Weekly Work 12/6/13

This week was very different for me because I was at the gym 4 out of the 6 hour practices because I was sick. I had a competition on Friday so my coach wanted me to be healthy. During the week I had to stick 20 routines on each event. This was kind of hard because on beam I fell off a lot and I had to do my routine over again. After each routine we did something my coach calls visualizing. Basically what is when we sit with our knees up and our head down and our eyes close and we think of ourselves doing our routine perfectly. My coach says it helps us mentally. After we did our visualizing and our routines we did our conditioning. It was pretty easy this week because we didn't want to be too sore before the competition. Our conditioning was running 7 miles and then we had do 100 chin ups and pull ups 3 times. After that we did 500 ab exercises and then 100 of 10 different kinds of push ups.

Weekly Work 11/22/13

This week during practice we did basics. We did this because my coach wants our bodies to feel good for next weekend at our competition. Basic is much less pounding a much easier on our bodies. We focused a lot on flexibility and strength too. After warm up we did not stretch like we usually would. We took mat that were 3 feet high and did over splits for 5 minuets on each leg or until we were touching the floor. We also did something where we out our hands on the mat while laying down on our stomachs and our arm pits had to touch the ground. This increases our shoulder flexibility which is a key part of gymnastics. Shoulder flexibility is a big part of each event.We did 20 of each basic routines on each event after we stretched.

 Basic routines and stretching took about an hour and a half so we had the other 4 and a half hour to condition. We didn't do the same exact conditioning every day but most of it was the same. We ran 5 miles did 800 jumping backs, 25 beam jumps to keep our heart rate up. After that we did 100 pull ups and chin ups 3 times, a 10 minuet bar hang, and held a handstand for 5 minuets without moving or coming down for our arms. For our legs we did 400 squats, a mile of lunges and 300 calf raises each way. For our abs we did 500 sit ups, 300 side sit ups on each side and something called skin to calves. After that we stretched again and went home.

Weekly Work 11/15/13

This week at practice we did a workout where we spent most of our practices at a certain event. Since we have a competition in 3 weeks we spent most of the practice on our weakest event. My weakest event is bars so I spent 2 our of the 6 hours at practice on bars everyday. I had to stick 30 beam routines in 2 hours and if I fell that routine did not count. All of my team was spread out depending on what their weakest event is. While I was on beam I had to show my coach routine number 15 and number 30. After the two hours we went to our next weakest event. We did our practices like this because it gave us extra time on the events we need. I really enjoyed this type of practice because it allowed me more time to stick routines and make sure they are perfect. After we went to all four events my team and I conditioned. The conditioning was a little different this week as well. My coach wrote down 25 thing for each muscle group. But the trick was we had to start with our weakest group of muscles. My weakest muscles are my legs so I started with legs and did 100 of each thing that was on the list. My next weakest is abs so I did 75 of each thing that was on the ab list and I continued down until I finished all the lists. I did struggle a little bit this week because I was really sore all week and I wasn't feeling to well.

Weekly Work 11/8/13

This week my coach didn't have a specific workout for my team and I because she let us pick our own from the ones we have previously done. The reason why she did this is because she wanted us to pick the workout that helped us the most. I chose to do the mean 18 workout that I did last week because I feel like it helped me the most. I also really like that I can condition while I am doing my routines too because I had to run or do some type of cardio before that routine. I also thought this was the most beneficial because during the whole entire week I was incredibly sore and that lasted the whole week. So I knew this workout had some affect on me.I ran 18 laps around the floor, 18 pull up, and 18 chin ups. I  repeated that 18 times doing a total of 18 routines I did the mean 18 work out for all four events. I added other stuff like beam jumps and rope climbs to make the conditioning harder so I can increase my stamina/endurance. I kept track of how many mistakes we made on each event and for each mistake we had to do 25 crunches, 25 v ups, 25 leg squats with a 25 pound weight. After that I climbed the rope 18 times without using my legs. The rope hangs from the ceiling and we have to climb it 7 feet.

