Planning Gymnastics PreSeason: Routine Timing, Strength, & Cardio

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the Shift Shield, where mynumber one goal is to give you
the tools, ideas and the latestscience to help you change
gymnast lives.
Today in the podcast, we arecontinuing from last week's part

(00:22):
one on this lecture series ofhow to really have the best
competitive year right.
How do you have the bestpreseason?
How do you best have the bestin season to make sure kids are
healthy and are peaking for theright meats in there, you're not
burning out halfway throughwith either mental stress or
injuries.
So last week we talked about alot of the concepts related to
workloads.
What do I do differently now,based on the research that I
know, how do I plan for thisoverall year and take a big step

(00:44):
back to make sure we're notpushing too hard, too fast in
the very beginning of the seasonand then burning out?
And so this year or this week,pardon me is going to be more
about the actual preseason prep,the nuts and the bolts.
You know strength routines,cardio prep, all that kind of
stuff.
Preseason prehab all that kindof jazz.
This is really the nuts and thebolts of how I approach the
entire preseason.
What do I do when I teacheither colleges or elite

(01:05):
programs or club programs aroundthe world how to change and
kind of tweak their schedule tomake sure they get the most out
of the preseason.
But my hope is that last week'sintroductory concepts and this
week's kind of nuts and boltstogether will give you guys a
really good dose of things tokind of think about and brew on
as we work our way into the endof the preseason, which is
actually going to lead into thenext week's lecture on the
actual in-season management.

(01:26):
So I typically don't like totime stamp the episodes, but in
this situation many people likethis kind of like.
In the moment I'm doingpreseason right now.
Please help me along the way.
So I figured I would kind ofadd these lectures in because
there were a lecture series Idid that was very popular and
then hopefully this will helplead into next week, which will
be in season management, whichwill be closely upon us as this
episode is coming out.
So if you guys want more, thehero lab is our main kind of

(01:48):
spot.
It's got 60 plus lectures onflexibility, strength, all sorts
of resources, all sorts of PDFsand handouts that coaches and
medical providers have foundvery, very helpful and there's a
discussion community in therewhere you can talk with people
and kind of get ideas and chat.
So check out below the link tothe show notes If you'd like to
join the hero lab, we'd love tohave you inside there.
But for now I hope you allenjoy this wonderful episode on
preseason planning.
All right, hey everyone,welcome back to part two of our

(02:11):
lecture series here on kind ofoptimizing the competitive year
for gymnastics.
And if you are just kind ofhopping in and seeing this
second part, I would definitelystart with maybe the first piece
of this lecture series whichwas really around.
You know the backgroundconcepts and some of the more
fundamental things that youreally have to understand in
order for this to make sense,which is you know understanding,
you know super compensation andjust periodization in general,

(02:34):
understanding kind of how thehuman body adapts to training,
stress and how we recover andkind of the things that we need
to be thinking about like thedifferent four parts of you know
approaching the trainingprocess, and I think that a lot
of those things are reallyreally important to understand
and to know and kind of have inyour back pocket.
I think sometimes, if you justdive into the actual.
You know how many drills do Ido and what exercises should I

(02:55):
do during strength and how do Iplan my routines and stuff.
You might can be a little shortsighted.
You might just get a lot ofhelpful information but it
really won't make sense.
So, yeah, I would encouragepeople to maybe hop back over to
the first lecture and checkthat out before you dive into
this one.
But for those that did checkthat first one out, I hope that
was very helpful and it kind oflaid a really good foundational
groundwork for how we're goingto approach the preseason.

(03:17):
So, like I mentioned in the lastlecture, typically when I'm
starting to, you know, plan acompetitive year whether that's
with athletes that I coach orwhether that's with someone I'm
consulting with or whetherthat's someone who's just
curious I actually usually startwith the biggest event of the
year.
So say, you know, in a morecasual recreational setting,
that might just be like an endof the year show, right?
Or that might just be somethinglike a showcase they want to do

(03:39):
.
That has nothing to do withjudges or scoring or anything
like that, but for them it'swhat's really exciting.
So we start from there and wework our way backwards into how
much time we have.
We break that up into blocks.
Then we break that up intodifferent components of those
training blocks.
So that might be the situationthere in the competitive side,
whether it's states or regionalsor championships, or so, say
it's an elite qualifier or sayit's some sort of world

(04:01):
championship.
If I'm working with an athletewho's trying to get to that meet
again, we start from when thatdate is and we work our way
backwards to make the plan there.
So, um, when we do that, Itypically would start with
working all the way backwards tothe prior years off season and
then starting with the preseason, then the in season.
But for the sake of trying toeducate people and trying to
really help them understandconceptually where we're going

(04:22):
with this, we're going to startwith the preseason, because I
think the preseason makes moresense to people about going from
preseason to in-season and thenthe last lecture.
We'll wrap this all the way up.
We'll come back around to theoff season and say how that
bridges back to the start ofwhere we are now, which is the
preseason.
So a little bit differentapproach, but I think it'd be
the most helpful for people andI also think that many people
who are listening to thislecture are literally in the

(04:43):
middle of preseason right nowand I want to make sure that
they feel as though they havesome really helpful tools to get
them ready for the meets comingup or things that are going on.
So, with that in mind, we'regoing to use this analogy that I
think is really, really helpful.
So this idea of an hourglass andso I full credit to my buddy
and my boss mentor, mike Ronaldhe's the one who taught me this
working in professional baseball, thinking about how to manage

(05:03):
pro baseball pitchers andoutfielders and stuff through
the competitive season, throughtheir actual baseball games year
to year or, sorry, week to week.
So the hourglass represents theathlete in their capacity.
So what we have here is we have, obviously, with an hourglass,
we have the hourglass itself andthen on the top of the
hourglass, as you can see here,there is sand on the top there.
Okay, what the sand representsis kind of what we're doing in

(05:31):
the preseason or the off season.
So if we can put more sand intothe top of the hourglass, we're
going to slowly have a betterprogression down through right.
More sand to start with isgoing to obviously give the
athlete more capacity at the endwhen sand is running through to
the bottom.
So if we think about thehourglass as the overall athlete
capacity through to the bottom,so if we think about the
hourglass as the overall athletecapacity, how much sand we have
in the top, it's inevitablethat that sand is going to go

(05:52):
through the hourglass as meatseason goes on.
Okay, so what that essentially,you know, compares to is we are
going to have only so muchenergy, only so much stamina.
You can't fire on all cylindersyear round constantly, because
that's just not the best way toapproach things.
Right, meat season and meatsthemselves, getting ready for
meats, competing, traveling, isvery demanding on the body,
whether we're talking aboutphysically demanding or

(06:12):
emotionally and mentallydemanding.
Right, it's inevitable thatthat sand is going to pull
through the hourglass and wehave to kind of accept that and
embrace that reality that wecan't just have year round
competing nonstop.
Right, if we did that, there'dbe no time to get skills,
there'd be no time to getstronger, there'd be no time to
recover, there'd be no time toactually think about what's the
next step or moving up in levelor practice.
It would just be a non-stopkind of assault on their body

(06:36):
and on their mind and it'sreally too much for them.
So we're going to think aboutthat cyclical process of as we
go through the competitive year,right, that sand is inevitably
going to go through thehourglass.
We're going to eventually kindof run out of steam and kind of
get to the end point where weneed to take a break.
So what we can do with thehourglass is in off season or in
pre season.
That's really our primary timeto kind of get more sand back

(06:57):
into the top of the hourglassand we'll talk about the ways
that we do that.
But mainly that's going to bethrough drills and skill
development and strength andconditioning and energy systems
development right, cardio.
We're going to do the thingsthat we need to do, along with
the athlete wellness components,to try to build as much
possible sand in the top of thehourglass.
Okay, versus, we'll talk aboutmaybe in season is that trying

(07:18):
to actually get that sand to goslower through that bottleneck
is actually what we do duringthe in-season or competitive
period, right, a lot of thingswe'll talk about in the next
lecture for optimizing thecompetitive year and trying to
make sure you are preparingyourself as well as possible and
managing the week to week ofyou know, the ebbs and flows of
when you have meets or when youdon't, and how you prepare for
those things and what you do intraining to kind of get the

(07:39):
athletes ready for that.
That's really going to controlthe rate of sand going through.
So let's just focus on the topright now, which is how can we
get more sand in the top of thehourglass during preseason to be
better prepared for competitivemeets, right, or competitive
season?
And I think, if we go back tolast lecture, we talk about, you
know, the work from Tim Gabbitt, the work from many other good
stress researchers, the work ofmany other strength conditioning

(08:00):
coaches with periodization iswell, that's what we're trying
to do is we're trying tointelligently and very
creatively train hard to buildadaptations through those stress
and recovery cycles we talkedabout, but not push the gas
pedal too hard that we burnpeople out.
Vice versa, we don't want tonot do anything and just hope
that season goes well.
We actually have to work hard,we actually have to have really

(08:21):
intelligent training programs ifwe want to get athletes to
adapt and get stronger and beready for the competitive year.
So the entire preseason isreally aimed on building off
what we did in the off seasonfor getting drills or skills or
strength and things like that,and kind of turning somebody
into an operational approach togetting ready for the meets that
are coming up, but not killingthem too much, right?

