Acrobatic Gymnastics Training

[Eric Baum]

Hello,

 

I'm creating this topic to exchange informations regarding Acrobatic Gymnastic training.

 

5 years ago I had my first contact with gymnastics through an adult class of Acrobatic Gymnastics at my university. I really enjoyed practicing it and did that class for 3 years.

Then it got to the point that doing that class had nothing more to offer me and I went looking for other ways of training, looking other kinds of gymnastics and I started conditioning by myself until the end of last year when I found the GB community and started the courses here wich I've been following seriously for the last 6 months.

 

For those who do not know Acro Gymnastics, here are some fast examples:

 

The sport acrobatics: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYhUjGF7Wk4

 

And the circus version of acrobatics: 

 

I'm interested in mixed pairs (man and woman) and I have a girl with who I actually train. She is also following foundation as conditioning.

 

In terms of strength and required flexibility the training for acro gymnastics is really similar to what we have here at the GB Courses but still there are some specific abilities that requires some diferent strengths and stabilizations.

 

Anyone else here have experience training acrobatics? Does Coach have any knowledge regarding more focused training for this kind of discipline?

 

I'd like to know if anybody have suggestions for specific strength training for acro elements (Hand-to-hand for example) or this abilities should be treated as skill training and done only together with your pair or group?

 

If anyone want to make comparisons with specific Foundation or Handstand course exercises I'll open a topic in the correct forum for this =]

 

Regards,

Baum 

[Joshua Slocum]

Foundation and Handstand should make an excellent supplement. 

 

Acro element training should be skill training. If a movement is so difficult for you that it feels like strength training, you may want to keep the volume low and/or wait until your F/H work has progressed further. 

 

My knowledge of acrobatic gymnastics is limited, but for beginners I can't imagine you'd want anything significantly different from Foundation. Once you become more advanced and your training needs to become more specialized, you and your partner will probably want to do exercises specifically geared towards improving your performances (as opposed to moving on to the Rings series). 

 

What are some moves you're thinking of that require strength/stabilization that you don't get from F/H? Maybe I can recommend some supplementary exercises to help with that. 

[Wesley Tan]

Hi Baum,

 

I started coaching at a local Acrobatic Gymnastic Club last year and am currently studying for my Level 1 UK coaching certificate in Acrobatic Gymnastics also. I have been trying myself following the foundation series for the last 18 months or so and I can say that at cllub level for Acro, the foundation series and handstand series is great!!! 

 

For hand to hand development in the handstand, you can simply incorporate the use of pedestals into the handstand series. The handstand course uses parallettes, where in acro they use pedestals for training the hand-to-hand sensitivity and strength in handstand. I use both myself.

 

Coach does recommend using blocks for advanced handstand training and these are pretty much the same as pedestals anyway.

[Eric Baum]

Ok, thanks for the replies.

 

I'll try to get some pictures of the moves i'm concerned and ask for some tips! I'll post then later.