What to learn in gymnastics, skill wise, 101

[Blairbob]

This is C&P from a recent CF post regarding basic things to learn when wanting to learn skills on the 6 events in men's gymnastics. It doesn't really go into skill training but the very rudiment basics before skill training but not the physical preparation, or any of the topics of GB. You'll need to find a gymnastics coach more than likely to provide guidance or hands-on help at a gymnastics facility more than likely. However, if you take this along towards your first adult gymnastics class at least you can ask them about what drills and stuff you may be looking to work on.

You need to master the many types of swing on the men's apparatus first before really worrying about skills. Yes, this takes patience but by mastering the swing technique and basics, you can progress much further. I can't find an old article on USAG about mastering the kinds of men's swing per apparatus but it should be in their archives.

btw, you should probably work on rolling out of the handstand and pressing to the handstand. Walk to a handstand from a pushup position near a wall, walking your feet up the wall and either lowering down to headstand and rolling out or straddling your HS. Kick to a HS against the wall and slowly lower the legs down in a straddle (easier in a HeS).

Pommel Horse: Master the front support straddle swing, stride swing(swing with one leg in front and behind), and rear support straddle swing. Make a bucket and start figuring out circles. Basically you want to keep your shoulder over your hand. Actually you want to lean on one arm as much as possible. For all swings and circles, you want to stay on 2 hands as much as possible and that means fast hands.

Parallel Bars: Focus on learning the basic support swing and the upper arm support swing/position (it might be a good idea at first to swing with either wristbands around your biceps or to pad the bars or swing on tall blocks at first ).

Support swing on PB:Get into support and pull your heels back with open hips. This is what your swing should look like through the middle. I know where is an article in the CFJ about men's apparatus swing including PB as well as articles on round-offs, hurdle, front handspring, and rings swing I think too. There will be some leaning of the shoulders in a opposite direction to which the toes are swinging. (i.e. in the front swing, you need to lean back a bit and in the back swing, you need to lean forwards a bit ). Building the swing to HS is merely getting comfortable with extending the swing in the front and swinging backwards and back down progressively higher and higher.

The swing for upper arm and underbar on parallel bars is virtually the same as the first basic high bar swing so I'll go into that then.

Basket swing. There is a good article on the CFJ by Roger Harrell regarding this. I have horrible basket swing but it's really necessary to have good pike compression to go anywhere with this type of swing. Compress at the bottom position and open on either side by first learning to swing with shoulders and then opening up the pike position.

Start learning how to do a handstand on parallettes and learn a HS pirouette on floor. You will need to learn how to do a forward and reverse pirouette for PB with a 3 step hand placement vs the 2 step hand placement that is used on High Bar/Unevens and after you have learned the 3 step on floor.

It's a good idea to learn how to do a forward roll on parallel bars from support in case you swing past handstand as a recovery skill. Ask about this. From support you will bend your arms as your shoulders get close to the bar and your butt goes over your shoulders while your legs straddle and you catch the bars. You can also extend your arms out to the sides while you do this to roll through. It's a good idea to learn how to do a shoulderstand on parallel bars/parallettes before doing one on rings.

Still Rings: Focus on keeping the head in while swinging at first. Some people will say to start learning the ring action at first but for beginning swings this will just foul people up because I would prefer they have relaxed shoulders at the bottom of the swing. I want them to think about swinging the body through the chest like we do in CF but most beginners will start by flexing and arching at the hips.

Again look for the CFJ article and there is a good example on DrillsandSkills. After you can swing your torso and keep your head in and shoulders relaxed, you will need to pull the rings back as you swing your toes forward and push the rings forward as you swing backwards and looking towards the ground (head down). Then you will learn to turn the rings. Do not learn the ring action until you learn how to push and pull the rings while maintaining the head neutral. This is identical in this sense to the High Bar swing and underbar and upper arm swing on Parallel bars. Well, somewhat except the rings move.

Typically we don't teach uprises or inlocates/dislocates until the swing is built up the point that the toes and chest or as high as the bottom of the ring.

Work the basic support technique, muscle-ups, skin the cats towards levers, forward and backward roll from support to hang or forward roll back to muscle-up. Set the rings low for shoulderstands and handstands.

