Gymnastics
training program
Own your bodyweight — explosive tumbling power, rock-solid shoulders and wrists, and a core that never quits.
One month free, then A$24.99/month. Cancel any time. iPhone and iPad.
Why this program exists
Everything is relative strength, so anything that adds mass without adding strength makes you worse — which rules out most of what a gym program tells you to do.
Power-to-weight is the only currency. The battery measures weighted pull-up, a press-to-handstand hold, broad jump and single-leg hop — and the prehab is built for shoulders and wrists that spend their life loaded overhead and inverted.
A default gymnastics week
This is the sport’s own template — the starting point before it is fitted to your days, your equipment and your season. Team nights and game day are protected; everything else moves to the days you are free.
What gymnastics is won with
These are the qualities the program is built to develop, in priority order. They come from the sport, not from a generic template.
- Power-to-weight strength
- Explosive tumbling power
- Shoulder + wrist robustness
- Core control + compression
- Active mobility
| Session | Type | Duration | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power-to-Weight Strength | Gym | 55–65 min | Relative strength + explosive tumbling |
| Tumbling Conditioning | Conditioning | 30–40 min | Repeat explosive efforts without fading |
| Shoulders + Core | Gym | 50–60 min | Pressing robustness + compression strength |
| Apparatus Training | Skills | — | Skill practice |
The season changes the program
- Pre-season
- Between competitions — set volume ×1.2. Build the engine and the strength base.
- In-season
- Competition block — set volume ×0.7, prescribed weights hold. Maintain, don’t drain.
- Off-season
- Off-period — baseline volume. Rebuild general strength and fix the niggles.
- Block structure
- Four-week blocks: three weeks accumulating, one week deload. The block’s character changes across the year rather than repeating.
- Game day
- Protected. The day before gets a 20-minute explosive primer with no running, no heavy legs and no prehab block bolted on.
The gymnastics testing battery
Five numbers, re-run every eight weeks. Chosen to match what gymnastics programs actually measure — and the results re-price your training weights and reset your conditioning paces.
| Test | Measures | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| 2km time trial | The aerobic benchmark your program is built around. | mm:ss |
| Weighted chin-up 3RM | Pulling strength once bodyweight has stopped being a challenge. | kg added |
| Handstand / pike press hold | Overhead pressing robustness at your own bodyweight. | s |
| Standing broad jump | Horizontal power — the direction you actually accelerate in. | cm |
| Single-leg hop for distance | One-leg power and the left-right gap that predicts injury better than either leg alone. | cm |
Staying available
The prehab block is matched to the region of the session it sits in and to the tissue this sport actually punishes — not a generic mobility flow bolted to the front.
Prehab only works if it happens, and the reason it usually does not is that it has nothing to do with the session it is attached to. Rotating a pool by session number puts shoulder work before a squat day and Copenhagen planks before a bench press. Technically covered; nobody does it.
In Train Smart each movement is classified by the region it protects and matched to the session, and the pool rotates across the week so you cover all of it rather than doing the same three moves three times.
More on prehab that people actually do →
Gymnastics training questions
What does the Train Smart gymnastics program include?
When is gymnastics pre-season?
Can I follow this program if I only train twice a week?
What tests does the gymnastics program use?
Do I need a full gym?
Get your gymnastics program
Pick gymnastics, answer eight questions, and your week is built — around your team nights, your game and the days you can actually train.
One month free, then A$24.99/month. Cancel any time. iPhone and iPad.