Supplemental Training Info Archives - American Gymnast and Ninja

Pressure-Proof Your Gymnastics with a Mental Routine

amgym — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 10:36:46 +0000

Pressure-Proof Gymnastics: The Mental Routine

Competitive gymnastics demands precision. A split-second timing error on a dismount, the slightest angle in body position, or a touch too much power on vault can separate perfection from a costly error. For gymnasts, managing the competition pressure becomes as crucial as technical mastery itself. Among the most effective tools? A well-crafted pre-performance mental routine.

The Moment Before It All Begins

Before mounting the balance beam in major competitions, Laurie Hernandez followed her ritual without fail: a deep breath at the beam’s edge, then quietly to herself: “I got this.” More than mere habit, this calculated mental strategy—combining measured breathing, grounding movement, and personal affirmation—helped her find focus amid chaos. Her consistent excellence wasn’t accidental, it stemmed from her ability to mentally reset before every performance.

Nerves plague nearly every gymnast during competition, particularly in high-stakes environments like an Olympic Trials, World Championships or the Olympic Games. Racing heart, unsteady legs, mind flooded with worst-case scenarios—these universal experiences can derail even the most seasoned veterans. Paradoxically, forcing confidence rarely succeeds. Instead, repeatable actions provide our brains with stability when we need it most.

Crafting an Effective Pre-Performance Routine

At its core, a pre-performance routine involves specific actions performed before executing skills. Whether minimalist—a breath and quick visualization—or elaborate, consistency matters. These routines serve as mental resets, signaling your brain to shift into performance mode.

Effective pre-performance routines typically include:

A grounding physical action—perhaps shaking out your arms, rehearsing a body movement or position, or adjusting equipment—that establishes physical control
A personal focus cue—phrases like “Stay tall” or “Strong hands” that anchor your mindset
Deliberate breathing to reduce physical tension and regulate heart rate
Brief mental rehearsal of your first skill, sequence or routine, channeling focus and creating readiness

Bridging Practice and Performance

Consider a young gymnast at her first major competition. Though flawless in practice, she wobbles through beam elements that normally give her no trouble. The gap isn’t skill-based but exists mostly in her head. Without structured preparation, she approaches each element overwhelmed by outcome concerns rather than execution focus.

Now imagine she develops a simple ritual: looking toward the beam, exhaling completely, moves her arms through a sequence of one of her dance elements momentarily, and silently reminding herself, “One skill at a time.” This small sequence redirects nervous energy toward focus. With repetition, she associates these actions with control, gaining a reliable pressure-management tool.

Make It Second Nature

The most effective pre-performance routines are integrated into training every day and not reserved for competitions alone. When gymnasts use these routines exclusively in high-pressure moments, they lack the same stabilizing power. By incorporating them into practice before every beam mount, tumbling pass, and vault run, they become automatic composure triggers.

Gymnastics thrives on repetition, and mental preparation follows the same principle. While a strong pre-performance routine won’t eliminate nerves entirely, it provides structure amid uncertainty. When everything’s on the line, that structure often makes the difference between hesitation and flawless execution.

At ACG Mental Performance, we help gymnasts (and all athletes) develop mental strategies that translate directly into competition success. Whether crafting a pre-performance routine, building confidence after setbacks, or learning to manage high-pressure moments, our coaching equips athletes with tools they can rely on. Through one-on-one sessions, we tailor mental training to each gymnast’s unique challenges, ensuring they step onto the competition floor feeling prepared, composed, and in control. Just like physical skills, mental skills must be trained consistently, and with the proper guidance, gymnasts can build the mindset needed to perform at their best when it matters most.

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If it doesn’t challenge you… it won’t change you.

amgym — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 17:55:23 +0000

If it doesn’t challenge you… it won’t change you.

#MotivationalMonday

Get your motivation HERE!

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Know Your Limitations…

amgym — Mon, 23 May 2016 19:38:06 +0000

The only limitations we have in life are the ones we set on ourselves. Our minds and bodies are capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. As athletes, we must first open our minds to the possibility of achieving our dream. Then, work with coaches, trainers and any others involved to create a plan to achieve the dream. Then, work … and work … and work some more until you reach your goal. Use failures and setbacks as part of the learning process, and not as a barrier to your ultimate success. Most importantly – never give up!

