The Myth of Nonfunctional Hypertrophy by Kelly Baggett

[Darryl Shaw]

If you take a bodybuilder who regularly does sets of 15-20 reps and a powerlifter who regularly does sets of 1-3 the bodybuilder will have a hard time matching the powerlifter on low reps sets but the powerlifter will likely have a hard time matching the bodybuilder on high rep sets.

As I recall this was demonstrated in the famous Fred Hatfield vs Tom Platz "squat-off".

[Brian DeGennaro]

I added significant leg mass when I stopped doing gymnastics and to be honest, my planches feel just as "easy" as they did when I was 15lbs lighter. Maybe I'm the exception?

[Grissim Connery]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

Being strong and being able to move well. That's functional. Athletes of all sports can do as such... except for swimmers.. they're a bit awkward on dry ground (and vice versa).

water is my kryptonite. give me any normal physical task and i can have fun even as i mess it up.

my only goal with water is to not drown.

I read an article one time talking about back problems in gymnasts that can occur from excessive hollowing, and they said that swimmers may suffer this same predicament. if swimming can help develop a hollow, could it have any carryover to gymnastics?

[Craig Brown]

Right on with this! My skinny 23yo son whose been a climber since he was 7 is deadly strong.

Craig

Originally Posted by Grissim Connery

i don't really have any proof of this, but generally i feel that if a guy has strong hands, he's overall a strong dude and most capable of applying and adapting to a lot of tasks. when i think of "country strenth," i think of these guys. i fear shaking hands with an old farmer who's ready to crush my weak, college boy grip.

there's one guy who i train with who just has a brutal strength to weight ratio. i know he's done some rock climbing, but there's definitely a big genetic component. anyways, when you roll with him nogi and he takes a grip of your wrist or ankle, it's his. unless i'm with a really big dude, i never really take a strong nogi grip on my wrist or ankle seriously. when this dude grabs it, i'm like "well damn. that's his now."

[Steve Shafley]

I disagree with Ido and Chris about gymnastics based training being superior for everything under the sun. In fact, besides some anecdotal stuff, there is nothing that proves it.

First off, while that stuff is, undeniably, cool as hell, it's also extremely time consuming to develop the skills to take maximal advantage of that type of training. Also, gymnastics based training was popular a long time ago until team sports became popular, then training for the sport-specific skills for those sports became more important than mastering the gymnastics skills.

In addition, the number of adult gymnastics practitioners who have become successful at training in that style is very low.

Gymnastics based training might be the shit, but if you take two twins, one doing gymnastics based training and one doing barbell training, then put them out on the football field or the rugby pitch, and ask one of them to run through the other, whom do you think is going to win?

Plus, for the simple task of looking better naked, what do you think, as a member of the modern society of North America (mostly) would be the best way to get there.

1. 10-12 hours weekly of gymnastic training.
2. 2-3 hours of barbell training and 1-2 hours of cardio/metcon?

How about MMA fighting? If you are training 10-12 hours for muscular conditioning via gymnastics movements, then when are you training your sporting skills?

Ido Portal has the leisurely means to travel to Europe and spend months learning from secret circus and acrobatic training masters. Do you? Chris Sommer is a professional gymnastics coach and he and his athletes have access to an awesomely equipped gymnastics facility. Do you?

There's a reason barbell based strength training is use for almost every single sport in the world. That reason is that for the time invested, it works much, much better than anything else.

[Garrett Smith]

Originally Posted by Steve Shafley

I disagree with Ido and Chris about gymnastics based training being superior for everything under the sun. In fact, besides some anecdotal stuff, there is nothing that proves it.

First off, while that stuff is, undeniably, cool as hell, it's also extremely time consuming to develop the skills to take maximal advantage of that type of training. Also, gymnastics based training was popular a long time ago until team sports became popular, then training for the sport-specific skills for those sports became more important than mastering the gymnastics skills.

In addition, the number of adult gymnastics practitioners who have become successful at training in that style is very low.

Gymnastics based training might be the shit, but if you take two twins, one doing gymnastics based training and one doing barbell training, then put them out on the football field or the rugby pitch, and ask one of them to run through the other, whom do you think is going to win?

Plus, for the simple task of looking better naked, what do you think, as a member of the modern society of North America (mostly) would be the best way to get there.

1. 10-12 hours weekly of gymnastic training.
2. 2-3 hours of barbell training and 1-2 hours of cardio/metcon?

How about MMA fighting? If you are training 10-12 hours for muscular conditioning via gymnastics movements, then when are you training your sporting skills?

Ido Portal has the leisurely means to travel to Europe and spend months learning from secret circus and acrobatic training masters. Do you? Chris Sommer is a professional gymnastics coach and he and his athletes have access to an awesomely equipped gymnastics facility. Do you?

There's a reason barbell based strength training is use for almost every single sport in the world. That reason is that for the time invested, it works much, much better than anything else.

Shaf, you aren't usually one to do this, but you got into the "all-or-nothing" gymnastics vs. barbell thing there.

My program is pretty much BBs for lower body & posterior chain, with mostly basic gymnastic-type progressions for the upper body. Use each one for what it's best at developing.

And yes, I do have access to an awesomely-equipped gymnastics facility, but that's because I made good buds with the owner.

However, basic gymnastic strength training to a relatively high level (for non-mutants) requires little more than rings, p-bars / dip bars, parallettes, pull-up bar, and a floor, IMO. I'm doing my planche & front lever work at a local CF tonight, and on the weekend I'll do my second workout in my garage gym. Next week I'll be able to go back to the gymnastics facility, but I don't have to for equipment reasons, it's just a nice change of pace.

[Steve Shafley]

There's always a continuum.

It's interesting that people would rather practice gymnastics based conditioning movements for a hour or so rather than spend ~10 minutes on the bench press for similar muscular development.

[Grissim Connery]

i think if you did weighted dips you could get in and out of there pretty fast.

[Garrett Smith]

Originally Posted by Steve Shafley

There's always a continuum.

It's interesting that people would rather practice gymnastics based conditioning movements for a hour or so rather than spend ~10 minutes on the bench press for similar muscular development.

There's always the X-factor of the coolness of being able to do even basic gymnastics moves. That's a big draw in most cases.

What is the 10-minute bench program you speak of?

Also, a decent hour-long gymnastics program would include pulling and pushing through multiple planes (at least mine would and does). Add those movements with barbells and workouts would seem to become similar in length.

[Dave Van Skike]

Originally Posted by Garrett Smith

What is the 10-minute bench program you speak of?

.

3 reps on the minute for 10 sets works well for me on squats and presses. in some ways better than 50/20