Why Parallettes? Parallette training has come into vogue in recent years, mostly due to their portability, ease of construction, and effectiveness at building upper-body strength. However, gymnasts have been using “P-bars” (as we call them) for much, much longer to refine their technique and aid in learning new skills.

Parallettes give the gymnast (or any athlete) two major advantages when mastering feats of balance and strength:

1. Leverage
2. Ground clearance

By increasing leverage, we’re able to add some advantage to skills like planches that might otherwise be beyond out capability. As we train and improve, we can gradually rely less and less on the tool itself. Adding ground clearance gives us more space to execute movements where we might not yet have the strength or mobility to perform the same skill on the floor.

These two advantages make parallette training a great choice for building the strength and mobility necessary to perform difficult bodyweight skills. It’s also a great way to practice technique without putting as much stress on the body (which is useful because fine motor control decreases as exercise intensity increases - in other words, you can’t do the fancy stuff when you’re muscles are struggling at the limit of their ability).

Of course, parallettes aren’t just a “stepping stone” to more difficult exercises - they can be used to actually increase the challenge of exercises like inverted presses by adding to the range of motion. This simply builds more muscle than doing the exercise on the floor would allow.

Since the Gold Medal Bodies approach to strength training is based on skill acquisition, it’s only natural that we would make use of parallettes to build both strength and skill.

It’s also ridiculously fun.

Parallettes One is our complete introduction to parallette training that lays the gound work of strength and skill for serious movement artistry.



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