Gymnastics/Tumbling

The hardest part of the muscle-up is neither the push nor the pull. It’s keeping the rings close to the body during the transition to the bottom of the ring dip, says Level 1 Seminar Staff member Russell Berger.

To help athletes develop strength close to the body and ultimately improve the muscle-up, he introduces a drill to members of CrossFit Amundson in Santa Cruz, Calif. It begins at the… Continue Reading

Channeling the power of the hip can be tricky when it comes to the muscle-up.

“I think that most people understand you’ve got to have a good amount of pulling strength, full range, and a deep dip with a great amount of dipping strength. I think getting the hip involved to learn the kipping muscle-up is a little bit more complicated,” says gymnast and CrossFit Santa Cruz coach Laurie Galassi.

To help… Continue Reading

When it comes to rope climbs, gymnast and CrossFit Santa Cruz coach Laurie Galassi teaches two ways to wrap the feet.

The first climbing method involves wrapping one leg all the way around the rope and then stepping the other foot on top of both rope and foot.

“The higher you have your foot and the further away from you, the better,” Galassi notes, encouraging hip and knee flexion as her athlete practices wrapping and… Continue Reading

If you’re faced with lengths of handstand walks in a workout, why not use a pirouette to turn around and come back?

“To do a handstand pirouette, you have to have a really good sense of where vertical is,” says Laurie Galassi, a gymnast and coach at CrossFit Santa Cruz.

Starting beside a wall, Galassi has her athlete establish a solid handstand position. Then Galassi has the athlete kick upside down and take a… Continue Reading

The kipping handstand push-up is about using the power of your hip to help your arms, says gymnast and coach Laurie Galassi of CrossFit Santa Cruz.

The first step is to practice the hip explosion while simply lying on the floor.

“Lie on your back; pull you knees into your chest. I am curling my tailbone up off the ground, and you’re going to explode out of that position,” Galassi says.

The mistake athletes sometimes… Continue Reading

Doug Chapman asks a poignant question: “How many girls fear Elizabeth because of the freakin’ dips in it?”

Enter the kipping dip.

For Chapman, owner and coach of affiliate CrossFit Ann Arbor/HyperFit USA, the teaching progression begins on the parallel bars.

“The dip is the squat of the upper body. I want you to think about that,” he tells a group of athletes at his gym in Michigan. “From my perspective, (it’s) one of the key… Continue Reading

What do you get when you suspend a big, orange bucket by a rope from the ceiling? Pommel-horse practice.

At this CrossFit Gymnastics Advanced Trainer Course, Sean Lind explains the bucket is what precedes the ever-tricky pommel horse.

“What we’ve done here is we’re creating a training tool we’ve used in gymnastics,” he says.

With their feet inside the bucket and their legs extended, athletes will simply move in circles with their hands hitting… Continue Reading

While good technique is important, you simply need a certain amount of strength to perform a strict handstand push-up. Luckily, there are all kinds of ways to build that strength.

Laurie Galassi of CrossFit Santa Cruz shows several in this video, including a piked handstand push-up. The next step involves a handstand and partial range-of-motion reps to a pile of AbMats. Galassi reduces the number of reps in each… Continue Reading