic strength contain this or guidelines on how to create one? Also how suitable will it be for total beginners to strength training?

2) I have always struggled with chins and dips compared to other lifts because I am very tall and have very long arms. Will this decrease the effectiveness of gymnastic training for me?

3) Most importantly, I am an enthusiastic if not especially talented sportsman. Is Gymnastic Strength Training™ good training for sports other than gymnastics? I am thinking specifically of rowing, rugby and martial arts, but I would be interested in your take on the relevance of this kind of training to any other sports too.

Thanks in advance,

Liam

[kbryk]

I'm not sure if they upcoming book with layout a routine, but that's a question for Coach Sommer, as for the benefits, they are endless you will notice an increase in strength in a few weeks, but you must endure the training it is hard at the beginning but once you become "conditioned" things flow better.

I am one of the tallest people in gymnastics in my school along with one of the heaviest 5'11 and 164 pounds, but trust me once you get conditioned and train well you will not notice to much of a difference, of course smaller people have an advantage because of leverage and total distance they must travel on certain skills, but this should only be a reason for you to try harder. I can do 3 sets of 15 low dips in under 5 minutes and still have wind in my longs and strength in my arms, pull ups I max out at 17ish, I can crank out more than 50 pull ups in less than 10 minutes.

Gymnastics will directly apply to martial arts, rowing and rugby, is applies great upper body strength and working against the finer points, all you need to do is incorporate some leg strength and you will be set for rugby along with some cardio. of course. You don't necessarily need to work on the skills of gymnastics to be strong you can work on the strength and the skills will develop from that strength.

Hope fully this answers most of your questions, please do consider gymnastics it will change your perspective on fitness.

[Liam]

Cheers for your reply. I'm 6'4" and 185lbs, but hopefully what you said still applies! So you think combining gymnastic training, potentially from Coach Sommer's upcoming book, with a high intensity sprint training regime is an appropriate routine for contact sports?

[kbryk]

I would say hell yes, and further proof big people can do little many sports, I almost have the Straddle planche down! I'm moving up!!! Try it, it will seem very hard at first then you will notice great improvements, start off with the basics, push ups, frog stands etc.., read up on some articles there's 1000's on bodyweight workouts.