Warm-Ups and Cool-Downs
When I was doing gymnastics, my practices lasted about 4 hours on a regular day. During those 4 hours, approximately 3 of them were spent on the actual events in gymnastics while the remaining hour consisted of our warm-up and cool-down. I will explain a little bit more about what this consisted of and why we spent a quarter of each practice doing it.
Warm-ups and cool-downs consist of both stretching and conditioning, which I have elaborated on in my two previous posts. If you want more details on them, the link is connected to the words above. I will talk a little bit about stretching and conditioning in this post, but in a more broad sense.
Warm-ups are important in gymnastics because gymnasts need to get their blood pumping to get their muscles ready for the physically demanding practice they have ahead of them. There are a great variety of different warm-ups that a coach can have a team do, and they regularly switch up the warm-ups to keep the gymnast well-rounded.
Most warm-ups start off with some type of cardio exercise, but the most common and basic one is running laps around the floor for a certain amount of time, typically 10 minutes. This initial cardio exercise is not meant to wear the gymnasts out and get them extremely tired right off the bat, it is just meant to get their blood flowing and their body warm...hence the name "warm" up.
After this light cardio work-out, gymnasts move on to stretching. Stretching typically lasts about 30 minutes and it meant to stretch out your muscles before you are too harsh on them during practice. The cardio right before stretching helps improve how effective the stretches will be and reduces injuries while stretching, such as pulled hamstrings, tendons, etc.
In addition to this warm-up that is done before the entire practice, gymnasts also do warm-ups on each event before going on to work the skills they are learning. A lot of times this is called doing the "basics" of an event. For example, when the team moves to beam, the coach will typically set aside about 5 minutes for the gymnasts to hop on a high beam and do basic skills. So basic that literally just walking on the beam is considered part of this warm-up. Why would a gymnast spend valuable time walking and doing bunny hops on a beam when they can already do flips on the beam? Because it gets their mindset ready for their harder skills and gets their body physically ready to balance on a 4-inch piece of medal. This is just an example for the beam exercise, but the same goes for the other three events: floor, vault, and bars.
Cool-downs are typically shorter than warm-ups and it is meant to help minimize the damage done on your body after a 4 hour workout. Most days, cool-downs last only about 15 minutes, with light conditioning and stretching. On special days though, coaches allow extra time at the end of practice to get in some extra conditioning, making the cool-down more around 30-45 minutes. Gymnasts always end practice stretching so they are not as sore the next morning and so they are more likely to retain the strength they gained during practice and conditioning.
Warm-ups and cool-downs are crucial to any gymnastics practice, just like it is in many other sports. Make sure you do not just blow through these because they are easy. Really focus your attention on the importance of warming up and cooling down.
Warm-ups and cool-downs consist of both stretching and conditioning, which I have elaborated on in my two previous posts. If you want more details on them, the link is connected to the words above. I will talk a little bit about stretching and conditioning in this post, but in a more broad sense.
Warm-ups are important in gymnastics because gymnasts need to get their blood pumping to get their muscles ready for the physically demanding practice they have ahead of them. There are a great variety of different warm-ups that a coach can have a team do, and they regularly switch up the warm-ups to keep the gymnast well-rounded.
Most warm-ups start off with some type of cardio exercise, but the most common and basic one is running laps around the floor for a certain amount of time, typically 10 minutes. This initial cardio exercise is not meant to wear the gymnasts out and get them extremely tired right off the bat, it is just meant to get their blood flowing and their body warm...hence the name "warm" up.
After this light cardio work-out, gymnasts move on to stretching. Stretching typically lasts about 30 minutes and it meant to stretch out your muscles before you are too harsh on them during practice. The cardio right before stretching helps improve how effective the stretches will be and reduces injuries while stretching, such as pulled hamstrings, tendons, etc.
In addition to this warm-up that is done before the entire practice, gymnasts also do warm-ups on each event before going on to work the skills they are learning. A lot of times this is called doing the "basics" of an event. For example, when the team moves to beam, the coach will typically set aside about 5 minutes for the gymnasts to hop on a high beam and do basic skills. So basic that literally just walking on the beam is considered part of this warm-up. Why would a gymnast spend valuable time walking and doing bunny hops on a beam when they can already do flips on the beam? Because it gets their mindset ready for their harder skills and gets their body physically ready to balance on a 4-inch piece of medal. This is just an example for the beam exercise, but the same goes for the other three events: floor, vault, and bars.
Cool-downs are typically shorter than warm-ups and it is meant to help minimize the damage done on your body after a 4 hour workout. Most days, cool-downs last only about 15 minutes, with light conditioning and stretching. On special days though, coaches allow extra time at the end of practice to get in some extra conditioning, making the cool-down more around 30-45 minutes. Gymnasts always end practice stretching so they are not as sore the next morning and so they are more likely to retain the strength they gained during practice and conditioning.
Warm-ups and cool-downs are crucial to any gymnastics practice, just like it is in many other sports. Make sure you do not just blow through these because they are easy. Really focus your attention on the importance of warming up and cooling down.
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