Gymcheer USA - Home of the California Flyers

Hit a plateau? Ways to BOOST your skill development...

Improve Your Strength:
Many of our students have specific goals to get certain skills. In order to keep your training on track, and increase your strength, power and flexibility. Read on for some helpful tips to stay strong.

Things you can do at home to maintain your strength:

Push-ups – basic skill but huge impact. Push-ups are the key to strengthening your upper body to help support a back-handspring. If you want to improve this skill – add push-ups to your daily routine. Do at least 3 sets of 10-25 push-ups daily.

Different kinds of push-ups:

Regular push up stance is with your arms extended below your shoulders. Tightening your abs and hollowing your back as you lower and raise, and keeping your head neutral. This workout is an overall body strengthener, and it strengthens shoulders and arms as well.
Put your hands in the shape of a triangle to strengthen the back of your arm and shoulders.
Turn your hands out and stretch them farther than your shoulders. This benefits the chest and rib muscles, and also the middle of your back.
Lower your hands right under your ribs. This strengthens the back of your arms and top of your shoulders.

Sit-ups – basic skill but huge impact. Sit-ups strengthen your abs and back and are key to building up the basic body positions we use in tumbling every single workout. Do at least 3 sets of at least 25 sit-ups daily (more conditioned students can go up to 50-75 reps in each set).

Different kinds of sit-ups:

Regular crunches are positioned lying on your back. Hands are behind your head with your knees bent, and feet hip-width apart from each other on the floor. Lift up your chin and chest 3-6 inches off of the floor while squeezing your tummy muscles to hold the elevated position. Elbows should stay open to the sides of your head. You can also sit all the way up using that same position.
Lift chin and chest 3-6 inches from floor. This is your start position. Then lift your right elbow to your right knee and then go back to the start position. Then lift your left elbow to the left knee and go back to the start position. This is one rep. Continue to do as many reps as you can do.
Lift chin and chest 3-6 inches from floor. This is your start position. Cross right elbow to left knee and then the left elbow to the right knee. Always returning to start position. This is one rep. Continue to do as many as you can.
Crunch up and hold for 10 sec. Repeat at least 10x. Also crunching up and curling your bottom off the floor at the same time will help the lower abs get stronger.

Handstands – this skill is key to every trick in gymnastics and tumbling. Solid, hollow and strong handstands are what makes a roundoff snap faster, a back-handspring block better, a back-tuck set higher, a layout rotate faster, and a full twist - twist tighter. So good skill to have.

Different kinds of handstands:

Kick to handstand, balance as long as you can. Keep head in between arms. Squeeze bottom and legs tight. Point toes, and keep tummy tucked in so the back is straight and not arched.
Walk your handstand.
March your handstand (pick up hands higher as your walking, like you are marching).
If you have a wall, stand with your back to the wall and place your hands on the ground. Walk your feet up the wall and only let your toes and nose touch the wall. This requires a very tight and hollow body. Walk back down.
Split your handstand. When you kick up keep your legs split front to back while trying to balance.
Enter your handstand like you are going to do a cartwheel, then try and stop upside down with your feet together. This is a side handstand. You can even walk sideways.

Flexibility – maintain your flexibility by stretching daily. Stretch your splits, and your pike and straddle sit. Stretch your arms and bridges. If you are pretty flexible, it helps to put your feet flat against a wall to stretch your pike. And elevate your front leg in your splits, maybe up to stacked books, or couch etc. Just go as high as you can handle. If its too high it won’t really help you gain, it will just really be uncomfortable on your back knee.

Read some of our other articles to discover more ways to improve...
Cross Training
Repetition and Frequency
Specialty Training