(08:42):
So we want to slowly build upour potential and getting ready
for those meats, but we don'twant to go so hard, so fast that
we may cause injuries or spikesomeone's mental wellness to
come down the tubes.
So with that analogy in mind,we got to think about what's the
big picture here, like, whatare we trying to do, and take a
big step back.
What is the goal of thepreseason?
Okay, well, number one is we'retrying to get all of the
foundational strength gains thatwe've made from the offseason

(09:05):
and really develop our body towork for power right, gymnastics
in any discipline, and everysingle thing we do is an
explosive body weight sport,right.
So that's really what we'retrying to focus on is how do we
get all of the strength gainsand all of the athletes ready to
go as hard as they can, as fastas they can, do big, explosive
tumbling or vault or jumping ontrampoline or whatever else they
want to do.
We really have to focus oncreating that foundational power

(09:31):
aspect if we hope to havereally good meat season routines
and we hope to have reallypowerful tumbling.
Number two for more of theenergy systems or cardio point
of view is we want to try tomake sure we're going from that
maybe global base of aerobicfitness or maybe just that
general fitness that we have athand, and really teaching their
bodies how to work in burstedintervals, right.
So floor routines are, you know, 70, 90 seconds, um, but we

(09:52):
have beam routines that are inthe same kind of area of 60, and
bar routines, right.
Trampoline routines uh, anysort of aerobic or rhythmic
floor routine right, they're notthese five, 10, 15, 20, 25
minute, uh.
Endeavors right, they're.
They're up to, you know, very,very short intervals of a minute
and a half in some cases.
So that's kind of what we needto focus on is really getting
the energy systems ready tohandle that right.

(10:13):
Because if you take those thingstogether, if you take together
the skill work and the actualroutine progressions and you add
really, really good explosivepower and shaping and some
really good foundationalstrength and basics, but then
you also train the athlete tohandle that 90 seconds of high,
high intensity.
That is how you have the bestfoundational success to do well
in a meet.
Obviously, training yourroutines and practicing routines

(10:34):
, and the meat prep, prep in thecompetition, the mental, you
know performance aspects ofmanaging your, your stress
levels and your anxiety andhitting a routine under pressure
, those are obviously very, veryimportant, right?
But without foundational powerand the foundational energy
systems to do those things,you're going to constantly be
frustrated when you try to putroutines together.
Okay, number three is we'rereally trying to get all of our

(10:55):
skills, all of our combinationsand eventually get to the end
goal of competing right, we wantto be able to do a full routine
on all events and competereally, really well and hit our
requirements, hit our differentexecution goals that we have for
really clean form.
Try to make sure we hit underpressure, have the mental
capacity to do that and also thephysiological capacity.
So we're trying to really pushthe athletes over the course of

(11:15):
these 12 weeks, of thisthree-month block, into going
from okay, here are the skills Iwant to do for my level or this
is the compulsory routine I'mdoing and actually get through
an entire routine from a mentaland a physical point of view.
So when you take a big stepback there and you think about
okay, those are my three maingoals, the rest of what we do is
really going to be built around.
Okay, well, how do we chop upthe three months we have into

(11:37):
smaller segments?
And then what are we doing inthose smaller segments to get
explosive power, to get thatanaerobic burst or that kind of
interval-based cardiopreparation and also get our
routines ready?
And that's where we're gonnakind of move to here.
Okay, I always approach thepreseason in a 12 week or so
block.
I think if I was in a magicalworld where I had all the time
in the world, I would wantlonger for this right.

(11:58):
But I think the reality ofworking with athletes that are
in school and have other thingsgoing on with you know, family
demands and other life demandsis that obviously the preseason
being longer would be ideal, andI think I don't want to get
into the conversation about it,but particularly in the NCAA,
it's challenging sometimes toget the athletes ready when you
only have eight to 12 weeks towork with and sometimes I think
that lack of a preseason lengthand the amount of density and

(12:20):
how much they compete in a shortperiod of time, either on the
JL side and the club side or onthe college side.
I think unfortunately, thatdoes us a disservice and it's
really hard to get the athletesready.
But at this point in time it iswhat it is.
It's really hard to chop up theyear and kind of push things
around as much as we have now.
But in the future it would beideal if we had a longer off
season and a longer preseasonwith a little bit shorter of a

(12:42):
in season, because the length ofsome gymnastics seasons go like
up to five, six months and Ithink it's really really
challenging on their body.
I'd like to maybe see thatcondensed a little bit more to
have more time to have an offseason and kind of get their
bodies ready but then also havemore time in the preseason to be
ready for what's coming upduring the year.
So a little bit of a soapboxthere, but I think that's really
really important to mentionhere.
But given as we are in front ofus, this is how I've always

(13:04):
approached the preseason, withpeople who have that three month
window.
It seems to be the most common,obviously, if you're working in
an elite cycle, this might be adifferent period of the year or
it might be a little bit moreof, like you know, two kind of
mini preseasons where you kindof get yourself ready for your
first meet and then you knowNCAA gymnastics.

(13:25):
This is kind of the best way toapproach it.
So I personally, in all theprograms I've worked with and
I've been, like I said,fortunate to consult with a lot
of programs I've seen a lot ofstrength programs, I've seen a
lot of yearly calendars from theclub level to the college level
to the elite level, and I'veseen a lot of gymnast plans.
And personally, with my owncoaching philosophy, I think

(13:49):
that this is what also seems towork the best, kind of uh
congruency wise.
But I like this approach of afour week block and then a
longer eight week block.
Okay, so the reason I think thefour week block needs to happen
is I think sometimes we jump thegun from going from general off
season training and kind ofdiving right into some of the
more intense gymnastics work,and I think that our bodies are
typically not ready for that.
So what that means practicallyis we come back from the summer

(14:09):
where I am in the States hereand we're like, okay, meat
season's coming up.
We got to start a lot ofplyometrics.
We got to start a lot oftumbling on the hard floor,
start getting on hard surfaces.
We got to start going really,really hard with gymnastics,
specific skill training andevent training, and I think that
it's well-intentioned.
But I think that the ramp up isso aggressive that it's a huge
spike in workload, particularlywith the number of impacts that
gymnasts may take or the numberof backbending skills that it

(14:30):
might require, or the number ofshoulder intensive skills that
men's gymnastics requires, orthe number of high impact
trampoline bounces thattrampolinists will take.
And I think what you see is alot of overuse.
Injuries come from that right.
You see a lot of stressfractures in the shins, you see
a lot of low back pain, you seea lot of shoulder pain in male
gymnasts or wrist pain, and Ithink a lot of this comes
because, again, we don't reallyhave this transitional block of

(14:51):
four weeks to train.
What science says is the bestway to get the power ready, the
best way to get the generalimpact tolerance ready or just
get their entire body ready tohandle some of the higher force
things.
There's many, many great toolsand strength and conditioning
that can help us smooth overfrom the off season getting
ready for preseason, and everygymnast that we have that comes
to champion physical therapy andperformance and works with us

(15:12):
for some of their off season andin season training for strength
and conditioning and justlifting, not even for medical
stuff.
We have like 30 or 40 athleteswho do this with us.
Every single one of them getssome sort of a transition block
before they go back to reallyreally hard stuff at their
college or really really hardstuff at their gym, because we
just know the reality of howhard it's going to be.
So I really want to drive thatpoint home that if you are able
to and you can have theflexibility to, you really

(15:35):
should try to build in one ofthese transition blocks, okay.
And then after that four weekcycle you can pretty much just
put all your eggs in the basketof gymnastics specific
preparation, which means youknow everything you've thought
about right under the sun thatyou've probably known on the
last X years of your coachingcareer.
But getting routines ready,doing plyos, doing hard surfaces
, really challenging sled pushroutines or dance throughs with
extra tumbling passes, like allthat fun stuff.

