During HTG’17 we asked our guests to share their Top 3 Training Tips with us. These could be anything- from specific to general advice.
Their answers were surprising and very insightful so we thought we’d share!
Christian
- How to judge and appreciate your progress:
- Every session, do 5 single tricks for 5 reps. (Dimi: The same thing can apply to combos.) There are three possible outcomes for each trick: It’s worse than before, it’s the same, or it’s better than before.
- If it’s the same as last session, it’s maintenance, so it’s ok. Drilling tricks for the long term is important, so you should consider this a good session.
- If it’s worse than before, it’s a bad session. Doesn’t matter. Come back the next day.
- But most of the time, at least one of the 5 will be better than before. Consider this to be a great session!
- Bottom line: Be happy if you make progress at least in one trick, and don’t stress about the rest.
- Do strength work and stretching. They’re very important! Always do your stretching after strength sessions.
- When troubleshooting a trick, the problem is always the hips: Either you’re too low, so they need to go higher, or they are not turning with the body, so twisting will not work.
Mauro
- Repetition matters more. A lot of beginners want to understand the details in their tricks- where their foot is in the air, or how inverted they are, or if their cork is off axis. But at that stage, the details don’t matter. If you can land it without injuring yourself, just do 500+ reps. If you do it more you will eventually feel the movement, and that feeling is more important than the understanding you have in your head.
- Don’t use mats if you can land on your feet and hands! Do it on the floor. Learn how to fall.
- Dimi: I think this is the last important step in learning the backflip. You need to be able to save yourself when falling. If you can’t do that, your body won’t feel safe and will not allow you to jump. I would also generalize this advice from “feet and hands” to “any landing without injury”, for example, rolling out of a crashed twist.
- If you have a trick you can land but it’s exhausting or mentally challenging, spam it!! After 2-3 reps, the head will tell you you’ve practiced a lot, because it feels hard. But actually you need to do it more. Do at least 10-20 reps. Especially when you don’t know what to do in the session.
- Dimi: For Mauro, this trick was double b-twist. You saw what happened at the sessions!
Andri
- Andri uses intermittent fasting to improve his sessions. This is an eating protocol with very specific directions that I won’t go into it here, but here’s how he does it:
- The fasting period is not very important (but it’s usually 14+ hrs).
- Eat as far from the session as possible. If the session is in the evening, eat in the morning.
- His default breakfast choices are: 100 grams rice with 100 grams lentils, and possibly some avocado. Or oatmeal with yogurt and a banana.
- Skip breakfast if session is in the morning or noon.
- Eat most of the calories after tricking. Eat as much as you need to fulfill your caloric needs.
- Avoid sugar and alcohol.
- Dimi: Let me know if you try this! 😛
- How to improve your twists: Do everything on trampoline first. Ideally one more twist on tramp than you can do on the ground. eg. if you can full on plyo you should be able to dub on the tramp. Also try basic variations of the twisting tricks (eg. hyper, dleg, round), but don’t waste too much time on them.
- Get live feedback: Film your tricks and watch them during the session. Don’t wait until you go home. Often times you’ll be able to tell what’s wrong with it.
Thomas
- Play around as much as you can. Be focused in your training, but don’t get stuck on one thing. Keep it fun, always!
- Don’t destroy yourself and your body. It’s not worth it! Give time to adopt after the sessions. Train safe.
- Besides tricking, think of your body as a tool. It’s important to keep it in good shape with maintenance training, like stretching and strengthening. Make this priority number one, and if you feel good, then you can trick. Especially as you’re getting older. 👌🏻
Peerke
- Be patient, and believe in your progress. Keep working without stressing out. Don’t try to “get it this session”. It will come eventually.
- Trick for yourself. Don’t focus on other people during your tricks. Train for yourself even though you’re with other people. Don’t try to impress others with your performance.
- Train consistently. Don’t take random 2-week breaks. Longer than 3 days is usually too much, but you need to know yourself. One session is too small to change your whole level. See the big picture. Train in longer blocks of time, like 2-3 months. Doing 540s every session for two months straight will for sure make it better. 👍🏻
- Dimi: Random 2-week breaks is what people do during holidays here in Greece. Especially students when they visit their hometowns. But from a training perspective, it doesn’t make sense. Make some time to drill your basics wherever you are!
That’s all for now!
These tips alone are enough to supercharge your training for the rest of the year. Take some time to apply them into your training. It will be worth it!