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“Building an Olympic Body through Bodyweight Conditioning” by Coach Sommer
As I blogged about last Thursday, Coach Christopher Sommer has finally finished writing his book, Building the Gynmastic Body. I pre-ordered my copy as soon as I received his email, and now I’m just waiting like a kid on Christmas eve for the book to arrive because I like his approach (bodyweight only routines) and writing style (relaxed and to the point). Since I know that many of you are not familiar with Coach Sommer, I’ve decided to re-post the article that really started all the buzz in fitness forums all across the net. If after reading this article you are not convinced that you can build the body that you’ve always wanted with bodyweight only exercises, then I don’t know what to tell ya …. 
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“Building an Olympic Body through Bodyweight Conditioning“
By Christopher Sommer, author of Building the Gynmastic Body
www.gymnasticbodies.com
We have all seen them on television during the Olympics; these powerful men performing amazing skills with ease and grace. Watching them perform the question inevitably arises – are they as powerful as they look? And the answer is – yes. What will probably be even more surprising to you is that they build their strength and physiques almost entirely with various bodyweight exercises.
The list of requirements is long and can be rather daunting to prepare a world class athlete: passive flexibility, active flexibility, joint preparation, static strength, dynamic strength etc. etc. and is probably only interesting in detail to those of us involved with the physical preparation of champions. There are of course some supplemental exercises where weight is added (i.e. weighted leg lifts), however the central premise remains; these amazing athletes have built the vast majority of their strength and power through the use of bodyweight conditioning.
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Now another question that we should ask ourselves – is the bodyweight training of the Olympians also beneficial to the fitness enthusiast? And if so, is it possible to apply at least some of it to those without a professional instructor to guide them or tens of thousands of dollars of specialized gymnastics equipment? And the answers are once again – yes and yes. There are some of our specialized exercises that are relatively easy to learn and require little or no equipment beyond a chin-up bar and some floor space.
In this article, I will cover the basic progressions needed to learn two primary gymnastics exercises: the planche and the front lever. This will be by no means a complete bodyweight training program, but rather an introduction. These two movements were chosen for their novelty, the simplicity of the movements and for the excellent strength gains that are possible for those who are willing to commit the necessary sweat and dedication. The planche will be our pressing movement and the front lever will be our pulling movement. At advanced levels, adding a pushup to the planche and a pull-up to the front lever will effectively give a fairly intense full upper body workout, including the abs and lower back.
Now before continuing further into our training, let’s first regress and consider the question of why to do bodyweight conditioning in the first place? A common misconception is that bodyweight exercises do not build substantial strength but are rather more suited for building endurance. For most people this conjures images of endless pushups, sit-ups or for the strong, perhaps pull-ups and dips. Great maybe for general fitness or endurance, but of little value in building real strength.
First of all, exercise is exercise. Period. The name of the game is resistance. A muscle contracts against resistance and, with perseverance, over time, becomes stronger. For strength to increase, the amount of resistance or load worked against must also increase over time. Hence the problem with bodyweight conditioning – as the resistance (weight of the body) is fixed, how to continue to increase strength? Surprisingly the answer is simple – by decreasing the amount of leverage it is possible to exert on an exercise, the resistance of an exercise becomes increasingly greater. For example, a hanging straight leg lift is much harder than a tucked leg lift. In both exercises the weight of your legs remains constant, however by reducing your leverage (i.e. in this case straightening your legs) we are able to greatly increase the resistance. By straightening the legs we have effectively doubled the difficulty of the exercise even though the weight of the body has remained constant.
With experience and creativity it is possible to learn or design exercises that, done correctly and with the proper progressions, are so lacking in leverage that even at bodyweight levels of resistance it is possible to build staggering amounts of strength. In addition to strength, the athlete will also develop excellent balance, coordination, agility and exceptional core strength. Perhaps that is why spectacular film athletes like Jackie Chan and Mark Dacascos always include gymnastics training in their physical preparation.
How well do the progressions that I am going to share with you work? Well, consider that fact that Mr. Mas Watanabe recently visited my men’s gymnastics program and was astounded by the levels of strength and development he saw. For those of you outside the gymnastics community, Mr. Watanabe has been for the past 30 plus years, one of our primary leaders of men’s gymnastics here in the United States and has personally worked with and evaluated every Olympian, World Championship, National, and Junior National Team member that our country has produced during this time. After observing my current athletes completing their daily bodyweight conditioning program, Mr. Watanabe informed me that they were the strongest most physically prepared group of athletes he had ever seen. In fact he went so far as to state that he had never even seen another group come close. Now the main point that I would like to emphasize here – is that their physical development was procured almost exclusively through consistent progressive bodyweight conditioning.
