Core Shaping Essentials: Boost Routine Scores

Today in the podcast we are going to be breaking down one of everybody's favorite topics as we approach meet season , which is core training and particularly shaping and basics . So if you wanted to pick one thing that I think could help everywhere in gymnastics , it'd probably be getting better shaping and better technique and drills behind that .

So what I want to do here is balance out some of the long kind of hour to two hour podcasts that are sometimes a little bit tough to get through in a couple settings and just kind of give people a very kind of quick dose of some of the most important and the most essential shaping drills that I'm giving to programs that I'm teaching people about to hopefully

help people get another kind of leg up as we run into meat season . So , as this is actually coming out , very exciting that we just released a new free course for shift for people to kind of check out and kind of help them through the preseason getting ready for the season .

So if you want a free course from me , kind of teaching things about what to do as you get ready for meat season in the gym , out of the gym culture , wise , all that kind of stuff . Keys to gymnastic season . Success is now live as of this podcast going up and you guys can head to shift movement sciencecom backslash free season course .

That will kind of help you get there . There's also a link down below in the show notes if you guys want to check that out . But I just wanted to kind of make something easy for people to kind of digest and get into . That will help them just get ready for the season . So what things do I have to do in the gym ?

You know , body shaping , tension drills , meat performance , mental health , all that kind of stuff . And then what do I have to be doing outside the gym , whether it's sleep , recovery , fueling yourself , well , all that .

And then what as a culture do we all have to do parents , coaches , athletes themselves , medical staff , how do we work together inside and outside of the gym to have really the most successful season possible ? So wanted to give you guys a shorter podcast help you get through there .

And then wanted to give you guys a bit of a shorter kind of free course that you guys could check out and kind of help yourself as you get ready for the in season . So hope you guys like this little podcast on core training and then I really hope to see you inside the gymnastics shifts course that we just put out for season itself .

So see you guys inside , all right , so continuing on here with this approach of going , you know , back and forth between what's happening in the weight training side of things and then what is happening on more the gymnastics specific side of things , we're going to keep rolling here and talk about some core stuff .

So again , I'm going to put my coaching hat on and share with you guys , you know , what I believe is really really important in the in the gymnastics gym from doing lots of specific gymnastics body weight , core strength , but also a lot of creation of shapes and things of that nature .

So , just as we did in the last lectures , let's think about the five kind of main areas . There's many , many more subcategories to this , but just in general , five things that I think are really important across all domains .

Gymnastics are number one for the core shaping , alignment and body tension or stiffness , crucial to understand how to create that nice tight brace line and how to understand , you know , manipulating that line . So we're going to start with there and then going to go into more of the traditional arch and hollow shapes .

Right , super important that athletes know how to make that arch shape or a dish shape , also known for hollow , but kind of creating that shape from the upper body , the core and the lower body all working together is crucial to make sure we have great core strength .

Okay , another area that is very important across many different areas is compression strength , so the ability to actually compress your core and use the anterior margin mostly to do a tuck shape or a hollow shape or a pike shape or an in bar shape or something of that nature .

Right , it's a very unique , different part of gymnastics that many other sports don't have to do , so we have to train that specifically with skills or drills or different circuits and things of that nature For a number one .

Another one that's very unique gymnastics is understanding that core bracing under hanging in particular , or also impact , which is definitely more common , but understanding how to kind of maintain tension in your lower back and in your core and in your obliques glutes as you swing through the bottom of a bar rings , parallel bars , high bar , whatever else .

It should be uneven bars . That is also a very , very important piece of the sport that , if not done properly , leads to a lot of performance issues . Okay , then obviously , impact we've talked about a little bit with plyometrics and lower body , but also kind of comes back up here understanding how to breathe and brace on top of those kind of pieces .

So those are four . And then lastly , as we've talked about with other things , just skill , specific core strength , right , very different approaches to core strength and core compression work or other areas with , you know , uneven or high bar releases versus parallel bars versus beam and all that kind of stuff .

So lots of very , very important things that gymnastics coaches are really the expert in . That we have to train just as much and prioritize alongside the weight training stuff that we've been talking about in the gym and things of that nature . So let's start with just some shaping and alignment and body tension .