The last hour of practice we focused a lot on flexibility and strengthening the smaller muscles. Most of our conditioning was lower back muscles, forearms  and hip flexors. We hung on the bar for 10 minuets without coming down and the we 120 fire hydrants to work our hip flexors. This week I made a lot of progress and Im really excited to start competition season.

Weekly Work 11/1/13

This week at practice my team and I focused on our stamina/endurance. To do that we did a lot of cardio conditioning along with mixing cardio into our event rotations. For warm up we sprinted 5 miles around the gym and then we went straight to bars where we did 100 pull ups without coming down and 100 chin up without coming down. After that we ran 20 laps around the floor and did our stretching. After stretching we went to our first event and did a workout my coach called the mean 18 workout. The mean 18 workout is when you start with a routine and after the routine we ran 18 laps around the floor, 18 pull up, and 18 chin ups. We repeated that 18 times doing a total of 18 routines. We did the mean 18 work out for all four events. The purpose of running 18 laps after each routine is so we are out of breath when we are doing our next routine which builds up our stamina /endurance. We kept track of how many mistakes we made on each event and for each mistake we had to do 25 crunches, 25 v ups, 25 leg squats with a 25 pound weight.

After we did all that we did our conditioning which was 18 of 18 different exercises 18 times. The struggles I had this week was that I was very exhausted by and super sore. I was also kind of stressed out because our first competition is coming up in a few weeks.

Weekly Work 10/25/13

This week I was practicing with my team again. All of our practices this were competition style. Competition style practice is when you do a competition at practice. At the beginning of practice we did our competition warm up that consisted  of running 20 laps around the floor, 2 laps of high knees, 2 lap of skipping, and 2 laps of hurdles. After that we do 100 push ups and 100 sit ups. Then we began our stretching. After that we went to an even and we got a minuet to warm up per gymnast so as a team we got 7 minuets to warm up. After warm we did our routines and our coach gave us a score. We did that same thing for all four events after that we went back to each event to do our corrections.  I had trouble sticking my vaults because I wasn't running as fast as I usually do so my steps got messed up. We had to stick 10 of each of our corrections and a routine. We did competition style practices this week because our first competition is in 5 weeks.

The last hour and a half of practice we did conditioning.Everyday we did cardio and a group of muscles. On Monday we did cardio and abs, Tuesday we did legs and abs, Wednesday arms and abs and we continued that for the rest of the week. For each day my coach gave us 10 things to do and for each thing we had to do 500. For example on Monday for conditioning we ran 3 miles and then we 500 sit ups, 500 V-ups, 500 hallow rocks, 500 tuck in, 500 turtles and we continued down the list she made. I had a hard time this week because I was so sore the next day and it hurt to a lot of my skills but it ended up being another great week of practice.

Weekly Work 10/18/13

This week was a little different for me because I didn't practice with my team. The only other person I was with during my practice was my coach. I changed my practice times so I could get her attention one on one. Every practice I did a warm that consisted of a timed 3 mile sprint, push ups, sit ups, pull ups and chin ups. For each thing my coach gave me 10 minuets to do as many of each thing as possible. After that I stretched and we started practice.
For every event I had to stick 10 perfect routines. After sticking 10 routines I had to stick 10 of each upgrade and then do conditioning for each event. After all four events I conditioned for the last hour. The conditioning stayed the same this week because it was timed and the point was to get better each day. I had 10 minuets to do as many of each thing as I could. After doing that I had to sprint another mile and do time trials. Time trials are when you start at the end of the vault runway and run as fast as you can punch the spring board land your feet on the vault and do a front tuck off and sprint back to the end of the runway. I had to do 20 in a row. The main focus this week was cardio. Another part of my conditioning was an obstacle course around the gym that I had to complete in 2 minuets. I started on tumble track and did 5 back handspring in a row , sprinted down the vault runway, climbed rope without legs 30 feet in the air, 10 pull ups ,10 chin ups, jumped over all 7 beams and ran 6 laps. I had to do that until I could make it under 2 minuets I ended up doing it 6 six times and ended with a time of 1 minuet and 56 seconds.  This week the only struggles I faced was the day after when I was extremely sore.