elbow flexibility / hyperextension

My son is a competitive gymnast in the UK and is 9years 5months old and has trained seriously for 3years. He does 13.5h per week training and is one of the best gymnasts in his region in his age group and also competed in national finals in setwork. I won't say more to keep his identity anonymous.

I have a question about elbow hyper-extension /flexibility

First..... the background is I think all his joints are very flexible...some of this is I think naturally and some of this due to training. He is the most flexible of the elite boys at the new gym club he trains at. He can do all splits (left leg, right leg and box) to the floor with arms up fairly easily and can push past 180deg though thats a struggle, pike flat fold to floor, straddle flat fold to floor etc, he can lie on his back and place flat of his hands shoulder width apart and his neck will be only 2inches from the ground so his shoulders are flexible too, his bridge is nice etc and unlike many boys he can bend back into bridge and kickover very easily (I know its more a thing girls practice). His knees also slightly hyperextend (about as much as Roger Federer's) too. His coaches are very pleased with his flexibility, and he certianly was not like this at say 5 before he started gymnastics. So its not as if his elbows flexibility is different to his other joints really.

However, what a coach who was a physio noticed at an old club noticed last year is that his elbows will mildly hyper-extend. You can notice this when he locks out his elbows say on p-bars. I had never noticed this before in him, so i couldn't say whether this is a result of gym training or whether he would have been like this anyway. However, at least the susceptibility to this, I think this may genetic, as his mum's do this too and one of his older sisters (mine can't go past 180 degrees)

His coach at his new club doesn't seem concerned by this elbow hyper-extension and he seems to be an excellent coach (though he is quite young), and does loads of conditioning similar to Coach Sommers

However, two of the older elite boys gymnasts who are teenagers and are both very good (ranked in top 10 nationally in their age group) and they are really helpful and friendly with my son, and they told him that they think his elbows might be a weakness and a problem for him in strength positions later. I don't think its affected my son yet at all in his gymnastics as far as I can tell, but he's only doing more basic moves at his young age. His armspan is longer than his height (like mine) and at 4ft 6and 1/2inches he's on the tall side for a gymmnast of his age..but average height for his age among non gymnasts.

His upper body strength is OK (he can do about 15-20 pullups onbar or rings and loads of dips (40 or so) but he can't do a muscle up yet on rings, his core strength is good (he can pike lift, half lever through straddle to handstand on p-bars, hold a decent Russian lever on floor etc. However I think its fair to say he has to work on his strength more than his flexibility.

As I said, I don't think the elbow hyperextension is any sort of injury and its not bothered him at all yet, but is it something I need to keep an eye on? and are there additonal things like bent arm work improving his bicep strength that he should be doing to avoid problems? Are there things he needs to do to improve his joint strength.

I wonder if he may even be a bit too flexible for male artistic gymnastsics as a sport, though so far it has only helped him?

Any advice very welcome

It's somewhat common in gymnastics.

However, if you care to look for it you can find plenty of gymnasts and quite a few on rings who have that natural hyperextension to the point where it is extremely noticeable during a rings HS, PB HS, etc.

Bent arm work such as rope climbs, pushup and dipping, DB curls.

But he sounds quite strong so it is probably not that much of an issue. When you have a gymnast who lacks bent arm strength and has that hyperextension is when the problems start coming up.

A few of our girls started complaining about this so I pulled another friend and coach at the gym who can still do cross and such. He had about 15 degrees of hyperextension if not more. He never complains about his elbows being sore, just that crosses are hard to do anymore (heh-he's a NAIGC gymnast so that's reduced training compared to when he was a L10).

When I have had kids who were in general weak it's been a problem. Not so much, if they were considered strong for their age/level/size.

Erik got his MU when he wasn't able to do nearly that many dips. He was generally around 15 when I got a hold of him and 15-20 pullups. He never broke 20 when he was with me but he did get his MU. Besides a lot of spotted MU, we worked a lot of MU negatives. Part of it was merely solidifying his ring support.

Thanks Blairbob for your quick reply

With regards the hyperexrtension/hypermobility of elbows. If its common maybe I should not worry too much at the moment then? My son never complains of soreness or anything like that in his elbows, and the hyper-extension is probably is less than 15 degrees, but it can look a bit odd from some angles. The new gym does lots of rope climbs, pushup or holding front supports with arms bent at varying degrees. I've not seen them do dumbell work but he can use some at home, and he has a total trainer and rings at home so there are bent arm things he can do with those too.

Thanks for the advice on getting the MU too, though that was less of a concern. I figure when he 's ready and if he does the training the MU would come anyway in due course...he couldn't get it last summer but maybe he was not ready. Howver, maybe his problems will be familiar to others on the forum, so if the thread turns into a MU advice thread thats OK by me. In terms of doing a MU he's not being taught that at the new gym at the moment, but he's keen to get it on his own anyway, because it opens up lots of new things above the rings which his training partners who are a year older can do, aswell as being a good exercise in itself aswell of course. When | say my son can do 40 dips on p-bar to 90 degrees on a good day, but although its in one go in the sense that he's never resting his feet, he does take rests on the p-bars with his arms locked out, during the 40. If he does dips through a fuller range of motion so beyond 90 degrees so his shoulders go down to p-bar level (i.e. so his elbows are higher than his shoulders) he can do nowhere near that number. He can do nowhere near that number on rings either...I'm not sure he can do more than 15 even...maybe I need to check that. I think your point about improving ring stabilisation is a good one. Maybe he's not quite strong enough yet to MU overall?

Still, I wonder if its the pullup bit rather than the dip, or the transition phase (is that the right word?) of the MU thats the problem. He always goes to a complete dead hang when he does pullups but probably after the first few does not pull up high enough ...eyes to bar level rather than chinning the bar....maybe he's cheating a bit! He also finds overgrasp on a bar easier than undergrasp. Maybe because his arms are long, pullups seem harder and an excellent workout for him compared to if his arms were shorter...he's pulling his bodyweight through a greater distance and doing more work (in a physics sense). On rings he can do a similar number of pullups with a normal grip, but can only do one at a time in false grip.

In terms of the transition bit between pullup and dip he's not done a lot of that. But for example if his feet are just on the ground to start with and reaching up to the rings, so he can make a little jump to give him some momentum to get higher in the pullup he can do the rest of the muscle up. Or if he starts with his feet supported at rings level he can then do the rest of a muscle-up.

Whats a MU negative? is that starting form the top position in false grip and going down to dead hang like winding a tape backwards?

FInally when trying to do a MU, do you advise to start in false grip in dead hang, or do you start with a normal grip and try to change to a false grip while at the top position in the pull-up? Apologies for the silly questions.

I also asked him if the arms feel strong when straight (i.e not locked out) rather than lock out beyond straight, and he says they feel much stronger locked out. So when he's holding straight arm positions should he be locked out or straight? Does that make sense?