October 8, 2024 • 31 mins
Join SHIFTs most popualr online monthly education group The Hero Lab!
https://shiftmovementscience.com/theherolab/
Could ramping up your training routine too quickly be putting your gymnastics career at risk? In our latest episode of the Shift Show, we explore crucial preseason strategies that promise to arm you with the knowledge to manage workload effectively, plan routines smartly, and balance the mental and physical demands of gymnastics. Drawing from my extensive experience consulting and treating athletes, I unpack common mistakes that can hinder your progress and set the stage for avoidable injuries. This episode is packed with actionable insights to help you maintain the basics while gearing up for the season ahead.
We delve into the intricacies of workload management, highlighting the perils of overtraining and the importance of gradual progression. By understanding the concept of chronic workload, you can learn to ramp up your training intensity intelligently over weeks, not days, to prevent issues like shin splints and shoulder problems. We cover the strategic importance of periodization, focusing on the delicate balance of light, medium, and heavy training days to ensure optimal performance without compromising your health.
A holistic approach to athlete well-being is vital, and we don't shy away from discussing external factors like sleep, nutrition, hydration, and stress management. Emphasizing realistic expectations, we encourage athletes to focus on gradual progression and readiness for key events rather than aiming for peak performance too soon. This episode is your guide to fostering mental resilience and physical preparedness, reminding you to stay consistent with foundational training and prioritize overall health. Join us for this timely discussion and set the stage for a thriving gymnastics season.
We appreciate you listening!
To learn more about SHIFT, head here - https://shiftmovementscience.com/
To learn about SHIFT's courses, check our website here - https://courses.shiftmovementscience.com/
Also, please consider rating, reviewing, and sharing the podcast with your friends!
Thanks :)
Thanks for listening to The SHIFT Show!
Check out SHIFT's most popular courses here!
https://courses.shiftmovementscience.com/
Want to join our online educational community of over 1000 gymnastics professionals and get 40+ hours of gymnastics lectures? Join The Hero Lab below!
https://shiftmovementscience.com/theherolab/
Check out all our past podcast episodes here!
https://shiftmovementscience.com/podcast/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the Shift Show, where mynumber one goal is to give you
the tools, ideas and the latestscience to help you change
gymnastic lives.
Today in the podcast I am goingto do a quick little solo
episode, essentially just tryingto help people get ready and be
aware of some things thatpossibly are coming as mistakes
for preseason.
So I wanted to do a morequicker in the moment, actively
(00:33):
what's going on right now kindof situation, and that is to be
that preseason is here.
We are actively working onstuff right now for routines and
helping a lot of people with,you know, routine prep, physical
prep, cardio stamina, mentalperformance all that kind of
stuff is happening right now,daily in my life, and so I'm
talking to a lot of peopleconsulting wise or for injuries
or in the clinic or whateverthat is going to be, you know,
(00:54):
really relevant to these nextcouple months, and so I wanted
to, instead of wait for a longtime and look back about what we
could do, better, talk aboutwhat exactly I'm doing right now
.
So things I talk about on thepodcast to be aware of that
mistakes commonly I've made orother people might make is, like
you know, workload managementand how many routines, how many
skills.
How do you navigate that line?
Making sure, out of the gym,we're educating people on how to
(01:14):
take care of themselves,thinking about what, what we
want for readiness at the firstmeet.
How do we get to that point offeeling mentally and physically
ready?
I'm trying to make sure thatwe're keeping an eye on, you
know, basics and technique andflexibility work and then also
just prepping somebody on moreof like the mental grind game,
all these things.
I think I'm starting to see theearly warning signs of people
that are having problems frominjuries or mental problems or
(01:36):
some frustrations or whatever.
And I just want to be proactiveand try to take exactly what
I'm doing right now, day to day,when I'm very, very busy, and
put that into you know, apodcast form so people can
listen to it and kind ofhopefully learn from it and get
some some words of wisdom.
From my experience.
I had a lot of people reach outin the last few weeks saying
that the podcast that I'm doingon like reflections and looking
back and like kind of cardiostuff and season prep, is really
(01:58):
helpful and they enjoy it andit's been helping them in the
gym, and so I'll just keep doingthese short little small
episodes every once in a whileto give someone an update and
help if people think it'shelpful.
So if you find this useful, dome a favor, share it on social
media, tag me, tell me what youliked, what you don't like.
That way I kind of know how tokeep doing these.
Or just tell me that you didn'tlike it and you want to go back
(02:19):
to long form interviews.
That's fine, too content peopleneed for the season to be
healthy and happy and do thebest they can.
That is what I'm aiming for.
So hope you all enjoy thislittle mini episode.
All right, so I wanted to do aquick little solo episode just
to kind of try and help get somemore useful information that is
time sensitive, related topreseason.
So right now in my daily life Iam very busy with consulting
(02:40):
work and also in the clinictreating athletes for aches and
kind of pains and getting readyfor routines and kind of helping
people kind of transition to,hopefully, maintenance care mode
for a lot of their old injuriesor, more so, just consulting on
like strength conditioning work.
What should we do for routinecardio and strength and how many
routines, how do we plan?
So I'm having a lot of theseconversations behind the scenes
(03:01):
via email, dm, in person, um,like I said, consulting sessions
, and usually I just kind ofwork and I don't really think
about, you know, sharing theactive things I'm working on,
like in the trenches, to shareto other people.
I usually kind of like do allthe work and then we'll look
back and say here's what Ilearned and like here's what you
can learn too.
But given how many people areemailing or texting and stuff
(03:22):
like that, I figured it might begood to share like things I'm
seeing right now in the momentin the hopes of that delivering
information right away is useful.
For those people who are in thesame spot of the season is now.
So those who are in preseasonmode it's October, uh, october
4th as I'm recording this.
So we have like maybe one moremonth of transitioning to
(03:45):
routines and getting ready andthen, very quickly, you know,
most people are going to bedoing an inner squad for college
, they're going to be doing somesort of like mock meet for club
and then the season will kindof be upon us faster than we can
think when December and Januarycomes.
So, yeah, I think that a lot ofthe conversations I'm having
seem to have similar overlappingsolutions and things that I
hope can help, and again, Ifigured it might be a cool
(04:09):
change of pace here to justshare exactly what's going
through my head, what I'm seeing, what I'm telling people to do
on broad strokes, becausesomebody had reached out two
people reached out actuallyafter the episode on like
mistakes I had made in the pastand said that that information
was very helpful in the momentto help them as they're going
through season prep and they'regetting ready.
And then somebody else saidthat the kind of physical prep
(04:30):
and cardio one was also veryhelpful to have ideas for things
to do in the gym for routinesand for strength and physical
prep.
So we put some of thoselectures on the hero lab, which
is our online membership, andthen we also put some podcasts
out that had that.
So, yeah, that's the background.
I don't mean for this to be likea two-hour dissertation, but
more so just like a quick 30minutes on like five things that
(04:50):
I am seeing are coming up,starting to be early, as
problems and then what to doabout those things and then also
things that I have mademistakes on in the past or
others have made mistakes on inthe past that I think would be
beneficial to chat about.
So number one, by far and awaythe most important thing to
think about in preseason andkind of a pitfall to avoid is
(05:10):
workload management.
Okay, so we've had extensivelectures on workload management.
So workload pretty much is howhow much are you doing and how
fast?
Right, how much you're doingand how fast are you ramping
that up?
So how many skill combinationsare you doing?
Are you doing five series, 10series, 15 series?
How many vaults on soft?
When are you transitioning tohard and how many do you do on
hard to get them ready?
All of these conversationsaround how many reps do you do
(05:32):
and then how often do you dothem, or how many in a week, is
about workload management.
So the whole entire summary ofworkload management is that
going too fast, too soon can beproblematic to increase the risk
of someone's injury, right,right.
So not rate but risk.
So shin splints, back issues,overuse, cuff issues many of
these things have a root causethat we are getting ready for
(05:54):
season and maybe we don't thinkabout a three week window.
We think about a three daywindow and we ramp up the number
of new flexibility drills orplyos or beam series or routines
.
That we're doing and it'swell-intentioned, we want to get
somebody ready for a seasonWe'll talk about that in a
moment but we just ramp thingsup too fast, right?
So somebody you know panicsthat their series is not ready.
So they do, you know, 10 to 15series of each day of practice.
(06:17):
They do a private lesson,they're doing extra drills on
the side and their back startsto hurt and then it kind of
flares up their lower back andyou have to wait two weeks to
come back down and then nowyou're playing catch up and you
know the roller coaster back andforth.
