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It’s hard to fully appreciate what these athletes do until you experience it yourself. My brother Jay and I decided we would do just that. We committed to trying out for the show and start ninja warrior training. Both of us being former gymnasts, we figured we would adapt fairly quickly to this new sport. We found a nearby training facility and found out quickly it was going to be more challenging than we anticipated. While the gymnastics background helped us with a lot of the movements, there were still many elements to it that were foreign to our bodies. It was comical after our first training session seeing both of us propped up on the couch with ice packs on knees and shoulders.

We never did get our phone call for the show, however, we experienced this fairly new form of training that we fell in love with. It was like training for competitive gymnastics again but in an incredibly unique and fun way. We both still do a lot of strength training these days, yet we found that adding ninja warrior training to our daily routines gave us something we weren’t getting from our normal workouts. It opened our eyes as to how great this would be in gymnastics facilities.

After our experience, we were determined to find a way to be able to provide Ninja Warrior obstacles to any of our customers who may be interested. After doing some research and speaking to a few companies, we are now able to make that happen. Everything from the warped wall to the spinning log, it can be brought to life in your in your gym.

Why consider Ninja Warrior in your gym? Outside of the enormous popularity of it right now, it’s simply a fun and beneficial way to develop motor skills, balance, coordination and strength. It’s also a separate service you can offer in your gym so it’s an additional revenue stream for your business. You are offering something that a 35 year old guy like me, for example, will gladly come pay $100 a month to use. Ninja warrior is especially appealing to the youth male so it’s a great reach this demographic and get them in your gym.

We also have the ability to provide conceptual ninja warrior designs with our 3D Design services. We have had more and more gyms ask us about ninja warrior and want to see this included in their new facility. We’ve even seen gyms add on to current facilities strictly for the purpose of obstacle training. Here are a few examples of what some these designs look like:

Of course, each setup can be custom configured to fit your facility.

You can even start off small and purchase mini ninja warrior style obstacles for your rec kids with these safe, mat-style obstacles:

If you would like to receive more info or a consultation on the space you have available in your gym, please feel free to contact me directly with any questions.

Brad Thornton

Lead Designer

brad 

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Personally, I stay away from the basic jog these days. It’s not that I don’t think jogging is good for getting some exercise. It just doesn’t get me excited and I don’t like the idea of the same motion for the entire duration of my workout. At first yes, when I got my sneakers at shoe snatcher, it gives me a very comfortable feeling of using them and doesn’t hurt my foot even after a long run. Unless you are specifically training for a long distance run, I believe you need to vary your workouts and constantly introduce the body to new things.

If you are the type that goes out for that traditional morning jog with the same distance and same pace, you’ve probably found that over a period of time, your body has pretty much acclimated and stopped showing improvements. If you are somewhat new to fitness training, you might be unsure of what to do once you’ve hit that plateau.

Perhaps you are at a point where you don’t necessarily need to see any major improvements but you’ve gotten bored with the idea of hearing your feet hit the pavement with that same cadence each day.

I also think jogging alone is mentally challenging with respect to staying motivated. For me, when I’m on a run, it gives my mind too much time to think and I constantly ask myself, “okay, how much further?”

If you need a solution to the morning run blues, consider doing these variations to your normal jogging routine for the next 5 workouts. If you like them, you can easily spread this out over the next several months.

Day 1: If you have a normal route, distance, and pace for your jog, try doing this on your first day of change:

Do your same route. Start your run and up your pace significantly from your normal run. Go for 30 seconds and come to a stop. Drop and do a set of pushups. Yep, right there on the sidewalk. Get up, run for another 30 seconds at an increased pace and then drop and do another set of pushups. Do this for your entire run! It doesn’t matter if you are only able to do 5 pushups, just do what you can.

If you need to breath and rest briefly because of the increased pace of the run, just stay in a pushup hold (top of the pushup) and catch your breath, then continue. Even though you are resting, your muscles are still engaged.

Keeping it fresh the following weeks – You can vary this one going forward by increasing the distance and/or changing out the pushups for another form of strength training. You can do a set of air squats, lunges, sit-ups, plank hold or a combination of any of them

Day 2: Find an incline or a large flight of stairs.

