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Strength & Conditioning – Roger Harrell: Week 1, Day 3

Daunted by gymnastics? Wondering how to get better at it? Follow our three weeks of gymnastics workouts and build on your skills!

Roger Harrell, The Cave, Gymnastics

Written by

This week is the first of three weeks from gymnastics coach Roger Harrell. Roger is the Co-Founder of The Cave/CrossFit Marin and a former competitive gymnast. Roger is an expert at teaching gymnastics to non-gymnasts, so if you’re thinking of making progress on your gymnastics skills these are perfect workouts for you.

To learn more about Roger, read our feature interview:

Part 1 – Gymnastics for Adults

Part 2 – Gymnastics for Kids

Notes:

Warm up activities are to be performed at a level that is appropriate for you. No warm up movements should be strenuous. Be sure to scale appropriately. 5-15 minutes of stretching following each session is expected.

For a guide to stretching visit Drill and Skills: Stretching.

Week 1 – Day 3

Workout

5X5s Back lever/Front lever

The focus here is to find the most difficult scaling for the movements that you can successfully hold for a solid 5 seconds. Perform a back lever for 5 seconds, then immediately roll over into a front lever. After coming out of the front lever perform 20 jumping squats. Then rest for the next round. Allow 30 minutes.

Roger Harrell, The Cave, Gymnastics

About Roger Harrell

Roger Harrell has over twenty years of gymnastics experience and over fifteen years of coaching experience. He was the captain of the UC Davis gymnastics team for two years and is the Co-Founder of The Cave/CrossFit Marin in Corte Madera, California. Roger has been involved in CrossFit since the early days and is also the gymnastics curriculum writer and core competency expert for the global CrossFit community.

Roger holds a B.S in Chemical Engineering and spent several years working on enormous processing plant projects, ore refinement systems, and chemical weapons disposal facilities. Over the years Roger was able to slowly move over into coaching gymnastics full-time.

Roger is not your normal gymnastics coach, however. Roger came to gymnastics relatively late in life - midway through his teenage years. He is also much taller than your average gymnast. Because of these factors, Roger had to adapt quickly and learn differently than other kids in gymnastics. He has taken these skills and applied them to his practice of teaching gymnastics to adults.

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