Gymnastics and/or Lifting Weights for the showy muscular look.

My thoughts on this and lifting.  I was lifting, but the muscles seems delusional in a sense of "overall" or close to 'that look'.  I've done some calisthenic/gymnastic routines, going through the Gynmastics Bodies book, Overcomming gravity, and Ultimate guide to Warrior fitness, and a few other calisthenic type books of the past.  Now going though your program.  I'm looking to just do this alone.  

There are some videos of me doing some calisthenics on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/user/kingzlo.  I'm also pursuing my certification through ISSA, and I recently found out that there is certification to teach gymnastics.

I'm starting to feel passionate about getting into the "human health field", that I must admit, this is the first time in a long time, that I write in forums.  So I know this has called me.  I've gotten into the two foundations and handstand courses.  Looking forward.

Hi kingzlo.

I agree that many weight-lifter bodies seem overall out-of-balance, perhaps unnatural-looking is a good term. In my opinion, bodyweight-trained physiques look overall better than the average recreational weight lifter. In all the gyms I used to lift in, many guys had stupidly massive arms, virtually no upper torso and even less lower-body.

How would you define "showy muscular"? Can you find a pic online that shows what you mean? That will help people answer your question.

From my experience, this gymnastics training has helped bring balance to my proportions. When I was training under "classic" bodybuilding guidelines, I was basically growing a lot from some body parts, and little from others, even though I was training them in the same manner reps/sets scheme wise. But this type of training, where basically all muscles are worked as a single unit, has helped build up the proportions that were lacking in my old bodybuilder-esque routine and bring balance to my physique. My body's never looked better, and I've never enjoyed training as much as I do right now.

I appreciate the older bodybuilder physiques, where it was actually about how proportionned every body part was as a whole. I think it was Arnold Schwarzenegger that said something along the lines of: "it's like building a sculpture, only your body is the sculpture.".  Nowadays, it seems everybody just wants to look like a popcorn...

kingzlo said:

My thoughts on this and lifting.  I was lifting, but the muscles seems delusional in a sense of "overall" or close to 'that look'.  I've done some calisthenic/gymnastic routines, going through the Gynmastics Bodies book, Overcomming gravity, and Ultimate guide to Warrior fitness, and a few other calisthenic type books of the past.  Now going though your program.  I'm looking to just do this alone.  

 

There are some videos of me doing some calisthenics on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/user/kingzlo.  I'm also pursuing my certification through ISSA, and I recently found out that there is certification to teach gymnastics.

 

I'm starting to feel passionate about getting into the "human health field", that I must admit, this is the first time in a long time, that I write in forums.  So I know this has called me.  I've gotten into the two foundations and handstand courses.  Looking forward.

Hey, I have to agree with you. I am currently NASM certified, lived in the gym, followed all the typical strength programming based on and around using barbell and dumbells. In the last year or so, I've read BTGB, overcoming gravity, and a few other books that completely opened my mind to the world of body weight training and the world of movement. Now, both my clients and I have benefited from the change in programming. Being stuck in the gym only brought about stiffness, and only one level of training, and we all love the change.

Hey Guys, thanks for replying with your feedback.  

To wheezer, my definition of showy muscles is the muscles I actually see on gymnasts on the olympics and superheroes, that kind of look.  As the time went by I've thought about getting in this 100%.  Reason being that I would only kill myself doing this and lift.  

To KingJR, I hear you on growing some body parts, instead of the overall.  As for the old bodybuilder physiques, have you seen Arnold and others nowadays.  When you stop, or your body slows down, so does those big muscles.  I'm looking muscles that will last till my last breath well onto my elder years.  

To PrimalMove, good to hear that you changed into calisthenic, gymnastic, routines for yourself and your clients.  Thinking back, my body was not like how I was feeling the past 2 weeks.  I was going through Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding.  I have videos of that (not on youtube as of yet); awesome pump overall.  But my legs was killing me (no video of that), the days afterwards.  Thankfully a friend of mine helped me out with some stretching routine assists.  I went through some forum and misread with high rep for legs and went in, on top of the amount of sets and reps.  

As I took the two weeks off from training, I'm looking forward to getting into this form of training; read what I had to read, watch, and written up in my notes.  I will challenge myself to the Mastery and go accordingly from there.  I'll be sure to post my progress, as I will write in my workout log; my black and white notebook.

I am not an expert on training, but for what it is worth: If you want to look like the guys who play Thor, Captain America or Man of Steel, you should do body-building. That is what those guys did: follow a very specific training plan with deep splits, muscle isolation and very rigid diets. The body-builder physique is currently the big fashion-thing in American movies.

GST will give you muscular strength in all planes and directions, balance, stability, neuromuscular coordination and mobility. But none of Coach Summer's athletes look like Thor. Instead, they have a naturally strong and healthy body, which I believe is more worth striving for.

Michael Borregaard said:

I am not an expert on training, but for what it is worth: If you want to look like the guys who play Thor, Captain America or Man of Steel, you should do body-building. That is what those guys did: follow a very specific training plan with deep splits, muscle isolation and very rigid diets. The body-builder physique is currently the big fashion-thing in American movies.

GST will give you muscular strength in all planes and directions, balance, stability, neuromuscular coordination and mobility. But none of Coach Summer's athletes look like Thor.

 

Most of Coach's athletes are high-school aged or earlier. Gymnasts tend to peak in size around college age (especially if they specialize in rings). Older gymnasts often do have a 'super-hero' build. 

wheezer said:

 

How would you define "showy muscular"? Can you find a pic online that shows what you mean? That will help people answer your question.

To your question, wheezer.  I actually stopped gymnastics training to grow before getting back into this.  Getting back into it recently, I LOST my 'showy muscular' self, as shown on my profile picture, AND it's the season to show off.  At first I was pissed, but I'm feeling humbled as I went through these routines.  Why humbled?  My body literally transformed itself to compensate for this gymnastics workout, it almost felt like a different kind of pain during recovery, in the beginning.  I was going through F7, all the exercises, the PE1's, in Foundation One, going through the mastery of them all.  Man, was it brutal at first.  So I had to split the routine as recommended in Foundation 1, for about 2 weeks.  Now I'm back onto F7, mostly PE2's and 1 PE1 (SLS) and 1 PE3 (SPL), as I've gotten used to the training.  (see my next post on details of my leg work on why I'm doing PE1 with SLS and if I should go to the next level).

OVERALL, I realize that my showy body was all fluff for real.  And I'm so looking forward to getting back to my size I lost, if that's possible, but this time with real results.  At the very least, F7 doesn't seem too hard since I tend to workout close to 2 hours periodically and I've gotten used to the endurance of this training.  I timed it and notice it comes out to less than 1 hour and a half, without my normal warmup/cooldown and stretching, before and after, routine.  I do know that I should at least have a day or two to stretch, or even the end of the day(s) when everything is said and done before bed.

In addition I've gotten into the Handstand training as well.  Which is also SWEET!