Get creative with this and seek out unique locations. I’ve gone to tall parking garages (you get stairs and ramps there plus you get the benefit of the cover in the hot weather), high school football stadiums, local mountains with trails, the stairs in my own house etc.

If you normally go for a 30 minute run, start with that time initially for your first workout, adding this new change.

Start at the bottom of your incline or stairs and run hard to the top. Take a breather as you come back down to your starting point. Keep it at a very light jog returning and avoid stopping completely. Keep moving. Once you get to the bottom, immediately head back up. Pretty simple, but very effective and a great change from the standard jog. The key is to really power through the climb portion with maximum effort.

Keeping it fresh the following weeks – find locations with steeper inclines and taller stairs. Do a combination of both and increase the duration of the workout. Alternate jumps up the stairs with the run. Alternate lunges up the inclines with the run.

Day 3: Carry a jumprope.

This sounds odd, but it’s easy to do. Roll up a jumprope to where you can comfortably carry it with one hand. Or, if you don’t mind spending a few dollars, pick up a runner’s belt and use that to carry it. Something like this would work – Enduro Belt.

This workout will have the same concept as the day 1 with the pushups, except you will substitute the pushups for a minute with the jump rope. Again, it’s 30 seconds of run at a fairly brisk pace and then jumprope for a minute. That’s it. Take your breather as you load the jumprope back up and then get back after it!

Keeping it fresh the following weeks – Vary your jump roping technique. Do high tuck jumps, double under with the rope, alternating high knees, fast jumps on one foot etc.

Day 4: Introduce the sprint.

Once again, you can do this one on your normal route. This is great interval training and will really get your heart rate up, giving you an awesome workout. Start off the run with an all out sprint. You can do a timed sprint or pick out obstacles (such as mailboxes, light poles, signs) to sprint between. The duration or length is up to you. Complete your sprint, but keep moving forward for your rest period. This pace should be a very light jog, just slightly above a walking pace. Decide your length of time or distance for this pace and then go immediately in to another sprint.

Keeping it fresh the following weeks- Like I said, the way you want to structure the sprint/light jog is up to you. You could do 10 to 15 seconds of a full sprint followed by a minute light jog. Or maybe you could sprint between a set of light poles and jog between the next two sets. It’s very easy to make this one a little different each week.

Day 5: Do a combination of all four workouts.

This one is fun because you are all over the place with climbing, sprinting, jogging and strength training. There are a million different ways to do it, so get creative.

For example, I mentioned parking garages before. Obviously, be careful using them because of the traffic going in and out. I have one I go to that is pretty wide open and quiet so I don’t have to worry about the cars. I love parking garages because you have stairs and inclines. An example of your workout might look like this:

• Run an incline at a fast pace
• do a set of squats
• jog back down
• jump rope for a minute
• climb the stairs
• do a set of pushups
• jog down a few levels of the garage
• do a set of mountain climbers
• Sprint the flat portion of the garage
• do a set of lunges

Repeat 5 times!

Adding these new elements to your daily jog will get a little fire back in you for your workouts and will also keep you motivated. Make them fun and different each time and maybe try them with a friend or spouse to bring some additional creativity to it.

Be safe and have fun!

Brad Thornton

Strength & Fitness Team Lead

www.GymnasticsStrength.com

DISCLAIMER

These workouts are intended for those who have properly prepared for strenuous activity. American Gymnast is not responsible for any injuries that may result from attempting to perform any of these exercises. Consult a physician before starting any type of fitness training program. Stop exercising if at any time you feel light headed or experience chest pain.

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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

The post Tips to Reignite the Fire in Your Workouts appeared first on American Gymnast and Ninja.

If you think you are alone, don’t fret, you definitely aren’t. I’m here to tell you it’s perfectly normal to have negative feelings and possibly dread practice, training or going in for a workout. While this may not be the most desirable feelings to have towards something you are dedicating a lot of energy to, it doesn’t necessarily mean you dislike what you are doing. It just means your mindset going in might need some readjusting.

Let’s consider first where this dread may come from.

Stress/Overwhelming: You wake up in the morning, and your first thought is “oh man, I need to put in at least a 10 mile run today,” or “ugh!, coach said we are doing strength circuits for an hour at the end of practice today.”

Immediately your brain is trying to process everything you have to accomplish in your workout that day and that can be quite stressful or overwhelming. You are thinking already of the end result, which includes everything leading up to it. This is a lot for anyone to mentally handle.

