legs

[Shoeless]

Ive seen many topics and exercises on strength for the upper boddy but hardly any on the lower body.Ill ive seen for legs is pistols and box jumps.So is that all thats neccasary for legs or am i missing sumthing.

[Ari]

What do you mean by 'necessary'?

If you mean 'in order to excel at gymnastics', that is obviously the case.

If you want to have an impressive vertical jump and sprinting ability, the exercises you mentioned are not sufficient, or at least, not optimal.

[Danny]

Already posted this link in the other topic, but it might be helpful here too..

http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=5618&page=1

[Ari]

Right now I don't have the time, but at some point I would love to combine my gymnastics training with olympic lifting. The sprints and vertical jumps of olympic weightlifters are amazing. Obviously, that combined with the awesome upper body strength of gymnasts would lead to a very impressive athlete.

[Raizen]

You forgot the bodyweight hamstring curl. That one is good in that it is very effective for training the posterior chain muscles in a similar fashion to the deadlift, though full range of motion pistols also work the posterior chain muscles. Danniboi's link is also a worthwhile read, as it offers a logical approach to advancing in pistol variations the way we do planche and front levers. As for its necessity, I agree that it depends on your goals. As we've established in previous threads, generally gymnasts dont possess very impressive vertical leaps, as most of their events are about upper body ability. So if success in gymnastics is your goal then I suppose those concentrating more than a little on leg work isnt 'necessary' (though Coach himself did say that gymnasts benefit from some leg work), but if you have other goals that involve things like high jumps, fast sprints, or hard kicks, then you should definately look into more comprehensive leg training. Ari's idea of combining gymnastics upper body conditioning with powerlifting style work for the lower body is definately worth more discussion in my opinion. Provided you kept the ultimate goal of strength relative to bodyweight in mind when including the olympic lifting elements, I think that method of training could yield some amazing results, particularly for the 'general' athlete without specific gymnastic goals.

[Ari]

Just to clarify, powerlifting and olympic lifting are two different types of competition. In powerlifting, the bench press, deadlift and backsquat are contested, while in olympic lifting, the snatch and clean and jerk are contested.

Olympic lifters tend to have very impressive vertical jump and sprint ability, while I am not under the impression that powerlifters do.

I am not a great fan of powerlifting.

Minimising leg hypertrophy shouldn't be too difficult, as long as only a low volume of work is completed (for instance, 3 x 3, instead of the classic 8 x 3 {with roughly 90% of one's 1RM}, will increase neural efficiency, but probably not induce sufficient fatigue of the muscle fibres for growth to result).

[Blairbob]

Powerlifting could simply lean to ending up too bulky. Somewhere in the training of Olympic lifting you are going to need to go over the back squat and deadlift ( from Powerlifting ) besides some split leg work borrowed from general weightlifting.

Oly lifting is more than likely a lot more plyometric than powerlifting.

It would be interesting to test male vertical leap tests as I'm thinking they would test a lot higher than what they seem to be getting credit for. I'm thinking some of the Elite female gymnasts would have a pretty decent vertical leap versus what they are getting credit for. However I have only see test data for 10 and younger female gymnasts training to be great one day and some data for girls around 14 who were not very close to being Elites. For instance look at their sprint speeds would give you an idea of how capable they are as far as leg strength and power.

Honestly, I've never heard of one female ever trying to train a standing double back like Steve Elliott or Charlie Tamayo. Nuff said. Much of this could be that is no real desire or necessity to train a huge vertical leap. Some much of tumbling and vaulting is much more about repelling force exterted on the body by becoming as rigid as possible ( don't you kid yourself, slow-mo the footage and you will still see flexion in their bodies before it plyometrically reacts and extends ).

Another of the biggest problems about implenting Olympic lift training for either males or females in gymnastics is access to such equipment in numbers suitable for the gymnasts ( cost $$$ ), coaches having at least something of the know-how of Olympic lifting or the desire or appreciation of what it is applicable to.

Coach Sommer has commented on how only Elite coaches, and I would say some really know the in's and outs of physical preparation ( strength and flexibility training that also includes diet and recuperation besides periodization ).

[Ari]

Powerlifting could simply lean to ending up too bulky. Somewhere in the training of Olympic lifting you are going to need to go over the back squat and deadlift ( from Powerlifting ) besides some split leg work borrowed from general weightlifting.

As I have attempted to demonstrate in the Tips for a beginner thread, if volume is managed appropriately, hypertrophy can be minimised.

Oly lifting is more than likely a lot more plyometric than powerlifting.

Explosive? Yes. Plyometric? No. In the aforementioned thread, I linked Christian Thibaudeau's 6 Dumb Training Mistakes article on T-Nation: http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1442461 (potentially work/family unsafe). In it, he explains exactly what is plyometric training. Olympic lifting is not it.

The olympic lifts do teach an athlete how to explode in the way that is required in order to develop impressive sprinting and vertical jump ability, in addition to the functional strength gains in which they result and that improve sprinting and jumping ability.

It would be interesting to test male vertical leap tests as I'm thinking they would test a lot higher than what they seem to be getting credit for. I'm thinking some of the Elite female gymnasts would have a pretty decent vertical leap versus what they are getting credit for.

I don't have the time to find it right now, but I remember a thread in which Coach Sommer stated something to effect of "Gymnasts do not have particularly impressive vertical jumps, whereas acrobats who lift weights do." (I hope I'm not misrepresenting you, Coach!!!). That is the only information I have on the subject, however I seriously doubt that gymnasts have the vertical jump or sprinting abilities of olympic lifters (In one study, a group of o-lifters beat the Olympic 100 m sprinters at the 30 m sprint and many of them can dunk basketballs, despite sometimes weighing quite a lot and being rather short). Sorry, no time for a citation. If required, I'll find it later.

Honestly, I've never heard of one female ever trying to train a standing double back like Steve Elliott or Charlie Tamayo. Nuff said. Much of this could be that is no real desire or necessity to train a huge vertical leap. Some much of tumbling and vaulting is much more about repelling force exterted on the body by becoming as rigid as possible ( don't you kid yourself, slow-mo the footage and you will still see flexion in their bodies before it plyometrically reacts and extends ).

Another of the biggest problems about implenting Olympic lift training for either males or females in gymnastics is access to such equipment in numbers suitable for the gymnasts ( cost $$$ ), coaches having at least something of the know-how of Olympic lifting or the desire or appreciation of what it is applicable to.

I don't think anyone has been suggesting that serious competitive gymnasts should start Olympic lifting or even any kind of weightlifting. As previously stated, elite gymnasts seem to do just fine at gymnastics without it, although Coach Sommer has mentioned that the way in which weightlifting developed his son's tumbling abilities was quite impressive.

However, for other athletes or fitness enthusiasts, o-lifting and general weighted leg training is very useful.

[Blairbob]

I'm not sure what sort of vertical leap numbers you are looking for but I'm sure I've known a few male gymnasts capable of past 30". No idea if I've known any gymnasts per say who were capable of near 40. Possibly, but dunno.