Because they are elite is why they used resistance. Then the gymnasts began a training program where they used therabands to add resistance to the following moves:. They slowly increased the amount of repetitions and sets. At the end of the study all of the gymnasts had improved their split leaps, jumps and kicks. We want to re-emphasize, this may not be appropriate for young gymnasts. However, it seems like doing a similar program without the resistance would still lead to improvement.
Well, if you want to learn your splits so that you can do a split, be patient. Stretch only to the point of mild discomfort, and with weeks of consistent stretching you should begin to see improvement. If you want to improve your splits so that you can kick higher, or perform a leap with a bigger split, know that kicking higher requires dynamic flexibility.
So the moves you should be practicing are dynamic stretches, like lifting one leg at a time as high as you can. Gradually you should improve.
Nicki November 10, , pm. This was helpful. I have one question though. Could you learn to do oversplits with this technique? Yes or No? Lola March 15, , pm. Hal May 5, , pm. Luckson Mupakamiso October 27, , am. Sara June 7, , am. Makenzie Marie May 12, , am. Yeah, make sure when you try these things work gently. Work slowly. If you work fast sometimes you injure yourself.
I am flexible but it takes awhile! Hi October 9, , pm. These tips do work! However, it is extremely important to follow the safety guidelines! I am a gymnast and I know from experience that over stretching only causes injuries! Also theses tips will not work over night! You have to give them time.
Probably a minimum of 2 weeks at least. Anna January 22, , am. Doing a high volume of these movements may create ongoing stiffness in these areas, and as a result further contribute to the persistent loss of overhead mobility.
A better option would be first to modify the amount of pull up or rope climb volume these athletes do, and instead replace those exercises with more horizontal pulling type motions to help create balance.
Also adding in regular soft tissue work and mobility drills would be very important. In the long term, the increased strength of the upper back and follow up technique work will solidify the flexibility gains made.
The same argument can be made for the hips of gymnasts. Many gymnasts struggle with excessively tight hip flexors, inner thighs, and quads. They also are usually subject to s of squats, squat jumps, and leg tigthening exercises per week. Many gymnasts with stiff hips could benefit from a bit less squatting and jumping, and repace those exercises with glute and hamstring work. Doing slider crawls are a great core training replacement to reduce some of the leg lifts that may be creating ongoing headaches with limited split flexibility.
Warm ups and cool downs are another common topic that comes up when discussing flexibility. Many people want to know what the best approach is, either static or dynamic, if they should be aiming to increase range of motion, what are the best drills, and so on.
For me, I think the discussion must start with the intended goal of the flexibility work. There are some times when we are aiming to just get the body going, and other times when we are looking to truley increase joint range of motion. I view the different goals fo flexibility in this light,. In my mind, the warm-up should not really be the main time we are looking to make massive changes in flexibility. Warm-ups are typically best looked at as a time when you can prepare the available joint range of motion that a gymnast has.
There are usually large groups of people warming up, a limited amount of space, and a limited amount of time. Also, you must remember that immediately following the warm-up genetically go to an event has very high forces. We do not want to excessively relax the muscular tissue and increase lots of joint motion before we then subject them to extremely high forces.
For that reason, I typically approach the warm-up is getting the body ready for the training session. Although there is a lot of research and textbook chapters written on these concepts , I have found that a multi step warm-up seems to be the best approach for this goal. I recommend athletes start with light soft tissue prep or individual areas of focus before practice, then do a joint based preparation, followed by some light cardio to increase metabolic temperature and heart rate, and then do a full dynamic warm-up.
Following a full-bodied dynamic warm-up, athletes can then do some core basics, jumping and landing basics, handstand or other gymnastic specific prep work, and then progress naturally to their first about. You can see a video of our entire warm up here. As far as cool downs go, it is what most people think about and use in gymnastics. We will have our gymnasts do a quick 5 minute foam roll or light stretch, just to help the body calm down.
There are theoretical ideas that we are allowing the body to shift into a parasympathetic state, help clear out some of the metabolites and acidic biproducts from training, and that we are allowing some more blood flow around the body vs just walking out of practice and sitting in the car. As far as specific flexibility circuits, those I feel are the best times to truly make positive increases in joint flexibility. I will cover those in-depth below. After having various conversations about flexibility with people in the gymnastics community, the safety of training over splits is typically the biggest question.
