Help set my expectations

Just a little background about myself. I'm in my late 30s and after feeling mushy and out of shape, ordered an in home extreme fitness program off an infomercial. For the past 5 months I've completely changed my eating, exercised 6 days a week lost a lot of weight and dropped my body fat% to where I'm now happy. I've become hooked again on fitness and a healthy lifestyle.

Through web surfing, and the recent olympic games I came across body weight training using gymnastic rings which drove me to this web site.

From what I've taken away from some of the reading on this site, it's not all about the look of a gymnist but the functional strength as well, but what really should I expect? I've read about needing patience and that it may take years to do some of the moves performed by olympic gymnasts. I'm being honest when I say for me it's not all about the strength. I would like that to help me perform better but it is also for the upper body visual gains. Does it take longer to see visual and strength gains from bodyweight ring training than traditional weight resistance training? I'm eagerly awaiting the pre-release for Coach Sommer's book and can't wait to do some of this.

Come next summer if somone see's me at the pool, are they more likely to say "that guys looks good" if I spent 45 minutes a few days a week training with weights or practicing gymnast type workouts. Is there's a way to do both ring and weight resistance training, or just stick with one. Again from a strength gains perspective it seems gymnastic activities is worth pursing.

I hope this doesn't come across as shallow. I'm just looking to mix it up a bit and look forward to this challenge. Just wanting to know in what aspects it will be rewarding and set my own expectations.

Thanks.

P.S. I did read the "Gymnastic Work vs Classical Strength Work" and "What is this site for" but I felt my questions are slightly different.

I too am in this for the strength and the "look". That's exactly what the site is about. If you follow Coach's progressions, I'm sure you will build an aesthetically pleasing body. At first, I lost weight when I started doing bodyweight exercises and started to look very small, and now I've begun putting some more muscle on with it. Just enjoy the ride and don't worry about it and you'll reap the benefits you want.

If you want mass, go weight lifting, 6-12 reps & high volume! ^^

But, I did some weight lifting combined with my mma training now & then but I didn't enjoy it, so never started serious. Then I found out this site and started serious training for gymnastic moves at home, in combination with my mma training still. I gained faster then ever and a lot of people noticed changes! Rounder shoulders, bigger lats, bigger sixpack. :wink:

Also, the strength I gained for everyday life things can not be compared with the strength I would have gained from weight lifting! I also notice it while wrestling. (and others do )

Just do what you enjoy!

danniboi said:

If you want mass, go weight lifting, 6-12 reps & high volume! ^^

Not looking for bodybuilder size, more let's say fitness model, which I think gymnasts have the physiques of. Come next year as long as I'm not smaller and less defined then this will be worth the departure from traditional strength training.

There's a ton of info, advise, techniques, etc... on traditional weight/resitance training, but very little on this so I just want to make sure I avoid over training or doing anything counter-productive.

golfwolf said:

danniboi said:

If you want mass, go weight lifting, 6-12 reps & high volume! ^^

Not looking for bodybuilder size, more let's say fitness model, which I think gymnasts have the physiques of. Come next year as long as I'm not smaller and less defined then this will be worth the departure from traditional strength training.

There's a ton of info, advise, techniques, etc... on traditional weight/resitance training, but very little on this so I just want to make sure I avoid over training or doing anything counter-productive.

If you want to get bigger as fast as possible you cant beat the bodybuilding way to go. And if you think the "bodybuilder size" is that easy to get, get real dude lol. Is not like go gym 2 weeks, OMG I'm Arnold!

You can get the look that you are looking for through this type of training but it will take longer. But your pound for pound strength and overall strength would be much higher that normal bodybuilding programs. Also you would be able to do nice skills/feats through this type of training.

rambo5501 said:

If you want to get bigger as fast as possible you cant beat the bodybuilding way to go. And if you think the "bodybuilder size" is that easy to get, get real dude lol. Is not like go gym 2 weeks, OMG I'm Arnold!

You can get the look that you are looking for through this type of training but it will take longer. But your pound for pound strength and overall strength would be much higher that normal bodybuilding programs. Also you would be able to do nice skills/feats through this type of training.

Thanks for the response. I'm not sure where I wrote that it's fast and easy to get bodybuilder type results though. I did ask if results in ones appearance would come quicker (say in a 6-12 month timeframe) using gymnastic type workouts or traditional weight/resistance type workouts and based on your response it seems it's the later. I personally have had a decent transformation in the last 4 months through proper diet and exercise. I'm not looking for a speedy or complete transformation this time, I'd just like to try something new and see what type of changes to my appearance and strength I should expect doing this over the next year.

I just got my rings and plan on incorporating both rings and weight lifting into my routine. Along with parallettes. Doing dips, pull-ups, body rows, is similar to doing them with weights but much harder and effective IMO. Add a chin/dip belt for addiing additional weight and your good to go.

Saw a nice site recently http://beastskills.com

golfwolf said:

I did ask if results in ones appearance would come quicker (say in a 6-12 month timeframe) using gymnastic type workouts or traditional weight/resistance type workouts

Without a doubt, weights. Very few people do Gymnastic Strength Training™ with appearance as their number one goal. Functional strength is more improved with gymnastics. That doesn't mean you can't get strong with weights or that you can't improve appearance with gymnastics, just that each has a different effect.

Upper body size is best gained by doing heavy weighted dips and chin ups. Throw in weighted FULL RANGE handstand pushups and you will be a BEAST.