Gymnasts Muscle Mass

[Jon Douglas]

I know what you mean... It sounds gruelling when you talk about 4-5 year goals. But what I love most about this program is all the different variety of development exercises, and all the milestones you reach as you move along. I think people glaz over at 'five years', but would never appreciate how much variety, excitement, development and satisfaction has come in that time.

It also takes the conversation completely out of a lot of people's experience and/or comfort zone to realise how far goals can go past 'losing weight' or 'being fit'.

[Tristan Curtis]

That's true. It does involve thinking about "fitness" in an entirely different way.

[Joshua Naterman]

There's actually a lot of quality research showing the protective effect that fasting has on lean mass. We retain fat mass specifically to keep us going during periods of fasting. If you want to get a fire going in your fireplace at home, you don't start breaking down the furniture when there's a perfectly good pile of firewood on hand. The heart is a muscle as well, for the body to prioritize it over fat for energy is tantamount to suicide. Unless you have a severe metabolic disorder; when there's fat mass and liver glycogen available lean mass is preserved during controlled periods of fasting, especially when total calorie requirement is being met for the day and done in combination with resistance training. IF research is ongoing and I'm not going to claim to have knowledge of a perfect system, but the idea of spiking or constantly sustaining insulin levels to maintain lean mass, often with six meals a day, is an artifact of body building that really needs to be put away. Here's Alan again (I have to keep grabbing these quotes from him now that I know we are both fans of his ):

 

 

Way more research needs to be done, but the basic biological principles are there, we just need a better idea of how they play out in vivo. The blessing and curse of IF research is that it's highly resistant to commercial bias. Unlike drugs and bcaas, nobody can sell fasting aside from a few authors. But that also means there's a far, far smaller pool of resources available to fund the research.

 

The one day, once a week fasting model is what Brad Pilon recommends, and it may be just as effecting. But I find a 16/8 fast works better with my lifestyle, though I don't really do lean gains since I don't do carb cycling and I don't take bcaas. I've considered taking them, but once again I think that's a recommendation made more out of fear and anxiety, not current scientific knowledge. Though I keep an eye out to see if there's something convincing to prove me wrong (which is why I like conversations like this, it forces me to go back and review to see if I'm missing anything). I think that alternate day fasting has great potential for people who are looking to lose significant weight, but I'm uncertain as to how well it would work with a rigorous training program. Like you said, it's probably better avoided. 

You are not defining your terms.

 

Fasting is ambiguous, and the body's response to a fast is dependent on the length of time that fasting continues.

 

The research you are referring to shows that a SHORT fast, up to 48 hours or so, does not show any significant muscle mass catabolism. PLEASE notice the difference between lean mass and muscle mass, that was not a mis-type. You need to research more on what a labile protein store is, and in what order tissues get catabolized. It's internal organs first, then primarily muscle mass for a long time once ~10% of organ mass is gone (particularly liver mass), and eventually you have severe atrophy of all organs.

 

You do have sacrificial GNG of liver (and to some degree other organs) tissue during that 48 hours, and that has to be replaced in order to recharge your emergency short-term labile protein store. Now you're talking about protein synthesis directed towards organ regeneration as well as muscle mass, which means you gain muscle slower at any given nitrogen balance state until this mass is regenerated.

 

Again, you are not looking at what Alan's message really is. He is trying to tell people that we are hard to kill, and hard to break down. A single fast won't do much real damage.

 

I do not believe he's going to argue with anything I have said here.

 

I do not believe you have a truly firm grasp of the fundamental systems at work, and that limits your ability to see what is happening as a fast progresses, and how that can overlap with conscutive fasting periods.

 

You are not even really fasting, though you clearly don't realize it. Do you think that your gut just stops releasing food after 8 hours of eating? I know you don't think that. When you have your last meal, if you're eating in the style of leangains, you're going to have a sustained nutrient release for at least 5 hours after you eat that meal. That gives you, at best, an 11 hour "fast" and that is just not a big deal.

 

The higher your training volume becomes, the more you will come to realize that what I am telling you is actually the most correct (to my knowledge) presentation of what happens to your body, because I am taking into account all the variations of metabolic demand vs recovery vs food effects vs training volume vs training frequency vs training intensity.

 

Everything is on a dial. If you make absolute statements, you will always be wrong to some degree. Even this one is subject to that, because there's at least one absolute statement that is probably 100% correct. Catch 22, and lots of fun if you like philosophy.