Solution: Focus on the process as it comes to you instead of everything you think you need to accomplish. Literally put your head in the moment and do the first thing that leads up to that ending. Try not to go in to your day with some big, elaborate plan with your training. All you have to do is start the process with something and then build on top of it. This will help alleviate those overwhelming feelings of knowing you have a huge list of training items to knock out that day.

When I wake up, I don’t have a plan at all. I just know I’m going to train and I literally start the process by getting dressed for my workout. At this point, I’m still not thinking of what I have to do. I drive myself to the gym, stretch and then immediately just do something. I may go in to the basketball court area and just start running or jump up on a pull up bar. I’m not thinking, just doing. I still don’t know what’s coming next, but I just continue to build on what I did before. Before you know it, it’s been an hour, you are exhausted and you feel great. If I had looked at a list of everything on paper of what I did before my workout, I would have thought about it and stressed over it until it was complete.

Fear: Fearing anything you may be working on that day can certainly make anyone lose their excitement for training. Fear is one of the worst enemies to an athlete’s confidence and progress. I remember when I was training for my first triathlon, I developed a slight fear of the swim portion and really began to dread training for it. It got to where I would even start to think about my swim day the night before and would lose sleep over it.

Solution: Sit down and think and really get to the bottom of what specifically is causing your fear. Typically if there is something you are afraid of, you are probably not proficient at that particular thing or skill. More than likely, if you were to see improvement in that area, you would probably start to feel a little more comfortable. Once you have identified where your fear lies, break that skill or apparatus or whatever it may be down in to parts and try to find small “safe” ways to improve and train for it.

For Example: I had to figure out what was going on with my swim, so I did in fact take some time to try to figure out where this fear was coming from. I discovered that as I began to tire in my swim, I would begin to struggle with my breathing technique and would eventually almost panic. When this happened, I would immediately resort to a breaststroke to try to recover. Not exactly the best way to to swim if you are trying to be competitive in a race.

To fix the problem, I started working on some comfortable ways to work on my breathing technique. I used paddle boards, did some basic breathing techniques while stationary etc. I didn’t mind going to train for this because it seemed non-threatening to me. Eventually, I began to get more comfortable with it and slowly started to enjoy my swim training simply because I started to see improvements.

Repetition: This one may not apply to everyone. If you are involved in training where you are being coached, it is the coach’s responsibility to make each day interesting, different and challenging. However, if you are on your own and maybe just hitting the gym or training for a triathlon without a coach, sometimes you can get stuck in the proverbial rut. Things become dull and uninteresting simply because you are repeating a lot of the same things over and over.

Solution: Change! I know it sounds ridiculously simple and it is really, but sometimes people get comfortable or complacent and don’t see the need to go try something different. The thought process is that it has worked in the past so there is no reason to do things differently. Not true!

I remember my aunt and I were chatting one day about her recent dedication to going to the gym. She had been going for a few months and had already developed a sense of dread each day. She was not enjoying it at all. I asked her what she was doing in her workouts. She explained that each day she would go to the gym, hop on the treadmill, increase the incline and do a brisk walk for 45 minutes. It was the same thing every single day. Eventually, this would drive anyone mad.

I took her to the gym the next day and showed her many different ways to change up her routine and keep things fresh and I could tell she had a new found excitement immediately. The point is, each day should be completely different than the one before. Change the location if you need to. Instead of the treadmill at the gym one day, find a local mountain or walking trail. Go from the pool, to a lake nearby for a swim.

I even found myself back in college stuck in the cyclical weight training routine. Each week looked very similar with chest day, legs day, back and bicep day, repeat. Ahhhhh! I cringe when I think of my old ways. I got so sick of it! Finally, I discovered what works for me. I literally go in the gym without a clue of what I’m going to do and I just get after it with high intensity bodyweight and cardio training. It’s non stop madness and fun with sprints, handstand pushups, box jumps, pull-ups, frog jumps, rowing, cycling and more. Every single day is completely different and I love it.

So before you do something drastic like quitting your sport all together, pay attention to your mindset and how you are training each day and see if you are experiencing some of these common issues. That dread can turn back in to love and excitement and that will put you back on the road to success.

If you are struggling in the gym and need some fresh ideas, don’t hesitate to email me at brad@american-gymnast.com.

