How Can You Become A Gymnast?

By Adele-mcmasters on 22nd July

Gymnasts are sportsmen and women with the capability of pushing their bodies to advanced limits that usually untrained individuals cannot. Their level of agility and flexibility is nothing short of astounding. The leaps, tumbles and flips that they do are not easy even though they make it seem like a bit of a cake walk. This is probably one of the reasons as to why gymnastics is one of the most popular games at the Olympics. However, what one might not know if the level of dedication and practice that goes into mastering that one flip technique. The countless falls and bruises and the energy that is poured into it. It also takes up a lot of emotional strength for you to excel as a gymnast. However, if you stillwant to become one, here is a brief guideline for some of the basic things that you can do.

Improve Your Flexibility

Flexibility

Flexibility is one of the most important qualities of a gymnast and it is one thing that you absolutely cannot lack. Start doing stretches and other exercises that will help you make your body more in balance and nimble. This will help you to preform your gymnastic moves with elegance and grace without looking like you are trying really hard. You need to adhere to doing all of these exercises religiously on a daily basis if you are to make sure that you see the results. Do neck rotations, shoulder stretches, chest stretches, seal stretches for your back, hamstring stretches. Practice splits until you can slide all the way down without any problem and also start doing chin to knee presses. Practice doing hip bridges so that you can improve the stability of your core.

Start Eating Right

Eating Right

Your diet will play a major role in our career as a gymnast. All gymnasts, as can be seen clearly, are lean and well-toned. Their bodies need to be quick and light and there cannot be any excess weight lugging them down. Even if you work out on a daily basis, if you keep consuming unhealthy products such as refined sugar and fast foods, your body will not be able to produce the best possible results. You need to focus on healthy and balanced diets with a lot of attention given to healthy proteins for muscle strengthening.

Exercising

Exercising

This needs to happen on a daily basis too. For the most part, the exercises that a gymnast would have to do is somewhat different from just walking into a gym and doing a few presses. Therefore get the correct direct and invest yourself completely into the process.

Mistakes to Avoid Before a Swimming Competition

By Adele-mcmasters on 28th April

If you are a swimmer and you are about to take part in a competition, you would do well to make certain changes to your diet and sleeping patterns and the likes if you are to perform at your best during the competition. However, there are also cases where some of these changes that are made can result in poor performance and affect the ultimate outcome of the game. Here are some of the changes that you need to be careful about.

Changing Your Diet

Diet

If your body has been used to a certain pattern of diet, making massive changes to it just before a championship is never a good idea. If you feel like your normal diet is good enough for practicing but not for a championship, you need to revaluate what you are putting in your body. If this is the case, the best course of action would be to make changes to your regular diet so that you can increase your scores during a championship. Any of the changes that are made around your diet need to be implemented at the beginning of the season and not at the end. Making abrupt changes before the championship will affect you negatively.

Wearing New Swimwear

Swimwear

Swimwear is not something that lasts forever. That said, new swimwear can be uncomfortable until your body gets used to it. Therefore, going into a championship with new swimwear is a bad decision as it may restrict your moves ad make you slower. Once more, pick new swimwear with ample time for the championship and let your body get used to it. Replace your cap and goggles at about the same time that you make changes to your swim costume as well.

Not Enough or Too Much Warming Up

Warming Up

You need to ensure that you warm up really well before the championship. You will not be wasting time by staying in your warming up zone for an additional few minutes, make sure to do a few sprint laps as well. Three or four is usually more than enough. Remember that if you want to get the best speed and results, your body needs to be warmed up sufficiently. However, also be careful enough to not overdo the warming up as well. You will wear out all of your energy if this happens and will poorly perform during the actual competition. The warming up exercises should be done before the championship and your coach will guide you on the right techniques for this. These are some very simple mistakes that you can easily avoid during a swimming competition.