But I'm seeing this a lot withback issues.
I'm seeing this a lot with shinissues and shin splints or feet
issues.
So somebody has not really donea lot of hard plyos or strength
and conditioning to preparethemselves for floor and they
(06:39):
start doing floor routines, theystart doing a lot of beam work,
they start doing a lot ofaggressive punching and pounding
in combination with lots ofplyometric physical preparation
and they maybe do this likethree to four days per week
along with all their drills andtheir warmup and then slowly
their shins start to hurt andthey get a stress reaction or
shin splints.
So, yeah, I see this in theshins right now a lot.
I see this in the back.
I see it for guys in theshoulders that they're ramping
(07:00):
up ring strength and high barreleases and dismounts and that
their shoulders start to getreally cranky.
So that is essentially whatworkload management is.
Now the other side of that isthat not doing enough is also
problematic.
So we do want to get somebodyto be at a high level of
training, so so, being able todo a lot of drills, skills,
practices, physical preproutines eventually that's
(07:21):
called a chronic workload, likehow much you can do in one
practice or one week.
We do want someone to have ahigh chronic workload.
So what I'm saying here is wewant someone to get fit and get
strong and work really hard, butwe have to do that in a very
smart way, right.
And again, I think the the pieceof advice I give to people is
that if you know that you reallywant to get you know full bar
routines or half bar routines bythe month of you know full bar
(07:42):
routines or half bar routines,uh, by the month of you know,
end of October so that you cando a full month of routines in
November.
You can't ramp up to full, uh,to half sets in a week.
You have to.
You have to think about overthe course of three weeks we're
going to go from one skill toskill combinations.
The next week we'll go skillcombinations to a half set,
maybe without a dismount.
We'll do some extra enduranceroutines and slowly build up
(08:04):
someone's tolerance.
But then also you have to bethinking about that back to back
to back days are probably notwise.
So that is what like workloadsand periodization overlaps and
that you have to understandabout light, medium and heavy
days, and that may be Monday,wednesday, friday are your
really hard, go get them days.
Whereas Tuesday is a more of alighter day, wednesday is more
of a medium day.
Maybe you have a weekend daytoo.
But, like, you have to thinkabout what days are hard, what
(08:25):
days are medium, what days arelight, how many repetitions are
we doing?
I think seven is a is a reallygood middle of the road number
for most things.
So you know seven beam series,seven dismounts, and then you
know a week, half or somethinglike that, um, or five of each
tumbling pass and one dancethrough.
Uh, that progresses to three ofeach pass and one half routine
with no dismount.
But pass things like that.
There's all sorts of differentways that you can kind of tweak
(08:48):
the volume and give somebodywhat they need.
But I think the problem is whenwe don't count anything, we
don't track anything.
We just say like, okay, we have45 minutes on beam warmup
complex, let's do series for 15minutes and then dismounts for
15 minutes, and then we're goingto all do a bunch of drills.
At the end Somebody might do 20to 50, you know backbending
skills in that um half hourperiod or 45 minute period
(09:08):
between all their series and allof their dismounts and all
their drills.
And then they go to vault andthey do your shankos, and then
they go to bars and they do freehips, right, and they go to
tumbling right.
So it adds up very quick.
So I would say about a setnumber to get to, and if you hit
seven in a row and you crush,that's great.
If you get to seven and they'rereally fumbling and maybe you
(09:29):
need to go back to drills, do acouple more, but then leave it
at maybe 10 and move on.
Don't just keep hammering awayafter 10.
I would recommend that for setnumbers, and then I would also
recommend rotating light, mediumand heavy days, along with
trying to space out some of therepetitive movements.
So if you do a lot ofbackbending on beam for one day
and a lot on vault, maybe thatday on the floor you're doing a
little bit less.
You do front tumbling right.
(09:49):
You don't do as much whips andback tumbling.
So just be conscious of theworkload management and be
conscious of how you arethinking.
Holistically, I'm a huge fan ofworking hard and really really
getting after it, but I don'tthink that sometimes people
think about that too with toolong of a timeframe and it
sneaks up on them, because thisresearch shows that all of these
things tend to not have animmediate effect.
(10:10):
People feel fine during thefirst practice, the second
practice, but then the next weekor two weeks later it starts to
catch up with them and theystart to have really bad
problems.
So that is a lot of.
What I do is I'm working withpeople on okay, you flared
something up your shins, yourback, whatever.
We have to modify the skillsthat are cranky.
We have to try to find otherstrength and physical prep
drills to get you kind of backin the saddle and then slowly
(10:31):
reintroduce those things.
I find myself having thatconversation almost daily right
now around like what skills areprovoking it?
How do we modify that?
What can we do instead?
How do we still keep you busyon the other events and give you
stuff to do?
Um, but almost almostinevitably it's going to be two
months from now.
People will come to me in the inthe gym before their first meet
and say, uh, uh, you know, my,my first meets next week and I
(10:51):
hurt my back, or I hurt my shins, or I was.
I was kind of sore for a coupleof months, but I didn't, I
didn't want to stop training,and so I kept going.
Um, and then they flaresomething up to the point where
they're unable to do a meet andthey're really frustrated.
They want you know what's thebest exercise to fix my back
right now so I can train onSaturday for the meets.
Like, it's not how it works,unfortunately.
So my recommendation is to bevery proactive and think about
(11:12):
all those things that I justsaid light, medium, heavy days
give a set number of skill andreps try to rotate the type of
movement focus and try to alsobe very aware of the three week
ramp up right in the next couplemonths, not the three day ramp
up.
So that is number one, I think,is the most important.
No matter how many exercisesflexibility, strength, physical
prep if the workload managementand the amount of work you are
(11:35):
doing is not balanced, you willinevitably have people who start
to get cranky.
So just keep that in mind, beaware of it.
Happens every year and I don'twant people to fall into that
trap.
Okay.
So number two is a little bitless on the direct in the gym.
This time of year is the mostimportant for all of the things
outside of the gym, okay.
So trying to sleep well, tryingto feel yourself well, trying
(11:57):
to get water intake, trying tomanage your stress, trying to
manage your schoolwork rightthat stuff is also so important
to start having on your radarnow, because most kids that I
talk to right now, like theschool, schoolwork is starting
to ramp up.
They're getting their firstcouple of rounds of tests, they
have a lot more homework andstuff late at night, their
practices are a bit longer,they're home later, so they're
eating real quick and thentrying to do homework and going
(12:17):
to bed late.
They're tired, I see, like thedrag starting, and so you know
there's a lot of differentpeople who listen to the podcast
around the world.
So if you're a coach, your roleis to talk about it and how,
whatever goal they have forskills, for meets, for routines,
for the successful year, it allhinges on a combination of what
is going on in the gym, whichis that first step, but then
what's outside the gym.
(12:38):
So you need to be just keepingthat in their ear, that that is
part of their performance, thattheir performance comes from
being well rested, feelingthemselves well, getting a lot
of water throughout the day,spacing out their scheduling and
their schoolwork to make surethey're not buried All of those
things directly influence howwell they feel on the weekend
after a long week of school.
So if you are a coach,discussing it and saying how
(12:58):
important it is at the front ofa lineup at the end just hey, by
the way, you know, let's makesure that we try to turn our
phone off 30 minutes before bed.
We try to get you know in ashower and have a nightly
routine to kind of go downeasier so that we get a better
quality of sleep.
That's just like a smallpassing comment or something as
small as hey.
You know this uh, new umwonderful guide for nutrition
came out, um from Christina orCarrie or somebody, and that's
(13:19):
some really good, interestingsnacks that I think would be
really easy to pack, pendingyour allergies.
Um, I'm going to send this tothe parents club, um, and just
give them some information about.
Hey, it's really important toget some of those healthy carbs
in a couple hours beforepractice.
That's a really important thingfor us to get through routines
as we ramp up more, trying tomake sure we have a good meal in
the morning.
You know that all that likesmall, little like feeling is
performance.
Talk, send people resources,give packets together.
(13:39):
Put little PDFs online of youknow a flexibility circuit for
me and a nutrition thing fromthis person and a mental health
tip sheet from this person, andjust find your favorite
collection of high qualityinformation, put it in a
preseason packet and make it aquick little PDF or a word doc
and then send it to the parentsclub or or drop it in the group
chat um for your um gymnast, youknow, like a conversation group
(14:01):
or whatever.