Brad Thornton

Strength & Fitness Team Lead

http://www.GymnasticsStrength.com

The post Is it Normal to Dread Your Workout? appeared first on American Gymnast and Ninja.

However, no matter how much you love it, everyone has that one thing they could do without. You know what I’m talking about. Whenever the words come out of your coach’s mouth that it’s time to do xyz, you absolutely cringe. It might be a certain apparatus, a particular skill you are working on or maybe conditioning. If you happen to be one that loves every single thing about the sport, I want to meet you!

Well, I’m here to tell you it’s ok and perfectly normal to have these feelings. It’s hard to enjoy everything in a sport that involves so much. I admit, I had this deep hatred for one of the apparatuses and I had it bad. This event kept me up at night. When I made eye contact with it at the gym, I would feel sick to my stomach. I swear I could hear it taunting me sometimes (ok, maybe that’s a stretch). I was so desperate to avoid it, I wanted to organize a late night operation to sneak in and haul it off in a truck and dump it in the lake just so I could go one practice day without having to look at it. What was this evil adversary of mine? This photo will give it away:

How did I develop such a strong dislike for something in a sport that I enjoyed. The answer is probably common to anyone else who has these similar feelings. Pommel horse was harder for me than any other event….by a long shot. It provided the biggest challenge for me and therefor caused me the most frustration. I can’t tell you how many times I nearly broke a toe after kicking it in anger (my coach didn’t care for that little gesture too much). I don’t advise doing that

I had completely psyched myself out when it came to pommel horse so I pretty much shut down when it was train on it. 90 percent of the problem was in my head. That means I could have helped make this problem go away if I knew some simple techniques to apply. So, one can assume if you start to see improvements with your problem, you may start to change how you feel about it, right? Here are 3 things you should be doing:

1. Identity small problem areas within the major problem and develop a plan

You’re probably thinking, “hey, isn’t my coach already doing this for me?” Of course, but there are always things that aren’t easily noticed by your coach that only you may be aware of.

For example, a big problem (which didn’t seem to hit me at the time) with me on pommel horse was my shoulder flexibility. I had (and still do) the worst shoulder flexibility in the history of gymnastics. Reaching back for a pommel and lifting up in my chest was nearly impossible for me, making my circles pretty rough. Bad circles, of course, led to bad everything else. It would have been extremely beneficial for me if I could have identified this and then made a plan to spend 30 extra minutes every day outside of the gym on shoulder flexibility. This would have led to small improvements and positive feelings each day, slowly eliminating the bad energy associated with pommel horse. These little problems are typically something you want to try to attack in your spare time if possible. In other words, I would’t want to waste gym time on 30 minutes of shoulder stretching.

It could also be a certain fear that you are holding in that coach isn’t aware of. ALWAYS communicate with your coach so you can come up with a plan together. Your coach will be able to help you develop a plan to help alleviate those fears.

2. Shoot for small victories within your problem each day

You’ve identified your small problems, developed a plan, now each day aim for small victories.

Don’t put so much pressure on yourself with making huge gains immediately. Find something small and reasonable each day that you can improve at practice. It could be as simple as focusing on getting your hips turned in a circle or keeping your legs together consistently on a cast handstand. Small victories allow you to leave that day with a sense of accomplishment as opposed to beating yourself up over not nailing a big new skill on day one, for example. You will also get praise from coach, making it even more of a positive experience for you.

3. Tell yourself the complete opposite of how you normally feel about the problem

This sounds goofy, but it has a tremendous impact on how you will feel and how you perform on the apparatus or skill that day. Literally do the opposite of the photo above. Say to yourself, “bring on pommel horse! I can’t wait to get after that thing today! Let’s do it! I’ve got this!” You get the idea. See it as a challenge and embrace it. Have fun going after your small, predetermined victory of the day. High five coach right after you do it. Your coaches will be there to encourage you and pump you up.

The mind is so powerful, and if you approach your training with defeated thoughts, that’s exactly what will happen. Do yourself a favor and start changing your mindset to productive and uplifting thoughts. Trust me, I didn’t do this when I was in gymnastics and I definitely saw the effects of a negative attitude.

This is just one piece of the puzzle that can help transform your athletic performance.  These simple changes just may give you new found love for the apparatus you once loathed. Now go get em!

