Artistic gymnastics can be the most fun thing in the world and is a great way to exercise. As you become more experienced you will have to learn all the aerial evolutions and also compete against others! While there are tons of pros to this business, you also need to consider the cons. If you are ready to indulge in this sport full of fun and dangers, check out Step 1 to get started.
Steps
Method 1 of 3: Getting Started
Step 1. Look for courses near your home
Artistic gymnastics is not really a sport that you can practice self-taught. Sure, you can watch videos, you can read wikiHow articles, but ultimately you will need someone who knows what they do and who will provide you with a safe environment to play sports. Instructors don't just say "Go, now do me a somersault!" You will need a course to get started.
- The most important thing to consider is the safety of the facility. Are there any nice padded walls? Are they cleaned regularly? What and how many tools does the school / gym provide you?
- In addition to asking yourself these questions, ask to speak to the instructors. Try to imagine what their courses will be like. Ask if they compete themselves, what levels they offer, how many hours per week it takes, how much the course costs, if there are amateur courses or a team (a team is much more challenging) and how many student teachers there are.
Step 2. Start at your level
If you physically struggle to get up in the morning, this may be something instructors need to know before signing up for a specific program. Conversely, if you have been doing overturns and wheels since you started crawling, this should also be reported. Your schedule must be feasible and challenging at the same time - otherwise you will only be able to follow it after a long time!
Step 3. Learn all the activities
Depending on whether you are male or female, the instructor will make sure you develop certain skills. Women will do free body, asymmetrical parallels, jump and beam. Men will do bodyweight, pommel horse, bar, jump and rings. It all consists of practicing activities based on your physical strengths (determined by your gender).
- You will need different equipment for different activities. But what's the thing you'll definitely need? Some chalk dust. Neither too much nor too little - if it is too little, your hands will not be protected; if it is too much you will risk slipping and falling. Ouch.
- There may be one you hate and one you love, but it's best to try them all before leaving a few out. The more versatile you are, the more complete your skills will be.
Step 4. Work on flexibility
If there's one thing you can (and should!) Do in your spare time, it's working on your flexibility. You have no excuses! While sitting and watching TV, sit on the floor and touch your toes in every possible position. Whatever you do, you could combine it with stretching.
This not only applies to the legs, but to the whole body. Even those who are in perfect physical shape when starting gymnastics are taken by surprise by this aspect: what is the one area of the body that everyone forgets? The back. On the other hand, it turns out that the back (and the flexibility of the back) is very important in gymnastics
Step 5. Get strong
Have you seen what muscles gymnasts have? Cabbages. Awesome stuff. They don't just develop them by making wheels, you can be sure of that. In addition to classes, start doing some weight lifting and muscle work. The better and more resilient you are in bodyweight exercises like push-ups and squats, the more ready you'll be to add some variations (like bars or flips).
If you start lifting weights, your muscles will suffer tears and tears and will need time to heal on their own. So make sure you take some days off, because you deserve them. You can always do some cardio or other exercises, but don't do weights every day to give your muscles breath
Step 6. Take a dance class
Gymnastics has a fluid and rhythmic soul. The sequences of free body steps are the result of a combination of gymnastic exercises and dance. If you are a piece of wood and barely know how to dance the macarena, a good choreography will be challenging enough. Ask the instructor if he knows a good school that works with gymnasts - and ask your friends too!
Step 7. Face your fears
Here are two little pearls of wisdom: if you are very quiet while making these evolutions and you are not afraid at all, you will get hurt. And if you get scared you will catch your breath, you will not be able to do the trick and you will feel terrible. You have to find a happy middle ground.
That is to say, accept that you are a little agitated. That's a great thing! Being a little agitated will make you alert - instead of undoing all kinds of reasoning. So if you start to feel a little tense, take a big sigh of relief; you are doing everything as you have to
Method 2 of 3: Level Up
Step 1. Talk to the instructor
As you improve, there will be things your instructor will want you to do. The good thing about dialogue is that if you're not ready or if you want to train differently, you can say it. If you want to get that bridge right before learning another type of maneuver, you can say it. On the other hand, it's there on purpose!
It is important to be very open to the instructors. Since it is a spectacular and individual sport, often scary, it's all up to you. You are your team so you need to feel that you are at the best of your abilities. They want the same for you
Step 2. Do push-ups
One of the first maneuvers you learn are push-ups (along with the wheel and the handstand). Pushups are the core of many other more complicated and impressive tricks. Without a push-up, you will never do a somersault.
Step 3. Make the jumps
The further you go, the more you will improve in the jump. When you combine jumps and pushups you get flips, and thus constitute in their own small way a career advancement for a budding gymnast.
Step 4. Do the flips
Every beginning gymnast's dream is to jump through hoops. It is from this point on that you will begin to feel that you are making progress. Start doing them at the gym with an instructor who keeps an eye on you, then you can start performing at parties and on stage as well. Finally all the effort has paid off!
Step 5. Now you can do all the tricks you want
Once you have mastered basic pushups, jumps and flips, you can combine them into sequences. You will work on the speed of travel and, above all, on your safety. If you've made it this far, you've more than earned it. You can pat yourself on the back!
Step 6. Find your category
You have the skills, now what do you want to specialize in? Do you want to try the asymmetrical parallels? Or maybe the balance beam? What if I made rings instead? Or even rhythmic gymnastics! It must be one you like a little more than the others - so make up your mind!
Maybe there are races going on for your category! Ask the instructor if you can level up in a particular specialty. He or she will know of the existence of semi-professional groups that can lead you to win trophies and turn a hobby into something more
Step 7. Reach a high level
There are 4 levels in all, starting from the first in school age. If you are reading this article, you are surely of the right age. You must be at least 16 years old to be in the "senior" category (the fourth) and therefore be able to participate in the championships and the Olympics.
