Hi Thanks for coming in:

Here is the deal: I am 22 male, weighing 160 pound, 5'9. All of a sudden, I wanted to learn some tumbling tricks about one month ago. So I went to this local gym to take a look. It turned out they didn't offer any adult lessons for tumbling, and all I saw was 8 or 9 years old kids running around doing stuff. So I had a private lesson from a gymnastics coach there. However, for the whole class he didn't really teach me any tricks or whatsoever other than ask me doing some basic drills... The reason he said was (1): I wasn't strong enough yet. ( so could you people tell me how strong am I supposed to be to learn those tucks. round-off series. handsrping?? do I have to be able to walk around upside down first to learn any of those??)

And reason two( more scary one): he said he's too used to spotting kids and wasn't sure he could spot me properly or not....(scary)... So I have a question: Does this mean that he is not good enough or just mean I might need to hire another spotter since I am an adult male. Or In normal gym/tumbling adult classes, which I never saw before, do they have special gears to train?? like a trampling with string or things like that? seems like my local gym is very primitive and don't have those things. They only have lots of mats and spring floor/tumbling floor)... So how do adults learn to tumble safely in other parts of the world? (here is from China)

Lots of thanks in advance!!

panda

Yes, you need a lot of strength to perform those skills. I do those skills in Gymnastics and we train 14 hours a week and at least half of it is strength training. You need to work a lot of upper body with skills like rope climb, push ups, handstands, dips, chin ups, pull ups, handstand walking and so on to do back handsprings because you need to have the strength to catch your body weight on your arms every time.

A lot of leg strength work like squat jumps, straddle jumps, tuck jumps, squats, 1 leg squats, and so on to be able to do tucks.

You also need to learn gymnastic technique and shapes and develop some flexibility to do those skills. It takes time and patience.

I would try another gym though. Plenty of gyms have adults programs where you can learn these skills and adults who are experienced spotting other adults.

Basically you need to be able to hold up on your own body weight. You need to be very strong pound for pound your your arms aren't going to be able to support you. So yes doing drills and stuff are important. I have an 18 year old boy on my all star cheerleading team who just started this year who's bigger then you and he was able to learn how to do a backhandspring and a roundoff backhandspring in just about 6 monthes never having cheered or tumbled at all before, and our coach is a woman who is probably a lot smaller then your gymnastics instructer. As logn as you listen to what the coach tells you to do, know the proper body pisitions you should be in and have the strength to do it, he should be able to spot you even if you are twice as big as the other gymnasts. My teamamte was in the same situation, with a program of 6 competitive teams he is the biggest cheerleader in the program. If you feel uncomfortable with this coach you should look somewhere else. Your probab;y not going to find adult gymnastics classes the way you can find adult dance classes be cause it is so demanding on the body and as you get older you arne't as felxible. If you deicde you want to continue you have to realzie you arne't going to get instant glory. Gymnasts practice hours each week (when I was in level 5, 6 in which you do handsprings and tucks I trained 12 hours a week, including other events). If your not afraid you may be able to just throw your body into it, I've seen many people do that especially guys but that can be dangerous and you will gain bad habbits and will probably never do the skill technically correct. I hope I helped some.

Spotting a tiny child is very different from spotting a grown man. With a child, the coach can compensate for all kinds of errors by the gymnast, simply by virtue of being so much larger. For example, I can power a small girl who is completely limp through a pullover on bars, but I never could with an adult.

The way I see it, spotting is just a safeguard. The coach is not there to lead you through the trick, but to help you out if you get into trouble.

Basically, you have to start at the very beginning with tumbling. Don't think right away of the flashy handsprings and somersaults. Train a good handstand, cartwheel, forward and backward rolls. Do strength and flexibility training. The skills will come as you learn the basics.

Thanks to all three of you guys above! I really appreciate your help!

The problem here is that I can only find this gym near my city, so I guess I am stuck with it unless I go to another city which is 2 hours from here and I am not sure there is an adult program either...

And to Moonlitefairy06: was that boy super strong when he started out or anything? Or he belonged to that kind of die-hard hardcore people who were just not afraid of hurting themselves? Or he was ensured safety by some special facilities? And your famle coach spotted this boy by herself?? that sounds amazing.

To Jennifer71: Thanks first for helping me out twice (another one is in the walkover and limber post). And do you guys think getting two spotters to spot me at the same time would help?

And also, are there any sorta of benchmarks for strength and flexibility that one needs for tumbling skills? I can do about 7 to 10 handstand push ups against a wall now and probably several sets of those. But I can't really walk around with my handstand yet cos I can't really find the balance. Other than those, push-ups is not hard at all. And I used to skate and run a lot, so I " think " my legs are ok... My flexility: almost a front-back splits, my back flexibility isn't good cos I can't reach a bridge from a standing position. so any advice?

Thanks for your time,

Try these links for conditioning exercises. I can't tell you how many you need to be able to do, it is so different for everyone.

www.drillsandskills.com . . .

www.coachesinfo.com . . .

If you research adult gymnastics, you will find that most of the classes focus on a lot of strength training and exercises.

adultgymnastics.com

Hope this helps you!

*Edit* I just noticed that link is down right now, which really stinks because its a great site!

This one might give you some info on the sport.

www.chelseapiers.com . . .