(15:56):
That is really really great andreally, really important to do.
I think if you have this goodfoundational base from the off
season and you also have thisfour week transitional block,
people tolerate the workloadchanges quite a bit more
comfortably versus getting a lotof limited factors of growth
plate injuries, like you know,severance disease, osgoods,
slaughter, stuff like that, orback issues, like I said.
So if you can plan for it, Ithink it's really really

(16:16):
important.
So, that being said, let's kindof go back to our four
categories that we had.
So, gymnastics development,right, strength and physical
preparation, energy systemsdevelopment and then athlete
wellness.
Those are the four things thatI said in the last lecture.
We're kind of juggling.
We reviewed those pretty indepth about what those mean, but
we're going to kind of thinkabout those things Every single
lecture moving forward.
We do.
We'll kind of go piece by pieceand I'll share exactly what I

(16:38):
think is important to do duringthese blocks of the preseason,
during the weeks of training andduring the days.
Okay.
So gymnastics specific in thisfirst four week block, we're
mainly going to start with justdoing combinations of skills,
right.
Okay, what's the routineconstruction going to be?
How are we going to order those?
What would the first half looklike?
What would the second half looklike?
We're going to start to kind ofbuild up those combinations and
I think it's really good to dothis either with a spot or with

(16:59):
some spotting blocks or havesomebody slide a Madden for
something, just to kind of getused to the feeling of doing
multiple skills in a row andstaying on the equipment for
longer.
So I like doing two weeks ofthese kind of combinations and
these just like skeleton halfsets.
And then I like doing two weeksof pretty much full sets, but
not with the hardest dismount orwith the last tumbling pass
possibly.
So I think that that sometimesgets a little bit dicey when you

(17:21):
have someone just go from afull end set with a new dismount
or with something that theymight be tired for and not
really mentally or physicallyready for.
Again, physiologically weprobably haven't developed the
kind of energy system that needsto support a full 60 to 90
second max effort.
You know intensity thing, likea floor routine or some sort of
bar routine.
So if we can start with a bunchof skill combinations, then

(17:41):
move to maybe a back half withno dismount.
Or you know, they do theirskills on high bar and they run
over to the pit bar and do theirdismount there, or they do
their tumbling passes up intothe last one.
Then you pause the routine,they run over to a softer
surfaces and they dismount intothe pit, they dismount into a
rod strip.
I think that's really really asmart thing to do and I think
this goes as well with differentsituations where you're putting

(18:01):
in new skills.
So say, you're doing a new hardskill.
Maybe you can get a spot, alight spot, on that skill in the
routine and then you can kindof do the last pass as a watered
down pass.
So I like doing this in thesefour week blocks because it
doesn't throw so much at theathletes so fast that they might
be over their head and theymight have a silly injury or
something happen, but also itgives you more time to kind of
build up, like I said in thatfour week block, for their

(18:22):
energy systems of getting theircardio ready, getting their
strength and power ready, whichwe'll talk about in the next
section.
Okay, so after the four weekblock, in the eight week block,
I think it's pretty much justgetting routines together.
Right, you're just doing thevery classic gymnastics
preseason, which is all right.
We did half sets.
Let's maybe now start to doinga full set, without the dismount
Like I just mentioned.
Let's try to do.
You know, two weeks later let'sdo a pressure set, let's do a

(18:42):
mock meet situation.
Right, it's just gettingeverything ready for the actual
first meet of the season and Ithink that you'd want to use six
weeks there and then two weeksyou'd want to kind of slowly
taper into what that first meetis going to be.
So some people that's an innersquad, some people that's

(19:04):
actually a first home meet,that's a travel there, but
you're really working onpressure sets.
So it's literally like, out ofa 45 minute workout for an event
, you might just do a completemeat warmup and then kind of you
know, ice the kicker, as theysay, which is actually put a
lineup order in and say, yes,you're going to have to wait two
or three people after you warmup.
You know, not just hop right upand do your routine like you've
been used to the last six weeks.
So I think simulating thosemock meets are really, really

(19:26):
important, but you have tointentionally build those into
your plan.
You can't just be like the daybefore me, like, all right,
let's try a mock me, right,because you got to make sure
that people feel they can getinto a routine and they
understand what they want to do.
So, as an overview of the 12week block, as we break things
down even more, I like thesekind of no-transcript connecting

(20:25):
that to their round off backhandspring, right.
Maybe it's just learning how togo combinations.
To start it might just be frontup rise, swing, handstand,
pirouette, stutz, peach, kip,press, handstand, right.
It might be just a very littlecombination there.
So not everything is sodaunting with their skills.
Obviously, as you get into superhigh level, they have to learn
how to string together reallychallenging combinations.
So it might be, you know, stutzto handstand, deom and then

(20:48):
front up rise one and a quarter,dismount right into a pit or
something like that for guys onP bars.
You have to obviously know theathletes what they're doing, but
I'm just saying thesecombinations of skills are super
, super helpful to get thingsgoing.
And then they would pop off anddo some side drills that are
strength or conditioning or acorrection for one skill they
saw in a video and somethinglike that.
That's a really good basic wayto approach some of these drills

(21:09):
.
Obviously, if you only have 30minutes, maybe it's a basic
warmup and then three of thoseskill combinations and then a
couple of side drills.
If you have an hour you mightdo more.
Right, again, we talked abouthow I can't give you every
single example, but I'm justkind of sharing some ideas of
frameworks.
Okay, another really goodcombination thing to do here is
a basic warmup, three of eachhalf, and then take some
corrections and then do sidedrills.
So three of your first half,three of your second half, on

(21:29):
whatever event.
It should be right.
And most most obviously,artistic routines can be broken
up into five and five skills.
Trampling is the same way, youknow, rhythmic routines, same
way.
Maybe you do the first half ofyour routine and then you kind
of take a break, you watch thevideo, you see what you needed
to work on, do a correction, doanother first half, then take
some corrections, then doanother first half and then you
do the same thing through yoursecond half of your routines.
Okay, another option herebasics, warm up.

(21:51):
I really enjoyed this oneparticularly.
So, warm up, do two of eachhalf, do your corrections and
then whichever was the weakerhalf that you struggled on,
let's repeat another one or twoof those.
So maybe your bar routine, youcrush the first, you know, half
all the time and it feels reallyreally good, but you always
seem to be struggling with yourlast possible skill.
Your dismount gets a littlefunky.
So you would just work ondrills and corrections for that
weak half.

(22:11):
That's another really reallygood way to kind of help someone
develop their weaknesses.
And then lastly, maybe on vaultyou just warm up.
You do five to seven vaults toa kind of a semi firm surface
with a nice little drill circuitin between to work on blocking
or visual points of cue or yourround off snap down entry or
your front handspring entry,whatever else.
It should be right.
I'm obviously thinking in agroup setting here versus
someone who's just working ontheir own.
But I'm trying to get a groupof 12 athletes through seven

(22:33):
vaults is definitely challengingin 45 minutes.
So that's a that's alreadyenough in itself.
But setting up side stations,setting up video feedback,
setting up drills, setting upside strength and conditioning,
setting up side activeflexibility, all those things
can be built directly into youruh, your warmups and can be
built directly into some of youractual event routines.
So I really like this as, likeI said, a way to get those skill
combinations and half setsgoing.

(22:55):
Okay, for the eight week example, here are some examples of
things that I've found really,really helpful to try to mimic
some of the things leading up toa meet.
Okay, so, basic warmup, right.
So just doing some basic skills.
Just do two routines on yourown time, right, so whether a
coach is watching or whether youhave somebody else that can
kind of video you and do that,but two routines and then you
would do two of each half afterthat, right, this is a pretty
aggressive amount of volume,depending on the event that

(23:17):
you're working on.
Right, for uneven bars or doingyou know, something with beam,
it might not be that challenging, but two floor routines is
absolutely tough, right.
Two floor routines and twohalves.
It'd be really hard to get thatall in, so it might just be one
and one half on each.
So for other events, for likemen's gymnastics, for example,
pommel horse, two routines is ajoke, right.

(23:38):
You could probably get throughtwo routines in your warmup, so
it might be four or fiveroutines, right?
Every event is very, verydifferent.
Two full trampoline routines.
It's pretty tough depending onthe level that you're working on
.
So you have to kind of haveyour coach's on here about
what's realistic and then what'snot right.
Doing five bar routines isreally aggressive sometimes.
Maybe two and three is whereyou want to be.
But I don't think that weshould.
We should only be tailoringbased on you know the athlete.
We should be based on the eventitself and what's going to be

(24:00):
challenging.
So basic warm up, two routines,two of each half and then maybe
some drills on the side.
Another one is great is justdoing a basic warm up, two
routines and then doing thoseweek half corrections.
I really think those are supervaluable as well.
So you do those routines, youget you kind of got through it,
even if it's not the bestroutine in your life.
Then you go back and you dothose week corrections again
with drills on the side.
Another one is you get closertowards the end.

