“Have to Get Down and Dirty”: Simone Biles’ Insane Training Regime Explains Gymnastics Is More Than Just a Skill Sport

From the beginning of her elite career, Simone Biles has delivered awe-inspiring routines on every apparatus. She won the US title and the World Championship gold in the all-around on her very first try in 2013. Defending her medals for years, she established her dominance in the sport.

At the Rio 2016 Olympics, she won five medals, four of them gold, and further cemented herself in the sport’s history. But in order to reach her level of mastery, she sacrificed a lot in life.

Simone Biles shares her training regime

Before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which were postponed to the next year due to the COVID pandemic, Simone Biles appeared on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Here, she divulged her training schedule to prepare for the games.

“I train seven hours a day, I do have Sundays off,” she explained. “So, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday I train twice a day. And then Thursday and Saturday I train once a day.” Though her schedule is more than hectic, Biles claimed she enjoys the time she spends with her colleagues.

“People always think I’m training, but besides that, I have amazing partners I work with so I get to share my time in between there,” the gymnastics legend told host Jimmy Fallon. Despite her love for the hours spent in the gymnasium, training to be the very best has its challenges. She continued, “It’s not all glitz and glam. Sometimes we have to get down and dirty.”

But unfortunately, Biles ended up pulling out of multiple events at the games. She caught a case of the ‘twisties’, that caused her to lose spatial awareness when in the air. Performing skills of her difficulty level in that state could cause fatal injuries for the gymnast.

READ MORE: Simone Biles’ Younger Sister Couldn’t Make It to the US Olympic Team Despite Competing at the Junior Elite Level- Here’s Why

Biles’ preparations for Rio had been just as grueling

The most decorated gymnast in World Championship history spent enormous effort in her Olympic preparations. Talking to Women’s Health in 2016, a month before the Games, she revealed the details of Team USA’s cross-training regime.

“Last year we did cross-training. We swam twice a week—almost a mile!” she exclaimed. “I swore I was going to drown, it was so hard, and then we would run. And the year before that, we would bike 10 miles outside once a week. If we didn’t bike, we would run a mile before practice, and as soon as we finished the mile, we’d have to go inside and do a beam routine.”

Where innate talent certainly plays a part in an athlete’s progress, devoted training becomes necessary to reach GOAT status. Biles’ 4-foot-8-inch stature, incredible jumping power, and well-trained muscles help her deliver the gravity-defying floor routines she’s known for.

By training her basic skills to perfection, she managed to get four moves named after her, the set of skills in her arsenal making her mathematically unbeatable. While the gymnast has been on hiatus since the Tokyo Olympics, giving priority to her mental health, the fans eagerly await news of her return.

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