Street workout (Vladimir Sadkov)

B1214N said:

You said you want to be stronger than Sadkov, but your goal is a perfect FL and planche? Those aren't even hard for him at all. You shouldn't be hating on other people just because they compete in SW and besides you have to become as strong as he is before you can surpass him.

In which of post did I hate on him at all?  In fact, in none of my posts did I talk about Sadkov's form at all.  Forget Sadkov, in which of my posts did I hate on street workout?

Hmms said:

In which of post did I hate on him at all?  In fact, in none of my posts did I talk about Sadkov's form at all.  Forget Sadkov, in which of my posts did I hate on street workout?

I assumed that you felt Sadkov was garbage or inferior to you when you replied "I don't. I want to be stronger." If you say that you weren't hating then I apologize for calling you out based on that assumption.

Well, it's no surprise to anyone that anything bodyweight on this board will be judged according to gymnastics standards...

Personally I think this is a vote in favour of the gymnastics deductions system, in a way. I think people like this guy would appear substantially stronger and more impressive if they competed their moves that were 80% as difficult done 100% correct. This isn't aesthetics or preferring to have your feet pointed or flexed, this is not being strong enough to execute correctly. Regardless of whether that's a big priority for a performer, it's sort of front and centre for a lot of us (non-gymnasts here for the strength training), so naturally it's what we'll comment on.

I feel Sadkov does his own obvious strength and hard work some injustice that way. As would any gymnast trying to compete elements that, regardless of how strong they are, are just a bit too ambitious for them right now. How you marry that to the whole free expression and creativity emphasis in SW I don't know, that's for people who arrange official competitions to figure out (have they done that, incidentally?)

Well, my opinion's no skin off Sadkov's nose and his approach is no skin off mine, so I guess we'll call that one even I do love the energy in these videos, and they're great fun

I myself strive for perfect form as well. I would not say I have a skill if the form is not at least 80% of perfection. I consider mastery to be able to consistently and easily execute a skill with 100% perfect form and for a reasonable amount of volume. So 80% perfect would mean you can have some room for errors that include degrees of arching, piking, high/low hips, but one exception would be bent arms in straight arm skills. If arms are bent in straight arm skills, I would not consider it legit even if everything else is perfect.

So you know I'm not one of those people who accepts poor form or encourage it, but I feel that many people here were trying to portray Sadkov in a bad way because of his form on most things last year which is unfair. What I was trying to say is that he improved some bit ever since and his latest malteses which were discussed earlier in this thread looks to be more than 80% of perfection. The OP video had more footage of his more recent work than stuff from last year.

Another very strong russian guy in street workout is Nik. IMO his planche and levers are better as Sadkovs (who still is extremely strong). He's doing a pretty nice maltese in this video, nice planche pushups and the one armed planche is crazy...

Okok I understand what you mean now... and you're right, there IS still room for improvement on his form.

However, give him mabey a year and I'm pretty sure you'll be satisfied of his form. He is constantly progressing, and the arched back will disappear as his strength increases

Yeah nik is crazy too! I like anton abasov too, the guy can do a full planche perfect form on his thumbs xd

There's all this talk about perfect form but it seems, to a certain extant anyway, that it would be in the eye of the beholder. If there's a specific, anatomical reason why something is better than I'm all for it. If it's more about the way it looks than it's kind of up for debate whether it's important or not.

Perfect form leads to perfect progression, as in doing what is best leads to being your most possibly best.

Poor form is poor progression. If you want to do more advanced stuff than the bent arm, shaky, non-horizontal, 2 secs, legs bent (did I get it all) bodyweight skills you have to prepare yourself properly. You want to have a handstand? Sure, it is achieveable sloppy with arched back, bent arms, unopened shoulders for 10 secs, but it is not as impressive as a straight, vertical handstand and it does not carry over to the more advanced skills like 1 armed handstand, hollow back press and press handstands.

You might say these are not your goals. But how about a while after having said that? Will you change your mind, when you want to become better, or when you are not considered good anymore by people's standards? Whatever your motivation, you have to start all over again and you just wasted maybe years of practice. You often hear people who learned arched handstand and want to do a perfect one; it takes quite some time, because the areas of concern are almost as undeveloped as if you had not ever been training. If you learn a skill perfect you save yourself some time, unless you only want to learn party tricks.

I highly respect SW and the attitude of training in a non-artificial enviroment and having fun being outdoors as opposed to the classical norms of fitness, where you go to the fitness center's basement during a hot day in summer just to use the treadmill. But SW needs to recognize that what they are doing has been done before, SW is not a unique way of training your body; the philosophy and the training ground are different, but the rest is gymnastics bodyweight training performed often in a sloppy way. Since gymnastics has been around for decades the best way to set things straight is to adopt and maybe alter the gymnastics training method a bit, so that it fits SW. Ignoring the best possible way of strengthening themselves through body weight training (which is currently gymnastics) leads to injures (check), lack of best possible progression (check) and just doing random training programs without any second thought (check). Of course, I am generalizing quite a bit.

SW even knows that gymnastics is a superior strength system. There is a reason why gymnasts are not allowed to compete in events, ex gymnasts being the among the strongest guys in SW, and that the SW "purists" considers gymnasts in street workout a scam.

It is really a shame that things are the way they are. SW has so much potential and provides among other "street sports" a much needed counter balance to traditional indoor-practiced and payed sports. SW emphasizes just having fun and being outdoors.

Well, I guess SW will develop. It just needs more time. Sorry about the rant.