High Bar: Work the basic CF kip swing though I like to call this a baby tap or wiggle. It's merely a transition of arch>hollow and back. One's hips should be flat, not piked as the toes swing forward and open/tight arch as they swing backwards. Relax in the shoulders, none of that active shoulder nonsense for swinging in hang. Shoulders into ears.

A good flexibility drill is to work half turns and full turns from a hang on one arm on the bar. Turning to mixed grip ( over and under grip ) besides undergrip and L/eagle grip ( like an undergrip but with the hand turned the other way ). An eagle grip takes a lot of flexibility work like hanging in the bar that way and rope/band/stick dislocates/inlocates.

Again on the back swing, look down at your toes and think about pushing your butt back in a pike. Eventually we want a hollow but that's ok at this point. In the front swing, kick the toes and change from arch at the bottom of the swing to hollow. Look for a spot on the ceiling to focus on kicking your toes toward. Keep your head in. KEEP YOUR HEAD IN!

Learn a basic pullover. For men, make sure you pull higher than your waist towards your navel because you don't want to roll over anything valuable. It's basically a pullup and a leg lift over the bar to support.

Learn the basic "cast." This is a bit like the support swing on PB except you will lean over the bar and pike your hips with your toes in front of the bar at the bottom, arching your heels back as you keep your arms straight. Support and planche strength help this.

Now eventually in the bar cast and support swing on parallel bars you will want to switch position from an arch to hollow at the top of the swing as this lets you control your body by killing some of the momentum. Very important for pirouettes and circle work.

On High Bar there is also the basket swing like on parallel bars and the inverted straddle swing. Again, it's all about compression in the pike or straddle.

For giants, merely get into some straps and figure it out. It's not reccomended until you can swing horizontally in the front and back swing. Arching in the back swing is a good way to peel off.

Vault: Basically with vault we are combining a fast coordinated run towards the vault with a jump off one foot to both feet hitting the springboard similar to a long jump. The feet are thrown in front of the body and you "punch" the board with the forefoot. It's similar on floor when punching the floor and doing dive rolls and front flips.

As you run down the vault, target the place you will jump off one leg and where you will jump onto the board. After you jump off one leg, pick up your sight to horizontal or the horse/table and swing your arms to horizontal. The rest of the body sort of plays catch up from there and it depends on whether you are doing handspring vaulting or round-off/backhandspring vaulting.

You need to learn a flyspring before doing a handspring off the vault. A handstand flat back is a cute drill that goes nowhere as it teaches you to not rotate your handspring vault besides allowing you to dive on to the hands ( which also happens with the flyspring ). It's ok at this point.

Floor: Learn a HS. Read a lot of the articles and floor drills on the boards I mentioned.

Learn how to kick to a split HS. Split as in front split. This is to teach generating momentum forward for the round-off and front handspring. It is very handy to at least have the feel for front and back walkover even if you lack the shoulder flexibility for it ( bridges and bridge wall walks and kickovers-in fact I have a video on youtube about it-learn to kickover both ways by kicking from an elevated surface to add an assist).

Learn the side cartwheel first. Many people skip this but it's the first cartwheel for a reason and the reason why many front to back cartwheels are poorly performed.

Learn the basic forward and backward roll in straddle, tuck, pike and to prone (except forward). This is used to teach the body how to rotate for flips.

Honestly, aerials are cool but can be very confusing when doing them while developing the round-off. Learn a near and far arm cartwheel, ask them what a dive cartwheel is and build some mats and do into a pit at first. Again, you need to drive the first leg like a split handstand to develop momentum into the aerial for the side or front aerial (which is basically a front walkover without the hands).

Ask them if they have a trampoline to show you seatdrop to table/doggie drop to stomach drop and the back drop. Learn to bounce in the backdrop position up and down on your back. Then back drop to backward roll which turns into backdrop pullover which is the first way to learn the back flip and flyaway. Learn to flip from the hands and knees to butt and eventually the feet. Learn to bounce from the knees to handstand.