Some degree of abnormal hip bone motion may be needed for success in aesthetic sports. I think there are not yet studied boney adaptations to the hip joints of gymnasts when correctly performed and consistent stretching occurs in younger years. I have this theory based on the changes in boney rotation that baseball players exhibit from throwing when younger.
This is a central concept to the work my mentors Mike Reinold and Lenny Macrina teach their patients about, due to how much it changes their mobility. They found that to achieve this full straddle split position; there was evidence of micro subluxation in the hip joints.
This means the hip bone was slightly migrating out of the hip socket to reach such large ranges of motion. More research is needed, but this concept of natural boney adaptations in gymnasts is a central idea I feel will emerge in years to come. The research in ballet dancers made me reconsider what must happen at the hip joint go to achieve such large ranges of motion needed for oversplits.
Keeping this in mind, we need to seriously consider that gymnasts have open growth plates and can suffer from ischial apophysitis or growth plate stress fractures if we blindly force split motion. Forcing a split down into extreme ranges of an oversplit without a proper assessment behind it, asking a gymnast to perform over splits when they are not even close to a split on flat ground, or blindly pushing someone down just to be tough, is most definitely dangerous.
Without an in-depth knowledge of medical assessments, it is difficult to know why a gymnast may be limited in their split and what structure is referring discomfort during flexibility training. Being able to achieve a full over split, or even a regular full split for that matter requires many things to be going well from a movement point of view. This is where things start to get important. Some of the movement-based components that must go right to perform over splits include:. As you can see, there are quite a few things that can limit why someone cannot do a full split or over a split.
It should be considered to be a skill with many pieces that must be broken down to achieve success. Now after saying that over split training is not inherently dangerous or going to create injury automatically, we all must realize there are severe consequences for not approaching split flexibility correctly.
Also, aggressively pushing a gymnast down in a split or not taking the time to break down why someone is limited can also lead to serious injuries. Before you apply new flexibility ideas, take a step back and consider the scientific rationale behind them.
Then brainstorm how to divide out the group of gymnasts who may or may not fit, and who may need an alternative exercise based on their issues.
However, they may have a more serious underlying issue such as ligament, capsule, the joint or labral damage that are frankly a big deal. Many great studies have outlined how hip ligaments and labrum may get strained at very end ranges that are unprotected or repetitively subjected to high force as seen in several gymnastics skills.
I will say take these research studies with a grain of salt due to their methods, smaller sizes, and sometimes using cadavers as subjects. However, we need to understand that forcefully pushing oversplits, not being open to learning basic anatomy, or ignoring serious pain complaints from gymnasts is not tolerable.
A blind approach to gymnastics flexibility training can cause serious hip injuries as the current medical research field has demonstrated. Labral tears may progress to requiring surgical repair and putting an athlete out of training for months or even career-ending.
Long-standing hip micro instability is another concern that may be created without the proper training approach. If you are more curious about learning the medical side of hip injuries in hyper-flexible athletes, I highly recommend reading these articles. Sadly, many young gymnasts are requiring hip surgery, or are retiring due to hip injuries of this nature.
Part of this may be inevitable for high-level gymnastics, but we should be doing anything we can to reduce risk given the scientific information and coaching expertise available. The biggest concern I have with the use of ankle weights is related to two concepts of hip impingement and hip instability. I will try to provide simple explanations and also include graphics for the concepts. Hip impingement refers to the femur bone and pelvic bones make contact with each other at extreme ranges of motion, most times causing pain and possibly damaging the soft tissue in between.
Moving from here, I will start covering specific joints and ways to help. It will be much less explanation, and more just videos and examples on how to help. Now let me tie this into why I no longer use of ankle weights. The ankle joint is very far from the hip socket. The farther the load is away from the joint, the more force it will have on it.
I think this is especially true in those with natural hyperflexible hip joints who are not fully developed and lack hip strength. This may be one reason why so many gymnasts say their hips hurt when they do jumping drills, running, or skills with ankle weights on.