Brad Thornton

Strength & Fitness Team Lead

www.GymnasticsStrength.com

The post I Love Gymnastics, But There is That One Thing… appeared first on American Gymnast and Ninja.

Have you ever sat down to think what you did differently in the time leading up to those “off” days? There are so many things to consider with athletic performance and the things you should be doing to make sure you are at your best day in and day out.

There will always be an off day here and there but you need to take the steps to minimize them by making sure you taking care of your physiological needs. One of the most overlooked one by athletes is sleep.

Being a young athlete and full of energy,  you may not think you need as much sleep as others. It’s actually the complete opposite. Being an athlete, you need MORE sleep than those your age not active in sports.

Just as athletes need more calories than most people when they are in training, they need more sleep too. Athletes in training should get about an hour more of sleep. Professional athletes will actually sleep up to around 10 hours a night.

Here is something very interesting. They did a study with the men’s basketball team at Stanford University. They had the players add an average of 2 extra hours of sleep per night. What did they find? Players increased their speed by 5%, their free throws were 9% more accurate, their reflexes were faster and they were happier overall. That is crazy improvement just from some extra sleep!

Can you imagine what this could do for your performance if you are in gymnastics or crossfit training? You will see more power, better focus, more strength, tumble higher, lift more, endure conditioning longer and have more more motivation. This is all from getting proper sleep! I don’t know about you, but I quite enjoy some sleep. So, reconsider your habits if you think it’s fun to tell your buddies that you were up until 2 am playing Call of Duty or chatting online. Now you realize you aren’t playing your sport to your fullest potential.

Here are a few side effects of shorting yourself on sleep:

Delayed reactions, tendency to make mistakes, lack of focus and increase in the risk of accident or injury – Definitely not so desirable side effects for gymnasts.

I think you get the idea of how crucial it is to get adequate sleep. So you probably want to know what you can do to help get good quality sleep.

Here are a few tips for getting the proper amount of sleep:

1. Get on a regular schedule. Plan on a shut down and wake up around the same time every night. Try to be in your bed, lights out, no TV or facebook, about 10 hours before you have to wake up. This gives you a little time to get to sleep then get the adequate rest you need. You will be amazed how the body will get on a routine and and start to shut down and wake up around the same time on it’s own. You know you are doing things correctly when you wake up naturally (without an alarm) feeling refreshed.
2. Have a cut off time for caffeine drinks. This should be no later than 6 hrs before bedtime. This one used to be a big problem for me. I used to love to have coffee in the evening and it never dawned on me that was one of the reasons I had trouble falling asleep.
3. Get your room extremely dark, cool and quiet. If you like to sleep with the TV on or look at your phone a while before going to bed, you are actually throwing off your body clock and stimulating the brain, making it much harder to get to sleep. Consider ear plugs or even eye covers, as goofy as that sounds

If you know you aren’t sleeping enough then remind yourself how much better you will be in the gym if you changed things. I know in high school, I probably averaged about 6.5 hours a night. I had no idea idea the consequences of this. Don’t do that to yourself. Sleep!

Brad Thornton

Strength & Fitness Team Lead

www.GymnasticsStrength.com

Sources:

Article by R. Morgan Griffin, WebMD Feature

Article by Tali Yahalom, USA TODAY

Article written by the Mayo Clinic Staff

The post One Major Thing That Might be Harming Your Athletic Performance appeared first on American Gymnast and Ninja.

While generally enthusiastic and full of energy in this new undertaking, this tends to be a lot of pressure for a young new tumbler.  More often than not, they faced a long uphill battle in the quest towards advanced tumbling skills.

Adding to the pressure, many cheerleaders starting out faced a similar dilemma on day one of class.

“Tryouts are in a month and I have to get my back handspring!”

It was always painful for me to hear this because disappointment was usually the outcome after a month.

The road to advanced tumbling for cheerleaders tends to be a very different one from gymnasts. Most cheerleaders, at no fault of their own, are at a distinct disadvantage in their tumbling progression for many reasons.

Primarily it’s due to less time training, and not as much emphasis and focus put on fundamentals, strength and flexibility. This tends to make the journey a much harder one.

Here’s the good news. It can be easier…much easier! But it’s completely up to you to be disciplined enough to do what I’m about to tell you (you can do it!).