 

The facts are simply that there are a wide, wide variety of dietary variations that will yield positive results with the training regimens that most people follow, but as your training volume, intensity, and frequency increase beyond certain thresholds you start to have fewer and fewer effective options, until at some point you are left with only one: Eat all day long. This is often what happens to the best marathon runners, and it is why they absolutely hate prepping for the Olympics: They have to eat staggering amounts of food, and to get it all down they are literally eating all day long. Usually every 2 hours, from what Dr. Benardot shared with us regarding the OTC training of Paula Radcliffe and other elite female marathoners. They absolutely hate it, but they know it's the only way to be at their best with the amount of energy they are spending, and the amount of recovery they require.

[Colin Macdonald]

Joshua Naterman, on 17 May 2013 - 04:24 AM, said:

You are not defining your terms.

Fasting is ambiguous, and the body's response to a fast is dependent on the length of time that fasting continues.

 

 

I didn't realize I was going to be subjected to such rigorous academic scrutiny, otherwise I would have been more thorough.   I don't think I need to define my terms because we both know exactly what the subject at hand is. As you said I'm referring research about short controlled fasts, I've never talked about extended 48+ hour fasts. Whether extended fasting damages internal organs or not isn't relevant. Talking about sever atrophy of the organs is pure hyperbole in the context of this conversation. The liver stores energy for the body during a fast so of course catabolism starts there, but your liver isn't being broken down and destroyed. (And as a brief side note, considering the rapid increase in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in western populations, I suspect most people could probably benefit from a controlled amount of liver catabolism. B) )

 

If research shows that short periods of fasting preserve lean mass, it seems a logical conclusion that skipping your carbs post workout really isn't going to do any harm.

Again, you are not looking at what Alan's message really is. He is trying to tell people that we are hard to kill, and hard to break down. A single fast won't do much real damage.

I do not believe he's going to argue with anything I have said here.

He specifically says that multiple small meals through out the day has no supported benefits. He specifically says he has come to recognize the virtues of IF, which is nothing like saying "you can survive a single fast". I think perhaps you're superimposing your own beliefs over what he is actually saying.

 

You are not even really fasting, though you clearly don't realize it.

A fast is voluntary pre-determined period of going without food, so yes I'm fasting. Fasting is not an on/off switch that suddenly turns on at a certain point. It's a gradual process that has many changes over a long period of time. A 16 hour break between meals still has the potential to produces beneficial changes in the body. And as you said it's not a big deal, which is exactly my argument. I can reap these health benefits and not have it impact my training. My experience is anecdotal, and I'm not going to try and pretend that there isn't a lot more research that needs to be done to formulate a comprehensive theory on how this all works exactly (or even if it works at all).

 

This is often what happens to the best marathon runners, and it is why they absolutely hate prepping for the Olympics: They have to eat staggering amounts of food, and to get it all down they are literally eating all day long. Usually every 2 hours, from what Dr. Benardot shared with us regarding the OTC training of Paula Radcliffe and other elite female marathoners.

Once again this is irrelevant, nobody here has that kind of food requirement, Just because it's important for a select few in an entirely difference sport doesn't mean it has any carryover to the subject at hand.

[Joshua Naterman]

What Alan says in his web articles is usually not as specific as what he says in his book, because when you are in a position like his where he's got to balance his online time, professional time, and personal time it is very hard to explain details without confusing people. The standard readership doesn't know enough to benefit from the more detailed presentation. My understanding is that he and I are close to being on the same page, but not quite there. I have not yet read his book, so I can't say for sure, so I'm fine with saying that I may be superimposing my beliefs on him. That may be the case.

 

I have run into this a lot, the business of simply not having the time to be and in the future will probably simply opt not to speak at all, because it is much too time-consuming to try and teach what is actually happening. In the end, people having the wrong understanding but doing the right things will have to suffice. Doing the right things is what matters the most, if there was a choice between the two.

 

Alan is much more of a proponent of IF than I am, without question. The only IF protocol that I am willing to say is most likely not dangerous is Leangains, and that's not an official endorsement. He's not running around super ripped, nor is Lyle McDonald. I'm far from my best right now because of the absolutely horrendous time investments I have had to make in school, work, transportation, and a recent lack of sufficient training time, but I'm still pretty close to riding the theoretical line of what is possible without drugs in terms of body composition at my height and weight.

