Gymnastics – May 2019

It’s all change in Gymnastics!

The busy morning classes will now have two coaches in each class. One will be solely dedicated to beginners to help achieve the first reps / consistent reps in the basic bodyweight movements. The other will be dedicated to the advanced and intermediate groups.

Each group will have it’s own dedicated programme to allow for the full hour to be spent training towards specific goals appropriate to the level of experience (you can mix and match between the programmes if your experience and skill sits somewhere in the middle).

Outline of the Programme Groups

Beginners Option 1 – Weight training specific to preparing you for bodyweight training

Beginners Option 2 – Bodyweight training (gymnastics movements) at beginner level

Intermediate – Assisted advanced movements with the goal of achieving these unassisted with consistent performance

Advanced – Challenging the advanced CF movements in conditioning workouts and building strength in additional movements

Super Advanced – Some people have expressed an interest in following in Anwar’s footsteps to achieve a single arm chin up

Further Detail

Beginner Option 1

This programme is based on the Poliquin Group ‘Improve your pull up in 16 weeks’ programme – check out their website for useful information and educational courses. This is for people who need to start the journey towards achieving a pull-up and dip

Beginner Option 2

This is for people who attend our other classes consistently for weight training and have a good foundation to move on to learning gymnastics movements

Intermediate group

Focus the class on locking in the muscle up and handstand walk skills. You can spend the last third of the class doing a scaled version of the advanced group’s conditioning workout if you would like

Advanced group

Some months will be spent building strength in new ways by progressing to other advanced movements such as the front and back levers, a strict bar muscle up and the planche (plus single arm chin up upon request)

Other months will be spent working on your performance in one of the traditional CrossFit girls or hero workouts, adapted to have a sole gymnastics (conditioning) focus. This month begins with the ’31 Heros’ workout with the thrusters being replaced by handstand push-ups.

**Comp alert**

For the ’31 Heros’ work in teams of two and record your scores each week. As standard, the format will be to test your performance in the prescribed workout in the first week. In the second and third weeks, you will manipulate the workout to provide further challenges and to work on your weaknesses. In the last week, you will re-test the prescribed workout to achieve a better score.

Submit this score to me (Jenna) at the end of the month and I will compare from all the classes and announce the winners/prize in the next month.

How to manipulate the workout in weeks 2 and 3:

This will vary per team. Some examples would be to run faster either with no weight or a lighter dead-ball, or to run a shorter distance with a much heavier dead-ball, or to do a short and fast lung buster on the assault bike followed by a 20-30 sec front rack hold with a heavy dead-ball (on your chest).

Alternatively, you could manipulate the gymnastics movements (muscle ups instead of rope climbs/deficit or strict handstand push-ups instead of the standard) to make it harder so that when you return to the standard workout it will feel much easier.

For the intermediate group, you could do the opposite and scale down to make it easier so that you get many more rounds completed with a faster/more consistent pace without so much rest.

The full programme can be downloaded here:

Gymnastics Programme – May 2019

As before, if anyone would rather spend the whole hour focussing on improving their strength and skill in a particular  movement rather than moving on to the conditioning workout they are welcome to.

The reason for these changes:

Essentially, the majority of you have got too good 🙂 It has, therefore, become necessary to split the busy classes into two groups to somewhat individualise the workout so that everyone has the opportunity to achieve a goal. This will particularly allow beginners to comfortably join the class to achieve their first ever pull up / push up / dip / TTB / HSPU etc.

I have listed some notable achievements below. This is to congratulate these people and to show the newbies that there is hope! On joining this class a year or two ago the majority of these people had never done a muscle up or another advanced bodyweight movement before. It truly makes me feel so happy to see these achievements week on week. Well done all xx

(Note: The upscale Cindy was 20 mins AMRAP: 5 muscle ups, 10 handstand push-ups, 15 air squats or pistols)

Achievements

Anwar – 56 second full back lever, strict bar muscle up, one inch from a chin to bar single arm chin up from a dead hang

Chris – 11 unbroken ring muscle ups, 13 unbroken bar, 10 rounds and 6 reps of upscaled Cindy (ring)

Darragh – 12 unbroken strict ring muscle ups, also some 10kg weighted, and 1 ring muscle up at tempo lasting 46 seconds

Mauricio – 15 unbroken bar muscle ups, 11 rounds and 2 reps of upscaled Cindy (bar)

Daniel – 13 unbroken bar muscle ups, 10 rounds of upscaled Cindy (bar)

Rob, Roy, Greg – 8 to 10 rounds of upscaled Cindy (ring and bar)

Giorgio – freestanding handstand hold for 31 seconds (15 secs totally still and the rest staggering around)

Olly – handstand walk length of half of the gym

Tom D – handstand walk up and over a step

Harry – just supreme at everything really

Onur, Olly, Adam, Stuart, Mike, Antoine, Mark, Giorgio, all the Toms and a list of over 15 people now I think – first muscle ups achieved and many more locked in since

Valentine and Tegan – bar muscle ups achieved / almost achieved with beautiful form

Aline and Jet – the dynamic duo, setting the bar for beginners with their many great achievements over the year

Enjoy and be happy achieving some fun stuff x

Jenna