Street Workout Vs Gymnastics Conditioning

Hello everyone!

I'm just wondering how long does it take to get to this level through gymnastic conditioning

I know this guy is not a beast but he got to this level with only 1 year of consistent training. He was doing only weighted pull ups, push ups\dips. Started out completely out of shape.

I personaly know guys( street workouters) who've been training for only 1-2 years, yet they can do advanced stuff like full planche push ups, 1 arm pull\push ups.

It seems like with gymnastics type of training i'll be there in like 5 years. Too long.

Well, to be honest, considering that he didn't do anything properly, this level of strength can be achieved in no time if you know what you're doing.

There actually aren't that many people who aren't gymnasts who have perfect full planche push-ups. Everything I see in these "street workout" videos are usually bad form. There's only a few guys who actually have respectable form.

I'm not hating on these guys or anything, but, I really don't like it when these people claim they can do these things, but their form is terrible.

The video is bent arm strength. Gymnastics training also includes training the lower body, as well as handstands, as well as straight arm strength as well as skills.

If you take all that away, and focus strictly on bent arm strength with GB progressions, then you will achieve this strength as well anywhere from 6 months to 2 years depending.

In my very biased opinion, if you want all of your skills to look like crap, then by all means train like him. 

From a less biased perspective, gymnastics-style training has many advantages:

- Aesthetics. Practitioners of GST look categorically superior when performing the same movement.

- Maximal strength. I've never seen a 'street-workout' practicioner who can do a maltese, or a manna, or a planche-pushup with good form. Though it develops a lot of strength, perhaps more quickly even, street-workout seems to plateau earlier than GST.

- Overall health and wellness. GST includes emphasis on acquiring mobility, flexibility, posture, and maintaining health of connective tissues. These result in a longer overall strength journey, but also represent a more balanced fitness program. 

So if your goals are to develop an impressive physique and some cool skills to show off, a street workout is probably the better choice. Do not let anyone tell you that GST is 'superior,' because the better choice is entirely dependent on what you want to get out of your workout.

Bar12 said:

Hello everyone! I'm just wondering how long does it take to get to this level through gymnastic conditioning

?/ I know this guy is not a beast but he got to this level with only 1 year of consistent training. He was doing only weighted pull ups, push ups\dips. Started out completely out of shape. I personaly know guys( street workouters) who've been training for only 1-2 years, yet they can do advanced stuff like full planche push ups, 1 arm pull\push ups. It seems like with gymnastics type of training i'll be there in like 5 years. Too long.

The difference is usually in the trainee, not the training. I know guys who could hold a rough planche after a few weeks. Many will be very lucky to achieve that after a number of years, making no mistakes in their training.

Impressive case studies should be used as "inspiration", if required, but, almost by definition, they're of limited use for most people when it comes to planning our own training and forecasting results.

Bar12 said:

I personaly know guys( street workouters) who've been training for only 1-2 years, yet they can do advanced stuff like full planche push ups, 1 arm pull\push ups. It seems like with gymnastics type of training i'll be there in like 5 years. Too long.

Well then they could be doing some sort of gymnastic type strength training too. It's not like they are doing full planche push-ups overnight  from just doing non-gymnastics specific strength training like bench press.

Oh and it is possible to reach that level of strength in as short as a matter of months. It depends on various factors like starting strength, training programs, genetics, etc.

do you think that the time is the real problem about "reach this level of strength"? , i met a boy in my gym who reached the full planche in 5 months so i'm not surprised. the problem here, as the 99% of the street workout performers , is that they have never followed a correct progression to condition both strengh and joints. so they are sooo strong and probably their joints are more weak than mine. if there is something that i've learned from coach is that there is no time that is spent in vain if is spent upon correct progression over the time.

you can see tons of these street performers , strong, no doubt, but i don't think that coach share their approach to bent arms strength and straight arms strength

Achieving that level of strength requires several years of very dedicated training.  Everyone specializes and he is focused on specific elements, mostly bent arm strength but before anyone says those moves are easy knock out a few planche push-ups on a pull-up bar and compare your results to his.

Keep this in mind:

When looking at a planche push up, executed with poor form, you need to understand that the poor form represents a certain strength level. If this person was strong enough to do so with good form, they would.

We've seen this in the gym with a guy named Blake, who's one of those natural beasts we are all jealous of. He thought he had a maltese until we started correcting form, and all of a sudden he realizes just how much work he has left to do.

So, when you see someone doing heavily arched planche push ups, or holding a planche all crazy, please realize that they are not strong enough to do these with proper form yet.

That doesn't mean they aren't pretty strong, but it definitely means that they are not nearly as strong as someone who can do the same things with significantly better, or perfect, form.

It is a huge mistake to compare ugly form with good form, especially when talking about how strong someone is.

From what I've seen, proper preparation methods like the Foundation Series actually allow you to learn much better form, and thus actually develop more strength, than what we see in a lot of youtube videos.

I guarantee you this: You give 18-24 months to the Foundation Series and you won't be super impressed by much of what you see in Youtube street workouts anymore.

