Learn Gymnastics with Andrew Stemler  and Crossfit London

If you are 5 to 15, and the right shape, the gymnastics world will bend over backwards (or get you to bend over backwards) to help you in your chosen sport. If you are an adult, looking to add some fancy moves to your training, its all but impossible to get someone to train you.

this is the page that will get your adult  gymnastics training off to a flying start

 

Sundays at Bethnal Green

 Get yourself to the Adult beginners gymnastic classes on Sunday in Bethnal Green, where the fantastic Amelia, will get you handstanding and cartwheeling.

We have a whole range of price options from single one off sessions to carnets of tickets that you can use within 6 months.

The venue is 45 seconds from Bethnal Green tube station.

These sessions are purely for  teaching adults gymnastics . It is s the only activity on at that time, so no distractions. Its not for teenagers, so there are no break dancers funking out in the corner, so you can actually hear the instructor and their coaching points, and, we actually teach and coach you the moves, in a progressive, logical manner.

The focus in theses sessions are floor based work so, handstands, bridges, roles, cartwheels, round-offs,  back flips  are the skills you will expect to learn, along with the strength and flexibility needed for these skills.

 Here is the formal Crossfit London "advert" for these sessions

Wouldn't you love to have a bigger arsenal of cool gymnastic moves? Who wouldn't want to have fantastic bridge, or do a back walk-over, or begin to master a backflip and have a rock solid handstand?

These are the things we commit to teaching you as part of our Sunday gymnastics programme, which is for adult beginners/intermediates who wish to be taught in a class format.

Book yourself into a gymnastics class to get the very best in adult gymnastic coaching in London.

We offer highly taught and structured sessions for adult clients, and are careful to tailor progressions to your needs and abilities.

Finding coaches with an interest in really helping adults learn skills are rare, so we are delighted  that cheerleading coach, Amelia Chavez Murguia has joined us to help make the Blackboard Gym a real centre of excellence.

This is the proper stuff: real handstands with grace and beauty, real forward rolls and cartwheels that will lead to round-offs because they are being taught well. For more advanced students, there will be work on bridges, back flips and more!

These are stand-alone classes, so you do not need to be a Crossfitter or go through our Crossfit Beginners classes in order to participate.

We run three different sessions on Sunday, aligned to meet all levels of experience:

• Adult Gymnastics Beginners: Adult gymnastics sessions targeted at those with no prior gymnastics experience. Focused on developing the basic flexibility and orientation necessary to practice handstands, cartwheels, forward and backward rolls.
• Adult Gymnastics Foundations: Adult gymnastics sessions targeted at those with some prior exposure to handstands, cartwheels, forward and backward rolls. These sessions build on these skills to refine and develop further gymnastic capability.
• Adult Gymnastic Intermediate: Adult gymnastics sessions for intermediate athletes and those already familiar our gymnastic syllabus. Note: The coaches will let you know when you are ready to attend these more advanced sessions. If you are unsure, please book in to the Gymnastic Beginners or Foundations sessions.

Click on the 'Getting Started' link to set up an account and schedule your first session!

But "how much I hear you ask?

We have a number of options depending on the frequency with which you would like to train with us.

Per session options

• Single session pass £13 (valid for one month)
• 5 session carnet £58 (valid for up to three months)
• 10 session carnet £100 (valid for up to six months)
• 20 session carnet £175 (valid for up to nine months)
• 50 session carnet £385 (valid for up to twelve months)

Monthly membership options

• Up to 3x sessions/week £95
• Up to 6x sessions/week £140 (this is compatible with the '3 on, 1 off' model of training)
• 
  
• Personal comment

 

Over the last four years I have spent a small fortune in training fees attempting to master gymnastic basics, and frankly, I've spent a lot of cash with very little payback.

Tonight I saw the coach I've been looking for.

Amelia really understands the movement, and has the ability to break skills down, and  lay the foundations for the next move. Every time we stood up from the handstand, we were beginning to build the specific strength for the round-off; in a way that I'd never had emphasised to me before.

