Do muscles "really" need time to recover? Gymnasts seem to do fine without recovery

[Arkitech]

https://www.google.com/search?q=gym...G42WyASLpIFg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=955


Ever notice how almost every male gymnast looks jacked? If I'm not mistaken those guys train nearly every day of the week. With that being said it seems like the same would be true for any person (excluding the guys who are benching the weight equivalent of a Dodge Neon). Any thoughts on this?

 

[FleshLight]

Yes if you want to build muscle

 

[Zivic]

https://www.google.com/search?q=gym...G42WyASLpIFg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=955


Ever notice how almost every male gymnast looks jacked? If I'm not mistaken those guys train nearly every day of the week. With that being said it seems like the same would be true for any person (excluding the guys who are benching the weight equivalent of a Dodge Neon). Any thoughts on this?

ive read info that says 80% recovery can take place in 8 hrs. when you talk recovery, a lot of times, you can be referring to CNS and joint recovery

 

[jaedaliu]

The gymnasts probably don't lift to failure every day.

It's like walking every day or running every day. The load on their muscles while training is not enough to require a day rest between sessions. Well, maybe it is? There are a bunch of different events that stress different muscles differently.

 

[alkemyst]

Genetics and recovery go hand in hand...many professional athletes have superior genetics and along with it recovery.

Depending on the gymnastics, the load on their muscles can be very intense.

 

[z1ggy]

I think it depends what type of training you are doing. Additionally, like alky said, many of them likely have superior genetics which either help them to recover slightly quicker or build more muscle/have less body fat.

It's also very likely they trainvery early in the morning to get strength and muscle, then again later at night to practice their gymnastics. As Zivic said, within 8 hours you will have recovered significantly. Given the fact if their sole job is gymnastics, they probably have an entire eating and resting schedule conducive to supporting a very lean and muscular body.

 

[Pantlegz]

I've never been a fan of rest days I tend to do better without taking much time off. It really depends on the type of work you're doing I feel that more explosive movements take more time to recover from, for instance Clean and Jerks are worse, for me, than deadlifts and presses done as separate exercises with much more weight.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Let me preface this by saying: yes, you need rest to optimize recovery and performance in any sport you're participating in. This includes lifting, running, gymnastics, whatever it is. How much rest you require depends on the sport and the demands.

For example, strength training places a very high demand on musculature, connective tissue, ligaments, tendons, and bones. These do not repair within 24h. To be honest, research shows that you continue to have increased biomarkers for muscle damage over a week after a heavy lifting session. In addition, you have to elicit a full blown immune response to heal well. That takes more than a day to get going. It's a particularly important process that results in absorption and breakdown of insufficiently strong connective tissue, adds sarcomeres in parallel to your muscle fibers, and builds you up stronger. While the process isn't complete when you have one day of rest, it is sufficient such that the body has made some headway.

For something like running, the demands are very different. Considering it's largely an endurance sport, the demand on a well-trained runner's muscles are fairly low compared to strength training. However, you have to consider that the demands of running are very different. Most importantly, you are utilizing your cardiovascular system much more intensely. The impact forces are quick and stress the bone and joints with more overall volume than strength training. The forces, overall, are lower however. In this sport, the goal is to avoid excessive volume so that you can appropriately improve your bone density and cartilagenous thickness and resilience.

It all depends on what your level is (untrained, beginner, intermediate, well-trained), your recovery potential (genetics), your sleep, your nutrition, etc. If you're going to be lifting heavy most days of the week, it better be different muscle groups and varied - or it must be low volume and/or low weight. If you don't, you run the risk of stressing an insufficiently healed tissue. That's where you get muscle strains, ligament sprains, joint pain, CNS fatigue, etc.

 

[smackababy]

Don't most gymnasts not make it past like 20-21 before they are too old to compete anyway? Look at professional athletes in most sports. You get 10 years, even with rests and off season, before you're pretty much done unless you're one of the elite few. Gymnasts careers seem to be even shorter. Perhaps because they put that much strain on their young, still developing bodies. That also might play a factor in their recovery. They are in a period of growth.

