Gymnastics is one of the oldest forms of exercise. Its benefits are great for not just gymnast but other athletes as well. The Spartans, one of the greatest fighting civilizations in world history, were said to train in gymnastics. If you saw the Anderson Silva, Chael Sonnen UFC championship fight, you actually saw Sonnen use a forward roll to escape trouble. The moment I could, my daughter was signed up for gymnastics because of the great benefits.
One of the benefits of gymnastics is learning how to control your body. Controlling your body in just everyday life is essential but looking at it from a fighting standpoint, any great martial artist knows how to control their body well. This development of coordination when training in gymnastics can also lead to better balance and can teach an athlete to learn how to fall to prevent injury.
Another benefit of gymnastic that can help any MMA fighter or Jiu-Jitsu player is the development of better flexibility. Gymnastics athletes are some of the most flexible athletes in the world. Flexibility plays a key roll in combat sports. We have seen how flexibility has helped fighters escape from devastating submission that would tap many fighters. Gymnastics will help fighters become much more flexible in the hips and the shoulder.
Becoming stronger and more powerful is another benefit of gymnastics. Gymnasts are some of the strongest athletes in the world. Using gymnastic in a fighters strength and conditioning program will also lead to great strength and power gains.
Above I spoke about how gymnastics teaches athletes how to control their body. It also teaches an athlete or fighter kinesthetic awareness, which is knowing where your body is in space. Why is this important to say MMA or Jiu-Jitsu? A fighter finds himself in many different positions during a fight and sometimes on their back, at times on top of an opponent.
Recently I was reading an article by Dan John, in the article he was talking about different challenges. One of the challenges was using gymnastic movements. Using simple gymnastic moves this set of movements placed together challenged cardio and my awareness of where I was. You will see in the video below how at one point when I get up I am trying to find my balance and find where I was as I headed toward the water. In the first video I cut out two reps on each of the exercises. The second part of the video we performed all reps. The small challenge consisted of; 5 forward rolls, 5 rolls over the left shoulder, 5 rolls over the right shoulder, 6 cartwheels a bear crawl finished off by a short sprint. Give it a try; trust me it’s harder than it looks.
Train Hard! Train Smart!
