Jay Thornton is one of the founders of American-Gymnast.com and a former competitor at the international level. He received a silver medal at the 1998 Goodwill Games and was twice a member of the World Championships team. He is also the author of the very popular Parallette training guide.

Jay, how did you first get started in Gymnastics?

I actually started in my Grandmother's basement. My Grandmother (on my mom's side) was a Rockette in New York and after she retired, she began teaching dance in a studio that she had in her basement. She had some folding mats down there that her students would stretch out on. I used these mats to do basic tumbling moves. One of my aunts would work with me on headstands, handstands, cartwheels, and stretching exercises. I was probably 5 years old at the time.

What is your favorite gymnastic event? Which gymnasts did you like the most growing up and what current gymnasts are you impressed by?

My favorite events are high bar and floor exercise. I love the adrenaline rush I get from training and competing on these two events. In my opinion, it's the most exciting events for the fans to watch and the most exciting events for the gymnasts to perform.

Growing up, I admired a lot of the gymnasts that came from the former Soviet Union, like Valerie Liukin and Dimitri Bilozerchev. They had such clean lines and did the biggest skills at that time. I also admired the 1984 US Men's Olympic Team for winning gold at the Los Angeles Olympics. I was ten years old at that time and once I saw them standing on top of the podium with the gold medals hanging around their necks, I knew that's what I wanted to do.

Currently, I am extremely impressed with the guys that make up our US Men's Team. My old teammate, Blaine Wilson, continues to amaze me with how long he's been able to dominate the sport in our country. Paul Hamm has now been able to push Blaine quite a bit and uncrown him as National Champion last year, but that just shows to me that the depth on our team is getting better. We have a tremendous bunch of talent in Steve McCain, Brett McClure and some other younger guys coming up. This year's World Championships is going to be very exciting to watch, and I fully expect to see our Men's Team standing on top of the podium.

Given the popularity of Yoga and Pilates, it seems like a lot of people today are interested in flexibility and strength. Gymnasts obviously develop these qualities and more to an exceptional degree. I'm curious what you think about gymnastics as a training methodology for people interested in fitness?

I think gymnastics is the absolute best sport for developing a complete physique. It trains strength, flexibility, overall motor skill development, and air awareness....and all from the use of your own body weight. Gymnastics provides a foundation for anything that you want to achieve in life. Not only does it train the physical aspects of the body, but also the mental. It encourages discipline, focus, and determination due to the amount of concentration and effort it requires. People interested in any area of fitness can gain from the gymnastics training methodology....not just those that want to compete at the elite level in the sport.

Do you have any advice on people interested in starting gymnastics?

My advice would be that you can never start too late or too early. No matter what stage you are in life, there is something to be gained from participating in the sport. Whether your goal is to gain flexibility, strength, or just to have fun, you can achieve it at any age.

Gymnasts are probably some of the fittest athletes on the planet. What kind of training do gymnasts do? Outside of the gym, do many gymnasts lift weights or perform any other type of strength training or conditioning?

The training gymnasts do varies depending on your level. At the beginner levels most of the training centers around developing the basic gymnastics skill foundations on each apparatus, as well as an overall flexibility and strength. Gymnasts probably spend 30% of their workouts on flexibility, 40% on strength, and 30% on gymnastics skill development. Early on, most of the strength are general exercises such as chin-ups, dips, handstand pushups, leg-ups, v-ups, crunches, arch ups, squat jumps, toe raises, etc. Later on, at the higher levels, the strength exercises consist of more gymnastics-specific strength such as iron crosses, planches, press to handstands, as well as all the general strength and conditioning exercises.

The majority of the strength training occurs inside the gym, however some gymnasts will supplement their workouts with a little bit of weight training. From my experience, the weight training will be very focused and will concentrate on just a couple of areas that the gymnast (and coach) feel need some special attention.

Are there any tips on strength that you could give us from the gymnastics world? I know gymnasts must have a few ideas on generating muscle tension.

First of all, I believe you increase strength faster when you train with good form and technique, even if it means lower reps. Simple examples are doing push-ups with your stomach sucked in and chest hollow in the "up" position and performing chin-ups with your legs straight and tight.

In gymnastics we also incorporate a lot of static strength exercises that I believe most people overlook when they work out. For example, we do sets of hollow holds (laying on your back, you round your chest and lift you upper back and legs about 6 inches off the ground so that only your lower back and hips are touching the ground) anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute at a time. There are numerous other exercises that we incorporate these static elements that force the muscles to contract for long periods of time. In my experience, this has helped me gain strength faster in those positions than just doing the normal reps of muscle contract-relax.

How about flexibility, what do gymnasts do to develop such extreme flexibility?

I think the key here is consistency. Gymnasts stretch anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes before practice and 10 to 15 minutes after practice 5 to 6 days a week. Doing this over a number of years (over 20 years in my case!) is how you see such extreme cases of flexibility.

One of the techniques I use to increase my flexibility in certain positions is to tighten the muscles in the stretch for about 30 seconds and then relax while sliding down further into the stretch. For example, while in a straddle split, I would press my feet into the floor and tighten my inner thighs for 30 seconds. Then I relax and let myself sink lower into the position.

Do gymnasts have any special ways of dealing with injuries? It seems like ankle sprains and wrist injuries are pretty common.

Dealing with injuries is common in every sport, but I think they are prevalent in gymnastics because of the extreme amount of force that is exerted on the body, particularly the wrists and ankles. Overcoming an injury in gymnastics requires both a physical and mental approach. You have to be diligent in healing the area, rehabilitating the area, and then strengthening it again. Depending on the injury, it might mean heat before every practice, ice after every practice, and extra strengthening exercises to get it back to form (and beyond). Whenever I had an injury, I took the approach that, after a specified time, I wanted that area of my body to be stronger than it was before the injury. That helps you psychologically as well because you never want to be in a situation where you can't rely on a certain part of your body when you need it most.

Injuries can also take a psychological toll and gymnasts regularly perform death defying stunts. How hard is it to step back onto the mat and get back to dangerous skills? Any advice on getting over these little psychological hurdles?

Injuries can be especially troublesome when they prevent you from training for an extended period of time, particularly when you are unable to perform the hard skills that require constant practice. For every skill we perform in gymnastics, there a numerous progressions that lead up to that skill. After an injury, it is crucial that the gymnast takes time to go back through these each of these progressions that lead up to the more difficult skill instead of just jumping in and "chucking" the big skill when you are first coming back.

Also, it is important to visualize your skills (particularly the harder ones)...especially during times of injury. Every top gymnast I know of mentally rehearses their skills and routines before actually performing them. I would rehearse them in my head every night before I went to sleep, while I was taking a shower, when I was walking to class, before I took my next turn on the event, and pretty much every chance I had. If I had an injury I would focus on the skills I was unable to train more during my mental imagery sessions.

I love your parallettes and the training guide, any chance you will come out with more similar training materials in the future?

I have been overwhelmed at the response I've received from the parallette training guide. To be honest, I developed the guide with only the gymnastics community in mind, not realizing how many more people there were out there that could benefit from that type of strength training. I am in the process of developing a more generalized parallette strength training plan that would be beneficial to a broader range of people interested in increasing their strength and staying fit. And yes, I have some other types of training materials that tie in the gymnastics training methodology planned for the near future. I will be posting the new parallette guide and other training tips at www.american-athlete.com. For our gymnastics-specific training, you can visit www.american-gymnast.com.