Athlete In The City

We can all use more core strength.  It reduces back strain and stress, contributes to over all functional strength, and is good for every fitness enthusiast from runners to gymnasts, martial arts practitioners to yoga fans alike.

If any of these combinations are too difficult with both legs extended, try it with on leg bent, and one leg extended.  Good luck!

Tick tocks are a way to exercise the upper back and shoulder muscles, and also work your shoulder and back flexibility.  Try to work up to the by doing the yoga wheel first.  Push up into your shoulders…  As you progress, do them as slowly as you can, this builds up a lot of your stabilizer muscles.

After many years of building basic strength, I’m finally starting to get somewhere with this planche training.  Take a look at my first straddle planche holds…

The V-sit is the next step towards working the manna skill in gymnastics.  It requires a LOT of triceps, hip flexors, and abdominals.  You can also work this on the floor if you want to.

I’m at it again this week with another exercise on the parallettes.  This time I do handstand pushups, using the parallettes to get a deeper range-of-motion.  This is heavy on the triceps and deltoids…

This week I have a video working the parallettes.  I use one parallette to do what’s called a “straddle L” in gymnastics.  There is a lot of stabilizer muscle work in this skill, plus triceps, abdominals and hip flexors.

A lot of people see the mushroom sitting in my living room and ask me, what the hell is that thing?  Heh, finally you can see a demo.

For the gymnasts out there, this is basic stuff.  In fact the mushroom is like training wheels for the pommel horse, and other strength gymnastics training.  For me, it took a few years just to get this down.  Now I’m starting work on the flair… eventually!!