116 Gymnastics Training Mistakes

Join me live next week for: "Mastering Gymnastics for Fitness Athletes"

Thursday, June 19th at 2pm MT

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Not training gymnastic strength

It's common to have "just enough" strength to do the Rx movements.

But the best gymnasts don't have "just enough" strength, they have strength reserves.

They're stronger than they need to be, and this makes lower level movements much easier for them.

Only doing gymnastics in metcons

Metcons cause fatigue, which makes us less sensitive to errors.

With movements like ring muscle ups, handstand walking, double unders, even rope climbs, movement efficiency matters.

If we want to move better, we need to practice these movements when we're fresh.

Throwing volume at the problem

I had a client come in knowing handstand pushups were his biggest weakness, so he was doing loads of bodybuilding.

Exercises like tricep pushdowns for high rep sets close to failure.

When I asked him if his handstand pushup had improved, it was clear that this approach wasn't helping, it was just making him tired.

When we started doing fewer, harder sets for gymnastic strength, his handstand pushup quickly improved.

Too much conditioning

I was stuck here myself for years. Imitating what I saw in the documentaries - conditioning until I was exhausted.

I remember getting to the end of a week and all I could do was watch TV and eat ice cream.

While sport will always involve sacrifice, too much conditioning can make us too tired to get stronger (neural fatigue).

This doesn't just affect our barbell training, it affects our gymnastic training as well.

Thinking occasional, light stretching will change mobility

Most athletes are aware they need more mobility, but are confused about how to get it.

Mobility protocols can be varied, with lots of different exercises, or complex, needing setups with bands and other equipment.

Instead, what's really needed is 1-3 specific exercises done every day.

"All or nothing" approach to injuries

We've all been there, we feel a twinge in the shoulder but we keep going. Sacrifice must mean I'm doing something right...right?

Then the pain gets really bad, and we shut it down. We don't use the shoulder at all.

Often times, there's a lot your shoulder can still do. And sometimes we need to do easier exercises for a while to desensitize the painful area and restore function.

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If any of these sound familiar to you, we'll cover the answers next week at the live training: "Mastering Gymnastics for Fitness Athletes".

Thursday, June 19th at 2pm MT

**Everyone who signs up will get permanent access to the recording**

Tap for more info: https://www.paulbweber.com/mastering-gymnastics-for-fitness-athletes