I am still not “graceful” doing any of these exercises. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the floor, rings, and bar skills I have the potential to learn. I can now officially do cartwheels, roundoffs, kickovers, back bends, forward rolls, straddled forward rolls, pike jumps, handstands into a forward roll… you get the drift. I’ve made leaps and bounds of improvement. Adults Can be Gymnasts, TooĪs of writing this today, I’m six gymnastics classes in. It truly felt like I was going back to the basics. I went home and practiced my handstands, tried to stay straight while doing cartwheels, did shoulder shrugs to strengthen my shoulders (which have been a lifelong weakness of mine) and back bends to gain flexibility. Let’s just say that for a fitness professional and someone used to working out hard, often, it was an incredibly humbling experience. By the end, my shoulders were shaking, my neck sore, my hair dripping with sweat. I kept forgetting to point my toes (apparently, there’s actually a reason to do this). My flexibility (especially in my back) needed improvement. Sure, I’d played around doing some cartwheels, bridges and freestanding handstands here and there since I’d learned them as a little kid, but the truth was that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. My first gymnastics class in 21 years was tough. But until that time when I decided I was too cool for it (a decision I very much regret), I thought gymnastics were awesome.Īll that flipping, and being upside down, and the jumping around, and the foam pit-what could be more fun than that?įast forward to a few months ago, and I decided it was time to try it all over again. I did gymnastics up until I was probably in first grade, at which point I decided they were too “girly” and promptly stopped going (it probably didn’t help that even back then, it was obvious that I didn’t have a gymnast’s build). If your answer is not since you were six years old, I can relate. When was the last time you did a cartwheel? Swung upside down on the rings? Or jumped on a trampoline?
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