Thanks everyone! I got the point. And i decided to stick with GST. I'm really glad that the foundation one is already released.I'm going to buy it and give it a try.

They disregard mobility work and the most straight arm scapula strength. Many only have decent front levers... the rest are arched pseudo-planches, arched back levers and half ROM OACs. I have seen one Russian guy to perform a decent floor maltese though - this guy might have a gymnastic background though! I also give credit to their bar muscle-ups, a few individuals are able to perform them very smooth and explosively. Legs? I don't think many train their legs at all. 

One thing I don't get at all with calisthenics crew: what is the obsession with high reps sets? HUNDREDS of push-ups, dozens of pull-ups etc. And most often it is about quantity, not quality. 

First,I used to do street workout, i did about 6 muscleups and a lot of pull-ups and push-ups. Then I started learning handstand with my friend,that was what made me to change to gymnastics...

I was shocked of how much hard is to perform the simplest exercises(arch holds,hollow holds), I thought it will be easy because of my street workout back round, but it only gave me bent arm strength.

If you want bent arm strengthe. go for street workout

If you want overall strenthe, go GST

sorry for my bad english,I just want to help

My man, I did a bit of calisthenics before I moved over to gymnastic conditioning. What I can say is that calisthenics is child's play compared to gymnastics. By just attempting a frog stand for three days in a row I was able to increase my knuckle push ups drastically. Bottom line is that if you want the most transferable strength do gymnastics otherwise stick to calisthenics. I also agree with everyone else that calisthenics is bent arm strength only.

Well, there are tricksters / freerunners who release trailer videos after a year throwing some pretty big skills - gainer kongs, I think I've seen a double back, huge gap jumps, etcetera. And there are others who believe that the only way to get proficient at tumbling is to try it many times, fail, get up and do it again. Indeed - there are certain people, who, using this method, achieve great results - and post their amazing 1-year progress videos to the chagrin of people who have been working on mastery for a long time. At the same time, there are others who get hurt using this same method, and you don't usually hear their story - they never get to make a 1 year sampler. So the stories you hear of these things working out are only from the people that succeeded - which can give you quite a biased sample.

My 2 cents: I think the idea that you have to be frank with yourself in terms of your own goals is the right one. I've been in "the best shape of my life" four different times - the only difference lies in how I defined "shape" at the time. Being in great wrestling shape, for example, would not do much for my climbing, and being in great climbing shape has only remote resemblance to rowing shape, where power endurance predominates over brute strength. So your progress can only be measured with respect to your goals: if my goal was to make the Olympics as a rower, F1 & H1 might be the wrong way to go (then again, maybe not).

In my opinion, the three qualifications of a good [strengthening/leisure] activity are 1) something you enjoy doing, 2) something that is sustainable over time, and 3) something that makes incremental progress towards your goals (whatever those might be. And if you don't have them... change that!)  If you have 2 of the 3 (but preferrably all 3) of those down, it doesn't really matter what the activity is, per se: you're going to progress and have fun doing it, and that's a win-win.

I reread my post, and it sounds very much like rambling. Apologies. Maybe there's some small tidbit of sense hidden in there.

I train in playgrounds alot, do navy seals bodyweight progression drills there, trying to smash the Bar-barian and Barstarzz requirements by the time i reach the advanced progression (will take more than a year at least) should be able to perform insane amounts of pullups, pushups, dips, muscle-ups, and leg raises.

But I follow orthodox gymnastic methods for training planche, lever, and handstands.  Love all the info here and in Coach's book.  I'm all too aware of elite 'street' athletes like Frank Medrano, Hannibal, Barstarzz, and all sorts of free runners who have bent arm planches and sloppy handstands b/c they train so unorthodox, they have amazing strength but it's not gorgeous form by any means which is kind of sad to have trained so hard but the final result is far from perfect...Thanks to Coach Sommer for his planche and lever articles I found a couple years ago on the Dragondoor website it has opened my training up to a whole new world of gymnastics conditioning!!!  

Super Saiyan said:

My man, I did a bit of calisthenics before I moved over to gymnastic conditioning. What I can say is that calisthenics is child's play compared to gymnastics. By just attempting a frog stand for three days in a row I was able to increase my knuckle push ups drastically. Bottom line is that if you want the most transferable strength do gymnastics otherwise stick to calisthenics. I also agree with everyone else that calisthenics is bent arm strength only.

It would seem the majority of calisthenics people aren't even aware of the term 'straight-arm', lol.  But if you train calisthentics mindfully with a gymnast mindset you can definitely incorporate straight arm strength into it there is no reason it should be bent arm strength only other than being too lazy or completely unaware of perfect form, imo.

There's something to be said about just going out there and doing it. 

Not reading about what you should or should not do.

Not over thinking about the right training program or how many reps and sets.

Not feeling paralyzed by the plethora of information out there. 

There is something to be said about this type of training.
 

Sure, the forms may suck, the technique is not correct. 

But there is something to be said about just going outside to the park and moving your body in ways you have never done before.

So for that, I think the original video (and similar videos) is inspiring.

Just do it... Live. Breathe. Move.