Know your limitations… then DEFY THEM!

#MotivationalMonday

Get your motivation HERE!

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Reach for the Stars!

amgym — Mon, 16 May 2016 14:39:36 +0000

Tumble on Beam,
Swing on Bars,
Follow your Dreams,
and Reach for the Stars!

#MotivationalMonday

Get your motivation HERE!

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Nothing Can Dim The Light Shining from Within

amgym — Mon, 09 May 2016 17:35:34 +0000

Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.

#MotivationalMonday

When a gymnast sets a goal, it’s imperative that the gymnast “owns” that goal and everything that comes with it … all the sacrifices, the hard work, the desire to achieve it and more. The goal can’t be the parent’s, the coach’s or anyone else’s … it has to be the gymnast’s goal. When the gymnast has full ownership of the goal, then their desire to achieve that goal comes from within themselves and is not derived from others. That determination and self-motivation is the light that can’t be dimmed.

Get your motivation HERE!

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Imagine, Believe, Achieve

amgym — Mon, 02 May 2016 17:38:43 +0000

Imagine with all your mind,
believe with all your heart,
achieve with all your might.

#MotivationalMonday

When I was young, I’d play “make believe” and imagine I was a lot of different things … an astronaut, a fireman, President of the United States … and, an Olympian. Our minds are so flexible and moldable when we are just kids; free of all the limitations and restrictions that we allow the world to place on us as we grow older.

Eventually, as I continued to imagine more and more about becoming an Olympian, that abstract concept turned into a belief that becoming an Olympian was something that was a real achievable goal. It was something that I could plan for, something I could work for … and if all the cards fell in the right place on the right day, it was something that I could actually achieve.

Having the dream and believing in the dream are a big part of succeeding in your goals, but they are not all of it. You have to do the work. You have to set your course, create your plan and then execute the plan with all your might. Life will throw countless obstacles and roadblocks at you during your journey, so you have to have the heart and drive to do whatever it takes to go around them, over them, under them, or just put your head down and go through them.

Even with all of that, there are no guarantees of success. I fell just short (twice!) of becoming the Olympian I dreamed about becoming. But, if you can look back and can say without a doubt that you gave it all your might and have no regrets, then you know that it was all worth it. The journey will shape you and change you forever for the better. It makes you resilient, focused, driven, relentless, organized … and more. It makes you an Olympian of Life.

~ Jay Thornton
American Gymnast

Get your motivation HERE!

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Never Let the Fear of Falling Keep You from Flying

amgym — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 20:16:54 +0000

Never let the fear of falling keep you from FLYING!#MotivationalMonday

https://s3.amazonaws.com/american-gymnast.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/11231425/AG-Fear-Falling-Flying.mp4

Most times, failure is a much better teacher than success. Gymnasts and coaches need to have the courage to try new skills (after going through the proper learning progressions) even when short-term failure is a high probability. It’s part of the learning process. When gymnasts learn to overcome short-term failures, they are setting themselves up for long-term success in the gym … and in life.

Get more motivation HERE!

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Is Being a Creature of Habit Good for Athletes?

Brad Thornton — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 10:28:57 +0000

Over time, when it comes to our athletic training, we all tend to develop the mindset of, “this has always worked for me, so there’s no reason to change it.” Or, “I’m comfortable with what I’m doing and it seems to be getting the job done.”

In the article below, by James Clear, you will see that we tend to take the opposite approach when it comes to lifestyle and fall victim to the well known “lifestyle creep.” This is when our spending behaviors change over time as we make more money.

So why do we seem to take on a complacent mentality with our health and fitness? Is this because we are creatures of habit? “Lifestyle creep” clearly proves we are willing to break normal habits in order to reward ourselves.

Being a creature of habit is good when it comes to the act of getting to your workout or practicing your sport. Unfortunately, becoming a creature of habit with the actual training regiment itself eventually will lead you to the dreaded fitness plateau. This, of course, is that place we all try to avoid where all improvements come to a screeching halt. More often than not, a little too much time on this plateau will lead to decreased motivation and we eventually start to slip a little and suffer a setback.

