Advanced Training Methods 4 - West Side Barbell gymnastics

West Side Barbell influenced Gymnastic Strength Training™

The WSB is one of the most influential powerlifting gyms in the world. The idea that they are most known for is the combination of speed work and strength work.

Basicly, imroving your strength-speed and power will produce further development of maximal strength, even though MS is not speed-dependent.

The WSB schedule uses a combination of fast days, using sub-maximal weights moved for speed and a maximal day with maximal loads.

The combination of fast, slow and even static strength means is not new to gymnastics training, but what I offer here is a better way to organize it and control quality of work and fatigue. This is a main problem in gymnastics training - there is a lot to do, and sometimes it makes the coaches take a 'just do it' attitude towards training. I suspect there is an optimal way to put it together. A clever way. An efficient one. One that will give you the edge over other hard workers.

Schedule and programming

Using the concept of fast and slow in gymnastics will make us devide movements into fast-dynamic/plyometric/explosive movements with little load on the musculature used and slow-dynamic/static/high load movements.

I advice the use the following schedule:

A. Upper Body speed + Lower body strength (if needed) + Core Strength

B. Lower Body speed + Upper Body strength + Core Speed

C. Conditioning / deload or easy day / technical intensive day / other

These three workouts will be repeated once more right away during the training week for a total of 2 workouts of each kind and 6 days work/1 day rest a week.

Examples

A. Upper Body Speed + Lower Body Strength + Core

A1. Ring Kip ups 5 reps x 5 sets

A2. Swinging Dips Pbars 5 double reps x 5 sets

B1. Ring Fast Muscle Ups with locked body 5 reps x 5 sets

B2. Hanstand push up jump into step 5 reps x 5 sets

C1. Pistol - One legged Dl hybrid 1 rep of each x 8-12 sets

C2. Harrop Curl concentric only 3 reps x 8-12 sets

D1. Body Levers 6-8 reps X 3 sets

B. Lower Body Speed + Upper Body Strength + Core

A1. Senders Series 10 jump x 3-5 sets

A2. Rolling Deck Squat into platform (50-150 cm high) with weight plate (5-25kg) 5 reps x 3-5 sets

B1. Jumping pistol squats landing in half pistol position for length of 10 meter per leg (advancing forward) x 3-5 sets

B2. Depth jump (30-150 cm) to front flip into platform (30-150 cm) if you can do both drop of 150 and land on 150, you will impress me. 5 reps x 3-5 sets

C1. One arm chin ups (assisted if necessary) 1-1 x 8-12 sets

C2. Paralette push routine - L-sit - press HS - HSPU - lower to straddle-L - Press HS - HSPU - Lower to V/L sit (hold 3 sec per position) X 8-12 sets

D1. Vertical sit up contrast method - 3 reps with medicine ball behind head, (3-7 Kg) 3 reps without external weight. Both as fast as possible X 5 sets

*rest between sets A1 or B1 and A2 or B2 is 01:40 minutes

*rest between C1 and C2 sets is 02:00-03:00 minutes

*rest between D1 sets is 01:00-01:30 minutes

Great stuff Ido.

Just wanted to say a quick thank you for posting this series of Advanced Training Methods threads. I have found them to be of great interest and also very motivational.

Best,

George.

Fantastic post Ido,

Extremely informative as always and plenty of food for thought here

Cheers

Love the title the most!

West Side Barbell gymnastics!

Wow thanks Ido this is awesome!

Just something I was wondering about....wouldn't these routines take a long time to perform and I thought that the optimal time for a workout was to not exceed an hour or is this simply not possible due to all the areas that have to be covered here? But like you said this is an advanced method so maybe it's more suited to people who have a high work capacity etc.

Thanks.

Gymrob, you are right, it will take at least 90 minutes and could extend into 120 minutes. One solution would be to divide the speed part to an AM workout (45 minutes, 50 with a warm up) and the strength and core workout to a PM one.

The workouts were just an example, always try to understand the principles behind it and implement it to your needs.

This seems extremely interesting Certainly will try this bodyweight WSB out in some cycle after I come out of my newbie status

Ido Portal said:

West Side Barbell influenced Gymnastic Strength Training™

The WSB is one of the most influential powerlifting gyms in the world. The idea that they are most known for is the combination of speed work and strength work.

Basicly, imroving your strength-speed and power will produce further development of maximal strength, even though MS is not speed-dependent.

The WSB schedule uses a combination of fast days, using sub-maximal weights moved for speed and a maximal day with maximal loads.

The combination of fast, slow and even static strength means is not new to gymnastics training, but what I offer here is a better way to organize it and control quality of work and fatigue. This is a main problem in gymnastics training - there is a lot to do, and sometimes it makes the coaches take a 'just do it' attitude towards training. I suspect there is an optimal way to put it together. A clever way. An efficient one. One that will give you the edge over other hard workers.

Schedule and programming

Using the concept of fast and slow in gymnastics will make us devide movements into fast-dynamic/plyometric/explosive movements with little load on the musculature used and slow-dynamic/static/high load movements.

I advice the use the following schedule:

A. Upper Body speed + Lower body strength (if needed) + Core Strength

B. Lower Body speed + Upper Body strength + Core Speed

C. Conditioning / deload or easy day / technical intensive day / other

These three workouts will be repeated once more right away during the training week for a total of 2 workouts of each kind and 6 days work/1 day rest a week.

Examples

A. Upper Body Speed + Lower Body Strength + Core

A1. Ring Kip ups 5 reps x 5 sets

A2. Swinging Dips Pbars 5 double reps x 5 sets

B1. Ring Fast Muscle Ups with locked body 5 reps x 5 sets

B2. Hanstand push up jump into step 5 reps x 5 sets

C1. Pistol - One legged Dl hybrid 1 rep of each x 8-12 sets

C2. Harrop Curl concentric only 3 reps x 8-12 sets

D1. Body Levers 6-8 reps X 3 sets

B. Lower Body Speed + Upper Body Strength + Core

A1. Senders Series 10 jump x 3-5 sets

A2. Rolling Deck Squat into platform (50-150 cm high) with weight plate (5-25kg) 5 reps x 3-5 sets

B1. Jumping pistol squats landing in half pistol position for length of 10 meter per leg (advancing forward) x 3-5 sets

B2. Depth jump (30-150 cm) to front flip into platform (30-150 cm) if you can do both drop of 150 and land on 150, you will impress me. 5 reps x 3-5 sets

C1. One arm chin ups (assisted if necessary) 1-1 x 8-12 sets

C2. Paralette push routine - L-sit - press HS - HSPU - lower to straddle-L - Press HS - HSPU - Lower to V/L sit (hold 3 sec per position) X 8-12 sets

D1. Vertical sit up contrast method - 3 reps with medicine ball behind head, (3-7 Kg) 3 reps without external weight. Both as fast as possible X 5 sets

*rest between sets A1 or B1 and A2 or B2 is 01:40 minutes

*rest between C1 and C2 sets is 02:00-03:00 minutes

*rest between D1 sets is 01:00-01:30 minutes

************ Is this an accumulation or intensification cycle?

Brandon

I am very interested in this method of training and will be attempting to apply WSB training philosophy into my gymnastic WODs...

Anyone else doing this already or want to do this?

Looks interesting. I sort of want to do some other stuff in the off-season but honestly, I think I would miss do any gymnastics and go bonkers without it.

After this week, I'll be going into my off-season mode I think and by April the boy's group will be in off-season mode as well.

Cool, I think I will start a log on this site too and dual hat for a while on the CF site and post my stuff, I will have to wait until post-Sectionals however since I went bird-brain and decided to compete this year.