I'm a huge fan of just really , really basic drills done well . So one of the things we do every single day in our warmup this is taken from our warmup is just doing some stick work , right .

So just holding the stick , covering the ears and just doing a five second hold or a 10 second hold and then 10 uppers , 10 lowers , 10 togethers and then 10 uh hold , uh , in a nice hollow shape .

So just thinking about the alignment in terms of , like , what are we doing to cover the ears and crunch the abs and maintain that and you can see the head pokes up here with olivia but , um , doing some of these lower bodies again , trying to maintain tension tight knees , tight uh toes , tight uh shoulder , open position to ground and then doing these things

together and trying to create that shape as one piece , right , so kind of moving between that idea of shaping and alignment and then kind of more of a dynamic hollow or arches . These all kind of blend together and then , lastly , she'll just hold for 10 seconds . And this is brutally hard actually , if you do it correctly .

So I don't want to underplay how challenging this is , but this goes in our core warmup every single day , very , very useful . And then we can repeat this again with the stomach position , so doing it for the opposite side of the body . So , again , nice flat , 10 second hold and then 10 uppers .

The goal here is to cover the ears a little bit more , keep that chin tucked , but they're very , very challenging . And then we'll do 10 for the upper body and 10 for the lower body , so maintaining core tension , squeezing the brace and then lifting the lower body , trying to engage the glutes , also the lower back .

So 10 upper , 10 lower , and again the whole time trying to think about global tension in the core but also moving under load , and then you'll see the togethers . Here you can definitely tell where some athletes struggle a little bit more on different sides , with , you know , the upper versus the lower or even front to back things of that nature .

And I also will add that we do this on our side as well . So these are not pictured here just in the essence of getting to more done . But we would roll on our side and put the stick in one hand and do 10 uppers , 10 lowers , 10 together to kind of hold a nice side oblique . That round shape is also something else we want to work on .

So just some different ideas there . Let's talk about another kind of just a couple basics that are really , really important .

So just springboard holds , right or block holds or partner holds massively important to try to maintain some of that nice isometric strength , so being able to hold this shape , and obviously the way you do this is you have someone or you go under a block somewhere and you extend out farther and farther based on how difficult you want it to be .

So if your hips are off versus if your stomach's on versus your thighs are on , it's much , much harder to hold that long tension . So those are very , very good . The other one that we were , like you know , alongside these , is going to be the opposite . So sitting up and doing a nice hollow hold or doing a lateral hold as well , on both sides .

Again , very , very simple , but very , very hard right . So these are again staples that should be in every everyday training and different strength programs for the gymnastics side of things , and they complement some of the things that Duash was talking about with anti-extension training or anti-flexion training .

This is obviously very , very similar to some of those things , but much more gymnastics specific in that hollow and arch shape . So basic lines , basic body shaping , all that kind of stuff . Okay , another one that's really , really important is going to be arch and hollow shapes .

So the creation of arch and hollow shapes two foam rollers to do a nice arch , hollow , snap change is really really important . These are also really great because , again , you can scale to the athletes . So if you move the rollers closer together it's a little bit easier . If you move the rollers farther apart it's a little bit harder .

But just learning how to create a shape from your entire body , right , like using the pressure against your hands and your knees here to make that long round shape to hold that hollow , and then doing the opposite here , which is again pushing against the rollers to try to make a nice tight arch shape .

And so I like doing these easier versions , kind of hanging maybe . If an athlete needs that , so just hang from a bar and hold that hollow for 10 seconds , hold that arch for 10 seconds . That's really great too . But laying on your stomach and laying on your back between rollers is a very simple way to kind of do this .

You can do it between mats , you can also do it over a mat right , laying over a panel mat and doing a nice hollow hold up to an arch hold and then laying on your back and holding up to a nice hollow hold . A lot of different ways to go about this , but just the ease of time I just think these ones are a little bit more simple ,

okay . And then another kind of great thing that's pretty staple in the gymnastics community is just sliders . So doing upper and lower body sliders I think are really valuable .

You can have the athlete go on their knees and use their hands to go out , and then you can flip it around and have the athlete go on their hands right and have the slider under their knees and have them go backwards .

So when we do these it's typically five sliders on the hands , five sliders on the knees , and if it's really really advanced for the athlete , they can move on , they can do up on their feet .