(24:21):
Like I said, those those end ofthe six weeks and two week
tapers is you do a timed warmup,you just pick an arbitrary
order, you do a pressure setwhere everybody's watching,
everyone's cheering.
It's literally just one athletegoing at a time and then you
break up and with the next youknow 15 minutes you can do
another routine or a thirdroutine or take some corrections
or something like that.
But that simulated pressure setsometimes like literally the
whole gym stopping to watchsomeone set can be really,

(24:42):
really valuable to work on someof those anxiety pieces, some of
those nerves, right.
And then, lastly, warming up asa competition would be you
compete your two vaults and thenmaybe after everyone does their
competition, two vaults againwith the order, with athletes
sitting in between waiting fortheir turn, getting saluted by a
mock judge, the whole nine.
Then they go back and maybeopen the vaults up and do four
more with some drills and stufflike that.

(25:03):
So again, just different waysto kind of slowly build up the,
the progression of getting readyfor their actual meets and
stringing together theseroutines.
These are all workouts thatI've done that are very, very
helpful.
And then I find the athletesrespond to really really well.
Like I said, obviously lowerlevel athletes that have not a
lot of time you might just bedoing one of these things to get
through floor routines, ormaybe they can do more of the
routines on beam because they'rea lot less intense than some of

(25:24):
the older athletes have, butyou have to make that decision
as a coach or someone who'sinvolved.
Okay, so now let's move on tostrength and physical
preparation.
So what are we really focusingon here?
So we should have a really goodstrength base from the summer.
Right, if we did things right,if we really worked on a good
strength program, as we'll talkabout in the last lecture you
should have a nice strongathlete.
But because you've been reallyfocusing on maximal strength,

(25:47):
you're probably not going tohave the fastest athlete or the
most quick twitch, right, it'snot going to be someone who's
really highly tuned forexplosive power.
You have to specifically trainthat, okay.
So we'll use strength as ourfoundational block towards power
and then we're going to try towean our way into developing.
Okay, how do we move fast?
How do we go explosive?
How do we go max effort andtranslate that I really really

(26:07):
want to emphasize here.
This is for power training andthis is also for cardio or
energy system training.
We must train these things inlow risk settings first, okay,
and I'll explain exactly whatthat means.
I'll give you examples.
I really think one of thebiggest mistakes I made as a
younger coach was askingathletes to be explosive in
their power tumbling or in someof their skill work before they

(26:28):
felt as though they developedthat safely.
And what I mean by that ishaving athletes, for example, do
round-up back handspring, hightuck with a spot up to stacked
mats for a couple weeks beforethey ever are asked to do a
layout or a full or a doubleback or a double double,
whatever else it is to maxeffort right, just saying like
go as hard as you can and try todo this double back or do this

(26:49):
back tuck.
For some athletes that areyounger, if you don't teach them
how to control that power withtechnical development and you
also don't kind of develop their, their power in a safer setting
, it might get really reallydicey really really fast.
You have to train the body totolerate these, these really
high intensity efforts, anddevelop their safety right with

(27:09):
some of their, their landingtechniques or with some of their
explosive power control beforewe ever ask them to do a
tumbling pass.
That's really high risk or avault that's really high risk.
So obviously coaches developphenomenal you know expertise
and technical development anddrills and progressions to learn
how to be powerful and controlthat.
But we can do a lot more in thestrength conditioning world.
There's so much greatscientific support and evidence

(27:30):
of how we do this smart andintelligent ways from other
sports that I still thinkgymnastics has yet to kind of
develop and I'll share kind ofwhat I mean by that in a second.
But just really really try tofocus on developing power in low
risk settings first, likeagainst med balls and sled
sprints and explosive sprintwork.
Don't just go right to thehardest tumbling passes, don't
just go to their routines.
Try to really get it to show upin some of the side drills and

(27:51):
also some of these things we'lltalk about, okay.
So remember here, as we look athow we're going to program for
power, power is very much aproduct of force over time,
right?
The scientific definition, okay.
So what we need to do is we wantto increase power, we're going
to have to increase force, right, if we want to actually get
that.
And what we do that with is thesummer, right, we do that with
the increase in strength and thebody weight and lifting weights

(28:13):
that we've talked about andwe'll talk about in the next
lecture as well.
We also do that by improvingand optimizing techniques.
So when you teach an athlete tobe stiff, or you teach them you
know where to put their limbsin space, or you teach them
where to look, or you teach themhow to hit the equipment, well,
you are increasing the forcebecause you're actually
preventing the leakage of energy, right?
So someone who is very, verystiff and has really, really
good body shape and has reallyreally good technique they're

(28:33):
not leaking energy, they're notlosing force to the equipment
versus someone who, objectively,gets a lot stronger over the
summer and the preseason and saycan you know squat more or can
jump higher or can do more leglifts or do more rope climbs,
they will be able to increasethe amount of force they can put
through the equipment andthrough you know the apparatus.
So that will then also increasetheir power development, right?

(28:54):
But the other way we do this isby reducing the time interval.
If you can express that sameforce over less period of time
say you're snapping down to theground and you have really good
stiff ridges and your calves andyour quads are very, very
strong, your hips and yourhamstrings are very, very strong
Well, you're not going to leakthat energy, but you can impulse
off the floor much, much fasterand save some of that energy
translated into a highertumbling pass, right, if you can

(29:16):
tap more efficiently and harderon your shape-changing
technique, you might have ahigher dismount or a higher
takacha for something like that.
If you can be much more smoothwith your technique.
But you can also increase theamount of time you can deliver
that force by.
So, you're sorry, reduce thetime you're delivering that
force by so I can move faster,the same amount of force over
less time, you can have thepotential to be more powerful.

(29:37):
So a little bit geeky here, butessentially what we need to do
is we need to train for this.
We need to train for them towork faster right, we need to
train sprints and explosivejumps and bounding work and med
ball slams and throws, like.
We need to actually have theskill work and the actual
opportunity to say, hey, move asfast as you possibly can.
Which again is why I likethings like med ball throws or

(29:57):
med ball slams, because there'sno inherent danger to throwing a
med ball really, really hard atthe ground or overhead.
There is a little bit of dangerfor having someone just tumble
as hard as they can and set ashigh as they can and hope that
it goes well right, so we cantrain these things in safer
settings, like I mentioned.
And again, you will obviouslyimprove your, you know your
ground reaction times If youhave really great technique,

(30:19):
like I just talked about.
If you're stiffer, you knowwhere to look, you can snap down
faster, you can snap into thefloor faster, you're going to
have more potential energycoming back to get a higher
tumbling pass.
But essentially, increasingforce and reducing the time is
how we're going to get somebodymore powerful.
So what we're going to do inthe four week block again
focusing on this max power andlow risk ways we're going to do
a mixture of gymnastics,specific and general stuff, and

(30:40):
we'll talk about what that meansbut essentially doing side
drills, doing some event basicwarm ups, doing some different
things in a general warm up totry to get them to be more
explosive and get them to workkind of faster, shape changes
and much more aggressive snapdown technique or running
technique.
But also we can use things,like I said, like med balls and
sleds and other options ofjumping and bounding to get that
general development of fasttwitch to kind of come along for

(31:02):
the ride.
During the eight-week block.
We're going to pretty much takeall of it and try to make it go
into routines, like I justtalked, talked about with some
of the combinations of skillwork.
We're going to essentially say,okay you're, we have this nice
new power development to workwith.
I need this to show up inskills.
I need this to show up in yourtechnique for what you're doing
on your actual snap downtechnique on vault or your
actual swing handstands on ringsor something like that.
So I need this to actually showup.

(31:23):
The eight week block is reallyfocused on okay, what can we?
We do to try to get that powerto show up in gymnastics
specific ways, much of whichwill come through just our
routine training and comethrough some of our side drills
during those corrections.
But we can also work onspecific strength conditioning
to help out with that.
And then here in the four weekblock, let's just give some
examples here, right, so wemight do some trampoline or some
rod strip whips in powertumbling.

(31:45):
So maybe we'll just do likeround off back handspring, high
layout layout right on atrampoline or on a rod strip
floor.
We're kind of slowly going froma softer surface to a harder
surface to kind of get theirshins and their body ready.
We might do some high intensitybut moderate volume plyometrics
right.
So we might do tuck jumps overmats, we might do tuck jumps in
place, we might do rod stripjumps, we might do some depth
jumps off of a block, some high,explosive bounding sprint work.

(32:08):
All that stuff comes into someof the gymnastics specific event
work.
We also might do some jumps andsome leaps, some sprints, some
floor jump, cast hands and it'sjust really trying to have nice
sharp, aggressive snappingmotions, Not that kind of more
slow and controlled, but reallyreally sprint as fast as you can
, really really jump as high asyou can.
Another really great place towork this is like on side
stations or on like strap bar,for example.
I really love putting people instrap bar in the preseason.

