Strength and Mass in Acro

There are (or can be) important differences between training for (1) Mass, (2) Strength and (3) Skill Strength. All three of these categories of training are necessary, but in different ways for bases and tops.

Mass vs. Strength

At first we will consider the difference between Mass and Strength training, how mass relates to strength and vice versa.

Mass training is necessary to some degree (more for bases than for tops). While mass does not equal strength it can be understood as strength potential. You are not necessarily stronger if you have more muscle mass, but you have more potential of strength-output than with less mass.

To simplify this (obviously it depends on additional factors): If someone with less muscle mass is stronger than someone with more mass, in absolute terms, then the one with less mass uses his strength potential better and the other one uses it less.
After a phase focused on strength the one with more mass may become stronger and the other one will not easily be able to overcome him in strength again, in lack of muscle mass, because he uses his full potential already. Before he can become stronger he has to build more muscle first.

Thus both mass building and strength development are necessary. Training them efficiently may differ in volume, intensity, rep range, reps in reserve, speed, rest time, exercise selection and so on. While a strength focused training will also be able to carry-over to more mass and mass building focused training will carry-over to more strength, they are two different approaches to training.

Approaching them on their own in seperate cycles has been proven to be more efficient. But efficiency is not the only factor that may be relevant to coaches and athletes.

In general we can distinguish training for mass and training for strength like this:

Mass is more easily build by lower to medium intensity and by a progression of volume; the focus lies on the pump of the muscles, thus prolonging time under tension, controlling the weight more and reducing rest time.
Strength is build by higher intensity and by a progression of intensity (the volume may even decrease); the focus lies on the neurological strength output; time under tension is reduced, the stretch reflex is used, the eccentric may be controlled, but not particularly slowed down, the concentric done as explosive as safely possible; rest time is increased as needed.

While this is a general scheme that works for most people, we also have to be aware that some people respond better to higher intensity and less volume even for building mass. While others respond better to less intensity and higher volume. This is something that has to be found out on an individual basis by experience.

Strength can be developed with lower intensity and higher volume too, just more slowly (but also very safely). If strength is increased in this way it basically means that one never fully utilises the muscle mass to his full potential and will not be as strong as he could be. But that doesn’t mean that it might not be a potent and safe approach to training if absolute strength and an optimal strengh-mass ratio are not necessary (which is the case in acrobatics at least theoretically; practically due to sub-optimal weight ratios in partnerships etc., an optimal strength-mass ratio often becomes necessary and thus more actual focused strength work is needed).

These differences in building mass vs. developing strength can be approached by different methods of training, of which I want to point out two particular ways to approach progression and overload:

Mass & Strength Cycles

One approach as mentioned before is by utilising seperate mass and strength “cycles”. One may train with high intensity, gaining as much strength as possible, then doing a cycle for building more mass, then doing another strength cycle to utilise this mass and so on. By doing so one may often get close to the edge of what his body can handle with positive adaptation instead of breaking down.

Therefore, both mass and strength cycles are not reasonable to be done during a competition period, which is problematic if there are important competitions all year long or if one is performing as a professional acrobat on stage. If so one has to be ready and in peak performance, all or most of the time. The necessary mass and the necessary strength has already to be there. There cannot be put particular focus on it anymore.

But if one has to build more mass and strength, if doing it in this way, as long as he finds the right sweet spot in doing so, e.g. by diverse regulation methods, he will make progress and hopefully remain injury-free.

As mentioned in the article on periodisation, it may be most valuable for people who do not necessarily train everyday for several hours and want (or have to) make their training very efficient. It is also valuable for those who like planning and thinkering around with their programme. Planning and sticking to these cycles can be difficult and tiring and too much for many people to do on their own, when they just want to focus on training. Periodisation and training in cycles is usually something planned and provided by Coaches, so that their athletes do not have to worry about it. Many non-professional strength athletes therefore use modern apps providing such a scheme for them instead of doing it on their own. But as far as I know there is not yet any open-source application available for free (which is a shame).

Steady State Cycles

The other method is very different in character and was to some degree utilised in the former soviet union, as far as I am informed. It is sometimes referred to as “Steady State Cycles” (as also described in the article on periodisation). Here you begin by basically setting a standard of where you want to be, like: “I will be doing X reps of this exercise in every training.” You train everyday (in the sense of 5-6 times a week) and do it at a fixed intensity, which becomes less and less intense over the weeks, while reps done in a row will increase.

