Presses in the water

[gymnastbeth]

Today, a younger girl on my team came back from vacation, and showed my coach her new skill, a pike press. My coach was pretty shocked, because this girl had been out for two weeks. When asked how she learned it, she said "I just did them in the water". Apparently, she started out in deep water (this was in a lake) then went more and more shallow every day until she could do it on land.

My question is: How beneficial would that really be? I feel like it wouldn't really help strength, but on the other hand, this girl was nowhere near making this skill before her vacation. Would this be at all helpful in getting a pike press?

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

That's.... actually.... absolutely brilliant!

Impractical in most cases, but I think this could be extremely beneficial in the development of certain strength skills.

Come to think of it, I did something like this once with planches, doing them in shallow water before I could do them on land. It never would have occurred to adapt this into a training progression, though.

 

[gym4life123]

That is such a good idea. I will definitely be trying this. Hopefully I can get mine by, when I start training again in the fall. Do you know how many times a day she practiced this.

 

[gymnastgets10]

I love doing presses in the pool! I feel accomplished when I make it up because I can't do one on the floor.

 

[staceyb]

We used to do this all the time in acro, the gym adjoined a leisure centre that had a pool and we often learnt/played around with balances in the pool.

 

[Linz]

I do this as well in my pool at home! I wanted to know the feel of it to help me learn so I just started doing them underwater! Its actually very helpful for me, as I have gotten closer and closer to mine on floor since I started these

 

[B Gymnast]

when i went to flipfest i did them in the lake with my friend!! we tried to see who could do it in the shallowest (idk if thats a word )

 

[gymnast695]

I do them in pools too! It makes them easier because you weigh practically nothing and the water pulls your legs right up! It's a good way to get the feeling of a press and the technique of leaning and lifting your butt up

 

[FlippingSara]

that's genius! i usually work on my front tucks off the high dive when i go to the pool [as if i'm doing that off of beam or off of vault]. i'm still too scared to do a back tuck off. but i have done easy stuff in the pool [double front IN the pool, doublebacks in the pool, and my left split].

 

[Mom2Gymgirls]

My dd was so excited when she figured out how to do this in the pool this summer. She started deeper and then went down to where the pool was very shallow. She still cant do them on the floor on her own though. She needs the help the water gives her to keep her legs off the ground.