How strong is it possible to become with bodyweight exercises? Amazingly strong. In fact I would go so far as to say, done correctly, far stronger than someone who had trained for the same amount of time with free weights. Want some concrete examples? One of my former students, JJ Gregory (1993 Junior National Champion on the Still Rings) developed such a high degree of strength from my bodyweight conditioning program that on his first day in his high school weightlifting class he deadlifted 400lbs., and this at the scale breaking weight of 135 lbs. and a height of 5’3”.
After this I was curious and wanted to measure JJ’s one rep max on weighted pull-ups. We started fairly light with 10 lbs. or so. I continued adding more weight while JJ performed single rep after single rep. Unfortunately I didn’t know about chinning belts and chains at that time and the cheap leather belt we were using broke at 75 lbs. Once again, I repeat, at 75 lbs. and JJ had never performed a weighted pull-up in his life. But he had performed years of my specialized bodyweight conditioning exercises. How much could JJ have chinned that day? We will never know for sure, but I will tell you that at 75 lbs. JJ was laughing and joking with me and did not appear to be noticeably bothered by the weight.
And JJ, while the strongest, is not an isolated case. For example, over the years I would occasionally (once a year or so) allow my athletes to test their one rep max on weighted chins (an exercise we never perform as part of our regular conditioning) simply so that they could have proof positive of the enormous measurable strength gains which they were enjoying. My own son at the age of 13 and a bodyweight of around 110 lbs. could chin 50 lbs. for 8 reps and it was not at all unusual for a 60 lb. younger athlete to perform 5 or more reps with 25 lbs.
In addition to his amazing strength, look again at the incredible physique that JJ built solely through various bodyweight exercises. Also look at the pictures of some of my current group of athletes. Pretty buff for boys who mostly range from 7-11 years old and have never lifted weights. As well, consider the fact that as competitive athletes, they never train for appearance. Their physiques are solely the result of their training their bodies for the function of becoming better athletes. In other words, their physiques (and anyone else’s who trains in this manner) are functional first and ornamental second.
Why does correct bodyweight conditioning work so well? There are several, the first is contraction. Basically, the harder the contraction over a greater part of the body during an exercise, the more effective the exercise. For maximum improvements training to failure is not necessary, but maximum contraction is. One of the main advantages to these advanced bodyweight exercises is that they require a complete full body contraction. In fact, at advanced levels, they are so demanding that it is simply not possible to complete them any other way.
Another primary reason for their beneficial results is the nature of the static holds themselves. By holding the bodyweight in a disadvantaged leverage position, we are effectively multiplying the resistance of our bodyweight. Or more simply stated, we are supporting a heavy weight in a locked static position. This has tremendous positive impact on the strength of the joints and connective tissue and aids greatly in overall strength development. Many great weightlifting champions have sworn by the benefits of holding heavy weights in a locked position. Two that immediately come to mind are Paul Anderson and John Grimek, who both made heavy supports a regular part of their early training.
Success at these exercises requires consistent incremental improvements. Do not seek improvement quickly or become frustrated after only a few weeks. You would not poke a seed into the ground and then jump back waiting for the plant to explode out instantly. You must be patient with physical conditioning also. While you may become more skillful or feel more powerful while performing a new exercise relatively quickly, this is due to becoming more neurologically efficient (“greasing the grove”), rather than experiencing an absolute gain in strength. It takes approximately 6 weeks to establish the first concrete strength gains. In other words, make haste – slowly.
Be prepared to spend at least six months at these exercises to work through the various progressions. What?! Six months?! Yes, that’s right, at least six months. Some people may need to spend a year or more. You wouldn’t expect to bench press 300 lbs. right away. Nor should you expect to build high level bodyweight strength instantly either. Be consistent, be patient and soon you too can be enjoying the benefits of greatly increased strength and athletic ability.
Alright enough talk, let’s get down to work and learn these progressions so that we can begin building some muscle. The following progressions will teach you how to perform the planche and the front lever as well as their more advanced variations; planche pushups and front lever pull-ups. We will begin with various static (non-moving, held) positions. From there, we will progress to the more dynamic pushing and pulling movements.
You will use the same basic strength progression on all of the following exercises. Be sure to master one position in a progression before moving onto the next. Hold for sets of however many seconds you feel comfortable, while continuing to combine the time of your sets until you reach 60 seconds total time. The number of sets it takes to reach the 60 seconds combined total time is irrelevant. All that matters is that you accomplish 60 seconds of “quality work”. Once you can hold a position correctly for the entire 60 seconds in one set, it is time to move on to the next harder exercise and begin the training procedure all over again. Now there are some exceptions to this rule, but we will address them later as we come to them.
Static holds can be performed each day for maximum benefit. However it is also possible to obtain excellent results with other workout schedules. The traditional Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday work well. My personal favorite that allows maximum work combined with substantial rest is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Everyone’s recovery ability is different. Simply experiment with the various schedules to see which suits your individual needs best.
Static holds can easily be placed anywhere in your current routine. My preference is to place them at the end of our physical preparation time. Once you have progressed to the more demanding planche pushups and front lever pull-ups, they should be placed in your workout in an appropriate spot for that exercise and body part and the static holds can continue to be placed at the end of the workout.
