as training time is limited, its important to keep things efficiant. youre sure right about core strength general, but you dont have to invest the time to learn those gymnast moves, especially because they work a lot with levers etc. we dont need.
to make my point: no, you shouldnt replace weights with bodywork 🙂
-unless you want to fool around a bit, which is surely fun and helps diversify-btw i prefer the bars anyway 😉
Who said anything about replacing weights? Levers are not actually necessary–if you are training the Iron Cross, then levers could be helpful although there are ways around it(talk to Chris Sommer), but on that I would say that the Iron Cross is limited in its athletic worthiness for track. Also learning the moves are not very difficult and those who are already trained tend to be able to master the early things with not much time. That argument is similar to Joe DeFranco's talking about the implementation of Olympic Lifts–because they take a long time to learn (which they shouldn't be should the proper progressions be used) and therefore are wasteful. In my opinion, neither Olys or gymnastics are wasteful. I am pretty sure almost everyone will agree with at least one of those.
Gymnastics exercies are progressed like you would progress a squat–Somebody wouldn't jump straight into a front lever pullup without first mastering the tuck front lever (several regressions ahead of front lever pullup) just like you wouldnt go from squatting 200 to 400 in one session–instead you'd spend a long time working on the squat. The whole point here is the steps in between develop a greater and greater strength for more and more intense lifts/holds.