 

With regard to the fatty liver disease, you should be familiar enough with the fasting research to know that the catabolism is happening in the organ itself, and not in the fat mass. Controlled was the key word, and if we could remove the fatty tissue by IF then that would be pretty sweet, but since a whole bunch of the people in the cardiac rehab unit I am currently working in had dietary habits that could be classified as IF, and many of them are diabetic, I am not confident in your suggestion regarding the fasting and the implied health benefit for the liver.

 

As far as IF goes, there is a lot of research that shows it has potential to lead to a slow descent into insulin resistance and, later on, type II diabetes.

 

Don't trust me, don't trust Alan, don't trust anyone. Trust yourself once you've read all of the research you can find on this. The truth is that there are probably a whole lot of factors, including food choices and physical activity levels, that will determine whether or not a particular IF protocol will be harmful. If you read through IF forums, you will find plenty of people who are lost because they thought it was the answer and it has left them in the same place, or worse, than when they started. There are probably a lot of differences between the lifestyles of people who see success with IF and those who do not, but the current evidence does not suggest, in any way, that IF is superior OR that it has any particular health benefits.

 

We all assume that accelerated autophagy is a good thing, but we do not know that for sure. Everything that happens in the body is part of a complicated cascade, and the law of unintended consequences is pretty much always in full effect. There could be nothing but good effects, there could be nothing but bad effects, but the great majority of possibilities lie in the realm of good being done in some areas, with sacrifices in others. Think about it: Increased autophagy means that you are getting rid of things that you do need, and that do need to be replaced. If you're tearing things apart more often, you're producing them more often, and this kind of environment can be conducive to increasing cancer risk. We don't know what the long term data will show for us, and I do not believe that it is currently a good idea to say that there is any reason to prefer IF over any other diet based on any science.

 

There is a lot of research that says that, for physically active people (a qualifying statement), multiple smaller meals is strongly associated with lower body fat levels and less lean mass loss during periods of caloric deficit (such as a weight loss diet). I do not believe that Alan will ever claim that people are healthier when they are sedentary instead of physically active, and as such it is fair for me to extend this statement into the next logical step and say that IF it is true that all people are healthier when they are living a physically active lifestyle, and if all physically active people would have reduced health risk factors due to better body compositions, and if the body of evidence is strong enough for the foremost nutrition panels to give a position statement that notes the strong correlations, then it is fair to say that there is more evidence, and more experienced and educated professional opinion, supporting the idea that more frequent meals leads to better results for physically active people.

 

Since we're talking about workout nutrition, in the context of a physically active lifestyle, I think it's ok for us to ignore what may be best for sedentary folk, and focus our comments on what is relevant for the physically active population.

 

As for the fasting, we may as well say that we fast for 3 hours between meals according to your definition, but that's just silly. In that scenario everyone on the planet is performing Intermittent Fasting except for the burn unit patients who are on protein drips. The extended fast was there to point out that there is a difference between a sustained state of caloric deprivation and an approach where you have several days or weeks in between short (16-48 hour) fasts. There's no long term research that I am aware of that can provide us with differential effects on populations of varying activity levels, but I think it is fair to say that the more active you are, the more you should consider limiting the number and/or length of fasts that you have in a week or month. More active bodies are generally less forgiving, in terms of lean mass catabolism, to frequent large energy deficits because of the need for sugar and the concomitant rise in gluconeogenesis. What you are doing with an 8 hour eating period is not the same as what someone is doing when they have one large meal per day, but both are considered intermittent fasting. Hence my frustration with discussions on the subject.

 

If we're going to talk about fasting, and the purpose of the discussion of fasting is to examine the possible benefits that may come from fasting, then we need to have some kind of real, solid definition of what time frame we're going to look at. If you look at the data, you'll see that it takes 16 hours of little to no food release from the gut to reach the full effect of the fast. Because of this, I suggest that we disregard fasting for less than 12 hours. There is a huge difference between what is happening at the 11 hour mark, and what is happening at the 16-48 hour mark, particularly in terms of autophagy and other metabolic changes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I absolutely agree with your last point in most cases, but we do have some people here who are incredibly physically active. That college student who just posted about working summers as a lumber jack is one of them. I think you missed the point of my statement: The point was that there is a spectrum that exists between dietary styles and what lifestyles they can adequately provide good or optimum support for. As you become more and more active, you do have fewer and fewer options. There does come a point where you have to slam decent food down at nearly every opportunity, and that kid is one of those, and he's here on this forum. I was one when I was training for BUD/S and when I was there. There are actually a few people here who do need this information.

