Gyrotonic training – the most complete exercise system around.

Welcome to GYROTONIC® Training — your comprehensive resource for understanding and mastering this transformative exercise system. Here you’ll find in-depth articles about the three essential pieces of equipment — the Pulley Tower, Ladder, and Wingmaster — along with detailed explorations of specific exercise families, movement principles, and proven strategies for building strength, mobility, and functional fitness. Whether you’re new to Gyrotonic traiing or deepening your existing practice, these articles provide the knowledge and inspiration to understand why this system delivers results that conventional training cannot match. Explore our collection and discover how Gyrotonic training can transform your body, your movement, and your life.

Punchbowl seated in Setting 3 using the Gyrotonic Wingmaster

Wingmaster Setting 3 – Punchbowl

There are 6 ways you can move your spine. One of them, circumduction, is a circular movement of the spine, either internally or externally. The idea of this exercise is that its an internal circumduction if your spine was twice as long.

With internal circumduction, your spine makes a circle around the mid-line of your body at the level of the solar plexus, with the two ends of your spine staying in the same place. This exercise does the same thing, but the shoulder girdle is what’s the circle around the mid-line of your body.

Snake, from the Levitation Series

An old school exercise on the Ladder

I recently recorded several exercises in the Levitation series and as I was selecting which exercises to use, I looked back at old syllabi to see if I was forgetting any really cool ones. I was. I haven’t done Snake in years and I remembered how much I’ve always liked this.

While it looks kind of intense, using the arms like this actually allow me to increase my back bend. I can get higher than with my arms on the sides of the Ladder or hands clasped behind my head. I suppose its the physics of changing the lever length. It’s also a great exercise for opening your chest and the front of the shoulders.

Floating bicycles from the Gyrotonic Hamstring series

Floating Bicycles from the Hamstring Series

Breath and core strength come together

While most of the exercises in the Hamstring Series focus on, well, the hamstrings, some exercises also let you get in a core workout. Keeping your pelvis floating off the Pulley Tower‘s bench while doing these small bicycles is a total body exercise that emphasizes core strength.

Many times I have said that while I know I’m very biased, GYROTONIC® training puts a focus on breathing more than any other exercise system. A fun thing I like to throw into small bicycles is varying the number of bicycles done per breath. Maybe 6 bicycles per inhale and per exhale, maybe 8 bicycles. Those long breaths work your core in a whole different way than the standing 1 motion 1 breath style most “core” exercises use. All while paying attention to keeping pressure out of your neck, to keeping your pelvis floating steadily above the bench, to keeping your feet in flex, etc.

Stirring in pigeon position from the Gyrotonic handle series

Exercise of the Week: Stirring in Pigeon from the Handle Series

Open the hips while lengthening your spine

In GYROTONIC® Training, each family of exercises has a focus. For the Handle Series, the primary focus is the spinal ranges of motion. But there are also many opportunities in each family to branch out, to multitask, so to speak. This variation on stirring adds in hip opening for both the anterior and posterior hip.

If you’ve done yoga you’re almost assuredly familiar with the pigeon pose. It’s a great hip opener, the front (bent) leg gets the opening of the posterior hip (the glutes and piriformis) and the back (straight-ish) leg get the opening of the front of the hip (both the joint capsule itself and the hip flexors). This position on the Pulley Tower‘s bench puts you in a modified pigeon pose, getting those same benefits while moving through an undulating spine.