So when they're up in a push-up position , hands are on the slider , feet are on the floor in a nice round shape and they slowly lower out , or hands are on the floor , feet are on the slider , they go all the way back . So the knees and hands option is a little bit easier for athletes to start with , if they're younger .

The hands and feet option is much , much harder because the levers are very long . But this is another great way to work nice tight , hollow shaping , especially mimicking some bar swings and different skills . Okay , another one that's really really good is compression work , just kind of going through the sliders .

So this is kind of a duality between compression and also that hollow shape .

But I really like this one because of the positions in the front and the positions in the back right , creating that nice long shape , the nice long hollow shape , and then being able to kind of work through and also get this front shape where you're extending out a little bit nice and easy to do . Higher the panels , the easier it is .

Obviously taller athletes need a little bit more room to work with , but very , very easy to put a line of panel mats out , put a slider in between each one and have athletes do you know 10 in between their other working set of rope climbs or cast handstands or you know something else in that nature .

Okay , another couple here just to kind of go through Pretty basic but just nice arch rockers . So this athlete is a little bit more advanced . She is holding a weight in between her hands , a five pound weight , to make this shoulder ankle more challenging . But you can start with no weight , you can start with an arch hold like totally fine as well .

And then same thing , kind of flipped over on your stomach or , sorry , on your back , so doing a nice ear covered , open position for the hollow rocking , another way to do that . Well , again , lots of options here , right , billions of different hollow and arch shapes that we can do .

Just sharing with you guys the things that I think have been the most easy and the most effective to pair when you're trying to get a lot done in a busy program and moving kind of along the anterior core margin , especially in the hip flexors , come together . Compression strength is really , really important .

So compression strength for either you know any bar event so uneven bars , parallel bars , high bar things of that nature rings as well , but also it sometimes comes in other fashions as well for beam and different pieces of like pike opening for trampoline . A lot of different areas in the sport really need this compression strength .

So it's important that we develop it alongside the strength stuff we're doing in the gym . So jump rope Vips are a fantastic way to do this because obviously you can scale it to the athlete . The tighter you hold the rope , the more you have to reach , but it kind of forces them to go all the way through the motion .

I think sometimes where it's really easy to cheat and not do a full leg lift and get your arms in the ground or your feet on the ground . So jump , rope , v-ups are very , very good , great for younger athletes who are just starting out . They can start in a tuck if they're really having a tough time .

But I think it's a good way to develop that strength to start moving over to maybe some L-holds which you'll see see here . So L holds are good . You can start with a tuck hold . You can go tuck hold and extend one knee out , then the other knee out for five seconds . You can go L hold , l hold on the floor , straddle L hold on the beam .

Straddle L press , handstand on the beam . Straddle floor press handstand , staller press , handstand . There's unlimited number of progressions you can do , but I'm just sharing with you guys the starting point .

So , starting with just a basic tuck , then an L , one leg , one leg straddle , l hold , parallettes , floor bar hold , handstand press whatever you guys want to do is appropriate for your age and athletes . But some form of compression strength is essential to make sure we're developing that area of the core . It's very unique to the sport .

Another couple options here perpendiculars or toe taps are really great as well , kind of working , the compression from the top up now versus the bottom up , maybe in an l hold . So just reaching up and tapping the toes with a weight , you can start without a weight , very , very easy to do .

Okay , you can also do some reverse crunches , so you would hold the weight over your head , let the toes go down to a leg lower and pull the feet all the way back and tap the weight overhead . That's the exact same . Uh , you know exercise , just kind of moving the other way . So toes back to feet great one to do as well .

And then something that's pretty traditional that a lot of people use is going to be a core compression . So we like to do 10 lifts and then hold for 10 seconds as a side station on bars . The longer you are , sorry , the farther your hands are out down the edge of your feet , the harder it is .

So you can scale it really easy to athletes that can start behind their knees and make it really easy and then go a little bit farther , a little bit farther , a little bit farther , a little bit farther as the weeks go on , and just remember where that was so comport . You can do core compression work in a pike and then also in a straddle .

Both are really really good . I think it depends on the athlete . I like just doing both , even if they have different in bars like stallers versus toe ons , whatever else it is . But just a really easy side station to do , really easy to toss into a strength program as well on those easy days .