The good news is we can all easily improve by making two small changes. In his article below, James Clear describes the term (his own creation) “habit creep.” It is a fantastic way of looking at your daily routine and making slight changes in order to become more successful. This is great for gymnastics training, general fitness, or other areas of life such as business and productivity.

Brad Thornton

Strength & Fitness Team Lead

www.GymnasticsStrength.com

The Following article is by James Clear at JamesClear.com

There is a common phenomenon in the world of personal finance called “lifestyle creep.” It describes our tendency to buy bigger, better, and nicer things as our income rises.

For example, say that you receive a promotion at work and suddenly you have $10,000 more of income each year. Rather than save the extra money and continue living as normal, you’re more likely to upgrade to a bigger TV or stay at better hotels or buy designer clothes. Your normal lifestyle will creep up slowly and goods that were once seen as a luxury will gradually become a necessity. What was once out of reach will become your new normal.

Changing human behavior is often considered to be one of the hardest things to do in business and in life. Yet, lifestyle creep describes a very reliable way that human behavior changes over the long-term.

What if we adapted this concept to the rest of our lives?

Changing Your Normal

Let’s list some typical financial goals.

I want to own designer jeans.
I want to have a bigger house.
I want to drive a faster car.

Here’s the interesting thing:

These big goals naturally happen as a side effect when we have the means to make them happen. When our purchasing power goes up, our purchases tend to go up too. That’s lifestyle creep.

What if similar side effects could happen in other areas of life?

Consider these goals:

I want to add 10 pounds of muscle.
I want to find a partner and get married.
I want to earn six figures per year.
I want to get a higher score on my test.
I want to own a successful business.

What if we trusted that adding more muscle or earning more money or getting better grades would come as a natural side effect of improving our normal routines? In other words, as our normal habits improved, so would our results.

This idea of slightly adjusting your habits until behaviors and results that were once out of reach become your new normal is a concept I like to call “habit creep.”

How to Practice Habit Creep

If you buy more things than your bank account can sustain, that’s not lifestyle creep. That’s called debt.

Similarly, if you adopt a bunch of new behaviors you can’t sustain, that’s not habit creep. In other words, the key is to avoid the trap of trying to grow too fast. Lifestyle creep happens so slowly that it is almost imperceptible. Habit creep should be the same way. Your goal is to nudge your behaviors along in very small ways.

In my experience, there are two primary ways to change long-term behaviors and improve performance for good.

Increase your performance by a little bit each day. (Most people take this to the extreme.)
Change your environment to remove small distractions and barriers. (Most people never think about this.)

Here are some thoughts on each one:

Increasing your performance. You have a normal way of living. For example, your current level of physical fitness is generally a reflection of how much activity you get on a normal day. Let’s say that your standard day requires you walk 8,000 steps. If you want to get in better shape, the standard approach would be to start training for a race or exercise more. But the habit creep approach would be to add a very small amount to your standard behavior. Say, 8,100 steps per day rather than 8,000 steps. You can apply this logic to nearly any area of life. You have a normal amount of sales calls you make at work each day, a normal amount of Thank You notes you write each year, a normal amount of books you read each month. If you want to become more successful, more grateful, or more intelligent, then you can use the idea of habit creep to slowly improve those areas simply by improving the way you live your normal day.

Changing your environment. There are all sorts of things we do each day that are a response to the environment we live in. We eat cookies because they are on the counter. We pick up our phones because someone sends us a text. We turn on TV because it’s the first thing we look at when we sit on the couch. If you change your environment in small ways (hide the cookies in the pantry, leave the phone in another room while you work, place the TV inside a cabinet), then your actions change as well. Imagine if you made one positive environment change each week. Where would your life creep to by the end of the year?

Changing Your Normal

The results you enjoy on your best day are typically a reflection of how you spend your normal day.

Everyone gets obsessed with achieving their very best day—pulling the best score on their test, running their fastest race ever, making the most sales in the department.