Um, just send that email out toall the parents, email it to
the kids, you know.
Just get that on their radar sothey can listen to a podcast
while they're on the bus atschool, or they can, you know,
listen to something on theweekend while they're trying to
understand how to best plan formy stuff.
We've put out so many pieces ofinformation that we try to help
people with, whether it's theYale talk I did earlier this
year on management of stress andkind of in season stuff, or
(14:21):
we've had multiple nutritiontalks.
We've had multiple people onflexibility, strength and
conditioning, multiple people onmental health.
We'll have some new stuffcoming out too for season
anxiety, like that stuff is allreally important.
As a coach, obviously that isnot your expertise and so you
want to find the people that are, you know, in there.
If you are the parent, you knowalso, again, your job is I know
how hard it is to be, you know,an adult I'm not a parent, but
(14:42):
an adult trying to give your kidsome useful information, but
just just give them a bunch ofdifferent stuff to listen to or
read or look at or ask them likewhat do you think you're
struggling with?
Like are there things we canhelp before season, like just
find the things that they want,find people that are useful on
social media and try to pointthem in that direction and then,
as the actual medical provider,right Like.
So I'm obviously a strengthcoach and a PT.
Like my role, I feel like, inthis conversation is to try to
(15:05):
get people on board doing littlesmall habits that make a big
difference.
So I'm trying my best to givepeople five to 10 minute quick
exercise things before practice.
Right, I'm trying to givesomebody a once a week, 30
minute, you know, prehab sheetfor an old injury.
I'm trying to give people somecustom tailored stuff.
So our role as medical providersor as adults or as healthcare
(15:25):
providers, is to try to givethem digestible, easy, efficient
things to do and be overlycommunicative with parents and
with coaches.
Right Like I can tell you for afact as a coach, if somebody
comes to the gym and their PTgives them a 45 minute list of
exercise, um, and I haveassignments for them to do and
they're not actively injured,they're just kind of getting
this prehab stuff.
(15:46):
It's very challenging to fit in45 minutes of exercise right.
10 minutes, 15 minutes of softtissue work, mobility work,
accessory work at the end ofpractice or on a light day super
doable.
So I want to just be cognizantto the fact that coaches are
busy, they have a lot to do,they have a lot on their plate
with routines and we don't wantto just send kids these like
laundry lists of two hours worthof exercise.
So make sure you're doing reallygood assessments, whether it's
(16:08):
like you know, nutrition, mentalhealth or whatever service you
work in.
Do a really good assessment andunderstand that these people
are very busy and they have alot of time on their hands.
And if you can get people onthe proactive train right.
So this part of the year Iprobably transitioned about 20
to 25% of people who just startcoming to see me once every two
weeks or once a month.
Um, for just all of it right,for all the any hands on stuff
(16:29):
they need tweaking their program, updating stuff, chatting about
their meet schedule, like allthat kind of consulting,
maintenance, care mode.
I'm very proud that me and ourfacility prides ourselves on
trying to be ahead of the curveand help people with numbers and
data and all sorts of proactivecare to just help them perform
as best as they possibly can.
So I want you to try to thinkabout okay, what are the things
that we need to be aware of?
(16:50):
We need to think abouteducation on sleep, fueling
themselves well for performance,hydration, sleep or sorry,
stress and school schedulemanagement.
Also, in the gym, we need to bethinking quite a bit more
aggressively about prehab,physical prep, getting their
bodies ready, focusing on basics, which we'll talk about, all
that kind of stuff.
That should really be the focusof the main argument as you
(17:10):
ramp up your volume for moreroutines and I want people to
get to the point where they'redoing a lot of routines, they
feel confident, but we can'tjust, like you know, ignore all
the outside of the gym stuff andrant people up and just hope
they don't fall apart.
Like I say this every year, Ifeel like I feel like as coaches
, sometimes I understand thereare times when people aren't
working enough and we need tokind of push them.
That's our role of a coach.
But also I feel like there'stimes we have unrealistic,
(17:31):
insane expectations for athletesthat they should always have
full energy, never be tired,they should never get hurt, they
should never complain, right,they should never have any
issues going on, like that'sjust not the reality of coaching
.
Like, people have lives.
They're busy, they sleep more,they sleep less.
They have stressful days, notstressful days.
Some kids feel good, some kidsdon't feel good.
So don't just expect someone tojust do all of your program all
(17:51):
the time, never get hurt, neverhave any tired, never have any
fatigue, and just be good to goevery single day on the hardest
routines.
This is not going to happen,right, and I think if you think
about it that way, you're goingto run into problems very fast.
So those are the first twothings.
Really, workload management,planning is the best thing.
The next best thing is out ofgym management, to make sure
that people are aware of this.
Give people resources for highquality experts.
And the third thing here and Ialways say this again every
(18:13):
single year you do not need tohave full, 100% routines at the
first meet, right?
Would you love to have all four, all four events or all six
events?
Have all your skills and hitevery single meet from the whole
year starting out.
Of course you would right, but,like, the reality is that most
athletes are not going to havethat right, they're not going to
be a hundred percent, and Ithink that the false connotation
(18:35):
that you need to have all yourroutines hit, everything with
all your skills in the firstmeet puts people on an
unrealistic hamster wheel ofexpectation.
Of course we would love thatright, but that's just not the
way reality is.
It takes longer than you think.
Skills are challenging.
We have mental blocks.
We're dealing with schedules.
We're trying to get somebody anew skill or an upgrade.
Many people who are doing newskills have never competed these
(18:56):
and the first actual walk intoa convention center on a
concrete floor with a meet setupsituation.
On a routine Like so, there's alot of factors that if you set
the expectation that the firstmeet has to go flawless,
everyone will fall short andeveryone will be upset.
Instead, flip that a bit andsay hey, listen, we would love
to do a wonderful meet, right,we're going to try our best,
(19:16):
we're going to train as if we'regoing for that.
But if it doesn't go the way wewant, we're not going to whine,
we're not going to complain,we're not going to throw a fit,
we're not going to throw a hissy.
You know, in the last fiveyears, consulting wise, would
rather have a slower start andthen maybe add an upgrade, or
(19:37):
then switch this routine or thenhave all these three things
come together, um, and then havesomebody at the last half of
the season States, regionals,nationals, um, championships,
whatever they would rather befiring on all cylinders for that
right.
The way that periodization,workloads and our systems work
for human, like stress,endocrinology, you're not going
to peak somebody for six monthsstraight.
(19:58):
It is absolutely impossible tohave somebody peak from.
You know, if you start inNovember and do an intersquat or
a in gym meet from November andhave someone go November,
december, january, february,march, april, sometimes May,
there's no way someone is goingto be for six months out of the
year, always ready, ready to goright.
You have to intelligently thinkabout like, okay, are we doing
(20:19):
a couple meets less this year sowe have more time in between to
work on skills and restathletes and give them a deload
week and stuff like that.
Doing multiple weeks in a rowof meets or doing multiple
months in a row that are very,very dense can sometimes really
catch up with somebody.
We see this in the college NCAAsetting, where 14 weeks in a
row is absolutely brutal, right?
No, no club is doing that, butthose athletes go through an
(20:40):
absolute gauntlet to get throughall the way safely to the end
of the year.
And so and we have to thinkabout, okay, are we going to do
a lighter meet or are we goingto try to have a rotation week
where we're a bit backed off,like we have to give those
things built into the program togive their bodies a break but
also help to pace them outthrough it the entire year?
So many of the cranky injuriesI'm seeing now are somebody who
(21:01):
feels as though they have to.
They had something go on lastyear or they took some time to
get skills and they're trying torush into full routines on
everything, no matter what.
Right, it's okay to do threefull routines and a watered down
set on beam because your seriesis still coming along, or
modify your ring strength onrings because your shoulders are
stuck coming back from aninjury Like that's totally okay.
(21:21):
And it's also totally okay tonot do an event right for one
meet or to just specialize a bituntil your other things come
back from an old ankle injury ora knee injury or whatever, like
that's totally okay.
Or maybe you're just not readyfrom, like, a technical safety
point of view.
Maybe you just need more repsof your shoot over or of your
you know, bigger high barrelease to safely do it and have
it not be getting crushed in ascore.
(21:41):
So think about those things.
Now, right, and I think, on thisnote, all of this tends to come
back to the fear of judgment.
