Precision Performance For Gymnasts

Guidelines for Resistance Training In Youth Gymnasts‼️

Recommendation number 3:

➡️ Start each training session with a 5-10 minute dynamic warm-up

The NSCA, the gold standard for strength & conditioning, made a set of guidelines for training youth athletes in the early 2000’s that is 🔥

My blog post is about how gymnastics clubs can apply this to youth gymnasts

14 total recommendations, stay tuned for daily posts over the next few weeks 👍🏻

If you want a sneak peek on the full list, check out my blog post on my website. Follow my linktree in my profile!

Guidelines for Resistance Training In Youth Gymnasts‼️

Recommendation number 2:

➡️ Ensure the exercise environment is safe & free of hazards

The NSCA, the gold standard for strength & conditioning, made a set of guidelines for training youth athletes in the early 2000’s that is 🔥

My blog post is about how gymnastics clubs can apply this to youth gymnasts

14 total recommendations, stay tuned for daily posts over the next few weeks 👍🏻

If you want a sneak peek on the full list, check out my blog post on my website. Follow my linktree in my profile!


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Guidelines for Resistance Training In Youth Gymnasts‼️

The NSCA, the gold standard for strength & conditioning, made a set of guidelines for training youth athletes in the early 2000’s that is 🔥

My blog post is about how gymnastics clubs can apply this to youth gymnasts

14 total recommendations, stay tuned for daily posts over the next few weeks 👍🏻

If you want a sneak peek on the full list, check out my blog post on my website. Follow my linktree in my profile!


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REPOST‼️
Check out Shift Movement Science Podcast for a sneak peek on my talk at the 2023 Shift Symposium
June 23-25th
IT’S VIRTUAL 👩‍💻

In the podcast I dig a little deeper into general factors (workload, gym culture, workout structure) that contribute to overuse knee injuries.

For the symposium, I delve deeper into the research on management of each overuse knee injury and discuss how medical providers can create a strong treatment plan from day 1 to return to sport.

👉🏻check out for more info on the podcast and to sign up for the symposium

👉🏻Shift Movement Science podcast is one of my favorites to listen to on long car rides: fun chats with all sorts of people in the gymnastics world

👉🏻Shift a symposium is the BEST 3 day course for gymnastics coaches, medical providers, and strength & conditioning coaches
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REPOST‼️
Check out Shift Movement Science Podcast for a sneak peek on my talk at the 2023 Shift Symposium
June 23-25th
IT’S VIRTUAL 👩‍💻

In the podcast I dig a little deeper into general factors (workload, gym culture, workout structure) that contribute to overuse knee injuries.

For the symposium, I delve deeper into the research on management of each overuse knee injury and discuss how medical providers can create a strong treatment plan from day 1 to return to sport.

👉🏻check out for more info on the podcast and to sign up for the symposium

👉🏻Shift Movement Science podcast is one of my favorites to listen to on long car rides: fun chats with all sorts of people in the gymnastics world

👉🏻Shift a symposium is the BEST 3 day course for gymnastics coaches, medical providers, and strength & conditioning coaches
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REPOST‼️
Check out Shift Movement Science Podcast for a sneak peek on my talk at the 2023 Shift Symposium
June 23-25th
IT’S VIRTUAL 👩‍💻

In the podcast I dig a little deeper into general factors (workload, gym culture, workout structure) that contribute to overuse knee injuries.

For the symposium, I delve deeper into the research on management of each overuse knee injury and discuss how medical providers can create a strong treatment plan from day 1 to return to sport.

👉🏻check out for more info on the podcast and to sign up for the symposium

👉🏻Shift Movement Science podcast is one of my favorites to listen to on long car rides: fun chats with all sorts of people in the gymnastics world

👉🏻Shift a symposium is the BEST 3 day course for gymnastics coaches, medical providers, and strength & conditioning coaches

REPOST‼️
2023 Shift Symposium
June 23-25th

👉🏻check out for more info and to sign up!

👉🏻the BEST 3 day course for gymnastics coaches, medical providers, and strength & conditioning coaches

👉🏻guess what!? It’s all VIRTUAL 👩‍💻

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Want some easy ways to add injury prevention exercises into practice ⁉️

I know coaches out there want to do what’s best for their gymnasts, but researching all the information, putting it all together, and executing it can be overwhelming 🙈

Let me help you!‼️

👉🏻Go to my profile

👉🏻Follow my linktree to my website to get my 2023 GymnastCare program.