There are lots of gymnastic coaches around, but all dream of coaching the next Olympic champion. Some will do adult classes, but their methods are based on teaching children - and highly flexible children at that. Few have the patience, or interest, to develop adult athletes. After all it's easy to spot a teeny seven year old. It's harder to spot a 16 stone rugby player.

So it's very exciting and a great opportunity to step into one of  the true foundations of Crossfit: gymnastics

Andrew Stemler

 

 RING WORK and gymnastic conditioning

The other  gymnastic stuff we teach are how to use the gymnastics rings and learn moves like, dips, pull ups, muscle ups  handstands and levers and Rope climbing. Do to the nature of the session, it is taught on  a 121 (personal training) basis by Andrew Stemler, Being brutal, £55 an hour ( but it can get it cheaper  with various deals). If you want to incorporate ring training into your  regime, drop  Andrew Stemler a line on andrew@crossfitlondonuk.com.

 

In the meantime, buy some rings

No one will take you seriously if you do not incorporate rings into your training. They are one of the better training tools around ( and have been for many years) 

We were delighted to discover that James Bond Star Daniel Craig has incorporated ring training into his training schedule and is close to mastering the Crucifix.

The rings were also used by the cast of  "300".

Rings are used By Crossfit trainers like Andrew Stemler to build fantastic upper body strength

 

BUY THEM DIRECT FROM THE US MANUFACTURER

The Elite Gymnastic Rings are portable and lightweight

if you want to get on with some practices while waiting for your 1st class, read on

 

 

Holding shapes

In the early stages, there is a large focus on conditioning, especially if you have little to no gymnastic experience. Gymnastics is all about holding shapes: we train these shapes on the floor before we expect you to whizz around with them in the air.

To start, learn to hold a dish shape.

Lie on your back, push your lower back into the floor, and try and extend your arms and legs for as long as you can hold your lower back down.
If your back arches, pull your legs back in.

 

To get an edge in gymnastics, you need to be thinking about the skills you should be learning. Visit  http://www.drillsandskills.com/  for some ideas.

In general, according to James Major, in Strength Training Fundamentals In Gymnastics Conditioning (available www.usa-gymnastics.org) there are four basic principles that help coaches evaluate strength training

1) Consistent, special strength training is necessary for  maximum performance in gymnastics

2) Maximum strength for minimum size

3) Rest and recuperation are important

4) Strength training must be integrated with skill training in gymnastics

 

Are you a fitness instructor looking to add gymnastics to your fitness skills: check out our

CROSSFIT LONDON(reps accredited)

"Basic gymnastics for fitness masterclass"  (3 cpd points: but open to all fitness enthusiasts)

Handstands, levers, inversion, head stands,muscle ups..... a 3 hour session packed full of goodness .

The 1st ever "gymnastics for fitness"masterclass  will be on March 24th 2012 

get your ticket here  or visit the main crossfit london site at www.crossfitlondonuk.com

Drop Andrew Stemler  an email on  andrew@crossfitlondonuk.com

 

GYMNASTICS FOR THE ADULT BEGINNER 

For me, gymnastics represents the best and worst of all fitness activities.

The benefits are almost endless: it's cool, it's great for real flexibility, it makes you strong, sleek, sexy. Did I mention it's cool?

The problem is that we have already skipped ahead too far. So, what does gymnastics at Crossfit London actually means for you as an adult beginner?

This article assumes you are an adult, a beginner, with no prior gymnastic experience. If you were back flipping as a child, the chances are that you can pop along to an open adult gymnastic session (try the East London Gymnastic centre), and in a room packed full of "adults", if you can find the space, attempt to practise your flip and back somersault.

I'm going to argue, that if you weren't tumbling as a child, and you are getting on in years ( anything from 23 years onward) the chances are that unless you have a clear definition of what you want to achieve you will fail, be disappointed and risk hurting yourself.

