Your Wardrobe for Gymnastics Warm Ups

Series Summary

Physical strength, flexibility, and kinesthetic awareness are all integral parts of the sport known as gymnastics. Gymnastics is an Olympic sport practiced in almost every country in the world, and involves the execution of sequences of physical feats, aesthetically pleasing routines and demonstrations of an athlete's agility. Gymnastics is also one of the most popular sports for young children, as beginner gymnastics exercises foster self-confidence, team building and general athleticism. Before beginning any gymnastics workout there are necessary warm ups that should be done.

Get online gymnastics instruction from Texas Gymnastics State Champion Heather McCanna, as she gives warm up tips such as wardrobe, where to stretch and demonstrates warm ups such as standing stretches, ankle and wrist stretches, pike stretch, straddle stretching, left and right leg splits, bridge stretch, handstand, cartwheel, and the back bend.

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m Heather McCanna on behalf of expertvillage.com and this clip is going to show you proper gymnastics warm-ups. The first thing to take into consideration is your wardrobe. Although most gymnasts warm-up and do their stretches and excises in a leotard, it’s also very easy for these stretches to be done in any type of comfortable short sleeve or sleeveless t-shirt, as well as shorts or loose fitting pants. As long as the item of clothing is incredibly comfortable, usually cotton material, it’ll work great for these kinds of stretches. You need to be able to have a great range of motion and be able to make a lot of movement in them and as long as it’s something you’ve got around the house that’s very comfortable, inexpensive it’ll be great item to wear for stretching. In addition to this, you can also wear tennis shoes if you’d like but most of these stretches will involve the feet or the toes so it’s not necessary to wear shoes and it’s often better if you don’t wear shoes. You can also wear socks. These sometimes help when you’re sliding across the floor doing certain stretches involving your feet and so these are both optional items. They might help in addition to the short sleeve shirt and the shorts in your warm-up for gymnastics. "