You won't find another athlete that is as strong using his/her own bodyweight then a gymnast. Gymnastics is a sport where you must use your body from many angles and most of them are very difficult. You would see a gymnast on the still rings, pommel horse, high bar, platform ect. and notice how they move themselves through such grace and power. There are well over 200 elite gymnasts in the world and there is a reason for that. Today when it comes to Olympic Gymnastics you first think of the Hamm twins. They're probably the greatest brother duo on the planet no question and they're huge for they're size at what 150 pounds.
The women are just as awesome as the men but I wish that the women had the chance to do other routines like the rings, you never see a female gymnast on the rings, I certainly havent. How awesome would it be if you saw a female athlete on the rings and having the strength to swing, hold and do the iron cross. Unfortunenitly many people don't see women having that kind of strength, to me thats total BS. They can already do unbelieveable routines and yet the one event they never do is the rings. I hope one day we see an olympic female gymnast do that event and win the gold.
Back to my writing here lol. Gymnastics is one of the hardest sports in the world next to wrestling. It takes balance, coordination, strength, flexibility and speed. One of the main ways to develop strength in gymnastics is through handstand training: walking on your hands, HS push-ups, free hand hops and walking up steps. It takes such great strength just to hold one of these, and you must keep the body tight at all times or you're on your ass or head. I haven't gotten up to free handing yet but I can do pretty well walking back and forth, side to side on the wall and i've put up some good strength in my upper body. Nothing makes you stronger then walking on your hands, think about it, we walk on our legs all day cause thats how our body is developed but imagine having the ability to walk on your hands, you know how much strength you're building. Crazy.
Whenever I watch gymnastics on TV i'm always impressed by what they do and I never believe the judges give them enough credit. My favorite event is obviously the rings cause its the one event where it tests your entire body through range of motion, your grip, muscle control, your core, shoulders, arms, back, hams, quads every muscle needs to be controled in order to hit the right movement or you're gonna fall. Hope I go to a USA Gymnastics event soon cause that'll be huge to me cause I practice a bit of gymnastics every day, even just doing bridging or walking on my hands with the Power Wheel its still a form of the sport.
If you want to see how gymnastics are in film check out the movie Stick It. Good story and a real teenage flick but has some surreal stunts.
Want to learn how to walk on your hands or practice handbalancing heres a couple guys that'll help get you there and one of them has a book coming out very soon keep checking daily with John Peterson's Site.
www.bronzebowpublishing.com
www.mattfurey.com
www.superstrengthtraining.com
Gymnastic Abs
Gymnastic Handstands
Yours in Power & Might
Ben
3 comments:
Hi Ben, Love your Blog. If you like gymnastics you might try finding a movie called Gymkata. It's about an Olympic gymneast who is trained in martial arts to become the ultimate super-spy. It's kinda goofy but the action and stunts are great!
Ever notice that "advanced" bodyweight exercises are VERY similar to gymnasic moves??
Elite female gymnasts can (in general) hardly do a single muscle up on the still rings.... they wont be competing that event ever without serious help from drugs.
In comparison a low level male gymnast can do in excess of 15 easily.
ENORMOUS strength difference that makes PH, SR, and to some extent PB possible.
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