I love going to gymnastics clubs and hosting “GymnastCare” seminars. I talk about how a gymnast can take care of their body to help perform at their best. I give coaches access to this program and during the seminar we practice the exercises together.

It’s all organized in a PDF that can be printed out and on the computer you can follow the links to YouTube to review how to do each exercise.

These exercises might not be flashy and exciting, but they are simple and effective.

This doesn’t replace a good strength & conditioning program, but it’s all about filling the gaps 💪🏼

With guidance, level 4’s can easily do the program and once higher level gymnasts understand the program they can fly through it on their own before each event during practice.

Let me know what you think!
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Goal of competing in college gymnastics ⁉️

Let’s go back to the early 2000’s real quick and learn from my story. As a level 5 I learned what college gymnastics was. An eye opener that instead of going elite and setting goals of the Olympics, which I knew I wasn’t, you could compete for a college.

The whole process was so foreign, but I knew making it to Level 10 and Nationals was needed🤷🏼‍♀️

Long story short, I had no clue what college gymnastics consisted of. Social media wasn’t really a thing, I didn’t have easy access to a computer at home, had a flip phone without internet, didn’t have cable to watch gymnastics on ESPN, I never saw a college gymnastics meet until my senior year of high school, and I never talked to a college gymnast about their experience until my official visit at Towson. Club practice was also very chill. Conditioning was mostly bodyweight exercises (leg lifts, hollow hold, dips, plyo jumps over blocks…).

So week 1 at college you could say was overwhelming 👀

College gymnastics had structured practices with assignments, training room for prehab & ice baths, weightlifting, cycling, swim, circuits during practice. Then there was class and required study hall.

So what’s the point of telling you all this?? I want you all to do better and make life easy

Coaches: if your gymnasts have aspirations of being a collegiate gymnast, you must set them up for success. College gymnasts have a comprehensive strength & conditioning program & if gymnasts learn the fundamental movements & start lifting weights (dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells) earlier it won’t be such a shock to the system during this big life change.

Gymnasts/Parents:
👉🏻use the HUGE amount of resources available to you today. College gymnastics consulting services can give you the best info

👉🏻Take care of aches & pains by seeing a physical therapist. Be proactive and go for a wellness visit in person or virtually. Hey I know one 👋

Tips for competition 🤸🏼‍♀️

We are getting closer to the end of competition season and it’s all in the little details ✨

We can’t forget one of the pillars of GymnastCare
MENTAL HEALTH 🧠

Gymnastics is as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge.

Learning how to quiet your mind before and during a competition doesn’t usually come naturally. You need to figure out works best for YOU.

Positive self talk can be super helpful ‼️

This not only includes using positive phrases like you got this, you’re going to do great, and have fun you’ve worked so hard for this.

Positive self talk can also be used DURING your gymnastics routines. This is called instructional self talk.

This one was a game changer for me as a gymnast who had terrible mental blocks.

At your next gymnastics practice try creating a verbal routine for before each event and for during your beam.

I like to mix instructional and motivational self talk into a beam routine.
Mid routine I like to tell myself, “you’re doing great” and for each pose throughout the routine I give a simple word like “look, look, squeeze” if I had 2 poses followed by jump where I’m reminding myself to squeeze my shoulder blades together to prevent my arms from being uneven out of the side.

These mental skills are applicable to life outside of gymnastics 😁

I’ve used positive self talk before big exams in school, managing nervousness when meeting a new group of people, and hiking some scary trails like angels landing in Zion National Park.
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Theodorakis, Y., Chroni, S., Laparidis, K., Bebetsos, V., & Douma, I. (2001). Self-talk in a basketball-shooting task. Perceptual and motor skills, 92(1), 309-315.

You want less injuries and more time on the gymnastics competition floor? 👀

Look at the research and figure out what factors contribute to injury🧠

Give your gymnasts a comprehensive strength & conditioning that works on each of these factors👍🏻

This article measured hip muscle strength (extensors, abductors) of 210 NCAA Division I male and female athletes and recorded if they had a previous injury to the low back or lower body in the past year.

➡️ In female athletes with lower body or low back injury, there were side to side differences in hip strength.