Right, it comes down to nothaving your skills and
scratching out of me andworrying what people are saying
about you, or people talkingshit or whatever else it is, or
gossiping or social media, likethat is the root cause of many
of these things, not only forthe athletes, but from the
parents to the other parents,from the coaches the other
(22:03):
coaches on the floor, fromcoaches to parents of the same
gym, like, all of this centersaround the fear of judgment and
the fear of missing out or beingbehind, right?
So if you go into it with acultural expectation that like,
hey, this is what we're doing,we are going to this first
couple of meets, we're going todo the best that we possibly can
, we work hard, we're ready forit, but we are not going to, you
know, literally cry over spiltmilk, I think, is the expression
(22:24):
.
Right, we're not going to whineand complain if it doesn't go
perfect the first time and we'regoing to try to build more and
more and more throughout theyear and that's okay.
If we don't fire a hundredpercent on the first two meets
right, that's okay.
If we have to take some time totweak stuff and change things
around or switch the lineup forcollege or change the order,
stuff like that, or change theskills, like that, is okay,
right.
And I think the more that youcan worry about the internal
(22:48):
state of your team, yourcoaching staff, your club, and
not listen to the outside noiseor the gossiping and the drama
of the oh my God, this personscratched or this person didn't
have their skillset, blah, blah,blah, the better off you are.
You have to just be a littlebit of a bubble and just focus
on what my goals are and my paceand we'll get there when we get
there as we work really, reallyhard.
So yeah, the social, culturalaspect underpins a lot of that
(23:11):
kind of like, not the fear ofnot getting ready.
I got to get my skills back.
Everybody else is gettingskills.
I'm so stressed out.
So you have to kind of takesome time to separate yourself
and get in your bubble andfigure out, like, what your
goals are what you're workingfor and how are we going to
slowly pace there, because theend of the year oftentimes is
what people care more about.
So, okay, so, with that beingsaid, for the other thing that I
think we we lose sight ofsometimes is, yes, routines are
(23:33):
important.
Yes, we want to get to there.
I believe that high chronictraining workloads of routines
is the gold standard for havinga good season.
I'm not going to say it's not,but the route in which you get
there is very different thanwhat some people think.
They think that literally justpounding somebody in more
routines, more floor routines,more bar routines, more beam
routines, more ring routines,more ring strength, more
physical prep, like they thinkthat just like go, go, go, go go
(23:54):
is the only way to get there,when in reality, there are many
big rocks, quote unquote, thatare common denominators across
all of these areas.
Okay, so physical preparationand flexibility, strength,
basics all of these thingsshould always be the focus of
your practice, right In season,out of season, no matter what.
I always believe that at least33% of your practice right In
(24:15):
season, out of season, no matterwhat, I always believe that, at
least 33% of your time in thegym, whether you go there one
day per week or two days, forsix days a week, you should have
at least a third of your timeon physical preparations.
Right Shaping basics,flexibility, prehab, like all
that kind of stuff requires yourattention because by improving
someone's handstand line orsomeone's cartwheel or someone's
basic shaping and arch hollowsnapping, every skill on every
event gets better right.
(24:36):
So when you get better at anice tight arch hollow snap and
global body tension your taps,when your giants get better,
your tumbling gets better, yourvaulting gets better, you're
like everything is based onthose fundamentals.
As Nick Ruddick often says,there are pillars of acrobatics
and stuff that, if we can focuson those and work on those like
that is going to only makeeverything else easier.
So sometimes people flip thistriangle on their head and they
(24:59):
think that the base is routinesand doing lots of skill
combinations or full skills,when in reality it's the
opposite.
The base should be the basicsof the basics.
So shoulder flexibility, hipflexibility, raw levels of
strength, core strength,shoulder strength, hip strength
the next level of that is basicsthemselves.
In gymnastics, handstands,cartwheel, round off, just
tapping right like arch hollowshape, change like to that, that
(25:20):
to a gold standard, as nicksays right.
Then comes drills and skillsand combinations.
Next that if you have perfectdrills you get really good
technical cues.
That is how you get betterskills right.
On this concept of like, samebut different, there are many
ways to train these basics,these drills, these skills,
these combinations of skillstogether, without just hammering
somebody in volume.
And then that is where skillcombinations come on and half
(25:42):
routines and full routines right.
But I just, I'm always, I'malways brought back to the fact
that I remember, like hearingfrom elite coaches that they
were, you know, in China andJapan and somebody was having a
problem with their double doubleon their floor routine.
They went back to the round off, they went back to their back
handspring technique.
They didn't just keep doingmore double doubles and more
double doubles and more doubledoubles.
Right, there's obviously a timefor that, but the majority of
(26:02):
people need improvements onsmall basics and technical
things of ears being covered,tapping at the right time, doing
more core strength, doing moreleg strength right, that kind of
stuff helps everything, right.
Just doing the skills themselvesover and over and over as your
main vessel for physicalpreparation is not wise One,
because it's going to bechallenging to get somebody to
(26:23):
get through that safely.
But two is, you can't slowthings down and learn what your
errors are.
You're just hammering onroutines.
So I would strongly advisepeople that, as we get more into
routine mode, don't lose sightof shaping strength, flexibility
basics right Full warmup, twodays a week of flexibility
circuits, good hard strengthtraining and cardio training
(26:44):
with plyos and all that kind ofstuff.
There's a thousand lecturesthat we have online and podcasts
that people can learn morespecifics there.
But don't lose the basics offlawless drills, flawless skills
work, individual, uh, acrobaticstuff Hanson cart like that
should be your focus, right.
So maintaining flexibility,maintaining strength like that
is the grunt work that gets youto um, a lot of this high level
(27:06):
stuff in routine.
So, yeah, don't lose sight ofthat as we get closer and closer
to routines, okay.
And then, lastly, the last kindof piece of recommendation here
is I'm very much a fan of makingsure that you are getting into
the environment of a competitionsetting early.
So I think that you canincrease intensity with mock
(27:28):
meet situations and mimic someof the stress that comes along
with the meat, right.
So, for example, when you getto bars or you get to whatever
event you are, instead of havingall of the bars going at once
and everyone is doing drills,everyone is doing skills.
One day per week, maybe it is atrue timed meat warmup and you
show a skill combination or youshow a half set right, and I
(27:50):
think you can start that earlierrather than later, is that sure
?
Somebody needs a spot onsomething or there's still a
time where they're working on it.
But putting someone in thateveryone's looking at me,
everyone's uh, paying attention,is my moment.
I think is really important tohave like a slow, graded
exposure to competition.
I think sometimes what happensis kids will train on their own,
do their routines on their own,do their skills on their own,
(28:11):
and then all of a sudden they'reput in the limelight of a floor
routine or whatever, and it'svery stressful for them mentally
.
So I know a lot of on the onthe female side.
They will do dance throughs,they will do all sorts of side
stations along with the dancethrough, like they'll do
pressure sets on beam.
I think that you should startthat with skills.
You should just like everyoneshows a release today, right?
So it doesn't mean you stop thewhole practice and waste 45
(28:31):
minutes of waiting for everyoneto go.
But, like, maybe you all warmup, you do your basics, you do
your stuff, and then the first10 minutes, you know we're all
going to watch everyone do theirrelease, we're going to watch
everyone do their series, we'regoing to watch everyone do their
first tumbling pass, right, andwe're all stop.
We times warm up and you'redoing a couple routines, right.
(28:52):
But I think sometimes we thinkabout the physical exposure to
challenge and we think about theplyos and the nitty gritty,
dorky stuff of the physical side, but we don't realize that
gymnastics is extremely mentallyand emotionally taxing for
young athletes, particularly onthe anxiety front, on the
emotional, you know, if youdon't go well and you fall, you
know handling that well,developing coping strategies to
(29:13):
kind of maintain a goodheadspace, like all these things
need to be trained as well.
And I think oftentimes we onlyfocus on the physical side of
stuff and then all of a suddensomeone's standing in a
convention center in front of athousand people at a meet and
they're extremely stressed outand something goes sideways
because of that moment and thatstress they're not really used
to.
So yeah, I would just advisepeople to try to do, whether
it's games, whether it's showingone skill, whether it's one day
(29:35):
per week to show day, who knows?
But just get more of that kindof pressure and that mental
strategy piece to it, cause youwant to teach somebody coping
strategies when they're learningthis.
So, yeah, that's about it.
I just want to keep that to aquick 30 minutes.
I kept it right underneath,which is good.
But just in review, reallythinking about workloads, slowly
ramping things up.
Training hard is smart, that'sgreat, I like that, but do it in
(29:56):
a smart way.
