New to gymnastics/questions

Hey guys!

its great to be here! Let me give you some background. I'm 20 years old and serving in the army. I'm in Afghanistan at the moment and I finally started to get into this kind of training. I have only been weight training for about 6 or 7 months.

Now I've tried some workouts that I've found on this website but honestly I wasn't feeling sore anywhere (except my core) and this worries me. A lot of people say to just take your time and go through all the different things slowly to see what works. Unfortunately I don't have that option because of where I am.

So my questions are:

Will I be able to pair working out in the gym with weights (to stay in shape and not lose any of the strength I've gained) and work on my FSP's? Should I do these on seperate days or do one in the afternoon and one at night?

Also I dont feel challenged in some workouts. Why are the reps for pullups and pushups and the sort so low?

thats all I have for now but I'm sure I'll be posting regularly on this site. I loved the book and hope to be accomplishing some of the FSP's and FBE's featured in the book. Thanks in advance!

Welcome!

deadPhish said:

Why are the reps for pullups and pushups and the sort so low?

You are supposed to scale the difficulty of the exercises so the rep ranges you are aiming for are pretty difficult. If you can do 60 push-ups, then doing sets of 5 push-ups won't help you much. You can use the book as a reference when looking for more difficult variations or add some weight to the exercises, etc.

From what I've gathered so far, if you aren't feeling challenged, you aren't doing the correct progression within the scope of the things. And if your core is getting really sore after a workout it means it was underdeveloped to begin with, and the core is fundamental to all the other exercises that you do want to feel the soreness in.

Read all the stickies in one sitting and it will all sort of fall into place for you, it helped me!

What were you doing before GB? CrossFit? Good ole lift in the gym, run, and ruck? I see 6-7 months of weight lifting? Is this the common body part split routine?

Many people do GB because they do not have access to weights or they don't care for barbell training. Some like KB training. I don't see many DB enthusiasts over here.

Many people coming from a non gymnastics background will find their "core" taxed more than anything. I have found this very common with crossfitters who wander into gymnastics. Gymnasts tend to have a harder time with squatting, especially form besides volume and metabolic endurance.

Training in the 3-5 rep range is a repetition range that focus on strength and power development. If you can 8-12 repetitions of a movement, you won't find 3-5 very tasking. Only if you can 5-7 possibly. If you are not familiar with this, look up Prilepsin's table.

Most of the rounds in the WODs won't take very long and are given short rest periods. At most they might take 3 minutes plus or so and perhaps just a minute to two minutes. It's basically the energy system that is being chosen to be taxed here. Strength and Power, not really pure strength and power (except maybe the ring series).

One of the things to take slowly is the straight arm strength such as the Front and Back Lever and the Planche. Honestly, the Front Lever isn't as much of an issue because the arms are internally rotated whereas in the Back Lever and Planche they can be difficult on the elbows and shoulders especially concerning the stabilizers and joints. Your muscles may allow you to exceded what your connective tissue and joints can endure and it catches up and then something gives.

I used 531 last year pairing up Gymnastics Event training and S&C with 531 lifting just using the basic template. It was fun, quick, and allowed for some gains and saw to it I didn't lose my barbell strength. I also find barbell training to be superior and easier to implement than bodyweight lower body training. SLS of any variety aren't the same but you can't throw out some of it. Glute-Ham stuff is awesome and the Pistol version of the SLS does go along way for developing hip flexor strength and hip, knee, and ankle mobility.

As for bench, I could throw it away and be happy. My elbow and shoulder do not like them much anymore all in all. I do like DB bench and this never irritates it as much. It might also be due to the fact the load is less. I'm sure reverse grip BP would be fine if it wasn't such a hassle to rack and rerack.

The Lower Body GB WOD's are taxing to me only when it comes to basically glute-ham stuff. For the most part, I find them to be good for conditioning and I enjoy the blend of conditioning using sled drags, sprinting, and jumping/rebounding. Weighted box jump and jumping lunges. Good for those days I want to do lower body conditioning but I'll keep to Squats, Deadlifts, Sprinting, and Olympic Lifting for Lower body strength and power development.

What you will most likely find challenging is all the upper body work if you scale it appropriately using harder progressions. Having the book is critical to following the Gymnastics WOD. Whether it's the dynamic pushing or pulling WOD's or strength develop pushing or pulling WODS or just the basic strength WODS or Ring Strength WODS.