So compression , strength and another couple domains there , nice and easy , nothing too crazy . These are more advanced ones for older athletes that are getting really really good . I really love these kind of 90 lifts from the mat .

So they start with their feet hovering , they hold that for about five seconds and then they go up and they try to hold the top side for five seconds as well . They very , very hard to do . Well , I think some athletes that do it great with their back flat against the wall . You can see this is rocking a little bit , but that's a great way to do it .

You can start with one bent knee , one bent knee on the other side , tuck whatever you want to do . But again , very advanced . But just wanted to make sure I put the entire spectrum here for what we work on . And then this is also another really good option .

So holding for two seconds at each position , going from the bottom to the L to the L to the V , back to the L , back to the bottom , and again you can do it on a stall bar against the wall .

But we sometimes add these in a side stations , as you see here , in the middle of our rotation or in a warmup , just to get you know the actual , you know , progress going for some of those shapes they're going to use later and skills that are specific to it . Okay , so those are some options there .

I think the next one to talk about is core bracing during hanging and impact right , making sure the athlete knows can I brace my core and understand that with attraction force I still get to squeeze my glutes , I still get to squeeze my shoulders nice and long and use my entire core as an arch and a hollow , pretty much the most simple way we see this show

up . It's a nice arch , hollow , shape changes and this will be in the power lecture as well . When we talk about core bits we'll expand on that more .

But just understanding that when you're essentially tapping to the bottom of any swinging events or rings uneven bars , paler bars you have to really maintain that nice core tension because one you'll have a lot of energy that will dissipate and you'll leak out , but also a big risk of making your back pretty sore if you don't do that .

And then we always , you know , for our younger athletes , we start them with a nice big cast handstands , low bar , tap strings on high bar to a nice layout .

So just working on that bracing as well older athletes to cast handstands and in bars to giants , to a layout , but just understanding how to create that tension in their body without like letting themselves get too relaxed , that's a skill you have to learn .

That's very , very different than what you might do in the weight room and then kind of on the other side we saw a couple of these before but understanding how to maintain core tension when you do plyos or when you do some block jumps and then understanding how to maintain core tension as well on springboards and things of that nature .

So it's one thing to have that hip opening shape and trust that . It's another thing to really understand how to brace your entire core unit , so front , back , side and your breathing on top of that , and also understand the hips being open .

So I think it's really good to work at some of these as a leg plyo or something of that nature , but really focus on hey , what are we doing with our core ? Are we bracing ? Are we in the right shape ? Are we too extended ? Are we too hollowed ? Are we nice and neutral ?

Right Athletes have to learn neutral bracing versus hollow bracing versus arch bracing , based on the skill that they're working on right . It's not a great idea to have an athlete really loose and do like a one and a half punch and have a nice open spine position and then hurt their back because they don't know how to brace under load .

They really want to understand how to maintain that neutral brace and use the plyometrics of the floor and the timing of their flip and twist to get that to be successful . They don't want to be just relaxed when they do their , their punching skills . Okay , another couple options . Here are things just to kind of demonstrate .

So one is going to be the snap down position right , we talked about this before but progressing to more dynamic tumbling . So we do snap down back tucks or snap down back hand , swing back tucks . Sometimes we'll do on tumble track because the athletes want to save their ankles and stuff like that .

But that's a very important thing to develop as well as that snap down , tumbling action and then over here , very specific to beam , but understanding , like an aerials and things of that nature , how to brace and maintain your center so that your belly button is facing the end of the beam and you're not wobbling , you're not side to side , keeping your shoulders

stacked over your hips , keeping a vision sight on the beam at all times .

I think that those are , just again , really great skills to learn and stress , but they really are specific to the event and that's why gymnastics coaches are so , so important here to teach the other half of what we're doing , which is this very unique side of core training that I don't All right . And then just moving on here to some skill specific core .

So I think everybody intuitively knows that it's really important to train the core working and very you know unique parts of skills and things of that nature . And one of the ways that it's really easily highlighted here is with some of the your chanko drills . So over here on the left , just starting by doing a nice open , hollow arch , snap right .

