What do gymnasts do in hours of training a day?

[DauntlessGrok16]

Hey guys. Im pretty new here this will be my first post!

I know that gymnasts train for many hours per day, and was wondering what they do with their time. I'm confused because I know that when you train very long and high volume, you will get hypertrophy instead of strength. So, what do they do per day? Skill work? Strength train? Do they take breaks to not get hypertrophy much? Etc...

[Michael Traynor]

That all depends on the level of the athlete, the coach, the programme etc. One of the gyms I have coached at would typically look like this:

Warm Up and Stretch - 30mins - 1hour

Gymnast Specific Conditioning - 1 hour

Apparatus 1 (warm up, skills, new skills, routine work if competition imminent) - 30mins - 1hour

Apparatus 2 (warm up, skills, new skills, routine work if competition imminent) - 30mins - 1hour

Apparatus 3 (warm up, skills, new skills, routine work if competition imminent) - 30mins - 1hour

Apparatus 4 (warm up, skills, new skills, routine work if competition imminent) - 30mins - 1hour

Flexibility - 30mins - 1 hour

Some Coaches prefer to put conditioning at the end of the session. Gymnasts would typically take short breaks every 2 hours or so.

As I say this can vary greatly from athlete to athlete, coach to coach and gym to gym.

[DauntlessGrok16]

Thanks for making it clearer for me. So they don't actually focus on strength (HSPU, dips, OAC, etc..) but rather focus on improving skills like swinging on the pommel horse, plyos on rings, tumbiling on floor, etc..? But Coach Sommer said that he trains his athletes first by building up their strength (HSPU, pullups, dips etc..) before skill and dynamics work like tumblings and plyometrics and pommel horse. So Coach first develps their strength without first tackling dynamics and skill work?

[Michael Traynor]

Thanks for making it clearer for me. So they don't actually focus on strength (HSPU, dips, OAC, etc..) but rather focus on improving skills like swinging on the pommel horse, plyos on rings, tumbiling on floor, etc..? But Coach Sommer said that he trains his athletes first by building up their strength (HSPU, pullups, dips etc..) before skill and dynamics work like tumblings and plyometrics and pommel horse. So Coach first develps their strength without first tackling dynamics and skill work?

Most Coaches will use those exercises during conditioning time.

Furthermore with younger athletes "apparatus" time above would be replaced with apparatus specific prerequisites as obviously no one just hops on a pommel horse and starts doing loops their first day in the gym.

I wouldn't like to comment directly on how Coach trains his athletes in case I misrepresent him.

[Alessandro Mainente]

i had the opportunity to talk to one boy of the federal centre of milan, usually they train 2 times a day (boths men and women) doing in the morning 3 apparatus and 3 on the afternoon for the men. only 2 days a week they to only one session, where they do only routine on the apparatus (usually wendsday and saturday)

45 minutes of warm up and dyanimc stretching

30 minutes of strength work for upper body work + 20 minutes to make the lading perfect

then

for everyapparatus they have 10 minutes to warm up, then 15 minutes for new skill and 3 routine attempts.

30-45 minutes of stretching at the end

so make the count

[Blairbob]

Well, it will vary A LOT.

Some coaches prefer to do S&C right after the Warmup. Sometimes this is due to rotation schedules and making sure they do it.

For MAG, generally 3-4 events. Sometimes in the early levels, you'll see some programs do 5 or 6-7 (trampoline as a rotation since it's in FutureStars). Again, it really varies.

I have talked with Coach Sommer and he ended up working something similar to what we did with Roger Harrell back when we had our group at Novato Gymnastics. 3 events generally HB/SR, FX/V, PB/PH. Something like that. Rog programmed HB/FX/PH or SR/V/PB but sometimes would swap the 1st and 3rd event. FX and V tended to be shorter and we tried to do 45 minute events.

So a 3hr workout would be 15 minutes of warming up and basics (HS presses) and 30 minutes to do S&C and stretching. Bare in mind, a 3 hr workout is short by competitive gymnastics standard but it was the time we had. 3hrs was also what compulsory levels with often do till about L6 in the US (some compulsories programs at L5/6 might go 3.5hrs or 4hrs, it really varies).

However, Coach Sommers guys would have an extra hour which means a lot more time to do S&C before and after. 15-30m warmup, 15-30 minutes of basics. 15-30 minutes of S&C and stretch. For awhile I think some of his guys might have gone 4.5hrs but I think they took down the duration of practice on their gym webpage.