You should work your way through the various progressions of both the planche and the front lever at the same time. As they work complementary muscle groups, working these two exercises together will actually increase the speed of your overall improvement as well as providing you with balanced development and strength in your shoulder girdle and core.
*This article was originally posted in its entirety at www.dragondoor.com.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:33 am
Great post and article Muata. I would like to read Coach Sommer’s book also. My only question is about height. The average gymnast is short. Can these exercises be done by taller and less flexible individuals such as myself? I am 6 feet tall and not very flexible.
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Muata Reply:
October 31st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
@Dr. Kal – Hey Kal! I’m 5’11 and height isn’t that much of a factor for the fitness enthusiasts like us. Now, if we were planning to make our run for the gold, then maybe being shorter would help us doing flips on our floor exercises, but fortunately Coach Sommer’s book is written for the fitness buff who wants to understand how to achieve the body of a gymnast using your own bodyweight. I guess what was so eye opening in his article is that gymnasts could really care less about how their physique looks as long as they can perform at a high level. So, you have all these buff and shredded guys with tights, who weren’t even trying to build such amazing physiques. I’ve been waiting for more than a year for this book to come out, and I can’t wait to review it. Thanks for stopping by …
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October 31st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Should be shipping out my copy as well as the DVD’s
at the end of next week according to the coachs recent post.I too ordered right away. Christmas is November.
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Muata Reply:
October 31st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
@Robert – Hey, that’s great news since I was just thinking about checking his forum today. I’m so excited because I feel it’s going to answer a lot of questions I have about the BW progressions gymnasts perform. I just got my book on Aquaponics today and I’m getting Coach Sommers book soon too … yeah, Christmas is definitely in October & November
Thanks for leaving a comment …
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December 11th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
How’s the gymnast’s routine been working so far?
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Muata Reply:
December 17th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
@Peter Beck – Peter, sorry to just now get back to you buddy. I got Coach Sommer’s book and have been BLOWN AWAY! I strongly suggest you pick up a copy if you haven’t already because he clearly knows his stuff. I’m going to start on doing static holds before my strength workouts in a couple of weeks. I have a buddy out here that I’m working with who I’m going to start on doing nothing but static holds and bodyweight exercises for 4-6 weeks to help build his maximal strength. So, I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks how everything is going, and I’m going to review the book soon too. Thanks for asking Peter ….
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December 17th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Thanks for the feedback…will be very interested in your results!
Keep an eye out towards blood pressure, though, static holds traditionally do not help with that.
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Muata Reply:
December 17th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
@Peter Beck – Hey, thanks for the advice! One thing about Coach Sommer’s static hold training is its simplicity. For instance, let’s say that you can hold a hanging knee raise for 15 seconds. You train it by doing 3 sets of 8 second holds. Once this becomes easier for you, you increase the time by one second until you eventually are doing your old max, re-test yourself repeat the process. What’s great is that he gives you at least three to four variations of the same static hold. Once you’ve mastered the hanging knee raise then you move on to extending your legs … It’s an excellent book Peter.
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April 18th, 2009 at 2:56 am
Howdy, again. Has Coach Sommer’s book withstood the test of another quarter?
I’d like to hear how its programs have agreed with your body, and if you’d still recommend it — and if so, in retrospect, would you get the book only, book + dvd, or b/dvd + rings?
Very cool tattoo, btw!
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Muata Reply:
April 21st, 2009 at 7:46 am
Hey Peter! It’s good to hear from you. Funny that you would ask about Coach Sommer’s book because Steve Maxwell grabbed my copy when I went to his certification back in February. I brought it to show it to him and ask his opinion about it, and before I knew it he was driving off with it.
I’ll be honest with you Peter. I wouldn’t recommend a guy buy this book unless he’s already in decent shape. If you can’t do a pullup or dip, the I’d suggest you hold off on getting this book until you reduce your body fat to under 15%. I say this because even though Coach Sommer starts each exercise at the level one, I can’t see a guy who is 300 lbs with 40% BF being able to come close to doing even static holds.
However, if you want to get an insider’s view into how gymnasts build not only ripped bodies but strong ones to, then I’d pick it up. Sommer is a good writer, and his explanations of the exercises and how to create a routine are clear and make sense. I used his rep scheme for static holds, and I felt that doing chin above the bar static holds helped me “feel” stronger in doing pullups and chinups. I felt the same with my dips.
So, I would recommend the book, but remember I warned you about the difficulty of ALL the exercises. I didn’t buy the DVD, and I still use my rings. I like that they are really easy to adjust and that EVERY upper body exercise is more difficult on rings, so they get a thumbs up from me too!
Peter, let me know what you think if you decide to buy the book, OK? Thanks ….
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April 21st, 2009 at 9:16 am
Will do!
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Muata Reply:
April 21st, 2009 at 11:16 am
Thanks …
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