Started by Shia, November 9, 2013 · 6 Replies · 2,993 Views
I'm very eager to progress in gymnastics and am loving it thus far, but I'm having trouble breaking away completely from the bodybuilding mentality. Even though I am trying to focus on gymnastics movements, I always find myself obsessing and going back to dumbells at the end of my workout in order to attempt to get some 'hypertrophy' because I dont want to lose my muscles.
How can I break away from this and stop obsessing without losing strenght?
Yeah, I can tell. Almost every thread you make is about building muscle.
Honestly, there isn't much you can do but submerge yourself into gymnastics/GST. Strength should be your main goal, not hypertrophy.
I understand how you feel. I never lifted weights, but I had the same problem with dieting and also training. Trust me, once you train long enough in GST and see the results, you'll never want to go back.
Also, losing strength in certain lifts is way different than losing strength overall.
Perhaps someone else could provide a better answer, but honestly, it's still going to take quite a bit of time to get over it.
Cody said:Yeah, I can tell. Almost every thread you make is about building muscle.
Honestly, there isn't much you can do but submerge yourself into gymnastics/GST. Strength should be your main goal, not hypertrophy.
I understand how you feel. I never lifted weights, but I had the same problem with dieting and also training. Trust me, once you train long enough in GST and see the results, you'll never want to go back.
Also, losing strength in certain lifts is way different than losing strength overall.
Perhaps someone else could provide a better answer, but honestly, it's still going to take quite a bit of time to get over it.
Thank you for the sincerity my friend. Yeah It's been a huge obsession augmented by the frequenting of bodybuilding forums that preach and preach and make out the be all and end all is 20 inch arms and gorilla titties. Without realising it you assimilate all this and adopt these views and it's only now, that I've decided to get out of it that I've realised how much of an obsession it really was
Chances are that I'm probably hooked on GST now just like you were on bodybuilding.Shia said:Thank you for the sincerity my friend. Yeah It's been a huge obsession augmented by the frequenting of bodybuilding forums that preach and preach and make out the be all and end all is 20 inch arms and gorilla titties. Without realising it you assimilate all this and adopt these views and it's only now, that I've decided to get out of it that I've realised how much of an obsession it really was
Wouldn't it be great to be pretty big, ripped, and be insanely strong while also being mobile and have a huge skill set? I'd much rather have that than be a 200lb immobile bodybuilder.
Also, what's the end of bodybuilding? Continue getting bigger? In almost every thing we do, there is no end. We always try to get better. So, there comes a point in a lot of bodybuilding careers when you probably think about steroids. All to get up on a stage with other almost naked men to pose and be judged by other men.. lol.
Keep training man. With hard work and intelligent training, you'll get to where you want to be.
movement is movement, so i think looking into what you're doing anatomically will give you a clear picture of how your body moves and responds to stimulus. i'm not really sure how body building works, because i know strong men lifted and they were balls to the wall strong(you know like 1900's-1920's).
one thing you can look into is how "big" muscle doesnt necesarily translate to "strong". i don't mean in all cases because there will be an adaptation of mass to the muscles but lets be honest, Arnold was a huge dude, Bruce lee was a pretty ripped dude but then there's kids who can do hollowback presses, so you'll also have to take into account that there's a strength to body weight ratio.
in essence, there's so many ways you can continue bodybuilding and be strong and along the same tangent, do GST and become strong as well.
the only reason we see GST as a system that can bring about some serious strength, is because we're being guided by people who know what they 're doing and are continually learning how to make it better.
on that same route, there are also people who have body building down to a science.
then there's your personal preference. that should be decided based on the end result, not how emotionally satiated you feel by lifting something heavy and i won't be the first one to say that thats wrong becaus i love testing out new movements and see where my deadlift or my squat is, i just dont lean on it as a primary methodology because i have a certain experience with martial arts which instilled in me that if i can't first master my body in movement, what hope will there for me to be more proficient at adding another extension to my body?
my sword will fail not because the steel is weak but because my wrist is weak.
honestly, there won't be one right answer for your dilemna and i had a similar one. I want to be as strong or stronger than Bruce Lee. what will get me there? someone stronger than he is. as far as im concerned, he couldnt do planches. if he did, more power to him. in the meantime, look at the result that you're looking for and employ the methodology that will get you there. there is no other way.
KeilaniG said:honestly, there won't be one right answer for your dilemna and i had a similar one. I want to be as strong or stronger than Bruce Lee. what will get me there? someone stronger than he is. as far as im concerned, he couldnt do planches. if he did, more power to him.
No planches or other lever work, but supposedly he could hold a V sit for 30 minutes.... I know he loved clean and presses, did 1x10 at the start of every weights day. He also deadlifted regularly. He did some maximal isometric contractions at sticking points on his lifts, built a special device to do it. I know he loved circuit training, and he also occasionally performed his lifts with lower weight, but with max speed.
He was really ahead of his time in a lot of ways, but he did quite a bit of bodybuilding training. He was, after all, an actor. I've always wondered how much better he would have been with some GST under his belt.
Something to remember about bruce lee, is that he wasn't so good because of his training methods, as he was in spite of his training methods. For example, he often did a workout where he would throw thousands of punches with wrist weights on or holding dumbbells. Anyone with any knowledge of training will tell you this ruins your punching mechanics, but no-one is going to say he had weak punches.
To OP, I think Foundation will satisfy your hypertrophy goals. I know it is for me...
Don't know if this is motivation, but imagine the day when you have mastered the F-series, you'll be able to walk into one of those BB gyms, and discreetly show off, pretending to be training, and no one will be able to replicate what you're doing.
On the other hand, BB'ers will probably be stubbornly disinterested in what you're doing, because it rubs it their faces that the BB physique is less about strength than aesthetics.