 

[alkemyst]

Don't most gymnasts not make it past like 20-21 before they are too old to compete anyway? Look at professional athletes in most sports. You get 10 years, even with rests and off season, before you're pretty much done unless you're one of the elite few. Gymnasts careers seem to be even shorter. Perhaps because they put that much strain on their young, still developing bodies. That also might play a factor in their recovery. They are in a period of growth.

I dated an Olympic Gymnast. She was about 26 at the time, I was 36 and in the last stage of a divorce I should have gone through prior.

She started pre-teens. Then her known injury occurred prior to her event.

She had a lingering shoulder issue. The coach pushed her too much prior.

In reality, the athletes are just hired help and that is sad.

 

[smackababy]

I dated an Olympic Gymnast. She was about 26 at the time, I was 36 and in the last stage of a divorce I should have gone through prior.

She started pre-teens. Then her known injury occurred prior to her event.

She had a lingering shoulder issue. The coach pushed her too much prior.

In reality, the athletes are just hired help and that is sad.

She may have told you she was an Olympic Gymnast, and might have been 10 years prior, but at 26 she was probably the older person attempting to qualify, and likely not even getting close. Look at Nastia Liukin, at 22 her career was over.

I am just saying, using gymnasts as the point of "look! these guys don't need recovery time" is pretty silly, considering they have such short careers and a lot of injuries. They are pushing their bodies to the limits, and that limit dries up quick.

 

[alkemyst]

She may have told you she was an Olympic Gymnast, and might have been 10 years prior, but at 26 she was probably the older person attempting to qualify, and likely not even getting close. Look at Nastia Liukin, at 22 her career was over.

I am just saying, using gymnasts as the point of "look! these guys don't need recovery time" is pretty silly, considering they have such short careers and a lot of injuries. They are pushing their bodies to the limits, and that limit dries up quick.

Saw the videos, her parents were also multi-millionaires.

They have some major College wings named after them.

Her job was to sell off the estate artwork prior to her adoptive parents dying.

My problem with her is she just wanted to do that, screw, and smoke pot all day.

 

[TallBill]

You can squat daily if you want, just not at 100%... All depends on how you're training.

 

[Kaido]

https://www.google.com/search?q=gym...G42WyASLpIFg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=955


Ever notice how almost every male gymnast looks jacked? If I'm not mistaken those guys train nearly every day of the week. With that being said it seems like the same would be true for any person (excluding the guys who are benching the weight equivalent of a Dodge Neon). Any thoughts on this?

Seeing the male gymnasts in the Olympics is actually one of the things that got me into calisthenics-based bodybuilding. I thought it was kind of funny for guys to be doing gymnastics, then saw how ridiculous jacked they were - super-tight physiques, just really shredded. I'm a big no-gym-workout fan now :thumbsup:

 

[TallBill]

Seeing the male gymnasts in the Olympics is actually one of the things that got me into calisthenics-based bodybuilding. I thought it was kind of funny for guys to be doing gymnastics, then saw how ridiculous jacked they were - super-tight physiques, just really shredded. I'm a big no-gym-workout fan now :thumbsup:

Lol there is no such thing as calisthenics based bodybuilding... and I guarantee that you're putting in nowhere remotely close to the same work that these guys put in.

 

[Zivic]

Lol there is no such thing as calisthenics based bodybuilding... and I guarantee that you're putting in nowhere remotely close to the same work that these guys put in.

what do you mean. last year or so I have been strict on only doing jumping jacks, and burpees. my progress has been well above average. oooooh, feel the buuurn

 

[Koing]

what do you mean. last year or so I have been strict on only doing jumping jacks, and burpees. my progress has been well above average. oooooh, feel the buuurn

The guys you see at the Olympics A groups are in the highest top 1% it's INSANE.

Most of the guys start before they are 4yrs old and clock up an insane amount of training hours. You pretty much can't make a Worlds/ Olympic final without starting before 5.