Learn how to kick to a handstand and land on your stomach or back. Use a thick mat so you don't knock the wind out of your chest. For adults, two stiff 8" thick mats are adviseable but if there is a softer older 8" one you can put that on top or by itself. 4" mats are not thick enough.

Learn a flyspring (forward handspring off two feet) before the backhandspring as this teaches you how to transition from hollow>arch. You can at least work the principles of walkovers on an octagon if you lack the shoulder flexibility.

While doing most handstand work, align your eyes so you look to your wrists but KEEP THAT HEAD IN. That is one of the most important things to learn on all the apparatus in the beginning stages. This is what must be done for cartwheel/front handspring/round off work.

Backhandsprings and back flips should be done in a supervised area as there are very dangerous on one's own. I taught myself both but only because I had the equipment and the teaching progressions through having taught them and learned while gymnastics coach training.

A butterfly on the floor is basically a cartwheel on a horizontal plane. Pass through a lunge weight transferring from one leg to another, dropping your chest down while keeping your back arched and kick. For the twist, pull your legs vs keeping them straddled.

Flair circle work can be done though the breaker style or gymnastics style. In the latter you learn the basic circle first and then straddle as you circle kicking the legs around, takes longer but looks cleaner.

[sasquatch]

Cool, good tips.

[Nick Van Bockxmeer]

very useful.

I've been going to classes for 5 weeks and ive worked on mainly the PB swings and some basic floor stuff.

[Gregor]

If you want to learn correct gymnastic flairs, you should never learn the breaker style!!!!!!! And first ordinary circles then flairs!!!!

[braindx]

If you want to learn correct gymnastic flairs, you should never learn the breaker style!!!!!!! And first ordinary circles then flairs!!!!

I agree.

If you want technical ability to do other hard stuff as well you MUST learn it the gymnastics way.

[Blairbob]

Actually in something I do other than gymnastics, we train the more difficult basics first because it makes the easier basics-easier. It's backwards in a way, but once you learn that principle, the others come faster.

[Gregor]

Actually in something I do other than gymnastics, we train the more difficult basics first because it makes the easier basics-easier. It's backwards in a way, but once you learn that principle, the others come faster.

I disagree... always from less complex to more complex.

[Blairbob]

Yes, in most cases we teach or train gymnastics from a gross motor skill to finite motor skill but in the other stuff we do, we do most that most of the time. However, some things are taught the hard way first as a trial and means to weed out people. Weed out the weirdos, people who can't hack it, and people who won't be interested in it for the long run. We can't obviously do this in gymnastics in the states as most are gyms are clubs that are not non profit or city funded and are run as a business.

My friend told me in Japan there was a gymnast who repeat something 300x before coming to the coach again, getting one correction and then repeating it 300 more times.

That principle of teaching for gymnastics would be training the very basics and basic types of swing before ever even introducing any type of skills. No spending 1/2 the year on compulsory routines, etc.

[Razz]

Just a little OT I heard before about training systems where they would teach only a round off and spend ½-1 year just doing roundoff, then add a backflick and keep that procedure going. Ofcourse i guess this would be for the basics only but still crazy :shock:

[Gregor]

Just a little OT I heard before about training systems where they would teach only a round off and spend ½-1 year just doing roundoff, then add a backflick and keep that procedure going. Ofcourse i guess this would be for the basics only but still crazy :shock:

Yes, that is how it goes...

[Razz]

Wow, just think 1 year of doing only round offs sound like a long time, then again i might actually have been doing roundoffs for more than a year when i was small now that i think of it

[Blairbob]

It's a prevalent opinion by many upper level coaches to never bother teaching a round-off in a recreational program.

A good round-off takes a long time to develop. I have seen many optional gymnasts who still have technical problems with their round-off, even collegiate/elites (who can get away with it typically because of their power potential).

I prefer to never even talk of a round-off anymore until the gymnast has mastered all the basic cartwheel versions, the basic lunge to handstand lunge, handstand pop/shrug off floor, and handstand snap-down.

A new very interesting skill I have come across for front handspring and round-off is the kick to split handstand with the lead foot landing on a height. Emphasis on kicking the first leg to develop momentum. For the round-off it's the same initiation, just change the hands on the floor.

