You Can Sweat Like Olympic Champ Simone Biles With This 30-Minute Bodyweight Routine
Tune into your inner Olympic gymnast with this gymnastics-inspired workout created by Danielle Gray that you can access on demand on IGTV.
The moves focus on the flexibility and strength gymnasts need to achieve their goals.
Any experience level can follow this 30-minute bodyweight workout and get excited about the upcoming Tokyo Olympic games.
With the Summer Olympics quickly coming up, athletes who scored a coveted Team USA spot are turning up their training to peak for Tokyo. Olympics-bound gymnastics champ Simone Biles is back in the gym, showing her followers a peek into the training facilities in a cute lil boomerang with the caption, “back to work, grind doesn’t stop.”
The rest of the fans watching from home can prep to cheer on all your faves just like an athlete. Women's Health has the perfect workout challenge for you. Danielle Gray, founder of Train Like A Gymnast, created a 30-minute gymnastics-inspired sweat sesh with some of the strength and conditioning drills gymnasts use to stay powerful. These plyometric and calisthenics movements are sure to help you start connecting with your inner Simone.
The workout consists of burpees, kneeling tuck lifts, v-ups, plank push ups, and lunge push-throughs. Even though it's a pro-inspired routine, any experience level can follow along and modify. To lower intensity, take out any jumping or swap double arm/leg for a single arm/leg variation.
These are the moves gymnasts use to stay strong, flexible, and prepare for any floor routine, vault, or balance beam. "These are pulled straight from gymnastics training. Basics and body shaping are important for a solid foundation to be able to progress to the advanced skills you see on TV at the Olympics." Gray told Women's Health. "And trust me, elite gymnasts still do basics often."
Bodyweight gymnastics workout:
Gray starts with a warm-up that includes back lunges into a march. And for a bit of a gymnastics flare, you can point your toes. Then, she shifts to the upper body with pushups before the real work begins.
10 Candlestick Burpees - In honor of WH’s Burpee Challenge that she helped to develop, Gray added burpees to this workout. Burpees are also great for reflexes, functional strength, mobility, range of motion and core control.For an added challenge, keep those hands up.
5 Kneeling Tuck Lifts - These are great if you’re working on your handstands or if you want to build more strength in your wrists. Even if your feet don’t make it off the ground, you’ll still feel it in your arms, Gray says.
5 Single Leg V-Ups with 10-sec Hollow Hold - Gray calls these a staple in gymnastics and everyday practice.”Strengthening and training the core directly is a major part of a gymnast’s conditioning,” she says. “The pike and hollow body shapes are constantly used in gymnastics and mastery of each can make skills easier in the future.”
10 Plank Push Ups - Plank push ups are key for gymnasts to build a strong upper body. “Building stronger triceps and a stronger core will allow you to progress faster and use your straight arms for inversions, blocking, swinging, tumbling and making quick mid-skill adjustments,” Gray notes.
10 Single Leg Lunge Push Throughs - This move helps with quickness, power, and explosiveness, according to Gray. She recommends keeping your chest slightly forward and driving your knee up to your chest.
Feeling it yet? “Hopefully you’re sweating and starting to understand the work that gymnasts do," Gray says. Add this workout into your cal this month to prep your body and mind for the Olympics.
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