How to Get the Body of a Gymnast

I was recently reading Tim Ferriss’s new book “Tools Of Titans”, and in that book (which I review here), Tim describes how his biceps strength and size, core stability, mobility, and explosiveness all notably increased the past year via the use of a strategy called “Gymnast Strong” from gymnastics coach Chris Sommer of GymnasticBodies.com.

It’s certainly been a little while since I’ve written about the benefits of gymnastics training (my first foray into exploring this style of training is detailed in my article “How to Get the Abs of a Gymnast”), but Tim’s experience actually inspired me to incorporate just a bit more gymnastics-style training into my own routine in 2017, and in this episode, you’re going to discover exactly why you should train like a gymnast, how to get the body of a gymnast, and some sample gymnastics routines for handstand and muscle-up.

Why You Should Train Like a Gymnast

Every four years, fitness enthusiasts around the world have a chance to marvel at the the impressive physiques of the gymnasts competing in the Olympics. The males have huge, muscular arms, broad shoulders, V-shaped waists, and extremely developed glutes, while the females are lean and strong with tiny waists and tight buns. Both sexes demonstrate impressive feats of not just strength, but also balance, coordination, and extreme amounts of mobility and flexibility.

So how are these folks training? What kind of exercise routines do they do?

Most of the types of movements these athletes are performing are quite powerful and explosive in nature, including handsprings, pull-up actions that involve hoisting themselves into the air and “muscling up” over a bar, mid-air abdominal tucks, and springs off beams and boards. This power requirement forces them to work their fast-twitch muscles like a sprinter, and to reap all the fat loss benefits of high intensity interval training.

Now granted: most gymnasts develop their actual muscle mass and low body fat over a number of years, with most starting to train when they are younger than eight years old, giving them around ten years to put on the muscle mass seen in the Olympics. But surprisingly, most gymnasts don't actually lift much with traditional weight training exercises to achieve this type of muscle.

Instead, gymnasts perform a high number of relatively complex bodyweight and balancing exercises, which, due to the instability factor, can be extremely taxing on both slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers.

These moves include double and single arm pull-ups, ring dips and ring holds, balance beams, parallel bars, handstand push-ups and handstand walking, and isometric holds, often for 4-6 training hours each day every day of the week.

So what is the big picture here?

In a nutshell, to apply gymnastics training principles to your program, you need to add in more plyometric and explosive exercises and also more complex bodyweight exercises that involve balance and isometric holds.

When you do this, you will find that weightlifting is not the only way to build muscle mass or an impressive physique, and by instead implementing a variety of body weight exercises and complex movements in a workout, you can “attack” both your muscles and your overall fitness from a variety of different angles. The type of exercises you’ll learn below—exercises that require you to maneuver your own bodyweight—are far superior for developing the lean, functional muscle of an Olympic gymnast compared to moving around those heavy pieces of metal in the gym.

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Resources to Train Like a Gymnast

So how can you learn to implement this unique style of training?

One book I’m currently reading to get plenty of other gymnastics training instructions and also instructions for maximizing sport and life performance using something called “freestyle movements” is a book by Carl Paoli entitled “free+style.” I’m also beginning to use Carl’s website GymnasticsWOD.com to introduce a quick skill or flexibility based gymnastics workout into my morning routine.

I’ve also come across a fantastic full free year of daily gymnastics training at the Breaking Muscle website. These are also the same moves my two eight year old boys are going to begin in 2017.

 

Finally, the website GMB.io contains a host of programs you can purchase for a variety of goals, fitness levels, and time limitations, including moves such as Animal Flow, Focused Flexibility and Integral Strength.

 

These are just a few examples of some of the more helpful resources you’ll find on the web. If you’re more hands-on you can, of course, simply waltz into your local gymnastics facility and ask for a few private lessons with an instructor.

 

I recently did that very thing when visiting Los Angeles last week, where Olympic gymnast and gymnastics phenom Stephen McCain took me through a series of moves such as muscle-ups, handstands and even aerial yoga swing gymnastics.

A Sample Handstand Routine

Based on what I’ve learned from websites and resources such as those listed above, here is a tiny sampling of the handstand routine I’m going to be practicing every 4 weeks. It’s called the 4 Week Handstand Happiness routine, and you can download it for free at Breaking Muscle.

Day One

• 10 x 10 second handstand hold (belly to wall)
• 20 tuck up
• 30 deficit hand release push up (set plates for your hands )
• 40 superman pulses  

Day Two

• 5x20sec frog tand holds - try straight arm (working balance on hands)
• accumulate 2 minute handstand hold - belly to wall
• 2x30 shifts from right to left - back to wall
• 4min - tabata hollow rocks (in straight/hollow body position)

Day Three

5 rounds for quality

• accumulate 1 min of handstand - wall or freestanding
• 10 strict barbell presses @65% bw
• 10 hollow to superman rocks

A Sample Muscle-Up Routine

Once I finish the handstand routine above, I’ll move into 4 weeks of working on my “muscle-up”. Here’s a sample 4 week muscle-up progression, also credited to the website “Breaking Muscle”.

Session One

·         Kipping MU – 3 reps EMOM x 10 mins

·         Strick ring dips 5 x 10 @BW

·         Hollow hold – 0:20 x 5

·         Arch hold – 0:20 x 5

Session Two

·         Strict C2B pull ups 4 x 8 @BW

·         Ring support holds – 0:15 x 6

·         Hanging L-sit – 0:15 x 6

Session Three

·         Ring complex: 2 strict ring pull ups, 2 strict MU, 2 strict dips x 5 sets

·         Ring push ups – 5 x 10 @BW

·         Hollow rock – 0:20 x 5

·         Arch rock – 0:20 x 5

Summary

While there aren’t necessarily any “rules” when it comes to sprinkling in gymnastics-style training into your weekly routine, you can see that my plan is to simply set aside 15-20 minutes on three days of the week to develop the coordination, balance, strength, mobility and flexibility of a gymnast, along with many of the other fitness and “biohacking” tactics I’m using to build a better body in early 2017, tactics which you can view in detail in this video that I recently created in which I highlight the details of my fitness plan for the first 12 weeks of 2017.

Using the resources I’ve provided in this article, you can do the same! In the meantime, do you have questions, comments or feedback about how to train like a gymnast? Join the conversation at http://ift.tt/1PKzcip.