Hi, I'm new to the community

[Sailor Venus]

Hello everyone.

One of my dreams is to become a fully fledged gymnast before I turn 30. I'm 26 and just started the sport properly a year and a half ago. I like to specialised in tumbling, rings and parkour. I wished I done gymnastics when I was a kid that way it won't be so difficult now.

I have been stretching non-stop since April 2010 to achieve both the middle and front splits. I'm still not happy with my stretches though I'm now flexible than most men my age. I believe I've been using what's called passive, static stretches or something all this time...

I train once a week in Walsall gym, and I've been training there for more than a year and a half. I haven't mastered all the basics and still working on them. Another acrobatic school has been opened recently, the tricking school which teaches urban style of gymnastics such as parkour and tricking. I just joined them last week to accelerate my learning on top of studying at the Walsall.

One thing I'm not happy about gymnastics is the lack of adult classes. There are some around me but they are do-what-you-want classes and the training isn't serious. The classes I go to at the Walsall (only covers tumbling though) and the Urban school (covers tumbling, tricking and parkour but doesn't cover traditional gymnastics) are the closest thing I can find for a structured and serious classes.

I recently gave up playing football after five seasons so I can focus 100% on gymnastics. I was a former Running Back and part-time Defensive End despite being 5'7 tall and weighing only 141 lbs and had many fond memories there, gonna miss that sport.

[Ian Legrow]

Hello and welcome to the Forum. This is a wonderful community of people who are willing you help you with whatever you need. When you say master gymnastics by the time your 30, and your 26, i wonder if maybe you are setting your expectations slightly high. I don't believe there really is a such thing as "mastery" of gymnastics, but if there is then i believe only Olympians have done it. I think perhaps maybe you should just have fun with it and not worry about mastering it so to speak. I have been doing it for 8 months and i am no where close to half the people on this website, but i still very much enjoy the work. it's awesome that you want to practice gymnastics. I have found, and I am sure others will agree, there is no other sport/workout like gymnastics. If you train safe, and hard, you will make progression faster then you thought possible. That is what happened to me. The thing i find wonderful about gymnastics is there is almost never a dead end to an exercise. Even the beginning exercises like the L-sit has all the prerequisites, then the much harder versions, and even when you are able to do the hardest version easily, you can do things like had weight to make it harder. Awesome.

Welcome to the site bro!

-Ian

[Sailor Venus]

hi ian, I meant I'm hoping to be able to front and rear somersaults, cartwheels, etc all the basics without supervision by the time I turn 30. Doesn't have to be mastery level. lol

I've decided to make gymnastics a way of life.

[Blairbob]

Is American Football there in the UK as popular as Soccer (or International Football) is in the USofA?

What pulls more respect and interest from the feminine crowd? Does American Football > Gymnastics in that sense?

While I'm joking a bit, the anthropologist in me is somewhat interested.

How strong and powerful are you right now? I figure you must have more than above average ability in those aspects being a running back and playing D-line. This will help tumbling and vault a lot and your size is pretty good for rings.

[Sailor Venus]

Hi bob, in the UK soccer is a big thing. The most popular sport in that country. I'm not much of a soccer fan myself, I couldn't give a shit about Wayne Rooney or other soccer stars. I started playing football from 2007 and retired four months ago.

Football in the UK ain't played at a professional level. Just random members of the public can sign up to a team, receive training and then play some games. They don't need previous experience though having a background in rugby helps and they are encouraged to hit the gym in their own time. I played for Huddersfield College (their website's down) during my university years from 2007 - 2009 and then Coventry City http://www.covjets.com/from 2009 to 2011.

What got me interested in football in the first place was when I was playing a video game called Bully made by Rockstar North, there was mission where you had to fight high school football jocks and that part made me wanna try out the sport in real life and eventually joined a football team. I now left the sport as I feel my body is more designed for acrobatic activities than to be making big tackles, besides I sucked at football, really! I missed getting the fuck kicked out of me by kick-return guys.

I lol'ed when you thought I was a woman, I'm actually a man. You thought I was a woman because of my username, I got my username from a comic book/cartoon series called Sailor Moon and that was a big hit in Japan. The target audience was meant for females but surprisingly popular with males too.

I'm not very strong at all, Coventry players and coaches once called me 'strength of lamb, heart of a lion' lol! Despite being small and weak, I managed to surprise a few Offence Linemen when I went in as D End.

Here's my statistics if wanna know precisely how strong I am:

Bench Press: 37.5 kgs
Squat: 80 kgs
Shoulder Press: 40 kgs
Clean and Jerk: 52.5 kgs

[Blairbob]

Hah! I did notice your name now but I didn't notice it then when you posted it and for the record I thought you were a guy on your first post since I haven't heard of any semi-pro american football teams. I'm familiar with SailorMoon but never watched it since I was way more into CowboyBebop, RuruoniKenshin, Trigun, SamuraiChamploo, etc.

The only girls I have heard of playing football are the occasional girls who might placekicker. We had one who played in HighSchool but she was also a wrestler and did rugby and had some guns. However, I weighed more than her so I never had to wrestle with her during practice.

I just wanted to if what garnered more female attention over there, American Football or Gymnastics?

Not that I ever had the time, but I have really wanted to play rec football or hockey. I think Sacramento had a semipro team I considered trying out for because let's face it, I want to hit people not play slap and tickle.

Yeah, you definitely have some upper body strength to work on. Rings should really help with that besides the Parallel Bars.

If you really are serious about ring training but tumbling, I might encourage the cleans and jerks; but try not to program for hypertrophy (or eat for it). I'm sure if you get stronger you're bound to get bigger towards 70 kilos.

So perhaps just front squats and C&J. Honestly though that's worth starting a thread in another forum probably though we have probably done it to death on the forum if you do the searches.

[Sailor Venus]

Gymnastics had more females practising the sport for definite. As far as I know I only know one girl who played football, she was big and played d line. She talks like a man and not really in touch with her femininity. There's more girls playing flag football than fully kitted for certain but still, gymnastics is much more popular with women.

I bought a pair of EXF rings from ringstraining.com and can't wait to start using them. The bloody rings still haven't arrived yet and I've been waiting for more than 15 days now! I tried the rings at the GMAC and I thought they're brilliant and loved them straight away! Shame most gyms don't have them, all they have is weights and something that's always stable.

Don't worry about hypertrophy, I've been lifting weights since 2009 and always weighted 141lbs/64kgs consistently no matter what. And I can eat loads and not put on weight. I love my body!

I struggle with front squats, as my arms hurt from holding weights. I had no issues with normal squats. Does front squats build more power in the quadriceps than normal squats?