Gymnastic to maintain barbell strength

[Amebix138]

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering how effective gymnastics strength moves are for maintaining strength built from barbells. For example, could I do a routine consisting of frog stands, PPPU and push up ladder finisher and maintain a 275 bench? Could I do a routine consisting of front and back levers, pull ups and pistols + half ghr and maintain a 500 deadlift and 400 squat? I ask because at some point I would like to do some prolonged travelling and dont want to lose my hard earned gains or just be weak in general. I was just wondering if anyone has successfully used gymnastics to maintain, or even improve, a decent level or barbell strength.

Thanks!

[RatioFitness]

I'm going to say no to all of that.

[Samuel Carr]

Im pretty sure i remember slizzardman saying somewhere that after starting gymnastics training all his numbers for barbell stuff started to improve. Try looking around his posts

[RatioFitness]

I would be surprised to learn that his lifts improved while at the same time not doing them for an extended period of time, which is what Ambiex is asking.

I would predict that by not doing the lifts you will lose the intermuscular coordination needed to maintain those poundages. It's a nervious system thing. Strength is partly a function of cross-sectional area (this will carryover to all lifts) but also a SKILL for a particular movement. You lose skills you do not practice.

[learningtofly]

Well,

In the past I did a lot of legs work to improve kicks and jumps in wushu. Mainly deadlifts and pistols + plyo.

It's been two years now I'm mainly involved in gymnastics, just having fun and brievly maintaining those tricks once a week (or less). Even barely doing pistols from time to time, just to test them.

Trust me, I don't loose strenght in this area. The abillity to generate maximal tension and core strength seems to transfert so well I just don't feel the need to actually work legs, except ankle and calves for landings, and spending some time in full squat position for specific hips flexibility and profound knee postural "recap".

Also because of post activation, simple tricks like aerials or so just come soooooo easy after rings series. Il love that ! As you said, you just have to keep the timing and the feel of the technic.

There's no more strenght issue for jumps since I began gymnastics, at least for me, and when I test deadlifts I'm always impressed by this simple fact

Like everything, I guess this is less and less true as you're specifically stronger on particular lift, but until you have a solid front lever + easy back lever or straddle planche, there will always be room to progress without actually lifting anything...

[Felipe]

I actually improved my bench after months of p-bar only and some rings. But I lift much less than you (75kg x5 @64kg) and I injured my shoulders. :?

But I don't think that a full squat more than 200lb can be mantained without lifting. Training it every 7 days will.

[Rafael David]

For curiosity some time ago i tested my bench and the result was 198lbs for one rep, i weight 134lbs and do 3 sets of 5 reps of flat tuck planche pushups (strict reps) currently... Ido can explain here: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2989&p=20336&hilit=+work+capacity#p20336

[Blairbob]

500 DL and 400 BS.

No.

Your bench won't be affected as much or overhead press.

While JJ might have been nearly able to hit a 3x BW DL, his DL would more than likely have been much greater were he to train it minimally as he more than likely had a lot more genetic potential in that lift I would say.

[Joshua Chan]

You will depending on your body-weight strength training. The exercises you mentioned are pretty easy. Work on planche, planche push ups, HSPU. Those will heavily develop your back strength. For legs, once you are proficient at SLS add some weight. Do jumping SLS's. REbound work, etc. You must remember that weights, even thought they practicality, they do not develop inter-muscular coordination as bodyweight does. You really don't have to be a skillful person or have a certain degree of body mastery to lift weights. You must be if you want an iron-cross, an invert, a rings planche, ect.

Also work on straight arm strength, this will help build amazing strength, not only muscular, but tendon and joint strength, helping you lift heavier weights.

[Razz]

For legs nothing can match weights, especially the olympic lifts. For upper body you won't find anything better than gymnastics.

[Erich Lin]

I used to weight lift. I think my last bench max was like 215 or so at around 130 lbs. 8 months ago, I was at a "normal gym" working out and decided to see how strong my bench still was after 1 year of not touching weights. Since no one was there to spot me, I tried 135 (super easy), 155 (super easy), 185 (medium -difficulty). I did not attempt any more for fear of killing myself w/o a spotter, but I have a feeling that 215 would have still been possible and more likely than not even more. Oh also this was after I finished a 2 hour gymnastics workout that involved planching etc...

[Michael Traynor]

I'm 78kg - 1.5 years ago I could bench 100kg comfortably, the other day I went with a buddy of mine to the gym, this was the first bench pressing I had done in 1.5 years. Warm up on bench: 15 reps of 80kg, 10 Reps of 90kg, 5 Reps 100kg, 5 Reps 110kg, Comfortable couple of reps at 115kg, felt like I could have done more.

I agree with Razz, Upper body - gymnastics in king, Legs - you can get a great workout and dymnamic, powerful legs, but may lose some amount of hypertrophy if your legs are currently huge and you want to keep them that way.

[Razz]

Nice Breaks! Those are some good numbers man!

[AlexX]

I am pretty much with the rest of the people's answers here. I'd say for bench yeah you can definitely maintain maybe even get stronger. For deadlift and squat I am going to have to say no way especially not a 500 lbs. deadlift and a 400 lbs squat. That shows some very dedicated squat and deadlift work that really can't be maintained without weights. Heavy single leg squats and odd object lifting can do the trick but not back or front lever work.