Fitness Class with Nuria pt 2 - Page 3

How can you learn to do these moves and what is required?
All aerial/jump moves require good leg strength, power & speed. You need all these elements to jump off the ground, gain enough height to get your legs into what ever high airborne position you are aiming for (depends on which jump you are attempting) and bring them back to land both feet at the same time on the ground with your feet together.

When I am training for sport aerobics (my first love!), or for a fitness routine I do not train weights for lower body at all. This is partially because I naturally hold a lot of muscle on my legs (calves especially) from years of dancing & good genetics (thanks to my parents!).
But also if you are training for a fitness/aerobics routine your legs will be getting a pretty good thrashing through practising your
routine and jumps.

Plyometric exercises are fantastic to increase power and speed, so while I don't do weights for my lower body I do still train my legs.
Body weight and plylo exercises work wonders!

EXAMPLE THREE: TUCK JUMPS

A tuck jump is: stand with both feet together, jump up bringing both legs into a bent position getting your knees as close as posible to your chest, land both feet together.

Now this jump is a very basic skill move but I chose this as the others are more complicated and would need to be demonstrate in person. Most people could do a tuck jump on first attempt, although may not be able to get good height into the jump, knees both up to touch the chest and land neatly with both feet together.

At first practice taking off and landing with both feet leaving and comming back to land on the ground at the same time, keeping them together (no gap between your feet when you land).

To get more height into your jumps try the following ideas:

Jump over a box: Use a flat weights bench, or an aerobics step, something that is at least knee height. Stand behind the bench or step, bend into a squat and jump over the bench bringing your knees as high up to your chest as possible, and on the other side with both feet together.

Continuous bench jumps: As above but line several benches/steps up and jump over the first, land and jump over the next with no rebound in between. Increase number of benches &/or the height of them when you are ready to push yourself harder!

Continuous jumps adding height: Again, as above but make each bench, step slightly higher. Aerobics steps are good for this especially if they are the ones you can just build up by adding extra levels. Line 3-5 steps in a row, each slightly higher and repeat as above.

Hope that gives some of you some new things to try out! Stretching and increasing flexibility in particular is beneficial to everyone, using stretching as a means to warm up & cooldown has great benefits but increased flexibility in general means less chance of injury, nothing worse that being tight.