Make sure we're educating andgetting stuff together for
outside the gym, sleep fuelingfor performance, water intake,
stress management, schoolmanagement, help make schedules,
all that kind of stuff.
Remember you don't have to befiring at 100% cylinder the
first meet.
You can modify stuff, you canwater down, you can have an
upgraded set, take the pressureoff a bit and just think
culturally about not the fear ofjudgment.
We're doing this to kind ofslowly have a plan for six
(30:17):
months, focus on big rocks as weget closer to a season.
So always, physical preparationis the base.
Shaping flexibility, strength,basics.
Great technique is always thefoundation.
Elite level technique work iswhat you need to be focusing on.
And then, lastly, try to getthat mental aspect, that mental
focus, that kind of like youknow, pressure moment situation,
slowly built up over the nextmonth or two.
(30:38):
Don't just throw it at somebodyinto routines and then, oh my
God, we're going to the meet thenext day.
So, yes, hope that helps.
If anyone has any questions,please tweet at me, jump on
Instagram.
I'd love to chat and know.
If this is helpful.
I'll do more of these smaller
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the Shift Show, where mynumber one goal is to give you
the tools, ideas and the latestscience to help you change
gymnastic lives.
Today in the podcast I am goingto do a quick little solo
episode, essentially just tryingto help people get ready and be
aware of some things thatpossibly are coming as mistakes
for preseason.
So I wanted to do a morequicker in the moment, actively
(00:33):
what's going on right now kindof situation, and that is to be
that preseason is here.
We are actively working onstuff right now for routines and
helping a lot of people with,you know, routine prep, physical
prep, cardio stamina, mentalperformance all that kind of
stuff is happening right now,daily in my life, and so I'm
talking to a lot of peopleconsulting wise or for injuries
or in the clinic or whateverthat is going to be, you know,
(00:54):
really relevant to these nextcouple months, and so I wanted
to, instead of wait for a longtime and look back about what we
could do, better, talk aboutwhat exactly I'm doing right now
.
So things I talk about on thepodcast to be aware of that
mistakes commonly I've made orother people might make is, like
you know, workload managementand how many routines, how many
skills.
How do you navigate that line?
Making sure, out of the gym,we're educating people on how to
(01:14):
take care of themselves,thinking about what, what we
want for readiness at the firstmeet.
How do we get to that point offeeling mentally and physically
ready?
I'm trying to make sure thatwe're keeping an eye on, you
know, basics and technique andflexibility work and then also
just prepping somebody on moreof like the mental grind game,
all these things.
I think I'm starting to see theearly warning signs of people
that are having problems frominjuries or mental problems or
(01:36):
some frustrations or whatever.
And I just want to be proactiveand try to take exactly what
I'm doing right now, day to day,when I'm very, very busy, and
put that into you know, apodcast form so people can
listen to it and kind ofhopefully learn from it and get
some some words of wisdom.
From my experience.
I had a lot of people reach outin the last few weeks saying
that the podcast that I'm doingon like reflections and looking
back and like kind of cardiostuff and season prep, is really
(01:58):
helpful and they enjoy it andit's been helping them in the
gym, and so I'll just keep doingthese short little small
episodes every once in a whileto give someone an update and
help if people think it'shelpful.
So if you find this useful, dome a favor, share it on social
media, tag me, tell me what youliked, what you don't like.
That way I kind of know how tokeep doing these.
Or just tell me that you didn'tlike it and you want to go back
(02:19):
to long form interviews.
That's fine, too content peopleneed for the season to be
healthy and happy and do thebest they can.
That is what I'm aiming for.
So hope you all enjoy thislittle mini episode.
All right, so I wanted to do aquick little solo episode just
to kind of try and help get somemore useful information that is
time sensitive, related topreseason.
So right now in my daily life Iam very busy with consulting
(02:40):
work and also in the clinictreating athletes for aches and
kind of pains and getting readyfor routines and kind of helping
people kind of transition to,hopefully, maintenance care mode
for a lot of their old injuriesor, more so, just consulting on
like strength conditioning work.
What should we do for routinecardio and strength and how many
routines, how do we plan?
So I'm having a lot of theseconversations behind the scenes
(03:01):
via email, dm, in person, um,like I said, consulting sessions
, and usually I just kind ofwork and I don't really think
about, you know, sharing theactive things I'm working on,
like in the trenches, to shareto other people.
I usually kind of like do allthe work and then we'll look
back and say here's what Ilearned and like here's what you
can learn too.
But given how many people areemailing or texting and stuff
(03:22):
like that, I figured it might begood to share like things I'm
seeing right now in the momentin the hopes of that delivering
information right away is useful.
For those people who are in thesame spot of the season is now.
So those who are in preseasonmode it's October, uh, october
4th as I'm recording this.
So we have like maybe one moremonth of transitioning to
(03:45):
routines and getting ready andthen, very quickly, you know,
most people are going to bedoing an inner squad for college
, they're going to be doing somesort of like mock meet for club
and then the season will kindof be upon us faster than we can
think when December and Januarycomes.
So, yeah, I think that a lot ofthe conversations I'm having
seem to have similar overlappingsolutions and things that I
hope can help, and again, Ifigured it might be a cool
(04:09):
change of pace here to justshare exactly what's going
through my head, what I'm seeing, what I'm telling people to do
on broad strokes, becausesomebody had reached out two
people reached out actuallyafter the episode on like
mistakes I had made in the pastand said that that information
was very helpful in the momentto help them as they're going
through season prep and they'regetting ready.
And then somebody else saidthat the kind of physical prep
(04:30):
and cardio one was also veryhelpful to have ideas for things
to do in the gym for routinesand for strength and physical
prep.
So we put some of thoselectures on the hero lab, which
is our online membership, andthen we also put some podcasts
out that had that.
So, yeah, that's the background.
I don't mean for this to be likea two-hour dissertation, but
more so just like a quick 30minutes on like five things that
(04:50):
I am seeing are coming up,starting to be early, as
problems and then what to doabout those things and then also
things that I have mademistakes on in the past or
others have made mistakes on inthe past that I think would be
beneficial to chat about.
So number one, by far and awaythe most important thing to
think about in preseason andkind of a pitfall to avoid is
(05:10):
workload management.
Okay, so we've had extensivelectures on workload management.
So workload pretty much is howhow much are you doing and how
fast?
Right, how much you're doingand how fast are you ramping
that up?
So how many skill combinationsare you doing?
Are you doing five series, 10series, 15 series?
How many vaults on soft?
When are you transitioning tohard and how many do you do on
hard to get them ready?
All of these conversationsaround how many reps do you do
(05:32):
and then how often do you dothem, or how many in a week, is
about workload management.
So the whole entire summary ofworkload management is that
going too fast, too soon can beproblematic to increase the risk
of someone's injury, right,right.
So not rate but risk.
So shin splints, back issues,overuse, cuff issues many of
these things have a root causethat we are getting ready for
(05:54):
season and maybe we don't thinkabout a three week window.
We think about a three daywindow and we ramp up the number
of new flexibility drills orplyos or beam series or routines
.
That we're doing and it'swell-intentioned, we want to get
somebody ready for a seasonWe'll talk about that in a
moment but we just ramp thingsup too fast, right?
So somebody you know panicsthat their series is not ready.
So they do, you know, 10 to 15series of each day of practice.
(06:17):
They do a private lesson,they're doing extra drills on
the side and their back startsto hurt and then it kind of
flares up their lower back andyou have to wait two weeks to
come back down and then nowyou're playing catch up and you
know the roller coaster back andforth.
But I'm seeing this a lot withback issues.
I'm seeing this a lot with shinissues and shin splints or feet
issues.
So somebody has not really donea lot of hard plyos or strength
and conditioning to preparethemselves for floor and they
(06:39):
start doing floor routines, theystart doing a lot of beam work,
they start doing a lot ofaggressive punching and pounding
in combination with lots ofplyometric physical preparation
and they maybe do this likethree to four days per week
along with all their drills andtheir warmup and then slowly
their shins start to hurt andthey get a stress reaction or
shin splints.
So, yeah, I see this in theshins right now a lot.
I see this in the back.
I see it for guys in theshoulders that they're ramping
(07:00):
up ring strength and high barreleases and dismounts and that
their shoulders start to getreally cranky.
So that is essentially whatworkload management is.
Now the other side of that isthat not doing enough is also
problematic.
So we do want to get somebodyto be at a high level of
training, so so, being able todo a lot of drills, skills,
practices, physical preproutines eventually that's
(07:21):
called a chronic workload, likehow much you can do in one
practice or one week.