I have mentioned the concept of youth several times, and that's not me being arsey because I'm so old (ok, it's partly being arsey because I'm so old), it's just that at a young age you don't have the fear factor, and you can be easily spotted i.e. an adult can safely guide teeny kids through the motions. Believe me its not too easy to spot a 14 stone rugby player through a back flip (without injury to either party).

It is my opinion, having spent five years as an (erratic) trainee adult (45 to 50 years old) gymnast with a variety of personal coaches and open lessons, you (adult beginner) should limit your aspirations to those moves you can with the right amount of strength easily control. Predominantly I'm talking about basic strength gymnastics on the floor, on rings, or on the bar, and handstands.

This we teach at Crossfit London.

We teach you how to handstand (and the forward roll to get out of it), planches, muscle-ups, the crucifix (but mainly just progressions leading up to it), L-sit , rope climb, and a whole host of supporting drills and progressions. The latter mainly because the transfer to "real stuff" is fabulous. And by "real stuff", I mean your handstand improves your press, the muscle-up means you can get up and over stuff, the planches mean your shoulders are really strong. Did I mention that it's all really cool?

I would say that for most people the flips, tumbles, etc. are too fast to learn in a decent time frame, and are not safely practised outside a matted area and/or tumble track. As such they are excluded from our general class  gymnastic syllabus. ( you get these skills on our dedicated sunday gymnastic classes with Amelia)

Time after time I've seen adults at Capoeria and Parkour lessons beat themselves up because they can get nowhere near a move that the guy who has just joined got straight away. What they didn't realise was that the new trainee happened to have10 years of youthful gymnastic experience!

So what about Crossfit London's meagre (class) agenda? Why would you bother?

Well, the skills are fairly safe and once learned can be practised almost anywhere, although you need to buy a set of rings for £50 so you can practise at home.

They develop your balance, co-ordination and agility in a realistic time scale. Child gymnasts can easily knock up 15 hours of practise a week. If you are training thee to four hours a week and have the normal adult targets (health, weight loss, looking sexy, etc.) there is no point in committing yourself to a skill that requires time you haven't got.

The handstand, for example, can be practised anywhere.

The back flip (which we teach in the gynastic sessions on sunday, not during the week))? Well, you need a soft surface, a tumble track, and a crash mat.

Part of the magic in some of the moves we have chosen revolves around inversion. You will develop a whole range of spatial comprehension (just the other way up), and the fact that your centre of mass bounces round your body means your core is well and truly getting activated.

In the handstand I cannot think of a single muscle (that I'm bothered about) that isn't involved!

The handstand is also your personal fear factor. For many the actual thought of all your weight resting on tiny hands that up till this minute have been used as a back drop for diamonds or a pint of lager can be terrifying. Thankfully we have all the tips and hints to help you over come your inner demons and build your strength, flexibility, balance, and bravery(stupidity?)

We want the muscle-up because it expresses your strength (or the strength it will train you to own), but also because the skill can be broken down and trained (pull up, dip, transition) with each of the breakdowns being valid strength and conditioning activity in its own right.

These skills also make you strong, coordinated and agile. Not at all bad, really.

Our reality is that we are not trapping you into a narrow skill set. Our classes cover a wide variety of varying skills (weightlifting, powerlifting, rowing, running, sprinting, box jumping, etc., etc.) so we don't let you make a claustrophobic training box for you to obsess about two or three skills. Our gymnastic training is scattered through our  Crossfit classes in 5 and 10 minute chunks, in between other stuff.

You need to remember that we are the underpinning strength and conditioning regime that should be at the heart of everyone's fitness regime. Crossfit London supports your sport, be it martial arts, football, running or gymnastics (that's why our membership options are so flexible). It's your coaches' job to set you the fussy drills you need to succeed at the specifics of your sport. It our job to deliver to your coach, partner, employer, or commander a fit human being. The moves we have chosen, do this beyond doubt.

Its amazing to think that we are one of the few centres for beginner adult gymnastics in London