I say forget that stuff. Just improve your normal day and the results will take care of themselves. We naturally make long-term changes in our lives by slowly and slightly adjusting our normal everyday habits and behaviors.

James Clear

JamesClear.com

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Change Your Life With a Paper Clip

Brad Thornton — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 08:29:54 +0000

We all tell ourselves at some point that we are going to get in the habit of doing something consistently that is beneficial to our health, sport, fitness, career or life. It’s the same story for many people. We start our new habit with excitement and motivation and then slowly we start to fade, make a few excuses, prioritize other things and all of a sudden, your new habit has vanished.

The problem is, we aren’t always honest with ourselves and we assume we are dedicated enough to simply remember to perform the new habit every day.

What is it we need to to continue performing a good habit each and every day? There will always be those days where you don’t want to do it so something has to change psychologically to give us that extra nudge.

The following article by James Clear, provides a technique that might just be that extra little motivator you need to implement in your own life. It’s so simple, but can be quite effective. It can be applied to anything whether it be strength training, eating healthy, gymnastics training, your business or just life in general.

Brad Thornton

Strength & Fitness Team Lead

www.GymnasticsStrength.com

How to Stick With Good Habits Every Day by Using the “Paper Clip Strategy”

By JAMES CLEAR – www.jamesclear.com

In 1993, a bank in Abbotsford, Canada hired a 23-year-old stock broker named Trent Dyrsmid.

Dyrsmid was a rookie so nobody at the firm expected too much of his performance. Moreover, Abbotsford was still a relatively small suburb back then, tucked away in the shadow of nearby Vancouver where most of the big business deals were being made. The first popular email services like AOL and Hotmail wouldn’t arrive for another two or three years. Geography still played a large role in business success and Abbotsford wasn’t exactly the home of blockbuster deals.

And yet, despite his disadvantages, Dyrsmid made immediate progress as a stock broker thanks to forex trading apps he developed, as well as a simple and relentless habit that he used each day.

On his desk, he placed two jars. One was filled with 120 paper clips. The other was empty. This is when the habit started.

“Every morning I would start with 120 paper clips in one jar and I would keep dialing the phone until I had moved them all to the second jar.”
—Trent Dyrsmid

And that was it. 120 calls per day. One paper clip at a time.

Within 18 months, Dyrsmid’s book of business grew to $5 million in assets. By age 24, he was making $75,000. Within a few years, outside firms began recruiting him because of his success and he landed a $200,000 job with another company.

Habits That Stick vs. Habits That Fail

When I asked Dyrsmid about the details of his habit, he simply said, “I would start calling at 8 a.m. every day. I never looked at stock quotes or analyst research. I also never read the newspaper for the entire time. If the news was really important, it would find me from other ways.”

Trent Dyrsmid’s story is evidence of a simple truth: Success is often a result of committing to the fundamentals over and over again.

Compare Trent’s results to where you and I often find ourselves. We want to be consistent with our workouts, but struggle to make it into the gym. We know we should write more Thank You notes or eat healthier meals or read more books, but can’t seem to find the motivation to get it done. We’d like to achieve our goals, but still procrastinate on them. That’s not even the worst, for if you were to navigate yourself over here, you’d know that some even procrastinate on the more important healthcare aspects, viz. not updating their health insurance or not possession one at all.

What makes the difference? Why do some habits stick while other fail? Why did Trent’s paper clip habit work so well and what can we learn from it?

The Power of a Visual Cue

I believe the “Paper Clip Strategy” works particularly well because it creates a visual trigger that can help motivate you to perform a habit with more consistency.

Here are a few reasons visual cues work well for building new habits…

Visual cues remind you to start a behavior. We often lie to ourselves about our ability to remember to perform a new habit. (“I’m going to start eating healthier. For real this time.”) A few days later, however, the motivation fades and the busyness of life begins to take over again. Hoping you will simply remember to do a new habit is usually a recipe for failure. This is why a visual stimulus, like a bin full of paper clips, can be so useful. It is much easier to stick with good habits when your environment nudges you in the right direction.