Step 8. Work hard
! Discipline is the watchword of sport. It takes time and you have to repeat the exercises to remember the maneuvers, so keep working until you can do everything right. If you feel discouraged, sit down for a moment, take a sip of water, and then repeat again. It may not be easy, but once you get it right, you'll know what the effort was worth.
Make sure you strengthen your whole body, arms, shoulders and back, core muscles and legs. Incorporate into your daily series of strengthening exercises, bar, push-ups, V-crunches, crunches, and vertical against the wall. Gymnastics isn't all flips and fun! And, as always, do some stretching before you start
Step 9. Start racing
Once you reach the right level (the instructor will know when the time comes), you can enter the world of racing. It can be a tough and exhausting experience, but it will also be a lot of fun. However, don't feel obligated to participate in competitions - gymnastics can also be a simple pastime!
You can do races in your area, then regionally and finally nationally if you want. Races can get very challenging! There is always a jury staring at you all the time and for this reason the races can be quite stressful. If you think you can handle it and if you want to excel, compete without delay! Otherwise, keep improving on your own and don't enter competitions
Method 3 of 3: Maintain a Healthy Life
Step 1. Always warm up and stretch
All time. Should we repeat it? ALWAYS WARM UP AND STRETCH. Really. Otherwise you could be seriously hurt. Gymnastics is not a sport for children. It is a sport for disciplined men and women who want to take care of their body. If you don't warm up and stretch, you may soon be able to do nothing more than these two simple activities!
Warming up and stretching are not the same thing. You need to warm up your body before stretching, or you risk damaging your muscles (they don't work well if they're cold; that's why it's called a "warm-up"). So before stretching, get your heart rate up, really warm up your body, and only then work with flexibility exercises
Step 2. Know your level of preparation
When the instructor says "So who's doing a back flip for me?" and volunteering when you learned to flip the day before, that's not a good idea. You must be aware of your level of preparation in order to be able to evaluate what to expect from yourself. If you step more than you can chew, you will end up watching the races from the stands.
The other side of the coin is that you have to know your abilities, as well as your limits! You have been practicing for months and are improving, you will have to take some risks from time to time. Think about all the work you have done and what you can do. It's the only way to improve
Step 3. Add more to what you do each time
Just like weightlifters who only lift 10% more than the time before (even though they feel like they lift a lot more weight), you have to work by adding weight to daily exercise. You can't go from one wheel to an inverted one in one day. Your skills need more than 24 hours to develop. So go with lead feet and, above all, be patient.
You will fall. Vertically. You will fall on your butt and you will get bruised all over. At some point you will find yourself face down, praying that everyone is magically gone when you open your eyes. It happens. It happens to everyone. If you never fall, you will never know what not to do
Step 4. Get healthy eating and sleeping habits
One aspect we haven't developed enough about gymnastics is how demanding it is. Really. There are people who run marathons but who go to a gym class and after a while they are knocked down, literally (and metaphorically). What does it mean? It means that if you want to be a gymnast you have to be healthy. 7 days a week. Your body is your work tool, if you don't treat it well, you can be sure it won't do you any favors.
- Always sleep a lot at night. If you are tired, you will not be 100% of your chances. Just rest. It would be stupid to expect a different reaction from the body!
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You have to eat healthy, put this in your head. So eat lean meat (you need protein!), Lean dairy products, whole grains and lots and lots of fruit and vegetables. You have to eat little if not zero junk!
That said, eating disorders are a huge problem in the world of gymnastics. Yes, you have to be skinny. Yes, it is easier to do somersaults with a slim body. Either way, when you don't eat, you lose muscle and get weak. Then it's impossible to bear your weight if you don't have enough muscle mass. If and when you have these problems, know that you are not alone and that you should talk to someone. Your instructors may have been through the same thing
Step 5. Put on protective gear
This is especially true if you work on rings or bars - your hands need protection! And if you ever feel pain, you will need to put bandages on your joints. Always take precautions - it does not mean that you are a jerk; it means that you are wise.
Advice
- Always focus and do your best. Challenge your limits and you will notice the progress.
- Don't give up because you couldn't do the splits in one day. Gymnastics takes time and repetition of the exercises!
- Make sure you drink while exercising. It will prevent muscle injuries.
- Don't be afraid to express yourself if you find an exercise difficult. If you are not sure how to do it or if you feel you cannot do the maneuver correctly, ask for help!
- For women's gymnastics, it is a good idea to take ballet or yoga classes to improve the flexibility and quality of bodyweight dance, as well as balance on the beam. For the male one, lift weights to increase muscle strength - there are some gymnasts who do it every day.
- Remember that rhythmic gymnastics requires a lot of flexibility. Some prefer it because they are less at risk of getting hurt.
Warnings
- Always remove your socks before exercising. Bare feet allow for freer and safer movement.
- You will have to get used to frequent and painful lacerations, because they are the order of the day in gymnastics. These are caused by excessive friction between the hand and the bar, and the top layer of skin tears. Unfortunately there are no methods of prevention, these accidents are part of a gymnast's life. These tears heal over time and usually turn into calluses. While some will say that the guards are made to prevent lacerations on the hands, in reality they were not designed to prevent and will not prevent lacerations. You will not need the shoulder pads until you have reached a high sporting level. You can use some chalk powder on your hands to get a better grip on the bar, but don't put too much on it. Excess plaster can create even more friction and cause further lacerations.
- Gymnastics is a dangerous sport. There may be fractures or muscle tears. Determine if you can handle the pain well or not. As a beginner you probably won't get injured, but it's always important to understand the risk factors.
