gymnastics for a hobbyist bodybuilder

[Marco Seid]

Hello all,

I've been lurking these forums for a while now, and I am very impressed by the strength of a lot of members, so I would like to give you guys some background info and ask some question:

People who know me consider me a gym rat. I'm not trying to brag, but I'm very muscular as I've been training for ~8 years and have used steroids. For my size, I have decent strength (bench 315 lbs for 10 reps). However, I've noticed a lot of users here do very impressive moves but are not jacked at all. Would my size be a significant disadvantage? I have a feeling it will be since I have never seen any big gymnasts (yes olympic gymnasts are really muscular but they are also 5'6 while I'm 6'2). The only guys that are around my size are probably the guys from Barstarzz. However, this relates to my 2nd question,

Ultimately, my goals are to do muscle-ups, inverted muscle-ups, planche pushups, front lever rows, iron cross, inverted iron cross, victorian cross and maltese cross. I understand that this will take me many years (probably a decade) with consistent training, but it should be achievable right? I'm not aiming for super-crazy-advanced moves am I? 

Thirdly, I don't plan to compete, I purely want to do gymnastics as a hobby. I plan to cut down bodybuilding to 4 days per week and train gymnastic moves 2 days a week, and swimming/rest 1 day a week. How often do you guys train gymnastics (i.e., what volume and frequency do you find works best for you)?

Lastly, what are some gymnastics moves for legs? I can already do pistol squats and shrimp squats. Has anyone been able to do back-flip or front-flip pistol squats lol?

Thanks for reading.

[Alessandro Mainente]

Hi Marco , thank you for writing us your experience. i'll write you there some ideas/answers:

-GST (gymnastics strength training) uses the bodyweigth so it is very important the concept of relative strength. from my point of view, I'm 172 cm for 86 kg with decent lower body mass compared to many people in the calisthenics world. you can reasonably reach the straddle planche, front lever, side lever, iron cross and inverted cross and last one maltese cross.

-the use of steroids has some implication like the fact that steroids tend to consume the connective tissues of the tendons making it less strong. so you need to rebuild completely the connective tissue qualities.

-with the foundations work you can work with a 2xweek routine as a standard schedule

-the most general problem for bodybuilders it is the range of movement reductions, actually, there is no safe bodyweight training without proper mobility.

 

[Marco Seid]

Thank you very much for your reply Alessandro. I have another question.

As I get older, and I advance my career and start a family, I will have less time for my hobbies. Eventually, I plan to replace bodybuilding entirely with gymnastics. I know it sounds vain, but I am concerned with muscle loss. I'm not too worried about losing some muscle mass, but I would like to remain jacked (I know my vanity is kind of cringeworthy). Anyways, is gymnastics a substitute for weight-lifting? A lot of users here are not very muscular (sorry, I'm not trying to criticize), so it seems that gymnastic moves have more to do with skill, technique, balance etc., than the size of a muscle.

[Alessandro Mainente]

GST it is a valid substitution if you have a solid basic strength. You know like me that if you want to stimulate the muscles quality you need the general 4x 10 reps (as general as possible), the problem with the GST it is that on the big multi-articular exercises the minimum weight that you move it is your own body weight. this means that for example on pullup if you want to do 4 sets of 10 pullups you need to have at least 18-20 pullups in a row. this is basic strength. if you move your basic ability in this way for pullup, dips, handstand push up etc you have all the cards to build up muscle mass.

[Marco Seid]

Awesome. Thanks so much for your help Alessandro.