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| The Olympic rings. If I had to pick one piece of training equipment that had the most versatility and effectiveness it would be these. |
Our Gymnastics Workshop went ahead full steam last Saturday and it was a great day of bodyweight tekkers by all.
Sometimes the basic bodyweight principals and movements can be overlooked in favour of more advanced Barbell Lifts and the like but really being able to control and manipulate your own body in a variety of ways is where a good portion of your training focus should lie. Not only do Gymnastic skills give you added agility, flexibility and co-ordination they also build mahoosive amounts of strength!
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| Not bad musculature...and not a barbell in sight in his training. |
Olympic gymnasts as a general rule do not lift weights. And look how muscular they are. Gymnastic training is based on an increasing progression of harder and harder movements using your own body as a lever to create increasing resistance ie more work. As a general rule, the more tucked you are in any position the easier it will be and the more stretched out you are the harder it will be. Look at the two examples below:
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| Tuck Lever |
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| Full Front Lever. |
The top photo, whilst still hard to hold for the beginner, will be a whole load easier than holding the full front lever like in the second photo. The more extended you are the harder it will be.
This is only one element that can be used in order to make bodyweight exercises as hard as you want them to be. Got your press ups? Try close grip ones. Got them? Try Lever Press ups (one hand on a ball, rolling it out to the side). Got pull ups? Try wide grip pull ups. Got them? Try uneven towel hanging pull ups. Whatever level you are at you are sure to find one stage of any exercise that you cant do and therefore can practice and make gains in.
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| Wrist mobility drills. And when you're ready, try doing press ups like this. Insanely hard. (Please don't actually go straight into trying these, your are likely to break your wrist! If you want to give them a go start on your knees first) |
At our Workshop we started off gauging everyones levels in the six major bodyweight moves; Push ups, Pull ups, Pistols (or one legged squats), Handstands, Bridges and Hanging Leg Raises.
These are the bread and butter gymnastic movements and ones that you should all try and become as efficient as possible in. And the great thing about them? Aside from a pull up bar you need hardly any space or any equipment. Just the knowledge of how to progress from one small achievable step to the next.
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| Bridges...a fantastic back and shoulder exercise. |
And this brings up an important point. You shouldn't rush this learning curve. Take your time to really perfect your reps and solidify the rep amounts you are aiming for. If you are gunning for 3 sets of 15 reps of full press ups (a pretty good rep range to aim for) before moving up to the next level don't just squeeze out an ugly 14th and 15th rep and then decide you are ready for close grip push ups. Take a few weeks to really nail those 3 sets of 15 perfectly. Then move on. Your progress will be much quicker and more assured and you wont become dejected when you move up a level and cant do any!
Along with the 6 foundational movements we also introduced Olympic ring work like ring supports, front and back levers, skin the cats and muscle ups and then some static floor progressions building up towards the seemingly gravity defying planches.
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| A Full Planche. Yeah..these are gonna take some work. |
The four hours flew by and we had some aching muscles by the end. All our attendees had gained a much greater understanding of the bodyweight progressions, how to programme them into their training themselves and how, with small manageable steps, even the most advanced moves can be attained if you have the desire and inclination to train hard and often.
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| Getting inverted! Front and Back Lever work. |
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Until then my bodyweight ninjas..............
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