Don’t settle for getting the quick, not so pretty back handspring just to get through a tryout. The back handspring leads up to so many other skills – a second consecutive back handspring, a tuck, layout, full, double full.

Starting off with a lousy back handspring will lead you to, well, just that…a lousy back handspring.

The same goes for every other skill and progressing. Bad tucks will never progress to a good layout. Bad layouts will never turn in to a full. And so on.

Remember, there are still cheerleading scholarships to be had out there if you are looking to continue the sport in to college. I assure you, you will make a serious impression if you show up to try outs with some beautiful tumbling.

In fact, I was put on Georgia Tech’s competition squad for that very reason. Someone on the team heard I was a former gymnast and could tumble well. So they put me on the team. I had zero cheerleading skills. None. No dancing, stunting or spirit. Just gymnast quality tumbling.

So, I’m going to lay it out for you. If you want to rock out some sky high double fulls one day, here’s exactly what you need to be doing at home.

At least 3 (preferably 5) nights a week, throw on your Maroon 5, Taylor Swift or whatever gets you motivated and work on the following:

**Train safely! Use a spotter and proper matting to prevent injury**

1. Strength – Ugh! I know a lot of cheerleaders don’t get excited about the idea of strength training. However, it’s time to warm up to idea because I can’t stress how important it is for your progression as a tumbler. As you develop strength, your fundamentals and more advanced skills will become easier and easier. Shoot for at least 30 mins to 40 mins of strength training.  You will notice there will be some overlap with strength and fundamentals. Don’t worry, if you can’t kick to handstand yet, these strength exercises will help.

Get excited! Here is what you need to start doing in your free time at home.

Upper Body Work:

Push Up Hold – Hold yourself at the top of a pushup. Keep your arms straight and       squeeze your body. You don’t want to see your shoulder blades so work on pushing up and rounding your body in a slight hollow. Work yourself up to holding this for 2 mins. Do 3 to 5 sets and hold each one as long as possible.

As these start to get easy, increase the difficulty by elevating your legs. For example. Do the same position with your feet propped on the couch (take your shoes off! You’ll upset mom). Again, stay tight through the body and keep a hollow position pushing through the shoulders.

Further increase the difficulty by stacking pillows on the couch under your feet only putting you in more of an inclined position. Stay tight in your abs, again with a round back and hold as long as possible.

Handstands – Developing a perfect handstand will have amazing benefits for your   tumbling

Start off in the early stages of strength training by kicking up against a wall. A slightly hollow hand stand should be your goal.

Don’t rush in to each handstand in a sloppy manner. Go in to every handstand by doing the following: Stretch, lunge (hold briefly) and then kick up.

Your back and rear end should be able to touch the wall while you are squeezing your abs.

Squeeze all your muscles!

Keep your fingers pointing towards the wall, arms by ears and your elbows straight.

You should be able to tuck your head in and look at your toes.

Hold them as long as you can, come down, rest, and then do it again. Wear yourself out for about 15 mins.

If you struggle with kicking up against a wall, you can start out facing away from the wall. Place you hands on the floor, and you can walk your feet up the wall until your belly is touching. Be careful in this position because falling forward puts you on hardwood. Ouch!

Don’t get discouraged because working some of the other strength elements I discuss will make this easier through time.

Once you are super comfortable against the wall, bring it out to unassisted handstands. Kick up and hold as long as possible, squeezing the body tight, keeping good form.

Once you can hold a 15 second handstand on your own, do the following for strength training: Hold 5 handstands against a wall for 1 minute at a time. Work your way up to 5 sets of 2 minute holds. Many things will come easy to you once you develop this kind of strength.

Now we are making some progress!

Push Ups – Noooo! I know you are cringing but push ups are great! You will be working shoulders, chest and triceps. Great muscles to develop. Start with 50 per night and work your way up to at least 100. 200 if you are up for it! If you have to use your knees at first, that’s ok.

If you can rep out 50 push ups in a row, you have rock star strength and better tumbling days are ahead!

Chair Dips – Chair what?? Place your hands on the edge of the seat of a chair, supporting your weight, with arms straight and legs straight out in front of you with heels on the floor.

You should be slightly bent in the hips. Dip down by bending your elbows slightly past 90 degrees, then press back up.

