Conditioning 101

Hey guys! Today is a lesson on Conditioning 101. We will talk about multiple aspects of conditioning that will help your gymnast in strength and skill training.

Summary:
Reps and sets in relation to conditioning
When to use conditioning
The goals of conditioning
Bonus Tips: Squat form and front and rear chain exercises

Strength and conditioning is definitely one of the top 3 questions I am asked as a PT. To start, there are two main goals of conditioning: building strength and building endurance. A large factor in this is how many reps are done, as well as how many sets are performed. When it comes to the question of how many reps is too many, I like to use the answer that my friend Pat Goldsmith shared with me. He basically said, “You know that you should move on when your athlete can’t perform the movement correctly anymore.” In other words, as your gymnast’s form starts to break down from fatigue, it is time to move on, lessen reps, or start a different exercise.

A main takeaway of today should be the idea of quality versus quantity. Just because you can do a whole lot of reps does not mean you should. In addition, reps will highly depend on the reason that the exercise is being performed. For example, if your gymnast is just learning the new movement or is going for pure strength, 10 or less reps would be appropriate. If it is a familiar exercise, 10-15 reps is the best number. And if you are going for endurance strength training, this is when you can do reps in that 15-30 number range. In terms of sets, three is the most popular number. It really depends on what exercise you are doing, and it is also important to leave enough recovery time in between sets. 1-3 sets of an exercise tends to work best, especially when you work muscle groups with multiple different exercises instead of doing a whole bunch of only one exercise. By targeting a muscle group with several different exercises, they will all combine and work better than only one movement.

There are two main reasons to do conditioning: as a drill or reminder of a skill movement, or to build strength. The first reason, drilling, is what you should do as event conditioning or general exercises during practice. On the other hand, if you are really wanting to build strength, you want to break down that muscle then allow it to build back up. So, these exercises should not be performed until after practice, paired with stretching and flexibility. In more scientific terms, what is really happening is that you create tiny microscopic tears in the muscles, and it takes an average of 48-72 hours for the muscles to recover and heal up. This is why you should not do back to back days of the same body part conditioning, because the muscles have not yet healed. Ultimately, you do not want to stress the muscles to fatigue and then try to do more, as this can result in injuries.

The two goals of conditioning are to build both the aerobic and anaerobic muscle systems. Aerobic uses oxygen for energy, while anaerobic solely relies on the built up stores within the muscles. For this reason, the aerobic system is for more than two minutes of activity, while anaerobic handles under two minutes. It is vital that both of these systems are strong in order to have great overall endurance. You can use the anaerobic system during routines, and then recover between events with the aerobic system. When looking at types of conditioning that work both of these systems, anaerobic would be your assignments of single sets of exercises, while aerobic is more like circuit training, where you are constantly moving. A common example of this is running, or another low impact exercise that I like to use on light days is bouncing on the trampoline.

Speaking of light days, a helpful strategy in strengthening is periodization. This is commonly seen on a four week cycle, where you build for three weeks and recover on the last one. After multiple cycles, the exercises can be changed around and you start again. This strategy is commonly seen in runners training for marathons, but not as commonly seen in the gymnastics world (yet).

Something that is often of concern in conditioning is form, and a specific exercise that I often get questions about is squat form. Squat form is vital in gymnastics because of all of the hard landings. In order to prevent injuries, it is vital that your gymnast’s knees are straight over their toes, not caving in at all. The most vulnerable position for your ACL is when your knees are turned/caved in, so good form can save you from massive injuries. Not only is it important to have good form on double-legged squats, it is also important that your gymnast can perform pistol squats without letting their knees cave in. This will come in handy especially on beam landings, from leaps, back walkovers, and all sorts of skills that are even seen performed at the highest levels. Overall, squat form is extremely important in conditioning, because if the exercise is not performed correctly, it can transfer to landings and leave your athlete vulnerable to injuries.

Lastly, it is important to balance out the amount of front and rear chain exercises that you are performing. This can be thought of as just the corresponding front and back muscle groups on the body such as pecs and upper back as well as quads and hamstrings. An approximate 1:1 ratio is important to maintain, because when one muscle group gets below ~85% strength in relation to the other, this will leave your athlete susceptible to injuries from an imbalance.

I hope these tips help you to improve your conditioning routines and look out for injury causes. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and email me at [email protected] and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Make sure to stay tuned for our next post!