Obviously there are several exercises you will do in this way and the overall training programme will be designed in a way that the exercises balance out the one-sided load put onto your body; if you would only do one or two exercises of the programme one would potentially injure oneself in a couple of weeks or months. Only by doing all of them they balance each other out and one can remain injury free, because they are choosen carefully to provide a balanced load, while slow progression and conditioning will make sure that the joints and muscles remain healty enough to handle the workload overall.

The progression happens here by starting with a specific rep range, volume and intensity for a few weeks without changing anything but the quality, control, technique and efficiency of the exercises when performing them and slowly adding more reptitions without changing the intensity. After this period an exercise or a weight that could only be done/lifted for maybe 10 repetitions may now be possible to be done/lifted for 20 or 30. It has become easy and the tendons got time to adapt. Only now you increase the intensity (often quite a jump in intensity can be done after such a cycle) and you repeat through this same cycle of Overload in the beginning, Medium Load in the midst of it and Underload in the end of the Cycle, when the weight/exercise has become easy. Such a cycle may take a few weeks for one exercise or weight; in other cases it may take a year. But eventually there are long-term gains on a strong foundation.

Obviously you make sure from the very beginning that you choose exercises which you can sustainably do in this way, in this rep range, in this volume - everyday. That means, it cannot be of very high intensity. This way you develop a standard of everyday workload. Then you slowly increase the frequency, volume or intensity of that workload. Over time and if you stick to it consistently you will reach a level that you can do all kinds of exercises on a high level, are almost always ready to perform in your sport and can just sustain it because it is your every-day base-level.

It is obvious that in this kind of training as well there will be times to push a bit harder and there will be times to go a bit slower (before competition) to be ready and fully recovered to perform, e.g. being and remaining in the Underload phase during the competition period.

Mass and Strength in Bases and Tops

For bases and tops we have to make a clear distinction in regard to mass vs. strength as it relates to their role. Bases can theoretically maximise mass building, obviously depending on their other goals. There is always a trade-off in being too heavy depending on which kinds of disciplines a base is also trying to specialise in.

For example: As a handbalancer, heavy legs are very disadvantaging, therefore most high-level handbalancers have thin legs. Trying to be a base and a handbalancer thus may mean that one may try to find a middle ground of strong but not too heavy legs. Or he may choose to keep them very lean for handbalancing but as a trade-off specialise in balance in hand-to-hand, to reduce the necessary leg strength due to the lack of dynamics (or only doing lower level dynamics, which is the usual thing done by pairs in the Circus).

Being too heavy can also have negative impact in regard to elegance, depending on how balletic one wants to perform. There is a reason for dancers to be lean and relatively thin, as it accentuates the lines. While male ballet dancers usually have strong legs, they are conditioned for jumping and have weaker upper bodies in comparison. Thus in some cases it also may just be a personal choice due to an aesthetical preference and personal well-being. If one doesn’t feel well in ones body past a specific weight there is no sense in forcing more weight unto it. So this topic may be approached differently in recreational and professional sports and different again in the context of circus art.

As a general rule we can say that bases should aim to become muscular enough to be able to handle their tops easily. And while staying lean in the process may be favourable in gymnastics for the aesthetics in the performance, it will not really have much of a negative impact on skill execution, especially since senior gymnasts are no longer required to perform any individual elements. The ideal is to be muscular and lean, but there is no need to be “light” for bases.

The situation is different for tops. For tops it is and always will be crucial to be both lean and light, as far as reasonably possible. Too much muscle won’t be of use for tops and will negatively impact skill execution. Thus, for tops much more than for bases, the ideal would be to maximise the strength-to-mass (also called strength-to-weight) ratio; being as strong as possible with little/less mass. Nonetheless they have of course to build some degree of mass in the process of learning and mastering their skills.

If girls develop wider hips in course of puberty and a more regular feminine physique, not only their bases will have to develop much more strength to lift, throw and catch them effectively and safely, but also much more mass will be required and necessary to be build by the tops themselves in order to maintain their skills. This is not so in the rare cases of those girls who basically preserve the physique of a girl into adulthood; such girls are therefore particularly chosen and are predestined to become and to remain tops.

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