1 day/week lifting -- What should I expect?

[leenwebb]

Hi all,
I had my first gymnastics class last night and OMG IT WAS SO FUN! Rolling, tumbling, doing crazy flips into the foam-filled pit! It was especially awesome that there were a bunch of moves that really used my muscles -- I could feel how the OH press built all the muscles used in back handsprings, and I was able to climb up the giant fabric rope (like at the circus) using all my pull-up muscles. I loved it.

Anyway! So the issue is that taking gymnastics means that I only have 1/day a week to do lifting. I'm OK with that -- I don't want to squeeze in an extra workout on the weekends or anything like that. But I am curious how I should adapt my routine to my new extra-spaced-out schedule.

I have been doing the "new" SL routine (except I do dips instead of the reverse crunch). I have only been doing it twice a week, so I've been doing A on Tuesday, B on Thursday. Now I only have Thursdays, so here is my plan:

5x5 Squat
5x5 Bench
5x5 OH Press
1x5 Deadlift
1 or 2 bodyweight exercises

I think the bodyweight stuff will change depending on what we did in gymnastics -- there's no need to do pullups if I spent my Tuesday climbing up the fabric, and there's no need for prone bridges when Tuesday was full of handstands and hand-walking (oy, my abs!).

Is there anything that I need to know about once-a-week lifting (other than that my gains will slow down)? Is 5x5 (as opposed to 3x5 or 3x8 or whatever) still the best way to make gains if I'm only going once a week? Should I stick with the A/B split instead of combining them? Am I going to lose all my precious muscle??!

Thanks for any thoughts on this --

[holvoetn]

Dips to replace reverse crunch ? Why is that ? Or is it because of the combination with the gymnastic stuff ?

OH press and Bench press do not mix well together ... been there, done that.
You might want to consider sticking to the A and B workout but alternating every week.

You will not lose muscle mass, not with those gymnast exercises on top of everything

[leenwebb]

Dips to replace reverse crunch ? Why is that ?

Mostly because I didn't really like the reverse crunches, and my understanding from reading Mehdi's FAQ was that the crunches were put in because many people needed/wanted core-specific exercises. I didn't, but I did need/want more shoulder/upper body stuff. Obviously it is not really a substitution since they do not do the same things, it is more like a whole-hog replacement.

[Dada]

You might want to ask the coach what they recommend as far as strength training for gymnastics. Also, I would imagine that if you do anything on the parellel bars or horse (whatever it's called) that would be simliar to dips wouldn't it? I don't know much about gymnastics at all but I would think you should definitely include power cleans in your routine.

[leenwebb]

Yeah, technically women don't do parallel bars or horse, but I get the sense that if I was interested in them, they'd teach me. (There are only 4 regulars in the adult class anyway, so it's much more like a private lesson than a big group class.)

The coach was pretty interested to know that I'd been lifting -- she does know some specific training lifts. But I'm more of the general SL mindset -- I'm not strong enough to bother doing anything other than overall strength training right now.

Power cleans because of the explosiveness aspect? Should I do those in addition to other lifts, or sub them in (every other week or something) for one of the standard lifts?

[Dada]

Yeah for explosiveness. I would add it to what you have since you're only going to lift 1 day. Maybe drop the bodyweight stuff based on what you're gymnastics routine is already taking care of in that area (have to experiment with that of course).

I searched around and found this. http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/Ath ... 2012th.pdf Reps are a bit high compared to 5x5 but you could get some ideas about how you want to structure it from this.