Hi all!
I'm a retired competitive swimmer (but still mostly in shape), 5'7"/138lb, and brand new to gymnastics. I'm taking an adult gym class that meets once a week, and I've noticed that whenever I go on bars, I have this awful tendency to bend my arms like crazy. I can keep them straight while in front support and mostly during a cast (I bend them slightly as my body comes back towards the bar post-cast), but that's about it. I think part of it stems from my years as a swimmer - my muscles use that bent position every time I take a stroke! They think it's the right thing to do.
As you can imagine, bending my arms makes it pretty darn impossible to do even a simple back hip circle! It draws my hips away from the bar, causing my body to pike & my legs to fall because I don't have enough oomph to finish the skill.
Since I only get about 20-30 min to work on a real bar each week, I'm looking for anything I can do either at home or in the weight room at the university gym that can help me learn to keep my arms straight. Despite being a "swammer" I know I could always use more upper body work (I have lots of slow twitch muscles as I swam distance, so I want to improve my power/fast twitch) and I do core work almost every day as well.
Obviously I want to stay safe and I don't want to teach myself bad habits, but at the same time I'd really love to improve on this. I have a broomstick I can use at home & the weight room has plenty of squat racks that have a pull-up bar at the top. I also have access to dumbbells, stability balls, BOSOs, etc.
TL;DR: Want to stop bending arms on bars. Need both conditioning and drills I can do on my own to fix this bad habit!
I'm a retired competitive swimmer (but still mostly in shape), 5'7"/138lb, and brand new to gymnastics. I'm taking an adult gym class that meets once a week, and I've noticed that whenever I go on bars, I have this awful tendency to bend my arms like crazy. I can keep them straight while in front support and mostly during a cast (I bend them slightly as my body comes back towards the bar post-cast), but that's about it. I think part of it stems from my years as a swimmer - my muscles use that bent position every time I take a stroke! They think it's the right thing to do.
As you can imagine, bending my arms makes it pretty darn impossible to do even a simple back hip circle! It draws my hips away from the bar, causing my body to pike & my legs to fall because I don't have enough oomph to finish the skill.
Since I only get about 20-30 min to work on a real bar each week, I'm looking for anything I can do either at home or in the weight room at the university gym that can help me learn to keep my arms straight. Despite being a "swammer" I know I could always use more upper body work (I have lots of slow twitch muscles as I swam distance, so I want to improve my power/fast twitch) and I do core work almost every day as well.
Obviously I want to stay safe and I don't want to teach myself bad habits, but at the same time I'd really love to improve on this. I have a broomstick I can use at home & the weight room has plenty of squat racks that have a pull-up bar at the top. I also have access to dumbbells, stability balls, BOSOs, etc.
TL;DR: Want to stop bending arms on bars. Need both conditioning and drills I can do on my own to fix this bad habit!