Visual cues display your progress on a behavior. Everyone knows consistency is an essential component of success, but few people actually measure how consistent they are in real life. The Paper Clip Strategy avoids that pitfall because it is a built-in measuring system. One look at your paper clips and you immediately have a measure of your progress.

Visual cues can have an additive effect on motivation. As the visual evidence of your progress mounts, it is natural to become more motivated to continue the habit. The more paperclips you place in the bin, the more motivated you will become to finish the task. There are a variety of popular behavioral economics studies that refer to this as the Endowed Progress Effect, which essentially says we place more value on things once we have them. In other words, the more paper clips you move to the “Completed” bin, the more valuable completing the habit becomes to you.

Visual cues can be used to drive short-term and long-term motivation. The Paper Clip Strategy can provide daily motivation, but you start from scratch each day. However, another type of visual cue, like the “Don’t Break the Chain” Calendar that I described in my article on the Seinfeld Strategy can be used to showcase your consistency over longer periods of time. By stacking these two methods together, you can create a set of visual cues that motivate and measure your habits over the short-run and the long-run.

Creating Your Own Paper Clip Strategy

There are all sorts of ways to use the paper clip habit for your own goals.

Hoping to do 100 pushups each day? Start with 10 paper clips and move one over each time you drop down and do a set of 10 throughout the day.
Need to send 25 sales emails every day? Start with 25 paper clips and toss one to the other side each time you press Send.
Want to drink 8 glasses of water each day? Start with 8 paper clips and slide one over each time you finish a glass.
Not sure if you’re taking your medication three times per day? Set 3 paper clips out and flip one into the bin each time you swallow your pills.

Best of all, the entire strategy will cost you less than $10.

Grab a box of standard paper clips (here is a cheap set).
Get two standard paper clip holders (here you go).
Pick your habit and start moving those bad boys from one side to the other.

Trent Dyrsmid decided that success in his field came down to one core task: making more sales calls. He discovered that mastering the fundamentals is what makes the difference.

The same is true for your goals. There is no secret sauce. There is no magic bullet. Good habits are the magic bullet.

James Clear

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Tips to Reignite the Fire in Your Workouts

Brad Thornton — Thu, 07 May 2015 09:13:55 +0000

Outside of what I do with American Gymnast, I work in one of the most challenging industries when it comes to trying to stay in shape – the airline industry. I am a pilot, and like most pilots, my schedule can be rough at times. In a typical summer month I may spend 4 days on the road, come home for a few days and then repeat. While on the road, you can have up to 14 hour workdays, spending 8 of it in the cockpit and the rest hanging around small airports trying to avoid the most unhealthy food you can imagine. Once you finish with the day, you wind up at a LaQuinta Inn (free continental breakfast!) so exhausted that the last thing on your mind is trying to squeeze in a workout.

Somehow, I manage to get it done.

When you go out on a four day trip with an airline job, you are typically paired with another pilot for the entire four days. You spend a lot of time in a confined space with a perfect stranger trying to muster up any form of interesting conversation you can. Nine times out of ten, at some point I will get asked the question, “what do you do to stay in shape?”

The question is common because of the difficulty to maintain a healthy lifestyle with my job as well as staying motivated enough to get in solid workouts. I’m not the only one with a challenging schedule so I know this is a tough for a lot of folks. Throw kids in to the mix and…yeah, it’s hard!

I wrote an article recently on working out and why so many people dread going to practice or the gym. It doesn’t matter much even if you ladies made it to the gym in ladies walking sandals. Just do not miss it. In the article, I also touched a little on how I like to train and what keeps me excited and motivated each day to go in to the gym. Since I do often get asked the question about training, I thought it would be helpful to go in to a little more detail and actually show a full example of one of my workouts this week.

The best way I can describe my workout is one of the best testosterone boosters in the mornings and a high intensity combination of strength training and cardio that varies every single day. It involves a lot of core strength, gymnastics, body weight exercises, yoga and some weight use as well.

It’s sort of a blend of Insanity and Crossfit without the heavy Olympic lifting and more emphasis on gymnastics, for those who are also looking to loose some weight with this program we will like you to check this site and get the best fat burner in the market to help you. Any resting is typically done in some sort of strength hold like a plank or hollow hold. To give you an idea of what a typical workout may look like, I’ve provided an example below.

