Korbut Flip

My awesome experience with adult gym

I signed up for the once-a-week adult class at one of the local gymnast, and I’ve been twice so far. So far, it’s been a great experience. I’m fortunate enough to live in a city that has a gym with a great adult program offering classes at a very good price ($65 for 4 2-hour sessions). 

The class began with an easy warm up. We shook out our joints, then did some basic flexibility. We don’t do splits, but we do pike, straddle, and some basic back and shoulder stuff. We then do a lot of balance holds (tripod, frog), headstands, and handstands.

Next, we do floor. We practice cartwheels, 1-arm cartwheels, roundoffs, and dive rolls. The more advanced people do roundoff back handsprings or back tucks as well.

After that, we go to double-mini tramp and practice basic jumps, and then front tucks off. We also do synchronized trampoline on the regular trampolines, which is a lot more difficult than it looks.

If we don’t do double mini, then we do a bars/rings rotation, which involves just single-rail skills, on the low uneven bar and on a lowered high bar. The skills we do are very basic, just swinging your legs through under the bar, hanging from your knees, and then trying to roll your body backwards on rings (I don’t really know how to describe it).

Every time, we go to tumblr trak and practice a series of jumps, as well as roundoffs. We practice belly flops and back flops into a mat into the pit, to practice safe falling. We also practice front tucks into the pit or onto a mat in the pit. We do a couple goes of vault, which is just jumping onto the table, or leapfrogging it. The more advanced people do a front handspring.

The last thing we do all together is trampoline in a harness. There we practice back tucks, and the advanced people practice double backs.

After that, we have about a half hour of free time. The coach generally stays by the tramp to do the harness, but he sometimes goes to the different events if someone wants his help.

The coach does a great job of accommodating everyone. There are people who come to the class having never been to a gym in their life. There are people like me, who did gymnastics way back when, but can’t even do a pullover now. There are also people who can do double backs and giants. There are both men and women in the class, and we train all together.

One thing that surprised me was how many skills I lost. As I said before, I couldn’t even do a pullover. In fact, I was so weak, I couldn’t even jump up to the bar! I had to use the coach’s knee for help (he was very nice about it, but it was still embarrassing). I also started hurting in placed I didn’t even know I could get hurt. When kicking up into a handstand, I pulled something right where my leg connects to my torso. Doing a bridge caused something in my stomach/back to cry out in pain. Despite all of this, I believe that if you work at it, you can get it back. I’ve already noticed an improvement in just the two times I’ve been there. Also, if you have gymnastics, there are some things that you don’t lose, like body awareness. Tumbling will probably be hard at first because your probably grew a bit and gained some weight since quitting gymnastics, but you’ll get your tumbling skills back pretty easily because you already know what to do with your body when it is in the air.

I guess my favorite thing about adult gym is how the coach creates an easy-going yet productive environment. We don’t do any conditioning or major flexibility, which I like because I can just do that stuff at home rather than wasting precious gym-time doing it. We also don’t have to do anything we feel uncomfortable with. There are no compulsory skills, so if you don’t want to do a back handspring or a front tuck, you don’t have to. However, the coach is very supportive when it comes to learning new skills. He can see what people feel confident doing and help them improve upon it. In fact, I believe that in time, I can gain some skills I never had in the first place.

In summary, adult gym is the highlight of my week, and I highly recommend it.

SIMPLY STICKING UP FOR MY GIRL HERE

dominique-moceanu:

Will people stop saying that Jordyn Wieber “messed up” at the Olympics?
1. She got an Olympic gold medal
2. She qualified fourth all around, the rules just didn’t roll in her favor. Mustafina qualified 5th and nobody seems to be making fun of her for that.

I’d also like to point out that she had a broken leg. The Olympics were so long ago so stop with the hate!

Agreed. Even if she were at full health I still wouldn’t call placing 4th behind three fierce competitors “messing up”.

Me when I go on YouTube

I should watch MAG because men in gymnastics don’t get enough credit

I should watch trampoline to learn the rules better

I should watch Teamgym because I want it to be more popular in the US

I should watch aero to educate myself because I know nothing about it

*Watches WAG or rhythmic routine I’ve seen 5,000 times already*

It’s a shame because there are so many other cool disciplines in gymnastics but I’m in the habit of just watching WAG and rhythmic. There’s nothing wrong with WAG or rhythmic, of course, but I should spread the love a bit. ;)