(32:30):
Just hang just nice aggressivearch hollow kick as hard as you
can with great shapes and try toget that giant to go over with
a nice snap, a snap shape change.
So younger athletes who are,even if they're doing like
they're super advanced eliteathletes, just doing really
aggressive sequences of strapbar tapping is a really great
way to develop this kind of rateof force development in this
power stuff Okay.
And then a lot of times inbasics I like doing these as

(32:52):
well for warmup.
So whether it's on bars and youwould do like power swings or
cast handstands or giants,whether it's just doing basic
warmup, tumbling of, like I said, high, tumbling up to mats or
doing some things on the sidestations, of just snap down,
rebound for men's parallel bargymnastics, we'll talk about
like just doing reallyaggressive front upright swing
handstands or really aggressivedip swings or really aggressive
power circles front loop, backloop, side loop just warming up

(33:15):
with some of these reallyexplosive intention based things
.
And I think intention is reallyimportant.
There you have to trainintention.
You have to train as hard asyou possibly can.
But, like I said, doing thesethings, doing power swing, cast
handstands are very, very lowrisk versus asking someone to do
a one and a quarter.
Doing rod strip high tucks upto mats with a spot is very,
very low risk compared to havingsomeone go on the actual floor

(33:37):
and say, okay, I want you to doyour full as hard as you can or
your double back as hard as youcan.
So finding ways drills, sidestations, warmups to
specifically train power, but ina safer way, okay.
So here's some examples here,some videos in the top left.
Just doing some arch hollowsnap shape changes is a really
great side station on bars.
It's also a very great way todo in a warm up or someone who's
working on it.
Another way to do this is thetop right hand corner is just

(33:58):
doing a little bit of archhollow snapping between foam
rollers.
I love this drill.
It's very, very basic.
It's very, very easy to scalebetween athletes.
So having them go on theirstomach and just work on that
kind of aggressive shape change,so they're pulling into a
hollow, you can flip them overon their back between two foam
rollers and do the explosivearch as well.
Over here in the bottom left, inand out panel mat jumps are
really great too, this kind ofjust general quick twitch

(34:19):
shaping off the floor.
So again, to make this harder,you'd make the panel mats higher
.
To make this easier, you makethe panel mats lower.
But it's really great forsomeone to work on some of that
nice stiffness technique wetalked about, but also just
trying to jump as high as theypossibly can and then kind of
more classic gymnasticsconditioning but just tuck jumps
over panel mats and series,getting someone to just learn
how to be nice and tight andstiff off the ground trying to
get themselves to have niceexplosive power up and over the

(34:42):
mat.
So you know, tuck jumps overmats or high jumps.
I think it's important to workthese in the preseason, this
general block.
But again, I think highintensity with low or moderate
volume is what we're looking for.
I really, really cautionagainst doing 20 minutes of just
extended panel mat, plyo jumps,as we'll talk about, but high
intensity is what we're lookingfor to get their body ready for
that explosive kind of quicktwitch fiber.

(35:02):
Okay, so some more four blockexamples for the general side of
things.
So we could do some seateddumbbell jumps, we could do some
broad jumps, roll to single legjumps, med ball slams, med ball
throws, sled pushes and pulls,plyometric pushups, dumbbell
push presses, jump rope V-ups ortuck slider throughs.
These are all just progressionsof some of the exercises that
we would talk about in anoff-season training block and

(35:24):
they really help just developall athletics qualities right.
So can you jump, can you sprint, can you slam, can you sprint,
can you slam, can you run.
All those things again aregeneral training aspects to just
explosive power.
But all these things, if youcoach and doing the proper
dosage, are super duper safe.
They're hard, they're reallychallenging but they're super
duper safe.
Right Seated dumbbell jumps area fantastic way to get
explosive leg power right, andmed ball slams and throws

(35:47):
slamming between your feet oropening and throwing behind you.
They're really really great waysto work on, like the triple
extension for setting off afloor or the squatting landing
pattern that you're going toneed to be safe when you land a
dismount.
But they're really really lowrisk.
You're not going to hurtsomebody by doing a four pound
med ball, but it really givesthem an opportunity to go as
hard as they possibly can.
Like you say, like I want youto put a hole in the ground with
how hard you throw this thing.

(36:07):
So we're using a lot of thesethings in our programming
throughout the preseason thisfour week block.
So just some examples hereright Roll to a single leg jump
just a really good way to kindof develop a single leg power.
So they'd roll back on a panelmat, jump as high as they can.
Another option of this is aseated hands on hips jump.
So by putting their hands ontheir hips they're not allowed
to use their arms and you canjust jump as high as you can.
So pushing up, squeezing as faras you can that way.

(36:29):
Okay, jump rope V ups arereally great to kind of get that
rapid compression aspect thatwe're working on for bars or for
cast handstands Very simple todo with a jump rope and
unfortunately athletes withlonger legs struggle a little
bit more.
But speed V ups are kind ofthis option here.
And then last, in the bottomright hand corner, just doing
some aggressive tuck throughstrying to get their body to
compress, reach out, come backthrough and again, these are all
just examples of things that Ithink we're talking about the

(36:51):
principles of power development,the principles of jumping and
speed work.
I'm not saying that these arethe only four exercises you can
do.
There's a bajillion greatexercises out there.
Okay, a couple more exampleshere.
Here's some med ball work, somemed ball slams.
So Heather's just trying toslam as hard as she can between
her feet.
But this really helps todevelop the closing shoulder
angle, which a lot of peopleneed for kips, which a lot of
people need for some tap swings,but also it obviously helps you

(37:12):
in a landing pattern ofsquatting.
This is a reverse overhead medball throw.
So by sitting her down shecan't use her legs and we're
just working on the core and thearms.
Again, think about getting backto her table for your Chankos,
setting off the floor, beamseries, jumping higher on
trampoline, getting off theboard for springboard, work on
vault, like all those things arevery, very applicable.
But with a four pound med ballshe can just work on really

(37:33):
aggressive arm throwing behindher and develop the power
generally in her shoulders andcore to then transfer over to
drills, right Sled pushes andsled pulls are down here.
So just working on explosivekind of like low, low weight on
the sled but just trying to runas fast as you possibly can down
the floor and run backwards asfast as you can down the floor,
again, always to develop thisgeneral athleticism quality of

(37:54):
power.
But you know, not do it in away that might be risky.
Okay, so here's an example of aprogramming.
This is like literally takenfrom one of our binders.
So we might do this.
So one A and one B just means asuperset.
So you would bop back and forthbetween these two things
no-transcript with really highpower things.

(38:17):
You don't want to be giving 10,12, 15 reps because the power
is going to fall apart.
Right, so five explosive uhsingle leg jumps as high as you
can, eight speed leg lifts.
We might do a lap of connecteduh single leg bounding jumps
down the floor.
Connect that with a super setof plyometric push-ups and again
2a.
2b means they would do thefirst 1a, 1b, then go down to
two and go one lap with theconnected deer jumps and then

(38:40):
eight, eight plyometric push upsand bop back and forth four
times there.
Then, lastly, they would go ona low bar with a spot and do
five power cast handstands isconnected and then do some med
ball slams like you saw in thelast video.
Okay, so that would just be anexample.
That would be a workout on oneday per week that we would do.
That would probably take abouta half hour to 45 minutes to set
it all up and explain and havepeople do it with high quality.
But that would be a reallyclassic.

(39:00):
You know, in season sorry,preseason strength program or
power program that I woulddevelop for that four week block
like I was talking about.
Okay, so here's another coupleexamples of the eight week
blocks for gymnastics specific,just to give you more ideas.
So just some ideas around theeight block stuff.
Right?
So power tumbling up to stackmats, uphill vaulting onto stack

(39:27):
mats is really great.
Just stacking mats behind aresi pit or stacking behind a
vault table and just going likefront handspring or round off
entry as high as you possiblycan, try to get up and over some
stacks, floor dance throughs,but using sprints in between.
So they pause the music and youwould sprint three times when
you do your instead of yourtumbling pass in the really,
really early season, and thenmaybe you replace that with
sleds.
After that, to make it harder,you put a sled push out there
with some lightweight on it.
You do three sled pushes whichwill gas your legs out.
And then, lastly, once theyfeel maybe after a couple of

(39:48):
weeks they're prepared, is youstart adding in basic tumbling
passes.
So instead of your hardesttumbling pass, you would do your
, your first pass as a basicpass, your third all the way
down, your third, the very, veryend.
You know, maybe four weeks intothis eight week block you start
doing, okay, do your first pass, but then do basic passes for
your second and third pass orfourth pass, and then you
eventually just get to a fullroutine like we talked about.
Okay, so same thing with theother pieces.

