Free weights

[Luigi]

Hello all, I was just wondering if gymnasts use any free weights at all in their training? Thanks a bunch.

[Edward Smith]

hi Luigi,

Gymnasts userimarily bodyweight exercises, as I'm sure you know but for some exercises/holds/positions some gymnasts use weights. Even Coach Sommer does use weight with his students to train Iron Crosses seen HEREand Here's a method for developing the Maltese. Plus some Gymnasts use weight for leg work, if you were to do that I would suggest doing the following lifts:

-Power Snatch

-Clean and Jerk

-Deadlift

However if you are into weights and wanna combine the two, that's fine. You just have to workout how you want to combine them, half/half (half a session is weights other half bodyweight) or have weight sessions and bodyweight sessions.

One thing that arises after reading that article is that the title is "The Iron Cross for Bodybuilders: Simulated Gymnastics Training With Weights" so presumably it is just how to simulate the Iron Cross, also presumably Coach Sommer uses (at least primarily) his Power Levers to develop the Iron Cross in his students.

Anyway welcome to the forum,

Ed

[Luigi]

Thanks a lot for the informations and the welcome. So gymnasts don't do exercises like bench press, shoulder press, lats pulldown and the likes at all?

[kbryk]

Shoulder press- handstands, tuck planches to work on shoulders

Bench- is planche work, pushups, and lots of other skills on the events

Lat pulldown- pullups, lots of highbar work along with ring work

Gymnastics is about applying the skills you learn to build the required muscles, most of their skills are not single movements like in weight lifting so why work those skills, of course some skills can be supplemented and developed by weight training.

[Blairbob]

Most gyms, if at all, only have very small weight sets. As well, there isn't a lot of coaches that know how to properly instruct weightlifting. You might see some 25-45 pound plates, a light bar and some dumbbells.

A lot of it is also time. Gymnastics is always trying to be efficient with time. There are 5 or 7 events depending on what gender ( trampoline included ).

There are also safety concerns and monetary concerns for enough weights and bars per enough kids. We end up fabricating a lot of equipment to make up for it but nothing really in the realm of free weights. So, doing weighted skill movements is very popular with both genders, lightly or with some sort of resistance bands.