What does this tell us to do❓

1️⃣ Don’t just include double leg hip strengthening exercises, but also include single leg hip strengthening exercises.

2️⃣ Yearly testing with my Gymnastics Readiness Testing is a great way to identify side to side differences in strength, mobility, & movement after competition season or during pre-season.

Coaches, knowing how to make a strength & conditioning program can be difficult and make you think, am I missing something important??

Don’t worry!
I’m here to help 😁

➡️ Send me a DM or email in my profile and let’s chat.

As a physical therapist I have a deeper knowledge base on how to prevent injury that I can use to give you the HIGHEST quality strength & conditioning services 🏋️‍♀️

I offer…

1️⃣ Virtual strength & conditioning programming

2️⃣ Virtual consultation on creating a strength & conditioning program

3️⃣ Virtual review of your strength & conditioning program

4️⃣ In-person Gymnastics Readiness Testing: serving the Olympia, Tacoma, & Seattle area until August 2023.

Nadler, S. F., Malanga, G. A., DePrince, M., Stitik, T. P., & Feinberg, J. H. (2000). The relationship between lower extremity injury, low back pain, and hip muscle strength in male and female collegiate athletes. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 10(2), 89-97.

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&conditioning

Who doesn’t love a blog, am I right 🤩

Check out my first post based off an article by the National Strength & Conditioning Association on guidelines for resistance training in youth athletes. Follow my linktree to check out my website!

Everything is straight to the point, takes no more than 5 minutes to read, and is made for gymnasts, parents, & coaches.
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&conditioning

All types of recovery matter💪🏼🧠🧘‍♀️

1️⃣ Physical

✔️Do some gentle movement
✔️Eat good food & drink water
❌Don’t jump right back into practice & give it 150%

2️⃣ Mental

✔️Reflect on your competition
❌Don’t dwell on the things you did wrong, falls, or wobbles

3️⃣ Emotional

✔️Do something you enjoy
❌Don’t get stuck in your own head worried about how hard practice is going to be this week that you miss out on fun parts of the weekend like hanging out with friends, reading your favorite book, or catching a new episode of a TV show.
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What is your morning routine on meet day 🥇

There isn’t a one size fits all approach, but following a framework can help ⬇️⬇️⬇️

➡️ Fuel your body in the morning

➡️ Prepare your fuel for before, during, & after the meet

➡️ Introduce gentle movement to increase range of motion & get in tune with your body

➡️ Prepare your mind: visualize your routines & get in your happy place (music, cozy car blanket, dance, pre-meet handshake or rituals with your family or teammates)

⭐️Just because someone’s routine works from them doesn’t mean it has to work for you

Now go rock your competition!

If this helped, please throw me a like & share for others to read 👍🏻

Callow, N., Hardy, L., & Hall, C. (2001). The effects of a motivational general-mastery imagery intervention on the sport confidence of high-level badminton players. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 72, 389-400.
Hale, B. D., & Whitehouse, A. (1998). The effects of imagery-manipulated appraisal on intensity and direction of competitive anxiety. The Sport Psychologist, 12, 40-51.
Feltz, D. L., & Riessinger, C. A. (1990). Effects of in vivo emotive imagery and performance
feedback on self-efficacy and muscular endurance. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 12, 132-143.


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Are you tracking numbers during season❓

If you don’t know how much you’re doing during practice, how are you supposed to manage your workload to decrease the risk of injury🤷🏼‍♀️?

Gymnasts get overuse injuries because they challenge their body to do more than it can handle ‼️

Tracking numbers doesn’t have to be complicated 😁

Let’s look at this example and use beam routines⬇️

You have a meet in a month.

You just had a meet and you’re walking through the door excited to work on things, but let’s not do too many numbers. You’re body is recovering from meet week

➡️Week 1: 3 beam workouts/week, 2 beam routines per day= 6 routines total

Let’s increase the numbers

➡️Week 2: 4 beam workouts/week, 3-4 beam routines per day= 15 routines total

Let’s add some more numbers

➡️Week 3: 5 beam workouts/week, 4 beam routines per day= 20 routines total

It’s meet week! Let’s dial things down.

➡️Week 4: 3 beam workouts/week, 1-2 beam routines per day= 5 routines total

✨Every gymnastics club has a different meet schedule, practices per week, and schedule of events per week. I’m not telling you that these numbers are exactly what you should do.This just provides a framework to make a plan that works for you! ✨

Each week numbers are building until meet week where numbers are low to decrease stress on the body and really perform numbers that count.