 

It's true that most people here don't fall into that category, and that those who do will simply need to eat more food, more often. There is a maximum amount of food that one can eat in one sitting and still be supremely physically active. So, by necessity, you do end up having to eat more often, and IF would become a train wreck in this situation.

 

I think that, for the most part, this conversation requires much too much detail to be continued much further. I am having fun, and I think you are having fun, but I think that a lot of people are going to get lost in this. If we ever meet in person, or if you want to hang out on Skype for a bit and talk sometime in September, that would be good, but I can't continue this conversation by typing. It takes much more time than I have available.

 

It has been fun, and I do look forward to continuing this, but only by voice and not until I get done with the next few months.

[Joshua Naterman]

That last one was really long, and took 2.5 hours to write. That was something of a specific closing statement, for the written portion of this discussion, primarily for thecolin to read.

 

Most of my long posts end up causing more confusion than clarification, so that's the last one. Sorry for those who have enjoyed them over the years, but I'm moving into a period where I just don't have that kind of time anymore. And, even if I won the lottery and all of a sudden magically had lots of time on my hands, I would rather not cause confusion.

 

 

Long story short, just eat. If you get hungry, go eat some more.

[Colin Macdonald]

I think that, for the most part, this conversation requires much too much detail to be continued much further. I am having fun, and I think you are having fun, but I think that a lot of people are going to get lost in this. If we ever meet in person, or if you want to hang out on Skype for a bit and talk sometime in September, that would be good, but I can't continue this conversation by typing. It takes much more time than I have available.

 

It has been fun, and I do look forward to continuing this, but only by voice and not until I get done with the next few months.

 

 

That last one was really long, and took 2.5 hours to write. That was something of a specific closing statement, for the written portion of this discussion, primarily for thecolin to read.

 

Most of my long posts end up causing more confusion than clarification, so that's the last one. Sorry for those who have enjoyed them over the years, but I'm moving into a period where I just don't have that kind of time anymore. And, even if I won the lottery and all of a sudden magically had lots of time on my hands, I would rather not cause confusion.

 

 

Long story short, just eat. If you get hungry, go eat some more.

I suspect we are somewhat similar in how we write. I'll often start off replying to something and my thoughts take me through various points and my posts tend to get longer and longer. But I value your longer, perhaps more confusing, style of writing with excessive information that provokes thought as opposed to the quick inflammatory comments that plague most online conversations. But as you said, it's quite an investment of time, so I totally appreciate your position. I'll leave the conversation where it is. We may not agree on some points, but you're clearly a thoughtful person who contemplates his own opinion, which is a very valuable quality.

 

The one brief point I'll add which is simply a note of personal experience for the sake of clarity. I do agree that if you're hungry and you're working on building strength that you should eat, starving yourself is obviously counterproductive. My anecdotal IF experience is that it's simply alternating regularly between states of endogenous to exogenous nutrition. I actually don't really feel any hunger during my fasting periods. I think the only time you should be feeling significant hunger regularly is if you are actively trying to lose weight, and even then excessive hunger appears not to be very productive. (I could write three more paragraphs here, as my thoughts have started to lead into other thoughts and how they relate to some of the things you've said, but I'll resist the temptation!  )

 

Some people might call us crazy, but I do find these conversations fun. Not only are they enjoyable, I think challenging your own beliefs is a very important mental exercise everyone should do regularly. Good luck with your school and other endeavors!

[Colin Macdonald]

PS I forgot to mention that I'm somewhat skype averse, hopefully we can talk some more at some future GB event.

[Blairbob]

 Gregor's workout log should still be on there. I believe there was a post where he went into what his daily food intake was. A lot of eggs. I think he is in Slovenia and I know he doesn't make much as a coach (we talked about it on FB once).

 

 I know John Horton talked about going the typical BBer diet of chicken rice and veggies to lean for 2012. One of these days I'll have to remember to ask Oleg what he ate in the Ukraine or some other country that funds and pays for their gymnasts.

