Weighted Dips And Pullups

[Alen Buljubasic]

I was just wondering are these two exercises incorporated in gymnastics? I know that coach sommers mentioned it in the book (the part that the belt broke) but i was wondering why not do them more often?

[alec_ar]

I agree with what Zach said. (Adding weight to calisthenics can add strength and mass, so from a basic standpoint they can be useful) But with all the FL variations and other 'harder' calisthenic movements, you just don't get too much bang for your buck with weighted bodyweight exercises.

if your main focus is GST, there's simply not as much of a place for weighted exercises like the ones you mentioned. They are very limited as skill work--once again as Zach said, they will never help you achieve GST elements.

And usually, with a decently structured GST training program you're gonna be cutting off the excess fat, as in exercises that are less useful and less relevant, and utilizing ones that will build the proper strength and foundation. I believe that is mainly why you don't see more weighted basic exercises.

[Joshua Naterman]

It's also what Coach has personal experience with, and I think he knows what he's doing when it comes to developing his gymnasts!

 

I will say, from a practical perspective, that it's a lot cheaper to do leverage-based GST than weighted push ups.

 

For a competitive gymnast, that extra size is not always an advantage, but because this community is a fitness-based community instead of a competition-based community, that extra size is often what people are looking for at first.

 

For those people, the weighted push ups can be great. Just know that they won't do much for conditioning the elbows for straight arm work.

 

Weighted dips are fine as well, but you start getting into a lot of complicated programming, because Gymnastic Bodies is designed as a complete program. If you're going to do weighted dips or weighted push ups, you're going to cause issues with the standard template, which is extremely well-rounded and easy to perform without worrying about where to put your weights when you're done.

 

I do think that there is value to the weighted work, but if you don't know how to program it into the GB program then you are better off not doing any.

 

If, for whatever reason, you want to do weighted work, I suggest the following simple concept: Replace two of the 5 sets of, say, PPP,  with weighted push ups. You will still have 3 sets of PPP and that's plenty, while also having 2 sets of the weighted push ups. Apply this to all the exercises you want to perform some weighted work in.

 

You can pick other numbers if you want, and I'm not going to answer questions about them. I mention those numbers because they allow you to do what you want while maintaining the gymnastic strength focus.

[Karri Kytömaa]

The point of gymnastics isn't getting good at doing pull ups or dips but much harder low leverage positions. Essentially the strength of doing these easy moves weighted comes as a by product. 

For a straight forward example, you just need to combine these two to get a muscle up, where the transition phase is 'very' hard low leverage position. Doing weighted pull ups and dips won't really make you stronger in this very hard position but getting stronger there will definitely help your pull ups and dips.

[Brian Li]

The point of gymnastics isn't getting good at doing pull ups or dips but much harder low leverage positions. Essentially the strength of doing these easy moves weighted comes as a by product. 

For a straight forward example, you just need to combine these two to get a muscle up, where the transition phase is 'very' hard low leverage position. Doing weighted pull ups and dips won't really make you stronger in this very hard position but getting stronger there will definitely help your pull ups and dips.

I don't think that's a good example though because the transition movement is a lot different than either pull-ups or dips. I guess being strong in the transition may transfer some strength to pull-ups and dips, but I doubt it will be much since they're very different. A better example would be planche push-ups vs. weighted push-ups where the torque at the shoulders requires more strength without adding more weight in the planche push-up.

[Andrew Long]

I have used weighted movements when i could quite easily do one progression but couldn't quite do enough on the next progression.

for example going from single bar dips to korean dips.  If I could easily do 5x5 of single bar dips but couldn't do more than a couple of korean dips then I'd add some weight to my single bar dips until I could perform more korean dips. although I have to say that the weight wasn't necessary because there are other ways to improve other than adding weight, one of which has helped me a lot is modifying the tempo if the exercise.

the only reason I see for adding weight to an exercise, is to make you look stronger when there are other people around because most wouldn't understand the difficulty difference from a normal dip to a korean dip.

[alec_ar]

I still feel like weights can and SHOULD be avoided with GST usually. Don't you guys agree that instead of adding weight to a progression, one should work on the skill work itself? (A la in planche, if you're struggling with the flat tuck, you should work on muscle recruitment, hold time in regular tuck, or work on the extra lean required for flat tuck to get accustomed to the feel of the next progression. Adding weight to a tuck pl to try and help a flat tuck is silly I feel, and potentially dangerous for the CTs)

Simarly, if you want to advance from PPP's to tuck pl push ups, doing regular push ups with added weight is in my opinion not a good idea. You would want to work the static progressions as well as perhaps a grease the groove kind of eccentric tuck pl push up, pausing on the way down as much as possible. Form before function, and adding weight to show off has no benefit in this type of training imo.

For the PB dip-Korean dip progression, wouldn't adding weight be potentially harmful to your shoulders if you're not yet proficient in Korean dips? Working a foot supported supinated dip might be a better approach...

[Andrew Long]

I still feel like weights can and SHOULD be avoided with GST usually. Don't you guys agree that instead of adding weight to a progression, one should work on the skill work itself? (A la in planche, if you're struggling with the flat tuck, you should work on muscle recruitment, hold time in regular tuck, or work on the extra lean required for flat tuck to get accustomed to the feel of the next progression. Adding weight to a tuck pl to try and help a flat tuck is silly I feel, and potentially dangerous for the CTs)

Simarly, if you want to advance from PPP's to tuck pl push ups, doing regular push ups with added weight is in my opinion not a good idea. You would want to work the static progressions as well as perhaps a grease the groove kind of eccentric tuck pl push up, pausing on the way down as much as possible. Form before function, and adding weight to show off has no benefit in this type of training imo.

For the PB dip-Korean dip progression, wouldn't adding weight be potentially harmful to your shoulders if you're not yet proficient in Korean dips? Working a foot supported supinated dip might be a better approach...

I agree weights are not necessary for progression but sometimes it can be nice to see your strength gains and that is much easier by seeing an increase in the amount of weight you can move compared with doing a new variations of the exercise.  And I believe in some circumstances added weight can be helpful especially once you have mastered certain movements.  As for the adding weight to dip progressions I can not see at all why that would be harmful to your shoulders if you do it in the way I described earlier.  the only time i see it being harmful is if you have sloppy form and push to hard before your ready, which is not how I describe my thoughts on using weights to advance.

You don't need weights to improve, especially at the begging but it is easier to measure progress with imo and maybe once you have mastered the harder progressions it could be useful in some areas, although that will be some time away for most.

[alec_ar]

Fair enough bro. Yes I'm not literally against added weight in all situations, (some extraordinary athletes like Vass do weight vest planches with good form, and Rodrigues does weight vest Victorians, when you get good enough at gymnastic elements adding weight is excellent) but this topic was primarily about weighted pul ups and dips and basic exercises, in which case, I believe for overall athleticism and strength building, these tools can be a fine method but for GST, I think there are always more practical and effective means to achieve your progressions and goals.