From about 12yrs onwards they are doing 10-12hrs a week. Before school and after school most days.

16yrs+ they are doing 20hrs+
18yrs+ and it's literally 30-35hrs+ of training

They are big, but they are also short for the most part. You will rarely ever see a top Gymnast being tall as being tall really works against you being a Gymnast.

Male Gymnasts longer than female Gymnasts do but very few last longer than 30's as it's such a demanding sport. Female mostly burn out by the time they are 24 or something crazy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...nder-tum-goes-topless-park-piling-pounds.html

What happens to an Olympic Medalist (granted a pommel horse specialist) when he doesn't train the crazy amounts he has to. Yes you get fat when you stop spending 4-6hrs in a gym every day.

Koing

 

[SP33Demon]

As a former gymnast (competed for 2 years in my younger days), it is very hard on the body. I would do it 4-5 times a week during non-baseball season and would often have huge bruises afterward, particulary remember parallel bars as the worst when we come out of a handstand-->catching your entire body weight on your tri's (huge black and blue bruises until your body hardens up). High bar will tear your hands to shreds (despite never having enough chalk on them!) when you first start until you can acclimate to it. Eventually if you have elite upper body strength you'll be able to do an Iron Cross but that took a good year of training to build up to. One of the more painful exercises I remember were the boatloads of headstand pushups against a wall that we'd do.

Overall, I think the benefits outweighed the negatives in that it will elevate your confidence more than anything, especially for kids. It takes a literal "leap of faith" when you first learn how to do back handsprings and also doing the crazy shit we did on high bar (it seems like 20 ft up as a kid) and then sticking a dismount without breaking your neck. Rings were similar regarding confidence in dismounting but not as scary because it's lower. All in all, you will get jacked like a MFer but it seemed like my body was never at 100% due to the frequency of our training and how hard it was.

 

[alkemyst]

Female mostly burn out by the time they are 24 or something crazy.

I was dating an ex-Olympic gymnast. She was at around 28 or so at the time, in 2007. She was injured right about that time you mentioned.

She had to stop short and used her right arm behind the seat to stop something from falling over. It was enough to blow that shoulder out. The doctors couldn't do everything they needed/wanted to because of all the pre-existing wear and tear on it.

That said, she could still do some very impressive acrobats...however; nothing that would win a medal.

 

[smackababy]

That said, she could still do some very impressive acrobats...however; nothing that would win a medal.

A medal, maybe not. But, an award at an event hosted in Vegas every year? I'm sure if she really tried.

 

[marvdmartian]

Most gymnasts are teenagers. Shit, when I was a teenager, I could do anything, and get away with it!

Trust me, once you hit 50, you'll NEED recovery time! :hmm:

 

[QueBert]

Yes if you want to build muscle

Then explain CT Fletcher, his methods and what he preaches is to never have off days and there's no such thing as overworking and that recovery time's BS. What he teaches pretty much goes against everything other people say. But looking at him and everyone he's trained. I gotta wonder if he's not on to something.

 

[Zivic]

Then explain CT Fletcher, his methods and what he preaches is to never have off days and there's no such thing as overworking and that recovery time's BS. What he teaches pretty much goes against everything other people say. But looking at him and everyone he's trained. I gotta wonder if he's not on to something.

ummm you have to 'wonder'?

drugs allow you to train harder, longer, more frequently.

 

[SP33Demon]

One thing I'd like to add to this thread. I believe that you can work abs every day just as Bruce Lee did. I just started doing abs every off day, before I'd hit them about 3 times a week but not on off days. They heal pretty dam fast so they are probably one of the few muscle groups I would advocate training constantly.

 

[Pantlegz]

ummm you have to 'wonder'?

drugs allow you to train harder, longer, more frequently.

Didn't he do a live drug test recently? Not saying he couldn't have just cycled off for the test but he did just do a bodybuilding comp too so it wouldn't have been the best timing to cycle off far enough in advance for everything to be out of his system. Or maybe on something they're not testing for.