Do you have what it takes to be a gymnast? If you are feeling confident, how long can you hold the iron cross position for? Max Whitlock is a 3-time Olympic Champion, and he takes us through his extreme training regime so you can experience what it is like to train like a champ!

Box Jump Backflip

Box jumps are common exercises with a range of athletes to increase explosive power. Adding a backflip to this raises it to elite status. The backflip requires you to arch over backwards with the legs tucked in. This requires core strength and flexibility. The landing component requires stability and strength to transmit the ground contact forces through the body and to ensure that you don’t fall over. It doesn't take much physiological understanding to see how this exercise is perfect to prepare the body for all the jumps and landings of a floor routine or off a vault.

Where to Start

First start with mastering the box jump. Explode off the ground onto a plyo box and stick the landing. Once you have increased your box jump height, you can start doing Box Jump overs. To do this, jump onto the plyo box and then perform a second jump off the top of the plyo box onto the floor on the other side. Focus on the landing to adapt to the breaking forces and stability required for the landing. Should you want to progress further to include the backflip I would suggest finding a gymnastic coach to guide you.

Windshield Wiper

The Windshield Wipers exercise challenges your core muscles such as the hip flexors, quadratus lumborum and erector spinae to resist gravity pulling on your legs. It is also a good exercise for increased flexibility with the lower body requiring a dissociation with the upper body. These are important traits for gymnasts in apparatus such as the pommel horse where they need precise control of their legs while their upper body stabilises and holds them up. 

Where to Start

Start by lying on your back with your arms out to the side and the palms face down. Lift your feet off the floor with your knees bent at 90 degrees. Maintain a neutral spine and slowly lower your knees to one side of the body. If your shoulders start losing contact with the ground, then pause and move your knees to the opposite side. As you get stronger you can lengthen your lever by straightening your legs. This requires greater strength and flexibility

Planche to Handstand

This exercise has a strong carry over to the world of gymnastics, mainly because it is applicable as a skill in floor routines but also because the strength and stability required is extreme and will benefit all other aspects of gymnastic training.

Where to Start

Start with a tucked planche. Get onto your hands and knees with your knees just inside your hands and your hands directly below your shoulders with your fingers facing forwards. Push down into the ground with straight arms and try to lift your tucked knees off the ground slightly and hold this position.

Ring Muscle Ups

Ring Muscle Ups are similar to the standard muscle ups and require the muscles of the back to perform the pullup portion of the exercise and the pecs, shoulders, and triceps to perform the press at the top of the movement. What sets this apart from the standard muscle up is the involvement of the rings. Whenever the rings are involved then you increase the stability and core strength involvement as well as requiring a higher recruitment of the core muscles. These are all attributes that gymnasts require for any ring routine.

Where to Start

If you are weak in either the pullup or tricep dip then these individual exercises should be your starting point. Initially use a bar to develop the strength without the additional requirement of stability that you will need on the rings. Once you are happy on the bar then repeat these two exercises separately on the rings before putting the sequence together.

L-Sit to Handstand

The L Sit to Handstand is a common feature in the gymnast floor routine but it also has a strong carry over to other routines such as the horizontal bar where the gymnast is required to have the flexibility to bring the legs through the arms on the horizontal bar. Holding the L Sit position activates the hip flexors, shoulders, pectorals, and triceps. The Handstand requires shoulder stability as well as strong abdominals, glutes, and back muscles to keep the body straight and prevent it from falling over. Transitioning between both positions also requires great core strength and stability.

Where to Start

As with any complex exercise, it is best to work on strengthening individual areas first before piecing it all together. Start with the L Sit position. Place a thick exercise floor mat on either side of you and sit with your legs out straight. Place your hands on each of the mats and keep your arm close to the body. Push down through the arms to lift your glutes off the floor while keeping your heels on the floor. As you get stronger at this start lifting one leg off the floor as well as replacing the mat with small parallel bars. To work on your handstand, start with static holds against a wall. Once you are confident you can add the parallel bars to hold onto. Finally, you need to start piecing it all together. I would suggest that you start with a sequence such as moving from the L Sit position to a tuck position with your feet under you before moving to a push up position with your hands on the parallel bars and your feet on the floor behind you. Once you have mastered this you can introduce moving from a tucked position on the bar to a handstand.

Weighted Pull Ups

For many people just pulling up your own body weight is a challenge but for a gymnast that is just the start. They then have to have the strength to stay up there and perform multiple sequences. To help build strength for this, gymnasts can attach additional weight to their bodies while doing the pull ups.

Where to Start

Before attempting to add additional weights to your pull ups you should already be competent in pull ups. If not, spend some time developing this first. Aim to reach 10 complete pull ups before adding weight. There are lots of different ways to add weight such as weighted vests, belt with chain or dumbbells. Start with a light dumbbell and slowly increase the weight as you adapt.

Handstand Push Ups

Do you have strong, stable shoulders? Shoulders are traditionally one of the weaker muscle groups. This comes as a necessary trade-off to allow the high degree of mobility. But that doesn’t mean they should be weak and one of the most demanding exercises is the handstand push up. Think of the amount of weight that you can shoulder press and then equate that into how much your body weighs. Now you can see how tough it is just to hold a handstand position. By including the push up portion you also require your entire body to engage its core to keep the body in a straight line during the movement, so it doesn’t topple over.

Where to Start

Before attempting any handstand movement make sure that you have strong shoulders. I would suggest exercises such as dumbbell shoulder press standing on a bosu ball for starters to develop the shoulders and core muscles at the same time. Once you are confident, then you can start with a static handstand hold. Place your hands with your fingertips facing the wall and either kick up to the wall or get a partner to lift your legs to the wall. Increase the time that you hold the static handstand to 30 seconds. When you are able to do this, you can attempt doing a handstand push up by sliding your feet up and down the wall while you do the push up.

Dish to Arch Roll

The Dish to Arch Roll is a combination of two static holds with a roll to transition between each exercise. The goal is to keep both the arms and the legs off the floor the entire time. This develops static strength for gymnasts so that they can hold various positions. For the Dish section of the exercise, you are in a hollow hold position which works the anterior line of the body including the rectus abdominis and hip flexors. The Arch section involves you lying in a prone position with your arms and legs straight out and raised off the floor. This targets the posterior line of the erector spinae, glutes, and trapezius.

Where to Start

Sufficient strength in both the anterior and posterior lines are required. To strengthen the anterior line, start with the Dead Bug exercise. To do this exercise lie on your back with your knees bent at 90 degrees and feet off the floor. Raise your hand to point to the ceiling. Then straighten the right arm and left leg. Make sure to maintain a neutral spine. Slowly return to the starting position and repeat on the opposite side. Once this is comfortable then try a hollow hold position and increase holding this position up to 30 seconds. To strengthen the posterior line, do the Superman exercise. Start by lying on your stomach with your arms straight out in front of you. Pull your shoulder blades down your back, contract your glutes, and then lift your arm and legs off the floor and hold for a second before relaxing. Keep the head in a neutral position. Slowly increase the length of the contraction.

While many of these exercises are advanced exercises normally only seen on the world stage such as the Olympics, it doesn't mean that we can’t include a form of these exercises in our training not only to make training more varied and fun but also to test your fitness with the best in the world. Remember that training should always be progressive and seek the advice of a professional for the more difficult skills.

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Tags: Exercise Type > Conditioning