We do want someone to have ahigh chronic workload.
So what I'm saying here is wewant someone to get fit and get
strong and work really hard, butwe have to do that in a very
smart way, right.
And again, I think the the pieceof advice I give to people is
that if you know that you reallywant to get you know full bar
routines or half bar routines bythe month of you know full bar
(07:42):
routines or half bar routines,uh, by the month of you know,
end of October so that you cando a full month of routines in
November.
You can't ramp up to full, uh,to half sets in a week.
You have to.
You have to think about overthe course of three weeks we're
going to go from one skill toskill combinations.
The next week we'll go skillcombinations to a half set,
maybe without a dismount.
We'll do some extra enduranceroutines and slowly build up
(08:04):
someone's tolerance.
But then also you have to bethinking about that back to back
to back days are probably notwise.
So that is what like workloadsand periodization overlaps and
that you have to understandabout light, medium and heavy
days, and that may be Monday,wednesday, friday are your
really hard, go get them days.
Whereas Tuesday is a more of alighter day, wednesday is more
of a medium day.
Maybe you have a weekend daytoo.
But, like, you have to thinkabout what days are hard, what
(08:25):
days are medium, what days arelight, how many repetitions are
we doing?
I think seven is a is a reallygood middle of the road number
for most things.
So you know seven beam series,seven dismounts, and then you
know a week, half or somethinglike that, um, or five of each
tumbling pass and one dancethrough.
Uh, that progresses to three ofeach pass and one half routine
with no dismount.
But pass things like that.
There's all sorts of differentways that you can kind of tweak
(08:48):
the volume and give somebodywhat they need.
But I think the problem is whenwe don't count anything, we
don't track anything.
We just say like, okay, we have45 minutes on beam warmup
complex, let's do series for 15minutes and then dismounts for
15 minutes, and then we're goingto all do a bunch of drills.
At the end Somebody might do 20to 50, you know backbending
skills in that um half hourperiod or 45 minute period
(09:08):
between all their series and allof their dismounts and all
their drills.
And then they go to vault andthey do your shankos, and then
they go to bars and they do freehips, right, and they go to
tumbling right.
So it adds up very quick.
So I would say about a setnumber to get to, and if you hit
seven in a row and you crush,that's great.
If you get to seven and they'rereally fumbling and maybe you
(09:29):
need to go back to drills, do acouple more, but then leave it
at maybe 10 and move on.
Don't just keep hammering awayafter 10.
I would recommend that for setnumbers, and then I would also
recommend rotating light, mediumand heavy days, along with
trying to space out some of therepetitive movements.
So if you do a lot ofbackbending on beam for one day
and a lot on vault, maybe thatday on the floor you're doing a
little bit less.
You do front tumbling right.
(09:49):
You don't do as much whips andback tumbling.
So just be conscious of theworkload management and be
conscious of how you arethinking.
Holistically, I'm a huge fan ofworking hard and really really
getting after it, but I don'tthink that sometimes people
think about that too with toolong of a timeframe and it
sneaks up on them, because thisresearch shows that all of these
things tend to not have animmediate effect.
(10:10):
People feel fine during thefirst practice, the second
practice, but then the next weekor two weeks later it starts to
catch up with them and theystart to have really bad
problems.
So that is a lot of.
What I do is I'm working withpeople on okay, you flared
something up your shins, yourback, whatever.
We have to modify the skillsthat are cranky.
We have to try to find otherstrength and physical prep
drills to get you kind of backin the saddle and then slowly
(10:31):
reintroduce those things.
I find myself having thatconversation almost daily right
now around like what skills areprovoking it?
How do we modify that?
What can we do instead?
How do we still keep you busyon the other events and give you
stuff to do?
Um, but almost almostinevitably it's going to be two
months from now.
People will come to me in the inthe gym before their first meet
and say, uh, uh, you know, my,my first meets next week and I
(10:51):
hurt my back, or I hurt my shins, or I was.
I was kind of sore for a coupleof months, but I didn't, I
didn't want to stop training,and so I kept going.
Um, and then they flaresomething up to the point where
they're unable to do a meet andthey're really frustrated.
They want you know what's thebest exercise to fix my back
right now so I can train onSaturday for the meets.
Like, it's not how it works,unfortunately.
So my recommendation is to bevery proactive and think about
(11:12):
all those things that I justsaid light, medium, heavy days
give a set number of skill andreps try to rotate the type of
movement focus and try to alsobe very aware of the three week
ramp up right in the next couplemonths, not the three day ramp
up.
So that is number one, I think,is the most important.
No matter how many exercisesflexibility, strength, physical
prep if the workload managementand the amount of work you are
(11:35):
doing is not balanced, you willinevitably have people who start
to get cranky.
So just keep that in mind, beaware of it.
Happens every year and I don'twant people to fall into that
trap.
Okay.
So number two is a little bitless on the direct in the gym.
This time of year is the mostimportant for all of the things
outside of the gym, okay.
So trying to sleep well, tryingto feel yourself well, trying
(11:57):
to get water intake, trying tomanage your stress, trying to
manage your schoolwork rightthat stuff is also so important
to start having on your radarnow, because most kids that I
talk to right now, like theschool, schoolwork is starting
to ramp up.
They're getting their firstcouple of rounds of tests, they
have a lot more homework andstuff late at night, their
practices are a bit longer,they're home later, so they're
eating real quick and thentrying to do homework and going
(12:17):
to bed late.
They're tired, I see, like thedrag starting, and so you know
there's a lot of differentpeople who listen to the podcast
around the world.
So if you're a coach, your roleis to talk about it and how,
whatever goal they have forskills, for meets, for routines,
for the successful year, it allhinges on a combination of what
is going on in the gym, whichis that first step, but then
what's outside the gym.
(12:38):
So you need to be just keepingthat in their ear, that that is
part of their performance, thattheir performance comes from
being well rested, feelingthemselves well, getting a lot
of water throughout the day,spacing out their scheduling and
their schoolwork to make surethey're not buried All of those
things directly influence howwell they feel on the weekend
after a long week of school.
So if you are a coach,discussing it and saying how
(12:58):
important it is at the front ofa lineup at the end just hey, by
the way, you know, let's makesure that we try to turn our
phone off 30 minutes before bed.
We try to get you know in ashower and have a nightly
routine to kind of go downeasier so that we get a better
quality of sleep.
That's just like a smallpassing comment or something as
small as hey.
You know this uh, new umwonderful guide for nutrition
came out, um from Christina orCarrie or somebody, and that's
(13:19):
some really good, interestingsnacks that I think would be
really easy to pack, pendingyour allergies.
Um, I'm going to send this tothe parents club, um, and just
give them some information about.
Hey, it's really important toget some of those healthy carbs
in a couple hours beforepractice.
That's a really important thingfor us to get through routines
as we ramp up more, trying tomake sure we have a good meal in
the morning.
You know that all that likesmall, little like feeling is
performance.
Talk, send people resources,give packets together.
(13:39):
Put little PDFs online of youknow a flexibility circuit for
me and a nutrition thing fromthis person and a mental health
tip sheet from this person, andjust find your favorite
collection of high qualityinformation, put it in a
preseason packet and make it aquick little PDF or a word doc
and then send it to the parentsclub or or drop it in the group
chat um for your um gymnast, youknow, like a conversation group
(14:01):
or whatever.
Um, just send that email out toall the parents, email it to
the kids, you know.
Just get that on their radar sothey can listen to a podcast
while they're on the bus atschool, or they can, you know,
listen to something on theweekend while they're trying to
understand how to best plan formy stuff.
We've put out so many pieces ofinformation that we try to help
people with, whether it's theYale talk I did earlier this
year on management of stress andkind of in season stuff, or
(14:21):
we've had multiple nutritiontalks.
We've had multiple people onflexibility, strength and
conditioning, multiple people onmental health.
We'll have some new stuffcoming out too for season
anxiety, like that stuff is allreally important.
As a coach, obviously that isnot your expertise and so you
want to find the people that are, you know, in there.
If you are the parent, you knowalso, again, your job is I know
how hard it is to be, you know,an adult I'm not a parent, but
(14:42):
an adult trying to give your kidsome useful information, but
just just give them a bunch ofdifferent stuff to listen to or
read or look at or ask them likewhat do you think you're
struggling with?
Like are there things we canhelp before season, like just
find the things that they want,find people that are useful on
social media and try to pointthem in that direction and then,
as the actual medical provider,right Like.
