JBS's reply is clever. I fall upon this when answering the question above.
Gymnasts need gymnastics strength. That strength is to move their mass thru their required movements and skills. Having more strength than needed is a detriment as you now have to move that heavier muscle (stronger) thru those same movements/skills. Muscle is heavy - who wants to do BB Flic Flacs with 10 extra pounds of muscle.
More complex answer: Conditioning intended to increase a muscles strength done in small number of reps with maximum weight (intended muscle failure in < 10 reps). two sets of 15 push-ups (30 total push-ups) with more than body weight would begin working towards muscle (involved in push-ups) strength gains .
Complex answer.
First of all gymnastics conditioning can not involve gaining strength the entire year. Periods of effort should be devoted to times of real strength gain and others to maintenance. Unfortunately the exact mechanism by which exercise enhances strength remains unclear, but its basic principles are understood.
"The exact mechanism by which exercise enhances strength remains unclear, but its basic principles are understood. Overall, two processes appear to be involved: hypertrophy, or the enlargement of cells, and neural adaptations that enhance nerve-muscle interaction.
Muscle cells subjected to regular bouts of exercise followed by periods of rest with sufficient dietary protein undergo hypertrophy as a response to the stress of training. Enhanced muscle protein synthesis and incorporation of these proteins into cells cause hypertrophy. Because there are more potential power strokes associated with increased actin and myosin concentrations, the muscle can exhibit greater strength. Hypertrophy is aided by certain hormones and has a very strong genetic component as well.The neural basis of muscle strength enhancement primarily involves the ability to recruit more muscle cells--and thus more power strokes--in a simultaneous manner, a process referred to as synchronous activation. This is in contradistinction to the firing pattern seen in untrained muscle, where the cells take turns firing in an asynchronous manner. Training also decreases inhibitory neural feedback, a natural response of the central nervous system to feedback signals arising from the muscle. Such inhibition keeps the muscle from overworking and possibly ripping itself apart as it creates a level of force to which it is not accustomed. This neural adaptation generates significant strength gains with minimal hypertrophy and is responsible for much of the strength gains seen in women and adolescents who exercise. It also utilizes nerve and muscle cells already present and accounts for most of the strength increases recorded in the initial stages of all strength training, because hypertrophy is a much slower process, depending, as it does, on the creation of new muscle proteins. Thus, overall, the stress of repeated bouts of exercise yield neural as well as muscular enhancements to increase muscle strength."
.....above excerpt is from a Scientific American article in 2003,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-does-exercise-make-yo/
I hope I contributed to the thread.
Best, SBG -
