Is 6ft, 190lbs, and 31 still able to become elite?

Just wanted to reframe my initial question and see what folks think...

What does elite mean to you? Going to the Olympics for gymnastics is most likely not in your future, but becoming a decent gymnast certainly is. That is no small accomplishment, by the way. Just getting to the point where you can do basic tumbling runs (round off to back handspring to back tuck or back layout for example) is awesome, and builds a huge amount of strength and explosiveness.

Just getting to a straddle planche on the rings, a proper HS on the rings and HSPU on the rings along with nice slow muscle ups and full FL is pretty beast, and fully attainable.

If these are your kinds of goals, you are more than capable. Just start at the beginning and go step by step, and you will get there.

Elite to me means above level 10 and working on Olympic level skills.

This is what I have learned through off and on training:

Floor hands: planche, 1 hand handstand, v-sit, straddle press, flares, pirouettes, windmills, supermills, 2 airflares

Floor tumbling: back tuck, back full, gainer, gainer full, side flip, front tuck, front half, aerial, btwist, doublebtwist

Rings: ring muscle up, back straddle lever, front lever

Bar: glide kip, muscle up

I suppose that depends on how consistent you are with training! Coach will know better than me, I am not very familiar with the various levels of gymnastics and what the compulsory routines are for each. It sounds like floor is where you have made the most progress. Without actually seeing the skills, it is impossible to say because what I do know from shadowing Coach is that there are small subtleties of movement and position that, if performed incorrectly, will allow you to learn all the basic skills but never progress from there. That is part of why the gymnasts spend so much time working on technical perfection with the tumbling.

He will have to say anything more specific, I am just not that knowledgeable in this area.

leeaw said:

Elite to me means above level 10 and working on Olympic level skills.

Is there any online resources that will tell me what defines each level? I'd love to really have something to measure myself against

Just getting to the point where you can do basic tumbling runs (round off to back handspring to back tuck or back layout for example) is awesome, and builds a huge amount of strength and explosiveness

I think personallly being able to do these things will be awesome. it is very difficult to train these without a coach...but i can't even do a limber yet, or a bridge so i have a while to go anyway

phrak said:

leeaw said:

Elite to me means above level 10 and working on Olympic level skills.

Is there any online resources that will tell me what defines each level? I'd love to really have something to measure myself against

The compulsory routines are available for levels 1-10 I believe. At one point Blairbob posted a link to them, and I looked through them. You can see how the skills slowly get harder from one level to the next.

Joshua Naterman said:

I suppose that depends on how consistent you are with training! Coach will know better than me, I am not very familiar with the various levels of gymnastics and what the compulsory routines are for each. It sounds like floor is where you have made the most progress. Without actually seeing the skills, it is impossible to say because what I do know from shadowing Coach is that there are small subtleties of movement and position that, if performed incorrectly, will allow you to learn all the basic skills but never progress from there. That is part of why the gymnasts spend so much time working on technical perfection with the tumbling.

He will have to say anything more specific, I am just not that knowledgeable in this area.

Yeah, consistency is key. I bought Coach's book yesterday and started the WODs. How have you shadowed Coach? I'm really hoping to hear what he thinks...

I have shadowed in person during a team training session.

An insightful experience, to say the least.

Chances are really good that your best bet will be to concentrate on learning the tumbling skills in order, and not worry too much about where you get to. Work on your bridge so that it gets good enough to do proper back walkovers, and then work on back handspring. Unless handspring form is really, really good you won't get as much power out of the handspring as a good roundoff, and for doubles at our height that super hard punch from a great handspring is probably necessary.

No one can say anything concrete about until we see good video, I mean words are nice but we can't evaluate form without moving visuals, you know?

Once that's up, I am sure the tumbling guys and hand balancers in here can help you sort out what needs to be improved, if anything, and where you should probably go from your current status. If I see something I will comment, but in those two areas there are guys in here who know a whole lot more than I do!

As for the high bar, it's probably time to work on getting your giants on a strap bar (assuming you have a tap swing).

Do you work parallel bars at all? Pommel?

P-bars and pommel, no. I can do flares and pirouettes on the floor though.

I worked on backhandsprings for like an hour tonight. The back tuck is still only about shoulder/head height. I'll film it and put it up.

leeaw said:

P-bars and pommel, no. I can do flares and pirouettes on the floor though.

I worked on backhandsprings for like an hour tonight. The back tuck is still only about shoulder/head height. I'll film it and put it up.

Excellent! When you do, please do so in a new thread in Digital Coaching. Definitely post the link to the new thread here, but this isn't the right sub-forum for the analysis itself to happen in.