How Do Gymnasts Get So Big

Hi all,

 

Iv'e been thinking about this ever since I was introduced to gymnastics. I understand that gymnastics requires a great deal of strength and skill. What I don't understand is how someone who can do a planche push up is smaller than a gymnast who can do exactly the same thing? Do still rings build all that mass or is it something else. I understand genetics and diet plays a big roll but look at most gymnasts. I haven't seen one who doesn't have awesome mass. Here is an example:

 

Small but strong

http://tribal-fitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Top-Planche-Fingers-Facing-Forward1.bmp

 

Big and strong

http://0.tqn.com/d/gymnastics/1/0/d/-/-/-/Nemov01.jpg

 

PainIsGain said:

Hi all,

 

Iv'e been thinking about this ever since I was introduced to gymnastics. I understand that gymnastics requires a great deal of strength and skill. What I don't understand is how someone who can do a planche push up is smaller than a gymnast who can do exactly the same thing? Do still rings build all that mass or is it something else. I understand genetics and diet plays a big roll but look at most gymnasts. I haven't seen one who doesn't have awesome mass. Here is an example:

 

Small but strong

http://tribal-fitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Top-Planche-Fingers-Facing-Forward1.bmp

 

Big and strong

http://0.tqn.com/d/gymnastics/1/0/d/-/-/-/Nemov01.jpg

Are you referring to me?

 

Here's my two cents. Diet and ring training definitely plays a huge role in hypertrophy. Male gymnasts also have other events to do - Parallel Bars, Pommel Horse, High Bar, etc.

 

This was my approach for developing the planche, I didn't train for it - I practiced. Most of the dedicated people on the GB forums train about  1 - 2 hours a day 3 - 4 days a week with rings and p-bars, while I just practiced for about 5 - 10 minutes almost every day for the planche on some small neoprene dumbells (sometimes I would skip a week or two due to frustration and lack of motivation). I just practiced the SAS, but never BAS. I did not gain any muscle mass or see any hypertrophy but I noticed I was much more leaner. When I could barely do an L-sit I was 120 lbs, two years later and I can hold a ~6 second full planche and a full planche press, and I'm still 120 lbs. It's similar to how female hand balancers can do all these amazing one arm handstand positions, yet they are rather petite when it comes to their male counterparts (mostly ex-gymnasts). Pure isometric exercises does not promote hypertrophy, but BAS definitely does - bar athletes combine the basic levers and BAS to build their physiques. I haven't come across a video of any girls doing freestanding HSPU or HBP. 

 

However, my first straddle planche push up came easy because I was able to hold a straddle planche for ~10 seconds by the end of the second year. BAS is easier to develop once the SAS is there. Something that 99% of planche trainees on YouTube fail to understand/acknowledge.

 

I hope my rambling somewhat made sense. I ONLY practiced SAS - planche along with pressing movements and side lever, a little bit of FL and BL but not very much because I didn't have a pull up bar. I totally neglected BAS & handstands, which I totally regret lol. Time to buy Handstand One! 

 

EDIT: Also I don't own a pair of gymnastics rings. I only have access to them when I visit my local gymnastics facility, which I don't visit very often anymore. I need to buy a pair of rings and fix my diet too!

Stimulus and food = mass. It's really that simple.

 

Things like planche etc. require quite a bit of maximal, but perhaps more relative strength. A bigger muscle has bigger strength potential. I guess a key in gymnastics is finding the balance between requires mass and required strength. If you're stronger, you can do more impressive things on, say, the rings - but a bigger muscle is also heavier and fatigues faster.

 

Gymnasts, I believe, are only as big/heavy as they need to be - not an ounce more.

I believe a lot of it comes down to diet. If you eat to get big, provided the training is right, you should get the big results. 

 

For myself personally, I know that if i incorporate a lot of cardio as well then gaining muscle is very difficult as I am a proper hard gainer, so I eat a lot and try keep cardio to a minimum. So obviously body type plays a big role too 

 

I have had some of the best gains since training BtGB, compared to heavy weight training as well. 

Thanks everyone for your input:)

 

From what I can tell Paolo you have a solid planche! Im still a noob so it will take some time for me to reach a planche. It seems that Isometric holds build large amounts of strength but not muscle. Whereas ring work and other events builds large amounts of muscle. So all in all the key factors to building muscle mass is diet,genetics and training type. Im also an ectomorph myself so gaining muscle isn't easy but can be done.     

Isometric work can build mass. The issue is volume. If you're always training for maximal strength, you will be doing solely low-volume work, and thus will experience only low to moderate hypertrophy. Gymnasts do a lot of what could be considered low-volume strength work simply in the course of training events. They also do a lot of conditioning work for building strength endurance. 

The issue is also nutrition, and genetics, but largely nutrition.

 

You cannot defeat energy balance without steroids.

 

Because I do a halfway decent job of practicing what I preach, I've grown substantially on the first half of F1 since last April, and results are much more rapid now that I'm healthy enough (and therefore also motivated enough) to do all the exercises.

 

 

 

The only gymnasts who are super HOOG are ring specialists. The rest, while still fantastically buff, are slightly less unbelievably built.

 

As has been said, stimulus + food = results.

Joshua Naterman said:

The issue is also nutrition, and genetics, but largely nutrition.

 

You cannot defeat energy balance without steroids.

 

Because I do a halfway decent job of practicing what I preach, I've grown substantially on the first half of F1 since last April, and results are much more rapid now that I'm healthy enough (and therefore also motivated enough) to do all the exercises.

 

 

 

The only gymnasts who are super HOOG are ring specialists. The rest, while still fantastically buff, are slightly less unbelievably built.

 

As has been said, stimulus + food = results.

 

So just doing F1 would give hypertrophy? Or could we ADD something in addition to F1 for Hypertrophy? 

Lets say for a 3-day F1? 

crashnburn said:

So just doing F1 would give hypertrophy? Or could we ADD something in addition to F1 for Hypertrophy? 

Lets say for a 3-day F1? 

I'm growing and leaning on F+H.

You won't get like Van Gelder on F1, but it will get you more muscular if you work hard on it and eat well.

Hari_Seldon said:

You won't get like Van Gelder on F1, but it will get you more muscular if you work hard on it and eat well.

But you won't ever get like Van Gelder without a strong foundation

Charm said:

But you won't ever get like Van Gelder without a strong foundation

How to get like Van Gelder then ?  B) 

MrPuppeh said:

How to get like Van Gelder then ?  B) 

Become short and Dutch.

Goals we should all aspire to in any case

 

Edit;

He has an interesting shape. It's clearly beneficial for rings to have 80% of your weight in your torso and somewhat smaller limbs, but I admit to being a bit curious as to which is the cause and which the effect.

Charm said:

Become short and Dutch. (...)

 

PMSL... I can't believe you wrote that

Jotchev once was an all arounder though I remember him more FX, PH, V, and SR. Towards the end of his career, I don't remember him being an AA'er but he did compete AA in 2012.

Jovtchev and Van Gelder besides guys like Chen Yi Bing and Danny Rodriguez are built much different than AA'ers such as Uchimura or the guys you see more on the bar events.