The gymnast bridge is a full body movement. It requires strength and tremendous flexibility to hold. The more your have of both the easier this move and all the moves built on top of it will become.
We need to start with a good bridge position. This move requires much more back flexibility than the wrestler’s bridge. In particular the low back requires most. Plus this is a great exercise for building shoulder flexibility too.
Few people, especially men, have the required flexibility to hold a good bridge to begin with. But simply by working on the position you will build it over time.
A great way to maintain a better position when you’re starting is to come up on the toes to make any bridge easier. This simple act will raise up your lower legs and take some of the strain of flexibility from your back. And to make it harder lower your heels to the floor.
What is required to make a good gymnastic bridge? The main point is to lock out the arms. This proves the difficult part for most. One, their back can not fold backwards enough to get the arms around. Second the shoulder flexibility is lacking. If this is the problem then the bridge will be incomplete hovering somewhere above the ground but not locked out.
Whatever your best attempt at a gymnast bridge is, you‘ll get to that position and hold for time. Plus you push towards a better one. The bridge itself is probably the best exercise to improve the flexibility in these areas.
Before you move on to any advanced bridging work you should be able to hold a locked out gymnastic bridge for at least 30 seconds. One minute is a better time that shouldn’t be too hard to reach.
When you do move on to the advanced moves you’ll continually improve your bridge because of how difficult the moves can be. This makes any and all easier moves, just that, easy.
Be sure to check out the Advanced Bridging Course for more in the gymnast bridge and wrestler’s bridge. You’ll learn how to quickly improve your flexibility and then move onto advanced moves like single limb holds, supporting weight, and all the dynamic bridging.
Here’s a short clip from the course that shows a way to build the strength and flexibility for your gymnast bridge with the reverse pushup.
Comments
Hey,
if I am not able to get in to this bridge position, what are some exercises to work at to get into the bridge posi?
@Steve: Besides the ones discussed above, wall walking is another great exercise.
this is really creepy my name is logan, i have long hair too, and i walk on my hands, it was like i was watching a video of myself………………………..crazy,
but anyway, im looking for work-outs that can improve my hand walking, any ideas?
@logan: There’s a few ideas in this article if you didn’t already see it on Hand Walking. Also I should be having more regarding walking on your hands on the site soon.
I can retend myself for 5 min.. Does that mean that i can perform the handsprings now.
@Abhishek Deyol: A 5 minute bridge is real good. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can do a back handspring. I’d say work on falling into the bridge, then if you have a spotter, jumping into it.