Hope that helps! If you liked this post, please share‼️

Competition this weekend 🏆
Write down how you did📝

I’m a huge “list person”. I love making to-do lists and checking things off as I do them✅

A list of goals made during the off-season can be really helpful for gymnasts!
During season, gymnasts can look back on their goals and ask, how did I do?

We all have a tendency to look at a competition and say, I could have done this better, I can’t believe I fell on that, how did I wobble on that??

Writing down your performance after a competition isn’t about beating yourself up. It should also be a time where you let yourself know how WELL YOU DID!

Gymnasts should write down 3 things:
1. What I did well
2. What I can do better
3. How I will achieve this

These are skills for life‼️
I think about these 3 things when I finish a really hard Crossfit workout or travel to a gymnastics club and host a seminar. Reflecting on your performance is how we can stay motivated and keep getting better 💪🏼

‼️The BEST hip flexor stretch ‼️

I know at least half of you guys are stretching your hip flexors (muscles on the front of your thigh) wrong. I was for 100% of my gymnastics career 🫣

It’s not often I call an exercise the BEST, but I’ll say that about this one over and over again.

Gymnastics requires the hip flexors to work really hard, which causes a lot of stiffness. Every gymnast wants to be as flexible as they are strong, which means extra time during practice on mobility exercises.

Try a mobility circuit with this stretch!
1️⃣foam roll hip flexors 30 seconds
2️⃣THIS HIP FLEXOR STRETCH 30 sec-1 min
3️⃣dynamic mobility exercise: single leg glute bridge 10 times
4️⃣ eccentric exercise: split squat 10 times SLOW

Check out the form tips for the hip flexor stretch in the post ⬆️

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‼️Calling all gymnasts trying to reach their competition season goals ‼️

Don’t forget the basics of proper GymnastCare 💪🏼

1️⃣Strength: add isolated strengthening for your shoulders, hips, core, ankles, & wrists

2️⃣Mobility: add mobility circuits into your daily routine (foam rolling, static stretching, dynamic stretching, & eccentric exercises)

3️⃣Nutrition: fuel your body every 4 hours throughout the day, eat snacks (carbohydrate) during practice, & drink 1oz of water per pound of your bodyweight (100lb gymnast=100oz= >5 swell water bottles per day).

4️⃣Sleep: minimum of 8 hours per night, get high quality sleep by limiting phones/tv/computer at least 30min before bed

5️⃣Mental Health: recovery activities such as deep breathing and journaling

‼️Hey coaches‼️
Schedule an in-season injury prevention seminar at your gymnastics club to help your gymnasts better understand how to care for their bodies!
I created this seminar because as a former USAG & Division I gymnast I wish I had these friendly reminders DURING season.
Message for details!
Massachusetts coaches: I’ll be in the area February 2023!
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It’s GYMNASTICS SEASON and these upcoming months are what you train all year for!

Are you getting enough sleep?
Eating to fuel your workouts?
Recovering properly after practice?
Doing your mobility & strengthening exercises in your self-care program?
Practicing pre-meet relaxation techniques?

Let me teach you how to BEST take care of your body during season!

Coaches, schedule a 1 hour In-Season Injury Prevention Seminar at your gymnastics facility!

You may be thinking that you need every single minute of practice dedicated to training for competition season and seminars are better spent during the off-season, but let me tell you education DURING season is extremely valuable! Gymnastics season can be stressful and gymnasts have a tendency to push through pain, burn the candle at both ends with little sleep and poor nutrition, and neglect the extra stretches/exercises before practice. A fun and engaging seminar can motivate a gymnast to stay true to the self-care routine that is going to keep them healthy and help perform at their best for states, regionals, and nationals. Who better to talk to the gymnasts than a former USAG Level 10 gymnast and NCAA Division I gymnast???

The course will includes a review of self-care for gymnasts during season, understanding pain vs. soreness, practice of the most important gymnastics mobility and prehab exercises, a recovery activity (deep breathing & imagery), a fun game, and Q&A.

Contact me for details!
Email: [email protected]
Instagram:
Facebook: send me a DM!

