Street workout and gymnastics

Hi guys,

So I come from a street workout background, and ever since I found more about GST, there's a question that has come to my mind but never found an answer..

As you may know, SW is based on VERY high reps of calisthenics basics: pull ups, dips, pushups. That's all crazy sw athletes do. In any interview with a SW athlete, they ALL say the SAME thing, "Only basics", and some of them can perform like 50 pull ups a set.

Now what I don't understand, is how the hell are they so freaking strong even though they only do basics with high reps, namely endurance..

Now I know a lot of them do not have perfect form like gymnasts, but there are MANY that can do VERY crazy stuff (thumb maltese and stuff like that) with a perfect form.

How is this possible? How can one build so much strength by doing thousands of pushups, and hundreds of pullups, dips, a day?

Isn't this only endurance ?

They do specific training for those things too, not just high endurance sets of basic exercises.

The borderline between strength and endurance is fuzzier than you think...

B1214N said:

They do specific training for those things too, not just high endurance sets of basic exercises.

That's what I thought before I saw interview with great SW athletes like hannibal for king, frank medrano, etc.. They were ask the same question: did you train specifically for the planche, front lever, etc..? And they all answer the same thing: I always trained basics, and one day I tried the lever and got it...

It's like doing so many repetitions makes them so used to lifting their own bodyweight that their body becomes ready for the most advanced stuff just with basics

hype said:

That's what I thought before I saw interview with great SW athletes like hannibal for king, frank medrano, etc.. They were ask the same question: did you train specifically for the planche, front lever, etc..? And they all answer the same thing: I always trained basics, and one day I tried the lever and got it...

It's like doing so many repetitions makes them so used to lifting their own bodyweight that their body becomes ready for the most advanced stuff just with basics

None of the athletes you mentioned in your above post has a proper planche or a maltese. You can tell that Hannibal does train more difficult variations of basic calisthenics exercises based on the videos of him working out. I suspect that his arched planche and arched planche push-ups were developed from progressively leaning in the dips until he got to horizontal. He did not get there just by doing millions of basic dips.

These athletes were referred for the levers not planche... But I can easily find other guys who can do the planche maltese etc in crazy conditions.

In hannibal's most recent interview, he said that his routine has never changed ever since he started working out.. Its just pullups-dips-push ups circle no rest, its calles the "around the world routine", renamed the "hannibal for king routine".. And when asked about how he got the planche dip, he said that one day someone told him try leaning on your dip, and he got it naturally, without prior training for it

Not too many people except high level gymnasts can do a maltese, so I wouldn't use that as a guideline. And I don't think that kind of hard training is sustainable in the long run. Besides hannibal is like 5'8 180lbs, I doubt you will see him doing Iron crosses and maltese at that BW.

MattProulx said:

Not too many people except high level gymnasts can do a maltese, so I wouldn't use that as a guideline. And I don't think that kind of hard training is sustainable in the long run. Besides hannibal is like 5'8 180lbs, I doubt you will see him doing Iron crosses and maltese at that BW.

I weight about 175lbs. I am also not a 'high level gymnast' by any stretch of the imagination. It's a difficult skill, to be sure, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility. If Hannibal had the will to learn it and knew good progressions, I bet he could achieve the position in a year or two, depending on how much SAS he does already. 

Joshua Slocum said:

I weight about 175lbs. I am also not a 'high level gymnast' by any stretch of the imagination. It's a difficult skill, to be sure, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility. If Hannibal had the will to learn it and knew good progressions, I bet he could achieve the position in a year or two, depending on how much SAS he does already. 

You are probably right, and it does not look like most calisthenics guys really work on straight arm strength, which is too bad because a lot of them are pretty strong otherwise and could really expand on their movement.

hype said:

These athletes were referred for the levers not planche... But I can easily find other guys who can do the planche maltese etc in crazy conditions.

In hannibal's most recent interview, he said that his routine has never changed ever since he started working out.. Its just pullups-dips-push ups circle no rest, its calles the "around the world routine", renamed the "hannibal for king routine".. And when asked about how he got the planche dip, he said that one day someone told him try leaning on your dip, and he got it naturally, without prior training for it

I bet the ones that can do the planche and maltese never said they got them just by doing lots of basic exercises. You will never get to any of the advanced skills/exercises if you never train with harder exercises or specific progressions; you will only be building up endurance at the basic exercises if you only do very high rep sets of them.

MattProulx said:

You are probably right, and it does not look like most calisthenics guys really work on straight arm strength, which is too bad because a lot of them are pretty strong otherwise and could really expand on their movement.

It is definitely possible to be able to do maltese at that height and weight. Most of the American street workout athletes don't really work on straight arm strength that much, but a lot of the Russian street workout guys do and have planches and malteses. Some are gymnasts or ex-gymnasts, but some or most aren't.

Since I'm currently 6 ft 1 inch (185cm ) with a 76 inch(193cm) at 225lbs(101kg) wingspan, I'm curious:

Who's the biggest person anyone's seen doing an iron cross?

This guy is a norwegian javelin thrower. He's your height ish and 90 ish kilo:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=F-zEYIe0EKA

Christian is too modest. His countryman Andreas Thorkildsen is hardly just another javelin thrower; he is a two time Olympic Champion (2004, 2008).

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer