Reply to Crossfitters vs. Gymnasts and question!

[Mandy22]

Somehow I can not manage to reply to the last thread I opened, everytime I want to "quote" something, nothing happens

So I want to thank all of you for your thoughts, it really helped a lot, even if there were so many different opinions - thats one of the mos interesting parts!
I am writing a thesis on the importace of body weight strength in female recreative sports. I took  "Crossfit" and "Gymnastics" to compare both. Crossfit was easy - I have a ton of friends doing it (and they are not as strong as gymnasts in my opinion, but of  course, this varies from athlete to athlete!)

I have got one more questions and as all of you are kind of pro's or at least a lot into this whole body weight and gymnastics topic, I am going to ask you.

So, gymnastics requires a lot of strength, flexibility, mobility and skills, right? But it's a complex kind of strength, not just lifting a heavy dumbell or whatever. See the press handstand - there are so many muscles involved but you also need flexibility, balance and skills in this single short exercise (I tried it yesterday - hahahaha - I got nothing more but a bruise on my a**)

So what do you guys think, in female gymanstics, how much is strength, how much flexibility and how much skills involved?

I want to point out, let's say you have a strong women  ("gymnastic-like" strong --> a few pull-ups, 20 hanging leg raises and all those ab stuff, and also straddle press to handstand) and also very flexible with oversplits and stuff, but no experience in gymnastics, just being able to maybe a cartwheel and a handstand.

How long would it take her to progress? As long a complete newbie with no strength at all?

Let's say, you have a complete beginner. With 8 hours of training a week it takes this beginner about 4 years to get to L6/L7. 
How long would it take this strong, flexible woman who understands the basic of the sport to progress to L6/L7?

Hope you get the point and I get some more great answers!

Thanks!

 

[Coach Sommer]

Good question, but you are asking it in the wrong frame work.  

 

(Even though I was a long time US Jr National Team Coach) Here at GB our focus is on GST, not technical gymnastics skill development. Fundamental straight arm strength, fundamental bent arm strength, fundamental leg strength, handstand and press handstand development, ring strength development in addition to the proper development of explosive, repulsive movement and MOBILITY MOBILITY MOBILITY are our primary areas of focus.  

 

Basically we want to build the physical characteristics (ROM, strength and power) of a high level gymnast without having to pursue competitive gymnastics training.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Neil Gillies]

Good question, but you are asking it in the wrong frame work.  

 

(Even though I was a long time US Jr National Team Coach)

Sorry to hijack, but I notice the use of past tense. Are you no longer coaching national team athletes, Coach?

[GoldenEagle]

I would venture to say that a strong flexible women would take the same amount of time to reach L6/L7 as it would for the complete newbie.

 

Both individuals have physical weaknesses that need to be strengthened.

[Ian Hogg]

In my opinion it must surely be quicker at least at start as you could cut out a lot of the physical training that you would need to do with a complete new start.
So if they were both training 8 hours but for new start 4 of that is conditioning, the fitter person could in theory train 8 hours purely skill training obvious impossible to put an exact figure on speed of improvement as it would vary person to person.
I certainly know my admittedly still limited gymnastics skills have improved exponentially since becoming stronger fitter through F1, F2 and H1 and I definitely wish I had been more flexible /stronger when I first started.

[Connor Davies]

I want to point out, let's say you have a strong women  ("gymnastic-like" strong --> a few pull-ups, 20 hanging leg raises and all those ab stuff, and also straddle press to handstand) and also very flexible with oversplits and stuff, but no experience in gymnastics, just being able to maybe a cartwheel and a handstand.

How long would it take her to progress? As long a complete newbie with no strength at all?

 

 

I know that Coach uses/used (confused by his previous post here) this exact approach with his athletes.  For example, he wouldn't even let them start back handspring training until they'd already accomplished a back limber.  Back limbers are so hard that to the best of my knowledge, we've only got one guy around here who can (almost) do one.

 

I'm uncertain, however, how much of this is because the strength helps with skill development, and how much of it is for injury prevention.

 

But I think in general you're talking about neuro-muscular co-ordination.  Basically to be a good gymnast, you have to be good at so many things that you would pick up the basics of weightlifting pretty quickly.  This doesn't work the other way around (although some lifts can be pretty complicated.)

 

Generalists train for this exact thing.  In fact, the underlying concept of crossfit is to be useful across all modalities, or basically to be good at everything.

[Blairbob]

Back limbers aren't THAT hard.

[Brian Li]

Isn't that a basic skill in gymnastics?

[Jon Douglas]

They really aren't that taxing, we just have adult beginners so most of us are very stiff, particularly in bridging, particularly if you come in with a stronger/tighter chest.

The more flexible you are, the less strength you need. Conversely if you are tight and have to pull from a disadvantaged position you'd indeed have to be brutally strong to get over. I'm somewhere closer to the flexibility side of that spectrum.

Slow pulls from bridge to HS change the game a little because both more strength and flexibility are required, plus learning the technique of pulling. I doubt they're that rare a thing though.

I am 100% certainly not the only person doing them here.

[Connor Davies]

I am 100% certainly not the only person doing them here.

The only one I know of. I remember a few years back Blairbob posted a video on youtube of himself performing various back limber progressions as outlined in Coach's essay, but he didn't get quite all the way to the end.

Also if you believe Coach's essay, he has his athletes perform them with elevated hands as well, which is just crazy...