For those who don’t know me…

My name is Janis and I’m the owner of Precision Performance For Gymnasts!
I’m a Physical Therapist and Strength & Conditioning Coach. I travel around the US working full-time as a traveling physical therapist. I am passionate about treating patients with a variety of orthopedic conditions. In my free time, I especially love traveling to gymnastics facilities for educational seminars. In February 2023, I will traveling back to my home state of Massachusetts and plan to host multiple seminars throughout the state to help gymnasts stay healthy for the remainder of the gymnastics season.

Will Kinesiotape help ⁉️

Maybe you believe it does, maybe you don’t 🤷🏼‍♀️

Let’s dig down deep into how tape works 🧐

Research shows that kinesiotape is associated with decreased pain and improved function 👍🏻

But so does exercise🏃‍♀️

So why should we put magic tape on ourselves like a big band-aid🩹

It doesn’t hurt, but it’s important that we all understand our best guess of how it works. Especially if people out there think that the only way you can move better with less pain is by putting tape on.

The pain relief from taping is explained by the “gate control theory”. Pain is communicated to the brain and by giving your brain another stimulus, the pain signal gets dulled.

Your outlook on the impact it has on you is also important. The more that you believe it will help, the more benefit you will feel.

The risk is low with taping (unless you’re allergic to latex). Just don’t let tape be a band aid for the true problem.

If you’re a gymnast in pain, get an evaluation by a gymnastics specific provider to determine the CAUSE of your pain. Work on your weakness with a good rehab program ‼️
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Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s hypermobility 🤸🏼‍♀️
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Determining when a gymnast can return to practice after injury should be decided by a group of medical professionals.

Physician/nurse practitioner/PA’s work closely with physical therapists to help get gymnasts back to practice after injury.

Unfortunately, every injury doesn’t have a specific healing time that tells medical professionals exactly when a gymnast will be back to pre-injury level of gymnastics.

It’s important to know that using only TIME (“my doctor says my bone will be healed in 6-8 weeks”) is not the best way for a gymnast to recover from injury.

Medical professionals take into consideration…
➡️Time from injury, time spent in each stage of return to sport, specific gymnast factors (age, skill level, strength, flexibility), movement.

Gymnastics coaches talk to your physical therapist about what a gymnast’s return to full gymnastics performance looks like 👍🏻 A gymnastics specific physical therapist can give specific guidelines based on all the factors to help gymnasts get back to sport.

Quote:
Wilk, K. E., Bagwell, M. S., Davies, G. J., & Arrigo, C. A. (2020). Return to sport participation criteria following shoulder injury: A clinical commentary. International journal of sports physical therapy, 15(4), 624.
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How do I perfect a gymnastics skill?

Test 3 things…

1️⃣ strength

2️⃣flexibility

3️⃣skill

To figure out what components you need to work on to master the skill.

Let’s give an example: Learning a giant

1️⃣do you have the strength in your upper body and core to perform a cast handstand?

2️⃣do you have the shoulder/upper back flexibility to reach all the way overhead so you can have open shoulders in a handstand? do you have the hip flexor flexibility to open your hips in a handstand?

3️⃣have you mastered the basics of a giant including a handstand, cast handstand, long hang pullover, tap swings, giants on strap bar/with a spot?
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What is 360 degree core training???

⭐️It’s definitely not leg lifts, hollow rocks, and sit ups for dayz.

⭐️Your core muscles are more than your six pack muscles. They wrap around your entire torso and create stiffness in your center of gravity, so it takes less energy for your arms and legs to move around.

⭐️Think about your spine as a piece of spaghetti... don’t lose me here, I’ll get to my point quick👌🏼

⭐️Is it easier to do a handstand with a spaghetti spine that is cooked or uncooked?

⭐️ Definitely uncooked, right??? Because it’s more stiff.

⭐️It’s important to develop core stiffness to be able to handle gravity throwing you in all different directions while your flipping through the air or swinging giants on bars.

⭐️It helps to think of having 4 categories for core:

1️⃣ Anterior core (belly)

2️⃣Posterior core (back)

3️⃣ Lateral core (side body)

4️⃣ Global core (everything together)

⭐️Then when it comes to creating a core program, I like to put each exercise under a category to make sure I’m training everything equally. Check the list out on the 2nd pic👍🏻

⭐️If this helped, let me know with a comment or a like 😊 Share it with a friend you wants to learn more about their core.

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