 

 

 

If there really is some interest, I'm sure I can ask a handful of Collegiate Gymnasts in the US that I know what their diet was like and Carl Paoli and Oleg. Well MAG gymnasts. I can tell they didn't eat enough in Romania!

[Lefte]

Patience does not mean, that some day you will make your gains in strength or mass. It is like saying that I will eat when I am hungry and close my eyes for the rest of the 2 years and open them again after to see what happend.

 

This is something I did (somehow). I was lifting weights for 2 years and started with 58kg bodyweight. My diet wasn't changed. I was eating like before, only whole foods, mixed and raw. Just the protein intake was increased, and I think I always hit the 2g/kg mark.

 

I was a skinny guy (not skinny weak) and after two years I am standing here now with 61kg. Compared to other guys this is nothing

 

The mysterious thing is, I can lift much more weight than some other bigger guys and I am not very big which frustrates me after 2 years of hard training. My body fat kinda remained the same. I made strength gains but no equal mass gains.

 

While I was stuck at this 60kg mark, I started eating 3000kcal a day with 120g Protein and I got to 62kg in a bout 1,5 months. Then I did a small pause of 2weeks off of training and measured my arms (I never measure my arms but I did to see if something happened) and there was a plus of 1cm.

 

I would love to know how real gymnasts eat and hope that Coach Sommer will tell us something about it. But from my own experience I can tell that patience is not always the right thing to do. Changing variables in nutrition and watching the reactions of the body is a good thing I believe. I don't dare to say that it is my metabolism or my genetics that cause those small gains in mass, I don't know how to figure this out.

[Jono]

 

This guy looks jacked: 73kg @ 5'6. More impressive than most lifters who train for size.

 

@0:57

 

@1:39 when he's walking off

[Mikkel Ravn]

Patience does not mean, that some day you will make your gains in strength or mass. It is like saying that I will eat when I am hungry and close my eyes for the rest of the 2 years and open them again after to see what happend.

 

This is something I did (somehow). I was lifting weights for 2 years and started with 58kg bodyweight. My diet wasn't changed. I was eating like before, only whole foods, mixed and raw. Just the protein intake was increased, and I think I always hit the 2g/kg mark.

 

I was a skinny guy (not skinny weak) and after two years I am standing here now with 61kg. Compared to other guys this is nothing

 

The mysterious thing is, I can lift much more weight than some other bigger guys and I am not very big which frustrates me after 2 years of hard training. My body fat kinda remained the same. I made strength gains but no equal mass gains.

 

While I was stuck at this 60kg mark, I started eating 3000kcal a day with 120g Protein and I got to 62kg in a bout 1,5 months. Then I did a small pause of 2weeks off of training and measured my arms (I never measure my arms but I did to see if something happened) and there was a plus of 1cm.

 

I would love to know how real gymnasts eat and hope that Coach Sommer will tell us something about it. But from my own experience I can tell that patience is not always the right thing to do. Changing variables in nutrition and watching the reactions of the body is a good thing I believe. I don't dare to say that it is my metabolism or my genetics that cause those small gains in mass, I don't know how to figure this out.

You're absolutely right, patience does not change your physique on its own, but that wasn't the point anyway.

Hard training + the right nutrition + patience/consistency = results. Pull one of the factors out, and you'll be spinning the wheels. My point was that patience is rarely mentioned as a significant factor, it's almost always the diet and the workouts that get the attention, so that when people quit the program after twelve weeks, they don't get why nothing has happened.

[emos]

You're absolutely right, patience does not change your physique on its own, but that wasn't the point anyway.

Hard training + the right nutrition + patience/consistency = results. Pull one of the factors out, and you'll be spinning the wheels. My point was that patience is rarely mentioned as a significant factor, it's almost always the diet and the workouts that get the attention, so that when people quit the program after twelve weeks, they don't get why nothing has happened.

 

[tangent, and not entirely related to your post, but something I think is worth posting]

 

To be fair, something should have happened after 12 weeks. Especially for a beginner. "Patience" is another of those things that some people don't have enough of (quitting after one week, or never sticking with a program for long enough), and some people have way too much of (being content with no results after 12 weeks, or a year, or continuing to do something long after it stopped working). If you're going to have made progress after five years, you should have made progress after one year... and if you're going to make progress after one year, you should have made progress after a few months... and if you're going to have made progress after a few months, you should be making progress most weeks... most workouts? Of course we don't have to realise solid gains in ability every single session but what I'm saying is that gains should be visible in the short term if they're going to be visible, or hopefully even significant, in the long term.

