Amazing strength increase.

Myself, and a friend have been working 4-5 days a week on this program. Our goal is overall fitness as opposed to actual gymnastic ability.

Yesterday Tim says lets do some bench presses and see where we are? OK! My own personel best in the past was 230lbs. This was when I was doing a basic Bodybuilding split. I have not benched in at least 20 months, and at that time I was able to get about 160. I had not been working out for years at that point. Then I broke my arm, and was again off for nearly a year. I have been on this for about 9 months, and Tim for about 6.

Yesterday, we warmed up with 130lbs, for about 15 reps. Felt pretty easy. We kept adding weight for 1 rep sets to stair step and see where we were. I set a PR, at 240lbs. Not bad for not having done any BP.

As I said in the past, this program is the most fun I've had working out, ever! Thanks coach.

Grats with your new pr But I don't get what program you have been using?

The basic breakdown of our program.

My workout partner and I meet Mon-Tue Thur-Fri. we work any of these moves based on how we feel. Generally tyring to have a push type move one day, and a pull type move the following. Several of the moves have such a compound effect that your hitting muscles fairly hard two days in a row in some cases. We really just workout by how we feel. rarely to complete failure on any move.

Mon-Thur,

hanging leg raises, handstand presses off the wall, ring flyes, elevated parallette pushups, ring dips, tuck planche on paralette.

Tue-Fri,

squats, leg raises, leg curls, L-sit, front lever type moves, supine ring rows, lever rows to the bar, various chinup type pulls.

We have the book, and rotate various moves in and out of the program. For instance. We were doing lateral raises for deltoids for a few months. Since we have started doing handstand work on the paralette's we have not done laterals. The handstand work is very taxing by itself. After a few months of handstand work we switch up the program again, and put laterals back in, but at a higher weight.

I think of this as a bodybuilding program but utilizing gymnastic strength moves in place of regular barbell sets. So far it is working very well. We will be incorporating some limited, olympic lift moves in the near future. Some of the moves that will get a permanent place in the rotation are.

Overhead squats, high rep deads, and power cleans.

We are not trying to get Bodybuilder size from this. We want the gymnastic physique. For myself especially, I do not want to put on lots of mass. I'm 47 now, and I want a leaner, but strong body. This program is doing what I want.

Wow grats dude!

It's kinda funny that you posted this because the same thing has happened to me, i hadn't benched for like five months when i was at the gym with my buddy two weeks ago, my personal best before was 181 pounds but i shattered that record easily, believe it or not but i managed to bench 209 pounds, all thanks to the gymnastic training I've been doing this last couple of months.

lol a similar thing happened to me... was taking a class and everyone had to test according to the acsm criteria for 1 rm strength tests... for bench press an excellant score is a 1.5bw... i'm 220lbs... i got 330lbs pretty easy and i haven't benched in a couple of years... thanks to this style of training

I've also seen impressive strength increases since I started gymnastics. I don't go to the gym to work out regularly anymore, ever since getting my rings. Even when I did used to go, I had already started a gymnastics-like routine comprising of pull ups, dips, bodyweight rows, push ups, planks, and various free weight leg exercises. So last time I actually "lifted weights" (bodybuilder style) was about a year ago, when I was training for football (this was before I knew my school had a gymnastics team).

The other day my friend, who goes to the same gym I'm enrolled in, asked me if I wanted to work out with him, and I went along. Anyway, out of pure curiosity, I sit down on the overhead press machine and put all the weight the machine can be set to (+300 lbs or so). I easily crank out 4 reps; the only reason I didn't keep going was because I already proved to myself that it was easy from those first 4, so I didn't bother going on.

To further feed my curiosity, I go to the lat pull down machine and do the same. Easy. And I'm pretty certain I'd get similar results with any standard bodybuilding exercise I try.

This amazing gain in strength came almost exclusively with bodyweight training. And this is only one of the countless benefits I've gained from gymnastics training. I love the sport with a passion and hope to continue improving and enjoying it for a long, long time.

Muscle Beach.

Wow! How long had you guys been training this way? BtGB / Bodyweight ?

glwanabe said:

Myself, and a friend have been working 4-5 days a week on this program. Our goal is overall fitness as opposed to actual gymnastic ability.

Yesterday Tim says lets do some bench presses and see where we are? OK! My own personel best in the past was 230lbs. This was when I was doing a basic Bodybuilding split. I have not benched in at least 20 months, and at that time I was able to get about 160. I had not been working out for years at that point. Then I broke my arm, and was again off for nearly a year. I have been on this for about 9 months, and Tim for about 6.

Yesterday, we warmed up with 130lbs, for about 15 reps. Felt pretty easy. We kept adding weight for 1 rep sets to stair step and see where we were. I set a PR, at 240lbs. Not bad for not having done any BP.

As I said in the past, this program is the most fun I've had working out, ever! Thanks coach.

PS: Buddy I used to be in North Houston as well..

jeremyfrias said:

I've also seen impressive strength increases since I started gymnastics. I don't go to the gym to work out regularly anymore, ever since getting my rings. Even when I did used to go, I had already started a gymnastics-like routine comprising of pull ups, dips, bodyweight rows, push ups, planks, and various free weight leg exercises. So last time I actually "lifted weights" (bodybuilder style) was about a year ago, when I was training for football (this was before I knew my school had a gymnastics team).

The other day my friend, who goes to the same gym I'm enrolled in, asked me if I wanted to work out with him, and I went along. Anyway, out of pure curiosity, I sit down on the overhead press machine and put all the weight the machine can be set to (+300 lbs or so). I easily crank out 4 reps; the only reason I didn't keep going was because I already proved to myself that it was easy from those first 4, so I didn't bother going on.

To further feed my curiosity, I go to the lat pull down machine and do the same. Easy. And I'm pretty certain I'd get similar results with any standard bodybuilding exercise I try.

This amazing gain in strength came almost exclusively with bodyweight training. And this is only one of the countless benefits I've gained from gymnastics training. I love the sport with a passion and hope to continue improving and enjoying it for a long, long time.