Obviously it's a lot of arm action , but you have to understand also how to maintain core and push yourself up into that tight arch , so hollow in the beginning and then snapping into a tight arch , mimicking kind of snapping down into the board and then opening up into a nice tight arch as well .

Another way we like to do this is just with some snap down drills , so jumping to a cast handstand and snapping into an arch hollow and then using the same exact kind of approach to get that arm motion being led .

Obviously this is more of a technical thing of where their eyesight is for the Yurchenko or you know what they're feeling like stiffness wise , on the trampoline or the board .

But it's also very important to teach them how to understand that snap down hollow , opening to a nice snap down arch , to make sure that they feel like their skills are connecting from drills .

Okay , and then , moving on to here , a couple more examples , one being just a you know more of a round off entry drill for Souks and then turnover or round off for Yurchenko if someone's appropriate there , and then doing some round off rebounds into the wall as well . So off a hurdle mat .

Credit to Nick Ruddock for showing me that approach to get the front leg up . But just understanding how to snap down again , the bracing of the round off is one piece of this . So understanding how to be tight when we get into the lunge . And then the understanding , the bracing of the actual impact , just to be safe more so than anything .

And then on here , more of a floor drill , but understanding , snap round off turnover , trying to get more of a nice round sink under into the floor .

It's very important for them to understand how tight the core has to be kind of during this phase of the hurdle and then understanding the core stiffness as they reach into the ground , shoulder and core stiffness to maintain this to get a nice snap down under .

And again , the core aspect of impact we talked about before being able to see the floor and keep that nice core brace . So just some more specific nuances and then , lastly , just a couple here as well . So this one's very unique , obviously , to toe-ons and things of that nature , but bars has very unique core strength demands as well .

So for a toe-on right , understanding how to snap in very quickly and get the feet on the bar Don't mind the mat being a bit too close there Long legs , but understanding that compression and that ability to rock under the bar is very unique to bars .

And then another one we see a lot , which I think is the best highlighted example of where , like some of the weight room stuff shows up really really well , is doing like anti extension training right , dead bugs , stir the pots , slide outs , all those kind of things shows up quite a bit and release moves as well .

So doing shoot over handstands , understanding how to maintain that brace when you hit the bar to not kind of flop over too much into extension .

So when they hit the bar , just understanding that nice core position brace and there's actually two pieces to it here we could argue that we need the gymnastic specific shape changing , as we talked about , in the core along with the shoulders , to make these taps scoop really really well .

But then obviously I think the one that carries most over to is when we get to here and seeing the bar and being able to pre , tension the core to really be stiff so that we don't buckle into extension , either fall or , you know , obviously hurt our back a little bit .

So just another couple examples I think are really really important , but hopefully that kind of maps everything together . I know that's a little bit overwhelming to think about how to juggle these things back and forth , but overall I think that we have a really good marriage of these two .

And again , I'm just , you know , kind of repeating the same thing over and over , but there's a billion core things we could do right . There's so many core things that could go into this .

I'm sure everybody here if we had a forum and said , hey , what are to like three core exercises or five core exercises or five side stations and make it really boring and monotonous . There's a lot of ways to pick apart . Okay , what does the whole team need , what does this athlete need ?

But it's going to be very , very specific to the coach in front of you who's doing the programming . And so I continue to meet coaches and learn from them and put new stuff in , and I think it's always

evolving . I think the system and the principles here is what we're talking about right Having the two days in the weight room or the one day in the weight room where you're doing that general core training , the loaded carries , the things of that nature , and then over on the other side of the gymnastics , specific core training .

That is really where you maximize the core base , which becomes a huge component of core power down the road , but also arm and leg power . Right , the arms and the legs can only go as hard as the core allows .

So if you have this nice strong leg base and this nice strong , powerful arm base , but a core that is not strong and able to create that power , transfer that power , absorb that power , you're going to run in hot water quick .

So that's why we wanted to go really in depth and explain how we're building these hybrid programs side by side , because as we move into power , it'll make a lot more sense . Okay , and then , as I said before , we have a billion core exercises on the website , general and specific to gymnastics .

So if you want more information , you're looking for something else . You have some other ideas you'd like to get going . Feel free to jump over there and check them out . But hopefully that was helpful and it summarized things for the strength side of the fence .