Weightlifting - Good or bad?

[Søren]

Hey

I'm considering to swith from tumbling to artistic gymnastic in two years when I move away from home. Therefore I've just started doing the execises from "Building the gymnastic body" article, to hopefully reach the planche and the front lever someday. In addition I have been doing some weightlifting in my sparetime for about a half year to increase my strength. So I was wondering if it would be a good or a bad idea to keep doing the squat, deadlift and sich big exercises, if I want to increase my skills as a gymnast. I'm very confused because I have heard a lot of people say that it will make my legs too heavy which is a bad thing for a gymnast. I think it sounds logical, but otherwise, I know that me legs won't grow very much if I'm just doing low reps, and as I see it, the squat and deadlift are too profitable to avoid. I've even heard that it was a requirement to be able to do a 2xBW squat to join the Chinese National team. So I would be happy if someone could give me a usefull answer cuz I'm very new in artistic gymnastic.

Thanks

[braindx]

Strength is strength. Although DL and squat and such may not necessearily translate to gymnastics ability. Neither good or bad but depends on the goals and how specific you want to be towards them.

As long as you don't eat for weight you won't gain or lose mass which may affect your strength to bodyweight ratio....

[ketlot]

I am making one-rep series of DL with 90% of my max(150kg/70bw) three or more time per week and my legs keep geting smaller and stronger Also making heavy "Good morning" which give me front bend flexibility together with low back and leg strenght.

Keep the reps very low and intensity high and you will have only strenght and frexibility gains in your weight-traninig (if you are making the excercises right)

[Søren]

Strength is strength. Although DL and squat and such may not necessearily translate to gymnastics ability.

Well I was just thinking, that maybe the core benefit from the DL and Squat could be usefull. But as you say, as long as I don't gain weight it wont have any negative effect as I expected, so I think I've just keep wl.

Thanks for the answers

[Siamang]

Braindx and ketlot both make good points.

You'll only gain weight, whatever you do, if you consume more calories than you use. Lifting a weight doesn't magically cause muscles to grow out of nothing.

That said, judging by my own experience, performing a high volume of heavy squatting and deadlifting makes it very hard to consistently refrain from feasting on calories ... :wink:

With that in mind, the strategy of performing very heavy, low-volume DLs (which you already had in mind) is probably best from a practical standpoint.

[alimac]

It's not quite as simple as that. You can actually gain muscle mass if you are in a calorie deficient diet. It depends on your diet (timing and nutrients) and type of weight training (very low reps and high weights). You do have to eat a lot of protein and, at certain times of the day, carbs but it is possible. However it's not easy so unless you are tailoring your diet plan around gaining muscle especially it's unlikely.

[Gregor]

It's not quite as simple as that. You can actually gain muscle mass if you are in a calorie deficient diet. It depends on your diet (timing and nutrients)) and type of weight training (very low reps and high weights). You do have to eat a lot of protein and, at certain times of the day, carbs but it is possible. However it's not easy so unless you are tailoring your diet plan around gaining muscle especially it's unlikely.

Very true.