So I'm obviously a strengthcoach and a PT.
Like my role, I feel like, inthis conversation is to try to
(15:05):
get people on board doing littlesmall habits that make a big
difference.
So I'm trying my best to givepeople five to 10 minute quick
exercise things before practice.
Right, I'm trying to givesomebody a once a week, 30
minute, you know, prehab sheetfor an old injury.
I'm trying to give people somecustom tailored stuff.
So our role as medical providersor as adults or as healthcare
(15:25):
providers, is to try to givethem digestible, easy, efficient
things to do and be overlycommunicative with parents and
with coaches.
Right Like I can tell you for afact as a coach, if somebody
comes to the gym and their PTgives them a 45 minute list of
exercise, um, and I haveassignments for them to do and
they're not actively injured,they're just kind of getting
this prehab stuff.
(15:46):
It's very challenging to fit in45 minutes of exercise right.
10 minutes, 15 minutes of softtissue work, mobility work,
accessory work at the end ofpractice or on a light day super
doable.
So I want to just be cognizantto the fact that coaches are
busy, they have a lot to do,they have a lot on their plate
with routines and we don't wantto just send kids these like
laundry lists of two hours worthof exercise.
So make sure you're doing reallygood assessments, whether it's
(16:08):
like you know, nutrition, mentalhealth or whatever service you
work in.
Do a really good assessment andunderstand that these people
are very busy and they have alot of time on their hands.
And if you can get people onthe proactive train right.
So this part of the year Iprobably transitioned about 20
to 25% of people who just startcoming to see me once every two
weeks or once a month.
Um, for just all of it right,for all the any hands on stuff
(16:29):
they need tweaking their program, updating stuff, chatting about
their meet schedule, like allthat kind of consulting,
maintenance, care mode.
I'm very proud that me and ourfacility prides ourselves on
trying to be ahead of the curveand help people with numbers and
data and all sorts of proactivecare to just help them perform
as best as they possibly can.
So I want you to try to thinkabout okay, what are the things
that we need to be aware of?
(16:50):
We need to think abouteducation on sleep, fueling
themselves well for performance,hydration, sleep or sorry,
stress and school schedulemanagement.
Also, in the gym, we need to bethinking quite a bit more
aggressively about prehab,physical prep, getting their
bodies ready, focusing on basics, which we'll talk about, all
that kind of stuff.
That should really be the focusof the main argument as you
(17:10):
ramp up your volume for moreroutines and I want people to
get to the point where they'redoing a lot of routines, they
feel confident, but we can'tjust, like you know, ignore all
the outside of the gym stuff andrant people up and just hope
they don't fall apart.
Like I say this every year, Ifeel like I feel like as coaches
, sometimes I understand thereare times when people aren't
working enough and we need tokind of push them.
That's our role of a coach.
But also I feel like there'stimes we have unrealistic,
(17:31):
insane expectations for athletesthat they should always have
full energy, never be tired,they should never get hurt, they
should never complain, right,they should never have any
issues going on, like that'sjust not the reality of coaching
.
Like, people have lives.
They're busy, they sleep more,they sleep less.
They have stressful days, notstressful days.
Some kids feel good, some kidsdon't feel good.
So don't just expect someone tojust do all of your program all
(17:51):
the time, never get hurt, neverhave any tired, never have any
fatigue, and just be good to goevery single day on the hardest
routines.
This is not going to happen,right, and I think if you think
about it that way, you're goingto run into problems very fast.
So those are the first twothings.
Really, workload management,planning is the best thing.
The next best thing is out ofgym management, to make sure
that people are aware of this.
Give people resources for highquality experts.
And the third thing here and Ialways say this again every
(18:13):
single year you do not need tohave full, 100% routines at the
first meet, right?
Would you love to have all four, all four events or all six
events?
Have all your skills and hitevery single meet from the whole
year starting out.
Of course you would right, but,like, the reality is that most
athletes are not going to havethat right, they're not going to
be a hundred percent, and Ithink that the false connotation
(18:35):
that you need to have all yourroutines hit, everything with
all your skills in the firstmeet puts people on an
unrealistic hamster wheel ofexpectation.
Of course we would love thatright, but that's just not the
way reality is.
It takes longer than you think.
Skills are challenging.
We have mental blocks.
We're dealing with schedules.
We're trying to get somebody anew skill or an upgrade.
Many people who are doing newskills have never competed these
(18:56):
and the first actual walk intoa convention center on a
concrete floor with a meet setupsituation.
On a routine Like so, there's alot of factors that if you set
the expectation that the firstmeet has to go flawless,
everyone will fall short andeveryone will be upset.
Instead, flip that a bit andsay hey, listen, we would love
to do a wonderful meet, right,we're going to try our best,
(19:16):
we're going to train as if we'regoing for that.
But if it doesn't go the way wewant, we're not going to whine,
we're not going to complain,we're not going to throw a fit,
we're not going to throw a hissy.
You know, in the last fiveyears, consulting wise, would
rather have a slower start andthen maybe add an upgrade, or
(19:37):
then switch this routine or thenhave all these three things
come together, um, and then havesomebody at the last half of
the season States, regionals,nationals, um, championships,
whatever they would rather befiring on all cylinders for that
right.
The way that periodization,workloads and our systems work
for human, like stress,endocrinology, you're not going
to peak somebody for six monthsstraight.
(19:58):
It is absolutely impossible tohave somebody peak from.
You know, if you start inNovember and do an intersquat or
a in gym meet from November andhave someone go November,
december, january, february,march, april, sometimes May,
there's no way someone is goingto be for six months out of the
year, always ready, ready to goright.
You have to intelligently thinkabout like, okay, are we doing
(20:19):
a couple meets less this year sowe have more time in between to
work on skills and restathletes and give them a deload
week and stuff like that.
Doing multiple weeks in a rowof meets or doing multiple
months in a row that are very,very dense can sometimes really
catch up with somebody.
We see this in the college NCAAsetting, where 14 weeks in a
row is absolutely brutal, right?
No, no club is doing that, butthose athletes go through an
(20:40):
absolute gauntlet to get throughall the way safely to the end
of the year.
And so and we have to thinkabout, okay, are we going to do
a lighter meet or are we goingto try to have a rotation week
where we're a bit backed off,like we have to give those
things built into the program togive their bodies a break but
also help to pace them outthrough it the entire year?
So many of the cranky injuriesI'm seeing now are somebody who
(21:01):
feels as though they have to.
They had something go on lastyear or they took some time to
get skills and they're trying torush into full routines on
everything, no matter what.
Right, it's okay to do threefull routines and a watered down
set on beam because your seriesis still coming along, or
modify your ring strength onrings because your shoulders are
stuck coming back from aninjury Like that's totally okay.
(21:21):
And it's also totally okay tonot do an event right for one
meet or to just specialize a bituntil your other things come
back from an old ankle injury ora knee injury or whatever, like
that's totally okay.
Or maybe you're just not readyfrom, like, a technical safety
point of view.
Maybe you just need more repsof your shoot over or of your
you know, bigger high barrelease to safely do it and have
it not be getting crushed in ascore.
(21:41):
So think about those things.
Now, right, and I think, on thisnote, all of this tends to come
back to the fear of judgment.
Right, it comes down to nothaving your skills and
scratching out of me andworrying what people are saying
about you, or people talkingshit or whatever else it is, or
gossiping or social media, likethat is the root cause of many
of these things, not only forthe athletes, but from the
parents to the other parents,from the coaches the other
(22:03):
coaches on the floor, fromcoaches to parents of the same
gym, like, all of this centersaround the fear of judgment and
the fear of missing out or beingbehind, right?
So if you go into it with acultural expectation that like,
hey, this is what we're doing,we are going to this first
couple of meets, we're going todo the best that we possibly can
, we work hard, we're ready forit, but we are not going to, you
know, literally cry over spiltmilk, I think, is the expression
(22:24):
.
Right, we're not going to whineand complain if it doesn't go
perfect the first time and we'regoing to try to build more and
more and more throughout theyear and that's okay.
If we don't fire a hundredpercent on the first two meets
right, that's okay.
If we have to take some time totweak stuff and change things
around or switch the lineup forcollege or change the order,
stuff like that, or change theskills, like that, is okay,
right.
And I think the more that youcan worry about the internal
(22:48):
state of your team, yourcoaching staff, your club, and
not listen to the outside noiseor the gossiping and the drama
of the oh my God, this personscratched or this person didn't
have their skillset, blah, blah,blah, the better off you are.
