When I tell people our typical gymnastics practice is 4 hours, their jaw tends to drop. They always ask what we could possibly do for four hours a day. This post will hopefully answer that very question. We start practice at 12:15, this means the team gets to the gym about 12:10 and we talk to the coaches about what the assignments will consist of for the day. We begin running around the floor at 12:15, we run for about 15 minutes doing various arm circles, skips, and chasses. After that we do a very quick stretch warming up our wrists, ankles, and achilles and then we start our strength. The strength is a little different every day but it's usually consists of handstands, leg lifts, sits ups, rockers, toe taps, convulsions, and bounding jumps. After that we stretch our splits and shoulders and then do 10 minutes of ballet bar. By then it's time for our first event. The coaches decide who goes on which event when and what the assignments will be on that event for the day. There are typically 3-4 girls on each event at a time and the rotations last 45 minutes each. The assignments consist of doing our routines with certain criteria such as no wobbles or hitting all of our handstands. At 1:45 the second group comes in to work out so we meet and greet. We get into a circle and each person has something they do everyday to say hi to everyone. Before we all go to our separate events our coaches tell us any announcements for the day and then we call it up. We rotate through every event until all four are completed. After we complete our last event, we do 15 minutes of stretching and then we are free to go for the day. After we leave the gym we all head to treatment to ice our various injuries, aches, and pains. This is the typical day for a gymnast from the month of September to May. Twenty hours may seem like a lot of time to practice but that it what it takes to be the best we can be! Below are a few videos of some of the routines we practice daily.
Floor Routine
Beam Routine
Vault
Bar Routine
