What is the physical nature of strength?

[Seabird]

So it's obvious to most people who are doing any sort of body weight exercises that body building exercises and people with body building backgrounds don't generally have the ability to translate their strength to body weight exercises, though to a widely reported and not insubstantial extent, gymnasts can do the inverse (I think everyone's familiar with Coach's accounts of his athletes weight lifting abilities as a sole result of their gymnastics training). 

 

The obvious answer is that gymnastics training trains the body to work the muscle groups in coordination. The training of the tendons and ligaments is probably also relevant. 

 

My question is why does gymnastics and body weight training translate to these exercises so well, and more relevant to my personal interest, pound for pound, why is there so much more of a gain in strength for bodyweight athletes than body builders? Why can't body builders easily "learn" to use the muscle groups in coordination? What are the upper limits to gymnasts strength derived from their training? What are the differences in muscle composition between gymnasts and body builders (given that body builders often have to build much more muscle than gymnasts seem to to make the strength to perform the specific lifts)? What are the areas where bodyweight focused people are weaker than bodybuilders?

 

Pardon me if this sounded terribly ignorant, I'm not very well informed on the area.

[Pawel Rurak]

The main difference lies in the fact that bodybuilders' main goal is maximal muscle hipertrophy and not enchancing neuromuscular system which expresses in muscle strength. A lot of work focused on building muscle mass actually decreases relative strength (although they increase absolute strength to some extent) so that their ability to do well in most sports decreases.

 

Gymnasts do the opposite - they have an abillity to express maximal strength in many different planes of motion, they have a great relative strength as they are not unnecessarly bulked, so they have a great transferability to many other sports. However there are sports where gymnasts don't do very well, such as swimming, where you don't need an exeptional ammount of strength, but rather an ability to relax and to "feel" the water. 

 

Training regime always depends on what the training goals are. Bodybuilders are the best in the world in building muscle mass, gymnasts build the highest levels of relative strength. 

[Seabird]

Actually, just saw this post and it explains most of it:

 

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/12832-how-is-it-that-some-people-get-no-hypertrophy-at-all/#entry125075

 

Still not quite sure why relative strength gains are made/the body "learns" to use muscles more in harmony though. I'll probably need to re read and keep on researching in other areas, its probably vast.

[DiTi]

i think that from bodyweight training u gain strength and get better at moving ur body.i have been training gymnastics for 2 years now and from my personal expirience im telling u that i got alot more stronger but i dont even look like i workout. bodybuilders care only about getting big and looking good but gymnasts care about their strength and their ability to move their body. and also from training gymnastics ur body learns hoe to use muscle groups together and get stronger tendons and ligaments thats why gymnasts have the strongest and most functional body from all the other sports