 

I'm guilty of wasting years with ineffective or damaging training protocols because I was too patient. "Just wait, keep at it!" everyone said. But why? If it's not working, it's not working, and I should have taken a different approach. "Keep practising," is another trite bit of advice that really annoys me, offered as a profound tip to someone who has been plateaued with a skill for an extended period of time. What can that mean but, "keep doing what you've been doing thus far, even though it's clearly not helping at all."

This is a terrible idea, of course. Again, excessive patience then cripples the trainee and makes it impossible for him to get anywhere.

 

One thing I've noticed in life so far, with myself and with everyone else, is that when "success" or some accomplishment does come, it comes quickly. Really, really quickly. Maybe that's just my perception of time - but to me a matter of years counts as "really quickly" with this sort of thing. Or, if we think that's slow then it's slow but sure. Every day is a step in the right direction. I see a lot of people in sports and in many other pursuits (business, say, or skills like music, etc.) who seem to think that progress and success will come suddenly and all in one go, if only they undertake to keep grinding away and getting nowhere for long enough. No one necessarily gets what they "deserve" - life obviously doesn't work like that, loads of people work incredibly hard at things and really get very little reward, all the while being everso patient. Good things come to those who refuse to wait.

 

To put some numbers of the timescales involved, I recommend just looking around at people who have got where you want to go, and see how long it took them, or how fast they're progressing. This is one big advantage of training in a group or at a gym - you can see how fast others are moving forward and it will become clear if you're seriously falling behind, so you can then look at what you're doing and fix it. Many of us seem to be at-home trainees, back-yard gymnasts, and so it's easy to fall into the trap of being too patient and then not thinking it's completely, utterly unacceptable to move forwards at a snail's pace, if at all. Forums are full of people like that - I'm basically still one of them.

[Lefte]

You're absolutely right, patience does not change your physique on its own, but that wasn't the point anyway.

Hard training + the right nutrition + patience/consistency = results. Pull one of the factors out, and you'll be spinning the wheels.

 

This discussion needs to get summed up with your sentence I quoted, at the end. Beginners will realise that very late (unfortunately), like I did. I also understood your point.. just wanted to give an insight on the mistakes I did by training hard but training in a circle, remaining on the same level of mass. First hand info haha

I am still working on it and experimenting. It is not easy to eat more, if you don't want to eat pasta all day which pretty much can increase your kcal intake easily.

[Colin Macdonald]

I would love to know how real gymnasts eat and hope that Coach Sommer will tell us something about it. But from my own experience I can tell that patience is not always the right thing to do. Changing variables in nutrition and watching the reactions of the body is a good thing I believe. I don't dare to say that it is my metabolism or my genetics that cause those small gains in mass, I don't know how to figure this out.

I don't want to speak for coach obviously, but I get the impression that he greatly prioritizes training protocols over special eating programs. That's speculation of his opinion on my part, but it would seem to me a massive oversight by him if there was a specific eating plan that was essential to follow along with the training and not mention it in any of the books he has written.

 

Eating for mass and nutrition timing is a body building thing, and even body builders will fight to no end over what the perfect eating plan is. And while body builders are quite large, they aren't always necessarily that strong. It's my understanding that gymnasts don't train for mass specifically as it would be counter productive. They train to be as strong as possible while keeping mass to a minimum. As you noted, size and strength are only loosely associated. Olympic lifters are another group that are very strong, but not always very big. If you want to be massive, it seems logical to train like a body builder, not a gymnast.

 

It would appear to me that regardless of your training approach, significant gains in mass are made through a combination of the correct training and hormones. I've seen coach mention his athletes going through growth spurts and getting bigger and stronger, I've yet to see him attribute the same thing to a new protein shake he gave them.

 

The original question of this thread is how do gymnasts get so muscular on an average diet. In my mind there are only two possible answers to this question. Either all the gymnasts and their coaches are ignorant of proper nutrition and they are not as strong as they could be, or an average diet and the correct training is all that's required to get big and strong.

[Coach Sommer]

Colin, is correct.  All of the gains my athletes have made have been on average diets.  In fact the only specialized diet I have seen them follow over the years is the "see food" diet; basically if they see it, they eat it.  