(40:09):
So maybe skeleton routineswhere you just do basics, so
giants to dismount into the pit,so you just do all your basic
routine elements, not actuallyyour hardest skills, but then
you would run over to the pitand you do giant, giant to
whatever dismount is, so youfeel safe.
And then skeleton P barroutines as well.
Maybe you would do your entirebasic routine without all your
hardest skills, but then youwould just do a couple extra
sets of basics at the end so youwould hop back up after your

(40:29):
dismount.
You do front upright swing,handstand five times just to
build the endurance up, just tokind of get them ready for
what's coming down the road.
Okay, and here's some examples,examples more of just some
drills for side stations.
So you know, a little suitentry drill here, just working
on blocking power, setting upthe mats where they're coming
off this T-trainer and they'rejust working on explosive
blocking power.
We would do this.
You can actually kind of see itover here in the top right hand
corner.
We have the stack mat set upand we have this resi with a mat

(40:52):
on top of it.
So these athletes are comingdown, they're doing round off
entry to their back.
So again working on thatexplosive blocking power.
The thought is that if we'redoing really good physical
preparation and we're gettingthe upper body stronger with
those plyometric pushups andcast handstands, that we can
make this show up in some ofthese side drills here.

(41:13):
Another one for vault, just kindof an explosive arm thrill, arm
throw drill that was hard tosay uh g just doing some uh,
your chanko work type here downhere on rod strip this was also
for your chankos, but in thesame circuit was just like a
round off very aggressive snapup to a resi.
So just working on snappinghard down into the mat, looking
at the hand mat behind you shoutout nick erotic for those
drills, and then trying to getreally fast back to the table

(41:34):
again.
You can see how the arm swingcomponent is what we're working
on right.
We're working on the arm swingover here in the top right and
we're working on the arm swingcomponent over here in the
bottom left.
And then this is just anexample of you know, when we
want some front twisting so saysomeone's doing a fuller or Rudy
, we try to give them nice highlayout halves to bound off the
floor.
So Linnea here is just workingon trying to get up and over the

(41:57):
top before she a nice highrebound on the other side.
So just some ideas for sidestations that I think also kind
of translate to this powerdevelopment piece.
And then, moving on from here,so the general side as well for
the eight week block.
So we might start doingconnected double or single leg
vertical jumps.
We might be doing connectedbroad jumps.
We might do some max effortsled sprints around the floor
for like 30 seconds.

(42:17):
We might do some more speedrope climbs or some shuttle
sprint repeats.
So we'd have someone do kind ofdo you know there's our line?
Floor has every you know what10 feet it is or six feet.
So run down, tap the line,sprint back.
Run down, tap the line, sprintback three times while your
partner goes.
So just working on someexplosive bouts, right, instead
of by connecting our jumps, byconnecting our bounding stuff

(42:41):
together, we're teaching thebody to work much, much quicker
in a fast twitch stuff and it'smuch more challenging.
So instead of just doing one ortwo of those broad jumps, we
might do multiple thingstogether.
And just some examples here.
So here's some single legrebounders.
So Jen, just in the top lefthand corner here just kind of
you can see how she's nowconnecting those single leg
jumps together.
She's kind of pulling her heelup towards her buttock, but
we're kind of working on some ofthe faster, quick twitch
rebounding stuff.
And then over here on the rightyou can see a depth jump to

(43:02):
react, a broad jump right, soshe drops off the mat and
instead of just sticking herlanding or just doing a squat
jump, she's now working onreacting very, very fast and
this also helps to kind of getin that quick twitch fiber that
we're trying to get some of that.
What then?
Another example here is just ina warmup we might have an
athlete just do three power castand stands.

(43:23):
So Kip cast and stand, justtrying to be as aggressive as
humanly possible and obviouslyhold her shape at the end.
But this is more like an eventspecific warmup, but just a
couple of examples that kind ofgo there of different options
you can play with.
I like event warmups, I likeside stations and I also like
doing it in their actual eventwork.
Okay, so then, moving on here,here's some programming examples

(43:44):
for the events.
You might have someone do fivefront and back power tumbling
passes to stacked mats as yourwarm up on your floor, right.
So maybe you do a basic warm upand then say, okay, two lanes
here, everyone's going to dofive power roundup back
handspring or roundup backhandspring or, sorry, roundup
back tucks up to these mats andtrying to work on high stick
there.
If they're not comfortabledoing it, just do high
candlesticks right, jump thecandlestick.

(44:04):
Um, they might do five vaultsover a high resi after their
competitive warmup and thentheir compete competition.
You might have them compete alittle bit and then slide the
mats back over and say, okay,everyone's now going to work on
five high resi timers, like wejust showed in that video.
We might do the same thing withthe basic skeletons, the giants
of the pit, or we might havesome do a dance through, like I
said, with sprints on each path.
So just some options here toplay with things that I think
are really really important todevelop again general power and

(44:27):
that general capacity to workreally really fast.
Another example here of someprogramming for the strength
circuit side so we might startwith a rolling start to a 20
yard sprint.
So essentially the vault runway.
So we would say, okay, for thefirst 10 feet I want you to just
kind of slowly get up to speedand then, for the last vault

(44:47):
runway, I want you to go maxeffort and have them run into a
distance or a spot where theycan, you know, obviously safely
slow down the kip, cast powerhandstands, like I said, with a
spot we might do three sets offive with 2a, 2b between drop
down max depth vertical jump andthen go over to a speed rope
climb.
After so five of the depthjumps go over to a speed rope
climb.
After so five of the depthjumps, go over to the speed rope
climb as high as you can, rightSpeed lap connected broad jumps
down the rod strip and thenarch hollow snaps in between.
Again, notice that this is notcrazy volume, right.

(45:09):
This is not like five to six toseven sets, like you might see
in the off season, where you'rereally trying to get stronger.
This is about intention.
This is about explosive power.
I want all these reps to beabsolutely max effort and you
got to train that.
But it's different than justsaying, hey, here's a giant list
of exercises, go do it.
You're intentionally planninghere for power and rate of force
development.
So you need to have that nicecomponent to it.
We would also do somemaintenance strength and stuff

(45:30):
like that.
But just in the sake of tryingto emphasize, the goal of this
preseason training is, you wouldwant to be doing a lot of this
kind of more very fast, veryexplosive type work is the bulk
of your training.
Okay, so let's move on to cardioand energy systems training.
Before we kind of wrap up anathlete wellness, but for cardio
and energy training we reallywant that good base from the
summer, like we said, we likewe'll talk about in the lectures

(45:52):
prior coming down the road oflike circuits and doing some
just general training.
But what we're trying to doright now is make sure that it's
okay to have that general baseto work with, because we're
going to use that to get thatinto a more explosive power
setting.
So that kind of 90 secondinterval, in the same way that
strength is the foundation ofpower.
Aerobic systems are really howyou recover from some of those

(46:13):
really high intensity efforts.
So you know, when you do afloor routine and you're huffing
and puffing and you're dying onthe side, that is your aerobic
system.
That's kind of recovering you.
So I think that it's not, uh,it's, it's not commonly thought
about in the gymnastics cultureto do an aerobic base work, I
think, only do sprints, only dosprints.
But the same way that we havegeneral and gymnastics specific
training, we can have aerobictraining and mixed anaerobic

(46:33):
training together.
So the longer based work, butthen also the bursted based work
as well.
So you have to make sure thatyou know you recover from these
turns.
Those turns are three to sevenseconds, but the practices last
up to four hours.
So what do you think getsomebody through an entire long
power power workout?
It's definitely the aerobicsystem helping out as well,
right.
But also, even though theroutines are 90 seconds or lower
, all the meets are three tofour hours too.