Do 3 to 5 sets of 20. As they get easier, prop your legs up on another chair to make them more difficult. If those get easy, start adding weight (a jug of water, your school books etc) in your lap.

Bridge Hold – Used for stretching as well but also a good isometric hold.

Try to work yourself up to holding a bridge for 2 mins. Do at least 3 sets of this hold. More details on the bridge below.

Core Strength:

Hollow holds – This is a great exercise for fundamentals as well as strength. Lay on your back. Bring legs up about 8 inches and bring your chest and upper body off the floor where your shoulders are about 6 to 8 in. off the floor.

Squeeze the abs and keep your back rounded. You should be resting on the lower part of your back. Keep your arms straight and glued to your ears. An alternative arm position is extended straight out in front of you. Get to where you can hold them for a minute. Do 3 to 5 sets for as long as possible.

If you can hold for a minute, you will be able to grate cheese on your abs.

Sit Ups – Ah, the good old fashioned sit up. Start out with 50 per workout and work your way up to 200. Cross your arms over your chest so you aren’t tempted to yank on your head to sit up.

Superman Hold and Lifts – Also a great fundamental and strength exercise that will turn you in to a superhero. Lay on your stomach with body straight. Lift the upper body and lower body (arms by your ears) in to an arch position.

Squeeze all muscles, keeping arms and legs straight.

Work up to holding it for a minute. Do 3 to 5 sets of holds. Also start to work repetitions. Go in to the arch position and then come back down. Work up to 50 to 100 reps.

Leg Strength:

Air Squats – Not to be confused with the air guitar. However, if you want to play the air guitar while doing your squats…sorry, I digress. Back to the workout.

Do a deep squat keeping chest up and heels on the floor and feet just slightly wider than shoulder width. Squat lower than 90 degrees. Do 100 reps every workout at first. Increase up to 200 as you get stronger.

Squat Jumps – Once the squats get easy, turn them in to squat jumps. Go in to the normal squat and then explode in to a jump. Work up to 100 reps per workout. They look silly, but who cares, you’re at home. This silly exercise is creating some ultra powerful tumble legs.

Squat tuck jumps – This is the next level of advancement. In your jump, out of the squat, pull your knees up to your chest and hit the tuck by the peak of your jump. 100 reps. These look even sillier, but they are a serious exercise. Now you are working your abs and hip flexors too!

Rapid Jumps – Face a wall and reach up over your head. Place a piece of tape on the wall about 10 inches above your hand. That is your target.

For a minute at a time, rapidly jump over and over, touching your piece of tape.

You should be on the balls of your feet the entire time, punching back in to a jump as soon as your feet hit the floor. This should primarily be a calf workout for you.

2. Fundamentals – You’re getting strong, you’re feeling good. Time for some basics. Many fundamental exercises such as lunges, handstands, bridges, hollows and arches were worked in strength training. This is great! As you are developing strength, you are also working on the very valuable basic elements essential for tumbling. Focus some more of your time on handstand work. Spend at least 15 minutes working on them as mentioned above. Without a solid handstand, all other skills will suffer.

Also put some additional time in to more bridge holds. If you can’t kick up to a handstand against the wall, the bridge work will be great for helping you get comfortable being semi upside down and will develop some shoulder and back strength as well. Keep your legs together and straight. Push your through your feet pushing your shoulders out past your hands.

Once you develop a solid bridge, start holding one leg up and straight. Begin trying to kick over and out of your bridge. Pull through your shoulders, chest and abs.

You should have a good stable handstand and bridge long before you ever have a back handspring.

The cartwheel is an obvious fundamental that needs to be perfect. If you’ve got it, great! Just warm up with a few. If you don’t have it down yet, stretch out a piece of tape on the floor and work on straight line cartwheels over and over until it’s flawless. Place obstacles on your tape to step over and reach over to help stretch out your cartwheel. Again, focus on a proper stretch, lunge and then cartwheel.

3. Stretching – You should strive to stretch every night. Do it as often as you can. Stretch while doing your homework, watching the Vampire Diaries, whenever. Work on all areas of flexibility and put a little extra focus on shoulders, wrists and back. Once again, bridges are great for this.

Many youngsters are naturally flexible but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work on it. There are always areas you can improve and it’s also going to prevent you from injuring yourself at some point.