Again, these are just my thoughts. To really see if it is true I would need a dynamic MRI machine, a super slow motion high def camera, and someone way more technologically savvy than me anyone want to put in donations?
Secondly, I have also found that many gymnasts have significantly increased passive range of motion due to naturally laxity, but have a notable lack of active control for their full hip ranges. This is especially true when not allowing compensation from other body parts or excessive swinging for momentum. They often struggle quite a bit to lift their legs even against gravity alone. In this situation, if the gymnast can not access their full range of motion against gravity alone, I see no justification for adding additional ankle weight resistance and allowing swinging momentum to reach the desired end range of motion.
I feel this may not only foster more compensation, but it may create overload based injuries to muscles and tendons in conjunction with the principles above. Third, on an even geekier motor control point I think the use of external loading far away at the ankle joint greatly distorts the movement pattern the brain is trying to adopt neurologically. Given all of this, instead of doing twenty to thirty minutes of only stretching exercises, I now feel working in a complex type format is the most beneficial approach.
I have found that it not only can yield quick changes in flexibility, but it can also make longer-lasting changes that show up in gymnastics skills. The traditional model of gymnastics typically involves twenty to thirty-minute time periods where static stretches are held, active flexibility drills are done, or specific exercises are repeatedly done in high volume to gain range of motion.
I did this for a decade as a gymnast, and for the first five years I was coaching. Knowing what I do now from all of the above research, I have mostly moved away from this approach of only using stretching to improve flexibility. This is true both in training and in our medical clinic.
One of the most effective methods that I have come up with to increase flexibility, make changes stick, and not risk injury with aggressive stretching techniques is to work in complexes rather than performing only static or dynamic stretching.
While I think these longer static or active flexibility circuits do have some value and this is supported by research when used properly , the abundance of research outside of just the literature on stretching suggests a more optimal approach. For one, proper movement assessments are rarely done before these large flexibility sessions. Often the specificity or individuality of specific exercises lacks as a result. Second, most times there are a lack of pre and post-tests line splits, checking objective shoulder flexibility screen against a wall to see if what is being used for exercises is effective.
People assume that progress is being made, rather than having some comparative baseline for observing changes.
If a training strategy is not yielding results over a few days or weeks, we must change and reevaluate our methodology. And lastly, passive or active flexibility exercises alone will not have a substantial impact on the nervous system to change movement, build strength, or correct technique.
This approach may lead to a limited transference to actual skills. It may help improve range of motion acutely, but it will not change movement in a gymnastics skill-specific manner.
Despite our best efforts we may continue to see cast handstands that lack open shoulders, leaps that do not have larger angles, and parallel bar swings that lack a large front swing. Due to these reasons and the research I have read about the human body, there will likely be a very limited long-term change in flexibility that change gymnastics skills.
We must remember Dr. I feel to see a notable lasting change in the range of motion that shows up in gymnastics skills, we have to approach the entire movement system with our mobility work, and not just aim to improve the range of motion seen.
As I mentioned above, research does support specific stretching and soft tissue work, but as one piece to a larger program. This is why I now mainly approach flexibility in larger complexes. Pre Test Screen Splits on line, back to wall overhead shoulder motion, crab position for a male gymnast to assess parallel bars and pommel flexibility Self-Soft Tissue Work. Scapular Muscles, Rotator Cuff, Core, etc. When this circuit approach is done with an idea of consistency over intensity, followed by proper gymnastics technique or strength programming, I think it has a substantial effect on long-lasting.
I often give these circuits for shoulder or hip flexibility assigned as homework before practice or at home.
This approach is especially useful for gymnasts who are not as fortunate to be naturally mobile. This theory is also more in line with the motor control research I have read and interpreted related to changing human movement.
By using a variety of drills that include the basic movements hip extension, shoulder flexion with rotation, etc. Lastly and most importantly, this complex approach tends to create much more engagement from gymnasts, as the longer static holding of flexibility can be very prolonged and monotonous.
I feel this approach not only makes more sense from a gymnastics technique point of view, but also incorporates a lot of current scientific research on flexibility, soft tissue work, and human movement.