(46:56):
So what do you think get someonethrough the energy to have
multiple events to warm up,compete, travel the next event,
warm up, compete, go to the nextevent, warm up, compete, right.
That is the aerobic system atwork there.
So we need to have some of thisas a base.
And then the recovery betweenturns or routines or training
and things like that, the actualpractice sessions themselves.
You recover between thosethings.
A lot of that comes down toaerobic fitness as being one

(47:16):
part of that.
I don't want to say it's theonly thing.
You should train gymnastics,obviously, but I think people
underappreciate how important itis to have a mixture of these
bases for gymnasts.
Okay, so during the four weekblock we're going to start with
just general anaerobic work andlow settings first, again, low
risk settings, and I'll talkabout what that means.
We want to do movements thatare really easy for most people
to do, right.
So, like I said, the squatjumps, the sled pushes, the med

(47:43):
ball stuff.
You're not going to hurtsomebody.
It's really easy to learn howto do those movements and, to be
frank, it just sucks.
You know, just pushing a sledjust kind of sucks.
So it's not going to be thisreally complicated technical
drill for strength.
They have to do our cardio.
They have to do that.
Like, by the time you actuallyget a couple of reps and you
have to switch or do somethingelse.
You want just very, very easystuff to do.
Okay, the, okay, the eight weekblock we're going to be a lot
smarter.
We're going to funnel thosethings into routine shape.
We're going to be very, verysmart about how we train these
cardio systems.
We're not going to just goingto add junk mileage like just 20

(48:05):
minute run or 20 minute panelmap, because again, that's not
going to be the most effectiveway but also it might not be the
most optimal to keep them safe.
We're really, really smartabout how we plan these
intervals no-transcript, shortperiod of time and then you

(48:50):
recover by doing some nice slowmovements and I'm going to spare
everybody that the really geekyreason for that.
We have a lot of lectures onthat if you're interested.
But essentially you create a lotof fatigue in your body by
dumping, you know, lactate orhydrogen ions into your blood
system and then you teach yourbody to clear that, which
essentially is what a flowroutine is, which is doing a
tumbling pass really, reallyhard and then having to do dance
or something in between torecover.

(49:11):
That's kind of what that entireaspect is.
Same thing with differenttempos of routines or different,
harder skills and easier skillsalternating in routines.
So going back and forth betweenthese hard and kind of easier
recovery periods helps teachyour body how to deal with that
discomfort of being, you know,really really crappy feeling of
hydrogen in your body and you'reout of breath and you're
breathing really, really heavyand all that kind of stuff, your
heart rates through the roof.
So these two types of things, Ithink, are really low risk.

(49:33):
They're not going to hurtanybody, but they're really,
really challenging.
Like I said, I'm a fan of smartbut intelligent hard training.
So this is the way we do it.
So let's just give you a coupleexamples here.
Really good of that four-weekpreseason interval.
So we might do four rounds ingroups of three.
So you would do 10 jumpinglunges.
You would do a sled pull to asled push twice and then do 10
med ball slams and then do abear crawl on the way back.

(49:55):
So it takes about a minute orso and I'll show you a video
here.
But essentially you're workingas hard as you can for that
minute to get this work done andthen while you recover standing
in line, your two partners gookay.
So you will see a video here ofOlivia showing off right.
So she does her jumping lungeshere.
She's trying to jump as high asshe can and then you can see
the ropes are on the floor there.
Those are tied to some sleds.
People are already feeling itbent over, tired.

(50:17):
But she would sled pull as faras she can down and then she's
going to sled, push this back.
And again, this is notgymnastic specific, this is
general, intentionally, onpurpose.
This is just made to be lowrisk, but work the type of
energy system that's going to beused later when she does do her
routine or her floor routine,right, she's working in the same
kind of thing of working herwhole body, not just her legs,

(50:37):
by running, but she's using herupper back, she's using her
lower back, she's using her core, right.
So, pulling down the sled againall the way, you can see
Heather going, going nuts nextto her.
So she pulls down this way forthe second round.
She's starting to get a littletired.
Here we're about like 30 to 40seconds in.
So she would sled, push theweight back down and then you
can see at the end, here thereare med balls set up, so she
would do her 10 med ball slamsand then, when she is done with

(51:00):
her med ball slams, she wouldturn around and do a bear crawl
on the way back.
And I can tell you fromexperience I have done all of
these workouts, I do them withmy athletes, I test them, I try
them.
They suck, they are hard,they're very, very hard, right,
they're challenging, but in anintelligent way, to be very in
line with what the scientificevidence says for that type of
energy systems we want to trainand then also to be in line with
kind of what's coming up downthe road which is going to be a

(51:22):
high intensity, minute long boutusing your whole body, okay.
So that's one really goodexample of a program I really
really like.
I do a lot of those type ofworkouts, those long intervals,
and they're great, kind ofalternating between the upper
body, the lower body and thecore, because again, we want to
train the whole body, not justthe legs.
With running like a 20 minutepanel, that line is a lot of
legs, but that workout you justsaw is very much holistic and it
trains the upper body and lowerbody and core together.

(51:44):
Okay, a lactate clearanceworkout.
Here are two examples.
So I might do 10 seconds ofwork, max effort, 10 seconds of
an isometric hold and 40 secondsof a recovery.
So say you do 10, you know asmany pushups as you can do in 10
seconds, or many you knowsquats you can do in 10 seconds.
You hold the halfway point for10 seconds and you do a flip on
your back and do a very slow airpush up, up and down on your

(52:04):
back.
And again, not going to go intothe really geeky research of
why that's effective, but ChrisHenshaw has taught me so much
about that kind of stuff thatreally, really helps.
But it's essentially calledlactate shuttling, if you're
curious about where we're goingthere, so we would do that.
Another option is to do 60seconds of work and then a 60
second recovery and youalternate with your partner,
right?
So here's an example I'll showyou.
So 20 seconds of plate hops, 20seconds of squat jumps and then

(52:26):
20 seconds of arm plate hops,so kind of hopping your hands up
and off a panel mat.
I'll show you that.
And then in between you woulddo a very slow air squat to an
overhead press, again to teachyour body how to clear out some
of that fatigue.
This teach your body how toclear out some of that fatigue.
This one is better shown thantalked about.
So 20 seconds of plate hopshere you can see them just
hopping back and forth.
This helps the calves workreally, really quick.
And then they're going to runover to the squat mats.

(52:48):
Here they would do, hands onhips, as many squat jumps as
they can in a 20 second window.
I'm encouraging them to go asfast as they absolutely possibly
can with high quality.
And then they would run over todo 20 seconds of plate hops
here with their upper body nicesoft elbows, so nobody's wrists
or elbows get too sore.
And then they would run overand do a knee pushups right.
So you push up all the way atthis one's in a minute and 20

(53:09):
seconds, obviously.
So again, the thought process iswe're working the legs and the
arms very, very intensely.
For about a minute they wouldswitch partners.
While the other partner goes,the person, the people in the
back, will do very slow lungesto overhead presses to try to
teach their arms and legs toclear some of that fatigue.
We would go six rounds.
So it takes about 15, 20minutes in total.
But it's a pretty good workout,right, pretty good, pretty
effective.
And again, it's not justthrowing a bunch of exercises at

(53:31):
someone and hoping they getreally tired.
That's not really what we'regoing for here.
During the eight week block wewould do some tumbling and floor
specific buildups, so I'll talkabout what those mean.
So same thing with bars isdoing some very specific uh, bar
combinations of routines or ofskills together to try to work
on these these uh same energysystems.
So, um, we would do the routineprogressions we talked about.

(53:51):
That's kind of like prettyeasier at going half to full to
full plus basics or likecombinations all the way through
.
But the tumbling and the barspecific ones I want to show
because I intentionally try nowto build up their tolerance to
some of these workouts, but in asafe setting.
So by doing some tumbling intothe pit and then crawling out
and then doing a bunch of stuffaround the floor and then going
back in line and doing anothertumbling pass into the pit,

(54:11):
we're teaching them how to getreally, really tired and do
their harder tumbling passes ina safer setting.
Same thing with bars.
This is teaching them how tostay in the bar for longer in
safe ways with basics.
And I think it's really reallyimportant to do these as you're
doing some of the routineprogressions, because you're
building up the mentalconfidence to stay on the
equipment longer, but also thephysiological ability to do that
.
So here's an example that I usepretty much every year during

(54:32):
the preseason so 20 minutes as ateam, there's two lanes with
tumbling into softer surfaces,so whether it's resis or foam
pits and we spot them sometimestoo but do two of your hardest
tumbling passes that you can dosafely so into the pit and then
you'll crawl out of the pit.
So you would run down, do apass, run back, run down, do
another pass.
You would then go onto thefloor when everybody else is on
the side.

(54:52):
You're on the outside of thefloor, out of the way.
You would do walking lunges onelap down the floor right and
then you do a handstand lap,walking down another aspect of
the floor and you would do broadjumps to get back in line until
you're close to the line itself.
So you kind of tumble down thefloor into the pit and then you
kind of go around.
Obviously, if everyone's gym isset up differently, you might
need to run a little bit, butessentially you're doing two
tumbling passes and then someleg work, some handstand work

(55:15):
and then some explosivebodyweight work or you can just
toss some core work into.
But you build up a lot offatigue after you do your
tumbling passes.
The next time you get back inline you're huffing and puffing
a little bit and now you have togo again and do some more
tumbling.
So we say, do the two tumblingpasses you can safely do as they
get deeper and deeper into theinterval.
Um, it might be reallychallenging for them.
So they might just do layoutsor back tucks or stuff like that
, which is fine.
We also put all the athletestogether in a scalable ability.