4. Visualization –  Don’t laugh. This is often overlooked but I can’t stress how important it is. Find a YouTube video of a particular skill (performed correctly) you are working and study it. Watch it over and over, tattooing it in your brain. After that, close your eyes and picture yourself doing it perfectly, over and over. You should do this daily! I’m not joking here. There are many studies proving how powerful this is so do yourself a solid and give it a go.

That’s it! No matter what level you are, or how well you tumble, these exercises will only benefit you. If you stay dedicated to this for several months, I can promise you, you will be ahead of most of your cheer buddies. Give it a shot. You have nothing to lose and only good things to gain.

If you want to add some training aids for your home, please visit our Cheerleading section.

If you need a fully detailed, full body, 6 month workout plan based upon the sport of gymnastics consider our GymABstics DVD Set. No weights. It just utilizes the body weight with exercises like I described above. If you make it through 6 months, it will no doubt be life changing.

Remember to always train safely!

Brad Thornton

Strength & Fitness – Team Lead

www.GymnasticsStrength.com

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If you haven’t noticed, a large number of contestants have a background in either gymnastics, rock climbing or stunt man type training. These athletes all have a very similar method of training. They spend the majority of their day lifting their body weight alone in every way imaginable, working the small stabilizer muscles. The fact is, the serious Ninja Warrior contestants will spend up to 30 hours a week doing this type of training. Inevitably, this creates an athlete with a huge strength to body weight ratio, great balance and body control – exactly what is needed to conquer most of the obstacles on the course.

Regardless of whether or not you want to become America’s next great ninja warrior, every athlete in every sport can benefit from training like one (and you don’t need 30 hours available a week). Strength training is important in becoming a good athlete, but to be a great athlete, you must also incorporate training in body control and balance.  Too many athletes, at every level, put so much emphasis on pure muscle building, they neglect some of these vital fundamentals. Obtaining these basic skills can even save your career. Let me give you an example.

Way back in high school, we were running 100yd wind sprints on the track one day in groups of 4. My group is whistled off the starting line, and at about 40 yards in, the guy next to me (also a good athlete) starts to drift closer to my lane. I figure he will see me in his periphery at some point and make a correction. Unfortunately, he doesn’t realize his error. Before I can react, we clip legs and are both sent stumbling head first towards the ground. Since I had gymnastics training, my first instinct was pull my arms up and in, duck my head and push off with my legs, sending me in to a dive roll. It definitely didn’t feel good rolling on the track at that speed but I wound up on my feet and avoided major injury. My running mate didn’t fair so well. His only thought was to reach for the ground and go face first. He ended up with a badly sprained wrist and a mouthful of gravel.

I’ve also seen too many young athletes break a bone when it could have been avoided if they knew how to adjust during a fall.

The point of all of this is, if you aren’t a gymnast or ninja warrior and want to achieve a higher level of athleticism, start focusing on body weight training, body control and balance. Outside of going to a Ninja Warrior or gymnastics training facility, there are plenty of ways to train like these athletes.

Start kicking up to handstands against a wall and just holding it. Once you master that, start doing push-ups in the handstand against the wall. From there, move on to unassisted handstands.

Learn how to fall. Master a backward roll and forward roll without reaching for the ground.

How do they get up the warped wall or do the salmon ladder so easily? Do tons of pull ups and dips.

If you never have, start using a set of rings! Check out the video series containing beginner and advanced tutorials as well as a huge list of exercises you can perform on them.

Learn a muscle up. The video above includes a tutorial on the muscle up

Practice one leg deep squats with no weight for balance.

Practice and learn to do tuck-sits, L-sits, and tri-pods.

If you don’t have a gym membership, a few pieces of equipment at home can help you with some body weight training: a set of parallettes, a pull up bar and a set of easily adjustable rings.

We have a Parallette Training Guide available for download here.

Also be on the look out for our Ring Training Video Series, Ring Exercise Guide, and 60 Day Full Body Training Guide

If you’ve never done any of these gymnastics type exercises, you will see pretty quick results once you start incorporating them in to your daily routines. So, get out there and start training! It doesn’t matter if you want to conquer Mount Midoriyama, succeed as a two sport, high school athlete or just learn some fun new skills. Training like a Ninja Warrior will only do great things for your body, your confidence and your outlook on working out. Train Safely!

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