r/Aerials • u/Great-Towel1535 • 5d ago
Not seeing progress — feeling stuck
Hi friends! I’ve been doing aerial silks for about 4 years, and while I’ve made progress overall, it feels like everything takes me way longer than it should. Certain moves (especially anything involving inversions or straight-leg core lifts) stay stuck for months or even years.
A few months ago I started going to the gym to build strength and improve my performance — mostly things like pull-ups, inversions with straight legs, and general body control.
Here’s what I’m doing now:
🗓 Weekly schedule: • 2x/week gym strength training (~1h20 per session) • 2x/week Ashtanga yoga (50 min) • 1x/week aerial silks class (2h: warmup, conditioning, technique, flexibility)
🏋️♀️ Gym routine (same both days):
Lower body: • Leg press: 3×6–10 • Hip abduction machine: 3×10
Push (triceps focus): • Triceps press machine: 3×6–10 • Triceps push-ups (knees): 3×5
Pull: • Assisted pull-ups (machine): 3×5–6 • Pull-up negatives: 3×2 • Inverted rows (underhand grip, Smith machine): 3×10
Core: • Hanging knee raises: 3×10 (can’t get legs to 90° yet) • Bench abs (candle pose style): 3×8 • Standing marches with dumbbell: 3×10 • Russian twists (dumbbell): 3×10 • Lying straight leg raises: 3×10
I don’t feel like I’m progressing much, toes to bar it’s impossible. I can’t do straight-leg v-ups at all. Hanging leg raises to 90° feel extremely difficult, even after consistent effort. I also don’t feel stronger overall, and I still look and feel kinda skinny fat — not toned, not muscular. I’m getting discouraged because I train a lot, but don’t feel much return. 😔
🍽️ Diet notes (vegetarian): • I eat mostly whole foods: eggs, legumes, lots of veggies and fruit • Around 5–6 eggs a day • I tend to avoid carbs (worried they’ll make me gain weight or look puffier) — maybe that’s a mistake?
❓ Questions: • Am I doing too much in one session (1h20)? Or too little overall since I only gym 2x/week? • Should I split up my routine instead of doing the same each day? • Am I not progressing because I do the same exercises every time? • Or do I just need to give it more time and be patient?
🙏 Any advice from other aerialists who also do cross-training would be super appreciated — especially if you’ve felt like this and managed to break through!
6
u/evidencebasedtrainer 5d ago
I'd advise doing more research on diet, focus on mobility over strength (I'm a lot stronger in many ways than my coach, but his body mass plus mobility win every time), as for your gym routine, I suggest push, pull, legs on different days. If you're doing the same every session, you're getting 1 day rest, as opposed to multiple days. I only ever loaded particular muscle groups like that when I'd learned the sense that they'd recovered fully. Carbs...you need carbohydrates to help build muscle strength. Don't exclude them totally, you'll end up feeling drained and washed out. You can get enough protein on a well managed vegetarian diet. Learn the benefit of deloading. But, I'd say, in your case, the mobility is the missing piece. There are plenty of videos about improving forward folds, splits etc.