(55:37):
So we have our level four isdoing this with our level nines,
right?
So the range of tumbling passesis really not what we're
worried about.
It's about high qualitytumbling and we'll show this
here.
So you can see Julia here she'sa second pass.
She runs down, she does a full.
She's clearly very tired rightnow, so I'll give her a break.
But she crawls out of the pitand you can see some athletes
broad jumps down and then whenshe gets down to the other side

(56:02):
of the floor she will dohandstand walks on the way back.
So she kicks up and she walksdown.
This way does her handstandwalk all the way down and then
when she gets all the way downto I didn't see the camera pan
away but she gets handstand walkdown and then she would do
walking lunges back.
So essentially just trying toagain do some sort of tumbling
pass twice and then broad jumpsdown, handstand walks back

(56:23):
walking, lunges or differentversions of what you think the
athletes need just to make themtired, to make their legs and
arms tired and core tired.
So hop back in line and theywould do that right.
This is a really great thing todo about a month or so into
that preseason when you'retrying to also develop skill
combinations and half sets orfull routines and stuff like
that.
Okay, the other option here wehave is for bars.
I really really feel like allathletes should be doing either

(56:45):
uneven bars or rings or high baror uneven bars.
They should be doing some sortof what we call bar cardio to
build their endurance up in asafer setting, before we ever
ask them to do routines andstuff that have dismounts.
So same kind of idea 20 minutes.
We have two sets of bars, onecoach spotting each low bar.
They would do three kip casthandstands.
Obviously this is scalable.

(57:08):
Younger athletes would just dokips and tap swings.
Higher athletes can do kip castinstant in bar to handstand,
toe on, hop to high bar and dogiants, but five tap swings.
So they do three kip casthandstands on low bar or in bars
with a spot they would do fivetap swings or giants on high bar
.
They would hop down, run over,grab a med ball 10 max effort
slams and then run and do threesprinting laps back and forth.
So we put the med ball slams inthere to fatigue out their lats
and their shoulders more.

(57:28):
We put the sprinting laps inthere to mimic having to do
things that are challenging onyour legs after doing your upper
body work, because we want tosafely land a dismount and then
you would quickly rest, catchyour breath and chalk up while
your teammates go.
These are very, very hard, okay, depending on what you program.
So here's an example, right.

(57:48):
So Kipka sandstand I'm standingthere spotting, so I spot the
three Kipka sandstands and thenyou'll probably follow Julia in
the in the purple here she goesaround but after she does her
three she'll run over to the bar.
You can see kind of over thereon the floor she runs over and I
think in this instance shemight've been doing pushups.
I think it might've beenpushups they were doing on a
panel mat.
Yeah, so they would do run overand do I think it's five or 10
pushups I'm not quite sure theywould run off screen and do the

(58:09):
med ball work, slam from the medball stuff, and then she would
run over to the rod strip, whichwe have kind of back behind the
floor, and do her three sprintsall the way.
So you can see as athletes kindof go a Congo line fashion, but
they would do this for 15 or 20minutes, right.
So kick, cast, handstand, runover, do all your pushups, run
over into your med ball slams,run to the floor, sprint, sprint
, sprint, come back in line andthen get ready to chalk up.
Okay, so there are going to becardio routines in themselves or

(58:33):
cardio training.
So the weeks one and two youmight just do back-to-back, uh,
half sets, like we talked about.
The week three and four youmight do a full routine and then
do an endurance sled or sprintset, like we talked about on
floor.
Five and six you might do yourfull routine and then do a basic

(58:55):
passes set after your routineor do a dance through and then,
after you get all your fullpressure sets done in week five,
six and seven you couldprobably do a taper and just
kind of pull back and only worryabout doing two more weeks of
high intensity pressure sets.
Okay, so that would be theeight week progression that you
would do after or that I thinkis really really helpful.
Okay, for athlete wellness,education, like we had talked
about in the first lecture, isgoing to be the most important

(59:17):
thing we're doing here.
So, during this whole preseasonthing we're trying to talk
about, how do we optimize oursleep, how do we build the time
schedule that makes it sure thatwe're not staying up till two
in the morning doing homework,trying to schedule in some of
that time off to make sure thatthey are getting some recovery
and getting, like I said, thatparasympathetic shift.
Get the body to calm down alittle bit, get that rest and
recovery, get the athlete's mindoff of gymnastics or school.
Very, very important.

(59:37):
We're trying to make sure weoptimize our feeling for
performance.
So what snacks can we bring?
How can we help mom and dadcook?
How can we plan things inadvance to make sure we have the
food and nutrition, thehydration, that we need for
practice or after practice oraround school throughout the day
?
Right, then, throwing in someof those extra fun stuff we
talked about, you know massage,heat, sauna, dynamic compression
.
If the top four are reallygoing well and you want some
extra icing on the cake there.

(59:57):
That's a great way to do it,and then nextly we'd also be
doing some practicalimplementation of this in the
gym.
So we firmly believe and we tryto always encourage teams to do
some weekly kind of work on here.
There's a lot of different waysyou can do this and there's
things that I've just foundsuccessful here.
So number one is doing awhiteboard lesson each Monday,
start the week off with a nicelike quote of the week and then
talk about all right, we'regoing to talk about five tips

(01:00:19):
you can do for sleep.
We're going to talk about, youknow, five minute meditation we
can do of just following ourbreath.
We're going to talk about howto make a calendar or a schedule
using this you know type ofmethod that we do.
I don't know, there's a lot ofoptions there, but essentially
talking about something thatwould help the athletes with
athlete wellness.
If you build this into yourweekly lesson and you can say
all right, this week thechallenge is to try to get 30
more minutes of high qualitysleep.

(01:00:40):
The challenge this week is totry to fit in five minutes to do
some mindfulness or somemeditation.
The challenge here is to makeall your week's worth of snacks
tonight when you go home forlunch, just try to patch, try to
pack all your week's snacks upuntil Saturday.
Right, just do these littlechallenges that are really,
really fun.
Educational packets are amazing,too.
So we use a binder system atthe gym and we just take some uh
, all this stuff we get fromfriends of mine or people that

(01:01:01):
we see online, or books thatwe've read or some ideas, and we
might just take a littleinfographic and put it in their
binder about, like you know howdo you sleep better, or you know
what can you do for stressmanagement?
We might put talk, some ofthose things in their binders
and have them take them home andto kind of get the most out of
their, their wellness andrecovery.
It's really, really cool.

(01:01:22):
Guest speakers and lectures I'ma huge, huge fan of this.
I'm really lucky that I havefriends that I've had come in
for talks, that I've done remotetalks, that we've had people do
workshops the more there's somany great, amazing people out
there in the gymnasticscommunity that could do a small
half hour lecture or hourlecture sometime that the more
people you can bring in, themore people you can work with.
Just get that connection workgoing.

(01:01:43):
It's really, really greatbecause all of us know that
sometimes as parents or ascoaches or as medical providers,
it maybe falls on deaf earswhen you say it, but then if
somebody else says that theyfollow on Instagram and that
they're a fan of that, a guestspeaker might just hit the nail
on the head really really welland give you some awesome things
.
Particularly with things likenutrition and mental health, you
have to have people that arelicensed experts to deliver the
right message, so I think it'scrucial to do that.

(01:02:04):
We do weekly podcast reviews andbook reviews.
We pass a lot of podcastsaround our team, our colleagues,
our coaches, our staff and justsay like hey, you know, this is
a really cool thing, I waslistening to check it out.
Or we might give someone likeno-transcript teammates are

(01:02:27):
researchers I'm sorry, teammatesresearching something that
they're really passionate aboutand sharing 10 minutes per week
of that whiteboard lesson.
So you know, we'll have oneathlete say like hey, check out
some stuff that you really enjoyand then share how you manage
your schedule right.
Or, like an older athlete,particularly like a senior in
high school or junior in highschool can share what they went
through in high school that waschallenging for them.
Or you know, a senior incollege can share some tips
about practical ways to managetheir schedule or what they did
for resources on the careercenter and stuff like that they

(01:02:49):
can share between people to kindof give some helpful tips.
I also really really like asister brother program for
mentorship.
So at the beginning of thepreseason, pairing up one of the
older athletes with one of theyounger athletes and just giving
them 10, 15 minutes to talk andchat and ask questions and get
help, and they can, you know, beon a WhatsApp group message
together, all that kind of stuff.
I really, really believe inthat because I think sometimes
it's challenging for them tospeak up to their parents or

(01:03:10):
coaches or anybody else aboutsome challenging stuff.
So having that kind of voice ofreason to kind of get some some
peer peer-based feedback isjust someone to listen to, I
think is really really cool.
So that's always been a programthat we found really, really
beneficial.
All right, and from there we'llmove on to the in-season now.

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