strength vs. skill

[LeeLee Weiland]

What leads to faster skill development:

1.  high level of strength via regimented strength training methods (F1-4 for example)?

or

2.  practice of the skill in large volume?

 

For example, say one is trying to learn flare-handstand-flare.  

Should the person

1.  incessantly practice the movements, or micro-movements?

or

2.  train stalder presses or some other strength training exercise?

 

What about for more explosive movements like doublebackflip?

1.  roundoff doubleback into pit until it's landable

or

2.  some kind of leg strength training

 

Thanks!

[Edoardo Roberto Cagnola]

I'm not an expert in skill development by any means, but I can tell you that the law of specificity applies here.

Let's say you would like to learn to perform a handstand. Now, you can spend all the time you want doing exercises to strengthen your shoulders, triceps and core, but ultimately you'll have to spend time on your hands doing actual handstand work to learn a proper handstand. This may sound obvious, but it's actually really important.

Hope this helps, hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in and give you some more specific infos!

[Christian Nogueira]

I think the answer is very complex. This is the way I see it:

 

Practicing the skill is what will make you acquire the skill, this is always true.

 

However for this practice to be productive your body must be physically capable of performing the skill in question in terms of strength, mobility and flexibility. Also, in gymnastics as in many other things, it also depends on what skills you already have, so for example you can't have a press handstand unless you have a handstand. This example is obvious but there are probably a lot of not so obvious precedence rules that guide coaches.

 

Ultimately, physical training allows you to train the skills productively and with less risk of injury. How much physical training is probably something that is debated even among top coaches, so there's probably no easy answer. 

 

I'd say you're not a competitive athlete and need X months to get skill Y, it's probably better to do it within a framework of physical preparation. It's always safer to learn skills if you have strength and mobility.

[Toni Laukkavaara]

I guess it all comes down to the general volume required for the movement training

[Alessandro Mainente]

There is only one logic approach that should be followed for skill development:

 

general physical preparation: you can consider this as the basic strength that is needed for a certain skill like straight arms support and passive flexibility. this should be the primary focus for a certain amount of time.

 

specific physical preparation: you can consider this as specific strength work for a skill. for the flare should be all basic support positions plus tools like pbars walks, ag-walk, plank walks, alternated one arm support, elbows table, wrist conditioning, rings or pbars circles. this should be specific for the skill you need to learn. usually you can first breakdown a skill into sub sequence and find a logic way to build up single part then transitions. this type of work is done before special physical preparation and when the general physical preparation is easy , it should be used like warm up or conditioning. 

 

special physical preparation: this is the training of the specific skills and will take the biggest part of time. it regards the learning process and different tools like high mushroom, bucket circles etc. no work at this stage it's done without general strength level.

[MrAl]

Everything said already on how it should ideally be. Basics, specific training, then the skill.

You just can not train only one. Even the strongest legs won't help you get a double back if you have no orientation.
When you want to learn a kip and have absolutely no hip flexor or triceps strength, you won't learn it either. Simply practicing the skill triggers the muscles and gets you stronger, but it is simply not enough. Eventually you will get the skill, but the form might be questionable.

For skills strongly relying on technique, for example an aerial, simply doing the movement could get you to faster (not better) results, but most of the times both is key.

[Jeff Serven]

Good question! Good responses. Good read.