It’s just an upside down push press

Last night I did my first Gymnastics class at HPU.

It had a lot to live up too, I mean I had just done an entire 3 week induction course and crossed over to the darkside and became a “crossfitter” to get into this class ..

The first thing I notice is that Gymnastics class is VERY male heavy and the other girls in the class are “actual crossfitters”

You know, the ones that compete and can do muscle ups and a million double unders but hey even they were beginners once upon a time.

I knew what the class was going to entail because the WOD’s are published each morning

GYMNASTIC CLASS 630PM

Skills
kipping hspu progressions
kipping ttb progressions

Strength
5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5 reps of Strict HSPU progressions
10 x straight leg raise progressions

Efficiency Metcon 21Min
7 rounds, 7 minutes each: for reps
Box jump 30/30
Toes to Bar 30/30
HSPU 30/30

Knowing what is in the WOD prior to arriving is really handy because you can work out what you are going to wear.  Since we were going to be doing lots of handstands wearing a top that wouldn’t move was a priority 😉

We spent quite some time going through the skill section since there was a wide rage of skill levels amongst us. One of the men in the group seemed to be an actual gymnast (as opposed to a crossfitter who does gymnastic skills) he demonstrated strict handstand pushups in the middle of the floor ..

I think Kat was pointing out things like how his elbows pointed backwards as opposed to sideways but mostly I remembered he had about 240 ab muscles. His abs had abs ..!

The skill section is where we learned the techniques required to do the movements and the progressions that you could work through to get up to the skill/strength level required to complete the advanced version of the exercise (like deficit hspu’s pictured below)

In relation to hspu’s the thing I will remember is that you keep your elbows forward as Kat said “it’s like doing an upside down push press your arms move in exactly the same pattern” that tip really helped, the other useful tidbit was to get used to touching your head “to something” be it the pile of abmats you made or the floor “Just like your chest touches the floor in a pushup your head touches the floor in a hspu”.

“Head to the Floor” is the new “Chest to the Floor” 😉

Strength was where you did low reps for the hardest variation you could do for that many reps (simple huh), so you may have done 5 pike pushups on the floor, 4 pikes off a box, etc etc.

Then as the wod was all about efficiency you picked the variation you could knock out consistently for 30 seconds for seven rounds (even more simple huh)?!?! lol.

So all in all it was fun and it was a safe place to “give it a go” and if you gave it a go but couldn’t quite get it – it was no biggie you just went back a level .. one thing I will say, its a LOOOOOOOONG class apparently its usually 1.5 hours but last night we ran late and it was closer to 2 hours – didn’t seem like it though, time flies when you are having fun!

Till next time

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