 

This is not to say that they wouldn't have done even better with more structured nutrition, however we'll never know as the situation is what it is.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Quick Start Test Smith]

Hi - haven't been posting here too much lately, but thought I'd say something.

 

I've been eating mildly carefully lately. Getting protein in small doses throughout the day, plenty of vegetables (mostly steamed because they're so cheap!), rice/potatoes, and some meat. Nothing fancy. I've loosely followed Josh's 2013 perfect workout nutrition, but have primarily focused on getting a solid habit of the basics.

 

I find it ridiculous how much I am growing on what these early foundation / HS1 preparatory elements. Like, I'm beginning to look like a freaking body builder (wide shoulders, pumped up arms, 6-pack, wide lats, etc.) without doing those garbage body building workouts. It simply amazes me. I can't imagine what it will be like when I can properly perform all the "basic" elements at the end of the Foundation series.

 

And did I mention I'm performing better in my practice than I ever had before?

 

I guess my point is that you don't have to do anything really fancy to see very clear and steady progress...  don't over think it like I used to    B) 

[Joshua Naterman]

That's what we're saying, Patrick

 

Get your pile of veggies, get your carbs, get your protein, and space them out during the day. You win, the end, flawless victory.

 

There are more details, but if you don't have this part completely dialed in then you are wasting your time with those details.

[ASForum]

Hi - haven't been posting here too much lately, but thought I'd say something.

 

I've been eating mildly carefully lately. Getting protein in small doses throughout the day, plenty of vegetables (mostly steamed because they're so cheap!), rice/potatoes, and some meat. Nothing fancy. I've loosely followed Josh's 2013 perfect workout nutrition, but have primarily focused on getting a solid habit of the basics.

 

I find it ridiculous how much I am growing on what these early foundation / HS1 preparatory elements. Like, I'm beginning to look like a freaking body builder (wide shoulders, pumped up arms, 6-pack, wide lats, etc.) without doing those garbage body building workouts. It simply amazes me. I can't imagine what it will be like when I can properly perform all the "basic" elements at the end of the Foundation series.

 

And did I mention I'm performing better in my practice than I ever had before?

 

I guess my point is that you don't have to do anything really fancy to see very clear and steady progress...  don't over think it like I used to    B)

Nice to hear that. I am starting F1 sometime this/ next week or so. What levels are you at on F1 and how many weeks have you been on it?  How many days a week? 

[Quick Start Test Smith]

Nice to hear that. I am starting F1 sometime this/ next week or so. What levels are you at on F1 and how many weeks have you been on it?  How many days a week? 

I've been on it since late February, but my training was kind of sporadic because of late semester frenzy and constantly having to rest for tournaments. I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my training. It used to be a bad thing because I'd overthink stuff, but now it's the best thing ever because I'm really mastering each preparatory element. I'm not moving ahead really fast (i.e. skipping weeks often) but I'm following the protocol.

 

I've been training F1 five times a week, HS1 twice a week, and practice martial arts for 2-3 hours twice a week.

[Verneri Åberg]

There's quite a lot of science that says that as long as you're getting somewhere around 1.2-1.4g of protein per kg, which for a gymnast is like 70-80g of protein

Now i'm a tad bit confused, are you really saying that average male gymnasts weight 50-66.6kgs?

[Blairbob]

 I hope not, that would be the smallest of them if so.

[Colin Macdonald]

Now i'm a tad bit confused, are you really saying that average male gymnasts weight 50-66.6kgs?

I don't know exactly, but I think competitive gymnasts are pretty short and light. But it's really a non issue, the average protein intake in the developed world is far greater than those numbers, around 110 grams per person in North America and Europe. That's enough protein for someone who weighs 90kg. Even the average protein intake in a lot of poorer countries is pretty close to 70 grams a person.

[dnj23]

Gymnasts typically don't eat excess calories as that would result in unnecessary muscle mass. 

Yeah, like that's such an accidental, common side effect.

[Jon Douglas]

Given the results low level strength work is having on us, i would find it more likely that training 4+ hours a say, tumbling, conditioning etc, a competitive gymnast would have more trouble simply getting enough calorie to fuel their workload, let alone promote max ypertrophy even if that were their goal.

And that's just energy vs. out, let alone the hormonal effects of structured, progressive training over years.

/2c