JJ Gregory

"One of my former students, JJ Gregory (1993 Junior National Champion on the Still Rings) developed such a high degree of strength from my bodyweight conditioning program that on his first day in his high school weightlifting class he deadlifted 400lbs., and this at the scale breaking weight of 135 lbs. and a height of 5’3â€. "

This was in the article named "building the olympic body". I was wondering if he only did bodyweight conditioning program by coach sommer, how , jj builded that awesome leg strength? Becouse of working with ghr and 1-legged sguat (with extra weigth?) and/or just with exercises done with rings and things like that (are they not just upper body movements, do they also strengten the legs :shock: ? If so how the hell, they do that?)??

I just can´t believe that. Awesome strength.

JJ's amazing leg strength was built through a combination of basic strength and dynamic strength work. The Dynamic Physique, forthcoming but not yet available, focuses on developing dynamic strength. For most beginners however, the physical demands of many of the dynamic strength exercises will exceed their current physical capacities and they will find that they are best served by first focusing on increasing basic strength as outlined in Building the Gymnastic Body.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I was floored by this part of the article as well. My experience of deadlifts is that the strength comes from the upper and lower back, forearms and hands (grip) as well as the legs. My forearms always gave up before my legs even felt challenged (only about 240 lbs). It demonstrates not only strong legs but great back strength.

I did not get it.. So for an example training on rings will not strengthen your legs, they strengthen your lower & upper back, forearms and hands (+arms and chest). Is that right? Or do they strengthen your legs as well (even a bit?)? :?

But i am sure that at least those bodyweight exercises for lower body; 1-legged squat (+jumps) and ghr will sure strengthen your legs.

Coach,

Do you have any other pics of Gregory (or even a better res version of the one in the book) available?

I ask because I'm trying to amass an inspirational "scrap book" of sorts, primarily of my own demographic, black male gymnasts.

Yes, there are of course other photos of JJ, but no others that are publically posted at this time.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

When I was DL for my CFT on the weekend, on attempt 2 it was my legs that failed at 397. I didn't feel it in my back or shoulders or grip, but it was my legs shaking with the bar past my knees. I have experienced it before where it was my grip that was the issue.

Swinging on rings requires that you do squeeze and tense the leg muscles but I"m not sure it's a focus of developing strength in them.

397? :shock: that is a lot of weigth! Awesome. Was it a test thing or do you train with weigths also ?

Yeah I was just curious. Becouse I read that you have to tense your muscles from head to TOE to be able to do difficult gymnastic exercises. So I thought if it will give some strength to legs, but blairbob, you think it do not. Maybe you are right.

So was gregory doing 1-legged squats and glutehamraises for that leg strength? Or not? Then did he pull the barbell from floor just with the strength in his lower and upper back, forearms and grip strength? :shock: His legs must have shaked a lot!

Or did he do something else for strengthening the legs, and what?

I'm sure he had done the leg exercises from building the gymnastic body and i'm sure as coach said that some of the leg strength also came from dynamic leg exercises we haven't seen yet.

I weight train a bit as well. BS and DL 1x a week. 3 sets typically.

In the CF forum we sort of came up with the idea that because gymnasts are taught to squeeze everything besides developing a really strong grip, that they can have very good success in the DL from the getgo besides awesome strength at times. However, BS doesn't work out this way because it is a way more complicated lift ( which Pavel has stated before and why he reccomends DL for the DIY ).

btw, I maxed at 402 with some room to spare unfortunately. DL will make your legs strong. Pavel is a big proponent of the DL and Barry Ross, a sprinting coach favors them over BS for his sprinters.

No, trust me; every single muscle was squeezing. I was trying to depress my feet into the ground.

Advanced tumbling and vaulting is very plyometric and develops A LOT of leg power. Oly lifting isn't as fast as sprinting.

So vaulting is gymnastics on horse and tumblimg is gymnastics on floor (I watched on youtube). A bit difficult movemenst !

Are those the dynamic leg strength exercises?

I understand now that dynamic strength movements and maximal strength movements builded the leg strength of JJ Gregory. And every gymnast.

I am sure that deadlift is good movement, but there is no calf muscles involded in the exercise. That is the minus of it. So you have to do something also that involves calves. Like clean or something.

Is BS for barbell snatch? And gymnast is not so good in that movement? More complicated lift that deadlift. Ok. You have to know the technique of the lift (snatch), in deadlift you just pull the barbell from floor (pure strength needed, not so much technique).

BS stands for BackSquat.

In a DL, you still have to transmit power through the calves. Your calves should be pushing through the floor as if you were to make imprints in the floor because of the force pressed on them. Tumbling and sprinting on vault is more than enough work for the calves, both are plyometric in nature as I said. Barry Ross loves the DL in cooperation with all the sprint training they do. There is an article over at Dragondoor going over it besides him posting about it on Performancemenu.com's forum.

Vaulting is running at the horse or table, hitting a springboard by jumping from the run and springing and flipping over the horse/table in some sort of acrobatic fashion. A sprint, a jump, and some acrobatics.

The olympic lifts do not induce as much pressure/second as sprinting does. Olympic lifts are also lifts done at a fraction of the weight that could be pushed/pulled and typically recruit fewer motor units. Yes, olympic lifters have been noted to jump high and run fast; I'm not doubting that. It's just not as much force as sprinting.

Understood. Thanks for facts!

I'll tell you what I want to know, how much weight was hanging off of him on that maltese? That's un-sane.

JJ Gregory's strength was awesome. Can't wait for the book "The Dynamic Physique".

 

Questions for you Coach Sommer while on the topic of JJ Gregory:

 

1) We're assuming JJ had a lot of potential to be a great gymnast. Is that true or how great do you think his potential was? did he have more brute strength than coordination and other things?

 

2) What happened to JJ? Was there a reason he discontinued gymnastics?