My workout starts with the Resurge ingredients and for this particular day ended up looking like 8 rounds of an intense short interval of cardio followed by several exercises of strength. I would catch my breath slightly as I transitioned from the cardio portion to the strength exercises. I didn’t plan any of this going in, I just started, added on, and this is how it ended up. Each round flows right to the next.

Round 1:

One lap around the track (.25 miles) as fast as I could run it
20 pull-ups
30 dips
35 push-ups

Round 2:

One lap around the track (.25 miles) as fast as I could run it
10 Burpees
10 hanging toes to the bar
15 pull-ups
25 dips

Round 3:

One lap around the track (.25 miles) as fast as I could run it
20 inclined sit-ups
20 Handstand push ups
30 pushups

Round 4:

Row machine going as hard as possible for 2 minutes
20 V-ups
12 up and ups (push-up and then at top of the push up you thrust your hips to the ceiling in to a pike position)
10 burpees
30 rapid mountain climbers

Round 5:

10 sprints on the basketball court
15 handstand pushups
30 pushups
30 second hollow hold

Round 6:

8 laps around the basketball court as fast as possible
20 squat jumps
10 burpees
10 up and ups

Round 7:

Utilized flight of stairs in the gym and sprinted up 10 times
15 pull-ups
1 minute bridge hold, 30 second side plank hold, 30 second side plank hold
20 sit-ups

Round 8:

1.5 laps around the track as fast as I could
30 dips
20 lunge jumps
20 conditioning rope jumps with arm swing
30 pushups

Vomit…

As I mentioned in my previous article, I don’t think about what I’m going to do any given day. If I had looked at that workout on paper that morning, I think I would have stressed over the thought of having to go do it. The first thing I literally think about is putting on my gym clothes and I go from there. Every step after just gets me more in the workout mood and gets the blood flowing. I love the idea of creating on the fly and doing what feels right at the time. This was the whole idea of creating our Ring Strength Fitness Guide, Medicine Ball Training Guide and Parallette Training Guide. It was to provide you with unique exercises that you can use and arrange however you want to create an intense workout.

Remember, intensity is a relative term when working out. Anyone can do this type of training. It doesn’t matter if you can only do a fraction of the workout I did above, if you are pushing yourself to the point of being completely uncomfortable and sucking wind, you are doing things right. If you leave the gym still looking good, you didn’t go hard enough.

You should look like a train-wreck.

Keep things fresh and ever changing and keep your mind focused on one thing at a time and then add on whatever feels right. Motivation comes from within so your mindset plays a huge role.

Tip 1 to Help With Extra Motivation: In addition to the things mentioned above to get you started towards that workout, try this little strategy my wife and I use. We go to the gym together with the mindset I’ve written about. We start off separate from each other in the gym (or home, park etc), doing our own thing and get after it pretty hard. We agree that we will meet up sometime during the workout when we both are starting to feel fatigued and finish the workout together. That meet up point gives us some extra motivation mid workout and gives us a second wind because we really love pushing each other. At this point we basically play follow the leader until we are exhausted. This brings me to my second tip with your partner.

Tip 2: Once my wife and I meet up, we swap off picking the next exercise, getting as creative as possible. Sometimes it’s a combo of things or just one, but we never know what’s coming next. It’s all out craziness, with non stop (with a sip of water while running to the next thing) exercise after exercise. I love this and it really helps with keeping me going and making it fun. It also typically extends my workout far beyond what I would do alone.

Tip 3: If you don’t have a partner and you don’t think you have the will power to make yourself do all of this, have someone tell you what to do. Of course you could use a trainer to do this or there are less expensive alternatives. We created the GymABstics strength series specifically for people who want an extra push. It’s the same idea. They are intense workouts that we are taking you through so you don’t know what’s coming next. It keeps that element of surprise and excitement and that’s what is all about.

Train hard and have fun!

Email me at brad@american-gymnast.com you have any questions.

Brad Thornton

Strength & Fitness Team Lead

www.GymnasticsStrength.com

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