Answering Your Flexibility Questions (Community Q&A Part 3) -

Today on the podcast we are continuing the popular series of the Q&A’s, answering people’s questions directly from the community.

Each part is 30 minutes and I’ll be answering five of the most common and biggest topic questions that people in the gymnastics community have asked.

This episode is a super a popular one which lots of people have asked about; flexibility.

We talk about everything, that every gymnast, coach, and parent wants to know about; improving and increasing flexibility.

Really popular questions came through and I explain how I implement some of the Shift content I put out and how can use it in a practical setting when you’re working with different ages and abilities, large groups, and small workspaces.

I tried to use this as an opportunity to answer some tough questions, and give people practical advice, so you can literally listen to the podcast, drive to the gym and implement the same exact stuff right away a practice.

I ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS:

Jill asks: My daughter is eight years old, and although she’s very naturally strong, she struggles with flexibility. It’s mostly in her hips and her shoulders, which makes her handstands, backhand springs, and leaps hard. She gets deducted for angles and leg separations or bent knees quite commonly, what can I do to help her?
Jack asks: I coach boys gymnastics, and many of them really struggle to get their arms behind their back for pommel horse and parallel bar swings. Is there any way to fix this? Or is it an inherent problem with their arm length?
Ella asked: What do you do for gymnasts who need extreme flexibility like rhythmic or who want to work oversplits or advanced jumps and leaps like switch rings or switch sides? I’ve read your articles and I agree with them, but I don’t know where to start or what to do at practice to get these advanced jumps or leaps without causing hip injuries.
Jackie asks: How do you implement your flexibility approaches in a group setting? It makes sense to me when I watch shifts YouTube channel, but I have a group of 12 to 15, gymnasts at practice and it’s just me coaching. We only usually have a small space of floor to do flexibility circuits.
Kevin asks: What does your approach to warm-ups look like? We sometimes only have 15 or maximum of 30 minutes for a warm-up. And I feel like it’s so overwhelming trying to get everything in we need.

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