You have to just be a littlebit of a bubble and just focus
on what my goals are and my paceand we'll get there when we get
there as we work really, reallyhard.
So yeah, the social, culturalaspect underpins a lot of that
(23:11):
kind of like, not the fear ofnot getting ready.
I got to get my skills back.
Everybody else is gettingskills.
I'm so stressed out.
So you have to kind of takesome time to separate yourself
and get in your bubble andfigure out, like, what your
goals are what you're workingfor and how are we going to
slowly pace there, because theend of the year oftentimes is
what people care more about.
So, okay, so, with that beingsaid, for the other thing that I
think we we lose sight ofsometimes is, yes, routines are
(23:33):
important.
Yes, we want to get to there.
I believe that high chronictraining workloads of routines
is the gold standard for havinga good season.
I'm not going to say it's not,but the route in which you get
there is very different thanwhat some people think.
They think that literally justpounding somebody in more
routines, more floor routines,more bar routines, more beam
routines, more ring routines,more ring strength, more
physical prep, like they thinkthat just like go, go, go, go go
(23:54):
is the only way to get there,when in reality, there are many
big rocks, quote unquote, thatare common denominators across
all of these areas.
Okay, so physical preparationand flexibility, strength,
basics all of these thingsshould always be the focus of
your practice, right In season,out of season, no matter what.
I always believe that at least33% of your practice right In
(24:15):
season, out of season, no matterwhat, I always believe that, at
least 33% of your time in thegym, whether you go there one
day per week or two days, forsix days a week, you should have
at least a third of your timeon physical preparations.
Right Shaping basics,flexibility, prehab, like all
that kind of stuff requires yourattention because by improving
someone's handstand line orsomeone's cartwheel or someone's
basic shaping and arch hollowsnapping, every skill on every
event gets better right.
(24:36):
So when you get better at anice tight arch hollow snap and
global body tension your taps,when your giants get better,
your tumbling gets better, yourvaulting gets better, you're
like everything is based onthose fundamentals.
As Nick Ruddick often says,there are pillars of acrobatics
and stuff that, if we can focuson those and work on those like
that is going to only makeeverything else easier.
So sometimes people flip thistriangle on their head and they
(24:59):
think that the base is routinesand doing lots of skill
combinations or full skills,when in reality it's the
opposite.
The base should be the basicsof the basics.
So shoulder flexibility, hipflexibility, raw levels of
strength, core strength,shoulder strength, hip strength
the next level of that is basicsthemselves.
In gymnastics, handstands,cartwheel, round off, just
tapping right like arch hollowshape, change like to that, that
(25:20):
to a gold standard, as nicksays right.
Then comes drills and skillsand combinations.
Next that if you have perfectdrills you get really good
technical cues.
That is how you get betterskills right.
On this concept of like, samebut different, there are many
ways to train these basics,these drills, these skills,
these combinations of skillstogether, without just hammering
somebody in volume.
And then that is where skillcombinations come on and half
(25:42):
routines and full routines right.
But I just, I'm always, I'malways brought back to the fact
that I remember, like hearingfrom elite coaches that they
were, you know, in China andJapan and somebody was having a
problem with their double doubleon their floor routine.
They went back to the round off, they went back to their back
handspring technique.
They didn't just keep doingmore double doubles and more
double doubles and more doubledoubles.
Right, there's obviously a timefor that, but the majority of
(26:02):
people need improvements onsmall basics and technical
things of ears being covered,tapping at the right time, doing
more core strength, doing moreleg strength right, that kind of
stuff helps everything, right.
Just doing the skills themselvesover and over and over as your
main vessel for physicalpreparation is not wise One,
because it's going to bechallenging to get somebody to
(26:23):
get through that safely.
But two is, you can't slowthings down and learn what your
errors are.
You're just hammering onroutines.
So I would strongly advisepeople that, as we get more into
routine mode, don't lose sightof shaping strength, flexibility
basics right Full warmup, twodays a week of flexibility
circuits, good hard strengthtraining and cardio training
(26:44):
with plyos and all that kind ofstuff.
There's a thousand lecturesthat we have online and podcasts
that people can learn morespecifics there.
But don't lose the basics offlawless drills, flawless skills
work, individual, uh, acrobaticstuff Hanson cart like that
should be your focus, right.
So maintaining flexibility,maintaining strength like that
is the grunt work that gets youto um, a lot of this high level
(27:06):
stuff in routine.
So, yeah, don't lose sight ofthat as we get closer and closer
to routines, okay.
And then, lastly, the last kindof piece of recommendation here
is I'm very much a fan of makingsure that you are getting into
the environment of a competitionsetting early.
So I think that you canincrease intensity with mock
(27:28):
meet situations and mimic someof the stress that comes along
with the meat, right.
So, for example, when you getto bars or you get to whatever
event you are, instead of havingall of the bars going at once
and everyone is doing drills,everyone is doing skills.
One day per week, maybe it is atrue timed meat warmup and you
show a skill combination or youshow a half set right, and I
(27:50):
think you can start that earlierrather than later, is that sure
?
Somebody needs a spot onsomething or there's still a
time where they're working on it.
But putting someone in thateveryone's looking at me,
everyone's uh, paying attention,is my moment.
I think is really important tohave like a slow, graded
exposure to competition.
I think sometimes what happensis kids will train on their own,
do their routines on their own,do their skills on their own,
(28:11):
and then all of a sudden they'reput in the limelight of a floor
routine or whatever, and it'svery stressful for them mentally
.
So I know a lot of on the onthe female side.
They will do dance throughs,they will do all sorts of side
stations along with the dancethrough, like they'll do
pressure sets on beam.
I think that you should startthat with skills.
You should just like everyoneshows a release today, right?
So it doesn't mean you stop thewhole practice and waste 45
(28:31):
minutes of waiting for everyoneto go.
But, like, maybe you all warmup, you do your basics, you do
your stuff, and then the first10 minutes, you know we're all
going to watch everyone do theirrelease, we're going to watch
everyone do their series, we'regoing to watch everyone do their
first tumbling pass, right, andwe're all stop.
We times warm up and you'redoing a couple routines, right.
(28:52):
But I think sometimes we thinkabout the physical exposure to
challenge and we think about theplyos and the nitty gritty,
dorky stuff of the physical side, but we don't realize that
gymnastics is extremely mentallyand emotionally taxing for
young athletes, particularly onthe anxiety front, on the
emotional, you know, if youdon't go well and you fall, you
know handling that well,developing coping strategies to
(29:13):
kind of maintain a goodheadspace, like all these things
need to be trained as well.
And I think oftentimes we onlyfocus on the physical side of
stuff and then all of a suddensomeone's standing in a
convention center in front of athousand people at a meet and
they're extremely stressed outand something goes sideways
because of that moment and thatstress they're not really used
to.
So yeah, I would just advisepeople to try to do, whether
it's games, whether it's showingone skill, whether it's one day
(29:35):
per week to show day, who knows?
But just get more of that kindof pressure and that mental
strategy piece to it, cause youwant to teach somebody coping
strategies when they're learningthis.
So, yeah, that's about it.
I just want to keep that to aquick 30 minutes.
I kept it right underneath,which is good.
But just in review, reallythinking about workloads, slowly
ramping things up.
Training hard is smart, that'sgreat, I like that, but do it in
(29:56):
a smart way.
Make sure we're educating andgetting stuff together for
outside the gym, sleep fuelingfor performance, water intake,
stress management, schoolmanagement, help make schedules,
all that kind of stuff.
Remember you don't have to befiring at 100% cylinder the
first meet.
You can modify stuff, you canwater down, you can have an
upgraded set, take the pressureoff a bit and just think
culturally about not the fear ofjudgment.
We're doing this to kind ofslowly have a plan for six
(30:17):
months, focus on big rocks as weget closer to a season.
So always, physical preparationis the base.
Shaping flexibility, strength,basics.
Great technique is always thefoundation.
Elite level technique work iswhat you need to be focusing on.
And then, lastly, try to getthat mental aspect, that mental
focus, that kind of like youknow, pressure moment situation,
slowly built up over the nextmonth or two.
(30:38):
Don't just throw it at somebodyinto routines and then, oh my
God, we're going to the meet thenext day.
So, yes, hope that helps.
If anyone has any questions,please tweet at me, jump on
Instagram.
I'd love to chat and know.
If this is helpful.
I'll do more of these smaller
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!