Gymnastics Flexibility Exercises
Include your brain to unlock flexibility that’s been hard to find.
FIND GYMNASTICS FLEXIBILITY FASTER
If hours of static stretching, rolling and manual therapy haven’t led to lasting changes, I’m here to help. I’m Yuka Sugiura, a Neuro Performance Coach, and I work with gymnasts in Los Gatos, CA and all over the world to help them find flexibility faster.
How? Using a brain-based approach to gymnastics flexibility exercises so you can:
Get all the way down in your splits
Touch your stomach to your legs in a pike stretch
Hit a full split (or more!) in your jumps and leaps
Do bridges, back walkovers and back handsprings with more ease and without back pain
Feel what it’s like to have open shoulders
AND DO IT IN LESS TIME
Jump to 3 brain-based gymnastics flexibility exercises
Results after a single 90-second drill
What does gymnastics flexibility with a Neuroperformance Coach look like?
It can be a lot of fun and bring happy surprises - finding new ranges within one session because we can accelerate change by including the brain.
Gymnasts who work with me typically get the best results after 4-8 sessions – with home exercises in between. Like anything else in the sport, it takes consistent effort to create significant and lasting changes. The process looks like this:
We’ll start with assessments to identify brain areas that we want to target and a direction for theneuro flexibility exercises.
Then during follow-up sessions, we’ll identify a set of drills that are most effective… Which ones make your nervous system respond, “YES, I like this one!”, then we build a custom program of home exercises.
Each week, the gymnast shares feedback: What changes has she noticed, which drills seem to help the most, then we adjust and progress the exercises or begin working on another area. One week we might focus on hamstrings, another week it’s shoulders.
We conclude the program when the gymnast feels the changes sticking day-to-day and week-to-week. Their back or wrist pain may be reduced, or skills are feeling easier. And of course we’ll make sure to take before and after pictures to show the accomplishments!
More about brain-based gymnastics flexibility exercises
LevelUp’s gymnastics flexibility training program is grounded in the latest neuroscience research, is highly individualized and includes neuromechanics, vision, vestibular and other drills that activate very specific parts of the nervous system. It’s NOT a ‘no pain, no gain’ approach.
Who is the training for? Gymnasts…
Who haven’t responded to flexibility training in the gym
Whose performance may be limited or who have back pain because of a lack of flexibility
Who haven’t recovered their range of motion after an injury or surgery
Who are hypermobile and need to develop more control
Who were flexible when they were younger but have lost mobility over the years
I’ve worked with gymnasts from Level 3 to National, World and Olympic team members and I’d love to help your gymnast find an easier and effective path to lasting flexibility!
3 Brain-based gymnastics flexibility exercises
Try them now to see how quickly things can change
1) Femoral Nerve Glide: Flexibility Exercise for Hip Flexors
This one is great to do before or after gymnastics practice to open up hip flexibility or to relieve tight and tired quads, something many gymnasts need relief for and for which there aren’t many great flexibility exercises.
Tips for this hip flexibility exercise:
MOST IMPORTANT: The level of tension or discomfort you feel should be a 3 out of 10 at the most. It’s not a ‘hurts so good’ kind of stretch.
The sequence and specificity matters: Make sure your shoulder is directly above your knee, and that you hold the pelvis tilted under as you curl forward
If you don’t feel anything, try curling forward more or prop the back foot up on something
This drill targets the femoral nerve, which innervates or feeds your quadriceps muscles and knee joint. You’ll be putting it through a tension and relaxation sequence to help the nerve glide through tissues because if it’s compressed or restricted, range of motion may be limited.
2) Big H: Flexibility Exercise for Shoulders
Maybe you’ve never heard of using your eyes as a gymnastics flexibility exercise. But thanks to neuroscience, we know that there are specific parts of the brain that *change muscle tone.* And that vision exercises are an effective way to stimulate those areas of the brain.
Tips for this hip flexibility exercise (which might also help your back!):
You can use your thumbnail, the eraser end of a pencil, or a pen cap.
Keep your head still and only move your eyes
The H is a little wider than your shoulders
Make sure the cross bar goes in front of your eyes (not below)
Keep your eyes fixed on the target
Do 3-5 repetitions
3) Pencil Push-up: Flexibility Exercise for Pike Stretch
This flexibility exercise - again using your eyes - helps to facilitate flexion - what’s happening at the hips for a pike stretch or what’s happening with your shoulders in a bridge. It activates a part of the brainstem (looks like a stem at the base of the brain) that helps turn on flexors including your neck muscles, biceps, trunk and hip flexors. And when those are more turned on, it can help flexibility by ‘turning off’ or inhibiting the opposite muscles, the hamstrings.
Tips for this flexibility exercise:
For your visual target, you can use your thumbnail, a pencil eraser or a pen cap. The gymnast in the video is using a carpenter’s pencil with letters on it.
Make sure to hold the visual target directly across from your eyes, bring it in until it’s almost touching the bridge of your nose
Hold it there for half a second, then push it back out
You can try this upside down, in a V-hold or hollow hold
Do 10 reps
How did it go? If you’re interested in using brain-based gymnastics flexibility exercises to help you unlock new ranges of motion:
Read What is Neuroperformance Training? if you’d like to learn more about the approach.
Get my FREE e-Book: Find Flexibility Faster and experience change at the speed of the nervous system.
How can Neuroperformance Training help you achieve your goals?
Book a FREE 20-minute consultation and we can explore:
The challenges you’re seeking to overcome and the goals you’d like to achieve
How a brain-based approach can help with pain and performance
What a coaching program would look like based on your current goals
Any other questions you might have about Neuroperformance Training