[deljosque]

nice article, where can i find the cfj article?

jos

[Blairbob]

This was a post on the CF forum, not in the CFJ. No idea where it is now.

[Coach Sommer]

It's a prevalent opinion by many upper level coaches to never bother teaching a round-off in a recreational program ...

This is almost correct, but short sighted.

... I prefer to never even talk of a round-off anymore until the gymnast has mastered all the basic cartwheel versions, the basic lunge to handstand lunge, handstand pop/shrug off floor, and handstand snap-down.

Mastering lunges, kicks to HS and all of the cartwheel variations ARE the initial progressions for learning a round off.

I have seen many optional gymnasts who still have technical problems with their round-off, even collegiate/elites

This process of ongoing refinement of basic elements will continue throughout a serious gymnast's career.

... who can get away with it typically because of their power potential ...

No one is getting away with anything. While they may be powerful, their lack of technical refinement prevents them from advancing onward to even more difficult tumbling elements.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Sternford]

Could one of you name these "cartwheel variations"? We have some people at our gym who who want to learn round offs but might not be ready

[ultimath]

Why is it that one shouldn't train two skills at the same time?

[Blairbob]

Depends on the skills.

Hah, I did not see Coach's response to my statements. I feel pretty owned.

CW variations?

basic side cartwheel. starts like an X, weight shift. This teaches hand placement as one at a time and weight transfer of one hand to another.

Side CW to step in. Due side cartwheel but due a 1/4 turn out of it to land in a lunge. Then step 2nd leg into the first forward

Lunge CW Lunge.

Lunge CW step in. Listed above but from forward lunge, not side lunge.

Lunge CW step in to run back. Step in 2nd leg fast to cause over rotation backward.

[Sailor Venus]

I read the original post. What's a CF and a CFJ? Acronyms are doing my head in. :?

[Adam Bodestyne]

I read the original post. What's a CF and a CFJ? Acronyms are doing my head in. :?

Gonna venture a guess that they stand for 'CrossFit' and 'CrossFit Journal', respectively.

[Blairbob]

Yes, Thanners.

[Sailor Venus]

Ta

Is there any books/dvds you could recommend me to read/watch that teaches me stuff like swinging on high bars, parallel bars, rings, floors, etc? And cover stuff like conditioning, nutrition, etc?

For example these books:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Science-Gym ... 81&sr=8-10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gymnastics-Skil ... _279317_13

No need to mention Sommer's Building a Gymnastic Body book as I'm already aware of it.

Cheers

[Blairbob]

Looked at both as you can view the ToC.

The first book looks goods for a Coach. It doesn't really go into learning skills or the techniques and progressions. It's more of the biomechanics ( it does have the one Gymnastics biomechanics guy in the US ), psychology, and nutrition for coaching.

The 2nd has more of technique and progressions besides some of the other topics and material as the 1st book listed.

Another book would be http://winninggymnastics.com/contents.php

However, it only covers the 4 women's events, so SR, PH, PB are not covered.

They are probably all fine books and I'd be tempted to buy them right now though I'm trying to be frugal right now.

However, if you really want to learn about progressions and techniques for the events, I think you should go pick up some DVD's.

Gymsmarts has a lot of good DVD's. There are a few other series you might find on Gymnastic Supply companies like Deary'sGymnasticsSupply.

If you find any particular you want to know about, post it here. I'm familiar with most of these coach's material through their clinics at Gymnastic Congress or having watched the videos before. Well all, except 3. Paul Hall, MaryLeeTracy and Tim Rand.

[Cole Dano]

The second book is very uninformative it's a very broad overview at best.

Championship Gymnastics is a very good book, pretty pricey though. I'm reading it on loan from a friend.

I just bought a small pile of DVDs from GymSmarts.

Still for the skills you are asking about, this has to be supplemental help, you still need to find a coach if you intend to do anything more than the most basic swings.

Nutritionally speaking one book i like is Sport Nutrition - Jeukendrup and Gleeson

[Blairbob]

It really does pay to have a coach say "NO! you are doing it wrong!" in real-time or pointing out directions.

You don't get that in the same way from someone giving you criticism from watching posted youtube/video clips.