This will be the format I use for the joint sections below, but you can download examples of these circuits for the hip and shoulder specifically here,.
Seated Overhead Screen with Stick — Sitting at the wall with the lower back flat and head against the wall, the gymnast raises the bar overhead with the arms shoulder-width apart and palms down.
The goal is to make hand contact with the wall. Thoracic Spine Motion — Sitting on the corner of a block, the gymnast crosses their arms across their chest and turns their body as far as they can to one side. The angle of the shoulders in relation to the box is measured, and ideally the gymnast can rotate 60 degrees in each direction in line with the box is 45 degrees.
The gymnast can also perform a seal stretch or prone press up to see if the upper back shows the ability to extend fully and evenly. Rolling Back of Shoulder At Wall x60s. Rolling Chest at Wall x60s. Specific Stretches. Floor Chest Stretch x60s. Cross Body Stretch At Wall x60s. Table Top Extensions x Shoulder Circles x Chin Up Lowers 5 reps with 5 second lower and 5 second bottom hold. Crab Walks. Thread The Needles x Gymnastics Specific Drills. Reverse Buzzsaws on Physioball.
Sample Circuit. Foam Rolling Quad x60s. Foam Rolling Hamstring x60s. Foam Rolling Glutes x60s. True Quad Stretch x60s. Inner Thigh Rock Backs x Leg Lowers x Curled Up Leg Kicks. Needle Kicks x Stomach Reptile Slides x Leg Drivers Back and Side x Eccentric Split Squats x Eccentric Romanian Deadlifts. Soft Tissue Prep. Lacrosse Ball to Bottom Of Feet. Duck Walks x10 steps. Yes, b eing well hydrated improves flexi bility!
By drinking enough w ater, your body will be more relaxed, increasing your mobility during a stretch session. Not only that, but dehydrated muscles la ck electrolytes , which cause them to cramp and not give you as much physical strength. Proper b reathing is important while you stretch. When you hold your breath, your muscles tense up and will make your stretches ineffective. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth to get more oxygen to the brain and muscles. Foam rollers can work wonders for a tight, sore body.
T his device breaks up all the lactic buildup in your body, taking away tightness and making you move much better. You can perform a self-massage with a foam roller before a nd after a gymnastics class to ease any soreness.
Some great areas gymnasts can massage are the calves, quads, hamstrings, and lateral muscles. There is such a thing as overstretching, and that can also cause injuries to your muscles. Start by r each ing as far as you comfortably can. You want to be healthy overall to get the best benefits. Eat plenty of nutritious food and find ways to relax.
Some foods that will give your body all the nutrients you need to reach your flexibility goals are lean protein, vegetables, whole grains, and fruits. Stay away from processed foods and sugar, a s those can cause inflammation in the body and lead to stiffness and bloating. That alone will make it even harder to increase your flexibility!
The more you practice , the better results you will have. To prevent it from becoming too tedious, make sure to switch up some of your stretching exercise s. We want gymnasts to perform their best, get a perfect score during a competition , and reduce their chances of getting injured. At Stretch Zone , our team can help those in gymnastics to improve their flexibility and range of motion.
As we all know, those are key for giving it your all during a performance. G ive us a call to schedule your minute stretch session with us today! What is Flexibility? The Importance of Flexibility in Gymnastics Not having the proper range of motion will prevent a gymnast from p er forming many of their stunts or learning new ones. How to Increase Your Flexibility One of the best ways to increase your flexibility is to perform various s tretch ing exercises at a stretching gym and on your own.
Static stretching is when you get into a position and hold it for an extended amount of time. Dynamic stretching, on the other hand, is performed as part of a movement and involves taking your body to the end of its range of motion.
Other things that can improve flexibility are using foam rollers to massage the relevant areas like hamstrings, quads, lats, and calves.
You can also try simple breathing exercises while exercising and drink more water to improve your flexibility over time. Our trainers understand which skills are relevant and essential for training in gymnastics and provide the right guidance to adults and children learning the same. Our training will focus on strengthening and improving the overall flexibility and specific areas of the body that need more agility.
Rest assured, your children will be well-supported and guided in their journey to become exceptional gymnasts.
To book a session or learn more about our club, call us on
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