Gymnastics Moves
Andrew Stemler
Andrew Stemler on the joy and frustration of learning gymnastics as an inexperienced adult, it is fun and cool he points out...but we may need to curb desires of celebrating our next goal with a double back flip and not get too carried away at first!
For me, gymnastics represents the best and worst of all fitness activities.
The benefits are almost endless: it’s cool, great for real flexibility, makes you strong, sleek and sexy...did I mention it’s cool?
The problem is that we have already skipped too far ahead. What does gymnastics mean for you, as an adult beginner?
This article assumes that you are an adult, a beginner with no prior gymnastic experience. If you were back flipping as a child, the chances are that you can pop along to an open adult gymnastic session (try the East London Gymnastic centre), and if you can find the space in a room packed full of “adults”, attempt to practise your flip and back somersault. Soon you’ll be free running with the best of them.
I’m going to argue, that if you weren’t tumbling as a child, and you are getting on in years (anything from 23 years onward) the chances are that unless you have a clear definition of what you want to achieve you will fail, be disappointed and risk hurting yourself.
I have mentioned the concept of youth several times, and that’s not me being arsey because I’m so old (ok, that's partly true), it’s just that at a young age you don’t have the fear factor, and you can be easily spotted i.e. an adult can safely guide teeny kids through the motions. Believe me, it’s not too easy to spot a 14 stone rugby player through a back flip (without injury to either party).
It is my opinion, having spent five years as an (erratic) trainee adult gymnast (45 to 50 years old) with a variety of personal coaches and open lessons, you (an adult beginner) should limit your aspirations to those moves you can do with the right amount of strength easily under control. Predominantly I’m talking about basic strength gymnastics on the floor, rings, bar and handstands.
A patient gymnast can teach you how to handstand (and the forward roll to get out of it), planches, muscle-ups, the crucifix (but mainly just progressions leading up to it), L-sit , rope climb, and a whole host of supporting drills and progressions. The latter mainly because the transfer to “real stuff” is fabulous. And by “real stuff”, I mean your handstand improves your press, the muscle-up means you can get up and over stuff, the planches mean your shoulders are really strong...did I mention that it’s all really cool?
I would say that for a lot of people the flips, tumbles, etc. are too fast to learn in a fast time frame, and are not safely practised outside a matted area and/or tumble track. As such they should be excluded from your gymnastic aspirations.
Time after time I’ve seen adults at Capoeria and Parkour lessons beat themselves up because they can get nowhere near a move that the guy who has just joined got straight away. What they didn’t realise was that the new trainee happened to have 10 years of youthful gymnastic experience!
So what about the meagre agenda I’ve suggested? Why would you bother? Well, the skills are fairly safe and once learned can be practised almost anywhere, although you need to buy a set of rings for about £50 so you can practise at home. They develop your balance, co-ordination and agility in a realistic time scale. Child gymnasts can easily knock up 15 hours of practise a week. If you are already training three to four hours a week and have the normal adult targets (health, weight loss, looking sexy, etc.) there is no point in committing yourself to a skill that requires time you haven’t got. The handstand, for example, can be practised anywhere.
To do the back flip (which we don’t dare teach at CrossFit London) you need a soft surface, a tumble track, or in my case deep foam pit!
Part of the magic in some of the moves I have chosen revolves around inversion. You will develop a whole range of spatial comprehension (just the other way up), and the fact that your centre of mass bounces round your body means your core is well and truly getting activated.
In the handstand I cannot think of a single muscle (that I’m bothered about) that isn’t involved!
The handstand is also your personal fear factor. For many the actual thought of all your weight resting on tiny hands that up till this minute have been used as a back drop for diamonds or a pint of lager can be terrifying. Thankfully we have all the tips and hints to help you over come your inner demons and build your strength, flexibility, balance, and bravery (and stupidity?)
You should want to muscle-up because it expresses your strength (or the strength it will train you to own), but also because the skill can be broken down and trained (pull up, dip, transition) with each of the breakdowns being valid strength and conditioning activity in its own right.
These skills also make you strong, coordinated and agile. Not at all bad, really.
The reality is not to trap yourself into a narrow skill set, you still need to weightlift, powerlift, row, run, sprint, box jump, so we don’t make a claustrophobic training box for you to obsess about two or three skills. Practise in 5 and 10 minute chunks, in between other stuff.
About the Author
Andrew is a little different to most of our team. He is older. He is also very aware of what it is to become More-Athletic. A sedentary chap in 1997, at age 37, he gave up a life devoted to cigarettes (a 100 a day habit) and began getting fit. Since then he has amassed a huge list of certifications, has embarked on a Sports Science Degree and has become London’s first level II CrossFit trainer. He’s a huge advocate of the CrossFit method, but still very much his own man. He is constantly studying and looking to improve coaching standards and is a great addition to the team. Although he does tend to wear a neck scarf that most people think doesn’t suit him. Check out CrossFit London at Crossfitlondonuk.com for more from Andrew and his team.
More from the Author:
The Bleep TestWrist Pain in the Front Squat
What are you fitness standards?