Personally for little guys and newbies, I like Pommel Horse every day within reason. You have to watch for forearm splints but most of this is working on and getting their circles for routines. Some days might omit Horse work but you need to get a circle for L4. I wanted them to be able to do at least 1 circle for their routines to avoid getting killed scorewise. This quadrennium is different I think, though.

I prefer specific strength after WU and basics and general strength after events. Specific Strength would be the planks and L/manna and presses. Sometimes, I would incorporate Planche and Lever work then. We would still have ring strength to do during Rings as side stations.

Again, it all varies.

Typically, I let my guys get a short break which also meant I got a short break. I'm not a big fan of allowing the kids to snack on their own between events because you'd be surprised the crap they would snack on. Sorry, no sodas or candies unless you like burpees and I don't give a damn if your parents got them for you. And gods help it if there was a vending machine or snack bar. But I'm a fascist when coaching.

But scheduling a short break is a huge pain in the butt when making a rotation schedule. Either cut into rotations or risk having a event stolen by another group. It's nice to have the kids break together, they like it-camaraderie, blah-blah-blah but it can get too busy having 20-30 kids break at a time.

OTOH, for WAG, on some events I really like 1hr of time. Especially UB, sometimes 75 minutes. This sort of depends on how many stations you have and how many coaches. If you do S&C during UB time, you need extra time before and after. I prefer to schedule this besides event time but at the last 2 gyms, I didn't have that option really.

1hr also works well for BB and FX. You can split up the 1hr on FX to routine time or dance time or front/back tumbling. I think you get the point. I still don't think you need 1hr on vault and for the lower levels, you don't often need much more than 30 minutes even if you are working progressions besides their routine vault (for the lower levels, this is basically front handspring).

[DauntlessGrok16]

Thanks guys for making me understand more how these guys train! Though, I can't understand some things Blairbob wrote.. LOL!

[Blairbob]

MAG= men's artistic gymnastics

WAG= women's artistic gymnastics

FX = floor exercise

PH = pommel horse

SR = still rings

PB = parallel bars

HB = high bar

V = vault

UB = uneven bars

BB = balance beam

S&C = strength and conditioning

OTOH = on the other hand

HS = handstand

better? highlight any text you need cleared up.

[DauntlessGrok16]

MAG= men's artistic gymnastics

WAG= women's artistic gymnastics

FX = floor exercise

PH = pommel horse

SR = still rings

PB = parallel bars

HB = high bar

V = vault

UB = uneven bars

BB = balance beam

S&C = strength and conditioning

OTOH = on the other hand

HS = handstand

better? highlight any text you need cleared up.

Thanks, Blairbob! That helped alot! But, I don't understand this one very well:

I prefer specific strength after WU and basics and general strength after events. Specific Strength would be the planks and L/manna and presses. Sometimes, I would incorporate Planche and Lever work then. We would still have ring strength to do during Rings as side stations.

What's "WU"? And, the differences of specific strength, basics, and general strength. The specific strength tends to be like the FSP but with presses, so, I don't really understand.

[Blairbob]

W/U = Warm Up

Specific strength: think Presses, strength like Planche, Crosses, Levers

Basics: Handstands (rolls to HS, walking, pirouettes, holds), rolls (front and back), cartwheels and maybe even handsprings and saltos (flips). I use a lot of this depending on competency level as a warmup. If they have a poor cartwheel, we might do some here or not at all. I might insert them into their floor time so we could concentrate on drills rather than just having them do a shitty cartwheel.

General strength: Squats, Pushups, Pullups, Hanging Leg Lifts, etc. Very low skill oriented strength.

[DauntlessGrok16]

W/U = Warm Up

Specific strength: think Presses, strength like Planche, Crosses, Levers

Basics: Handstands (rolls to HS, walking, pirouettes, holds), rolls (front and back), cartwheels and maybe even handsprings and saltos (flips). I use a lot of this depending on competency level as a warmup. If they have a poor cartwheel, we might do some here or not at all. I might insert them into their floor time so we could concentrate on drills rather than just having them do a shitty cartwheel.

General strength: Squats, Pushups, Pullups, Hanging Leg Lifts, etc. Very low skill oriented strength.

Nice! Thanks man!

[Joshua Naterman]

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