Natalia Pushkina’s students became a sensation at the USA Gymnastics National Championship

At the annual Level 4-5 Classic 2023 USA Gymnastics National Championship, held May 19-21, 2023, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the final winners among the strongest Level 4 and Level 5 gymnasts were determined. The Level 4-5 Classic Championship is the final USA Gymnastics tournament organized by USA Gymnastics, the governing organization charged by the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International Gymnastics Federation with the responsibility of developing gymnastics in the United States on a national level.

Many refer to the Level 4-5 Classic as the most important championship for female athletes in rhythmic gymnastics. Only gymnasts who have won their regional championships (City, State and Regional Championships) in 2023 are eligible to compete in the final tournament. An important fact is that along with the competition of the gymnasts, this championship also includes the coaches of the champion gymnasts who are honored for their extraordinary achievements in preparing the performances and athletes.

The highlight of the last Championship was that all three of Natalia Pushkina’s students, namely Aidemi Keneshalyeva, Nikoletta Kostopoulos and Natasha Tesanovic became the overall champions of the US National Tournament in ALL AROUND of their age. Natalia and her students were invited to this competition due to previous series wins at various regional championships in Chicago and Illinois. 

Natalia Pushkina also received two coaching awards for her extraordinary achievements as a coach. The first award – Coach of the Winner, is given to the coach for thorough preparation of the athlete who showed perfect technique of apparatus mastery, technique of execution of body difficulties, and setting of the program as a whole. The performance of the champion is the final representation of the coach’s work at the competitions. During the presentation of this award, the judges noted that it was Natalia Pushkina’s students who showed really outstanding results at the Championship.

Also, Natalia was awarded the Coach of the Year award, where the jury emphasized Natalia Pushkina’s contribution to the progress and development of her students. She was able to successfully train gymnasts who not only won various competitions at the city, state and regional level, but also reached the highest national level in their category. This means that Natalia helped them overcome all challenges and improve their skills enough to perform and achieve victory. Such coaching honors and a sensational win by three students at once at the USA National Championship is a tremendous accomplishment and success for any coach.

It is worth remembering that Natalia Pushkina started her career as a coach in Russia, where she brought up a lot of champions who constantly won at various All-Russian tournaments, in Kazan, Moscow, Yekaterinburg and other cities. According to Pushkina’s colleagues, she and her students traveled to competitions every month, and every time someone became a champion. But Natalia achieved even better results in the USA.

For example, her student Naomi Sotnikov became the champion in the ribbon exercise at the 2022 AmsterdaMMasters International Tournament. Natalia Pushkina also prepared Kristina Antonyuk for the 1st UAE International Gymanstika Cup 2022 in Dubai, where she became the absolute champion. According to experts, this is an achievement that is really worth being proud of. It was after she and Natalia developed an individual training plan and strictly adhered to it that Kristina was able to become an absolute champion for the first time in her sporting career.

What is the secret of the victories of Natalia Pushkina’s students? Many honored coaches claim that the secret of her students’ victories and Natalia’s success as a coach lies in her personal unique warm-up methodology. 

In the professional community, Natalia Pushkina’s unique warm-up method has already made a lot of noise and was highly appreciated by sports coaches all over the world. And the Belarusian Gymnastics Association even acquired from Natalia the official right to use her method.

It should be emphasized that the methodology developed by Natalia Pushkina is a revolutionary approach to solving the problems associated with traumatic rhythmic gymnastics.

In this high-risk industry, one of the main areas of risk for athletes is improper foot placement. This misalignment can subsequently cause serious injuries to the lower leg, knees, pelvis and back, significantly limiting an athlete’s abilities and hindering their development. A distinctive feature of Natalia Pushkina’s methodology is her fundamental focus on correct foot placement as the first and most important link in the chain of movements. This breaks the established approach, which focuses primarily on the development of large muscle groups. However, Pushkina raises an important point: even the most powerful and developed muscles will be useless if the fundamental motor skills, starting with foot placement, are not perfect enough.

When developing the methodology, Natalia contacted professional athlete Darya Klishina (Russian long jumper, silver medalist at the 2017 World Championships, two-time European champion) to adapt some of the strength exercises from track and field for rhythmic gymnastics. Athletics was chosen for a reason. Natalia is convinced that it is a sport in which, even with constant running on flat ground, there is almost no deformation of the foot. In addition, Natalia has studied the physics of the body in depth and conducted various studies in related fields, which eventually led to the creation of her own methodology.

At the initial stage Natalia Pushkina proved by personal experience that using her methodology absolutely all gymnasts with whom she trained at Vitrychenko Academy have no foot deformity at all, and at least one third of all gymnasts all over the world suffer from this ailment, therefore the methodology can be called a real breakthrough in the field of sport. Later Natalia added a section on warm-up to her methodology, in which she emphasized the mandatory active stretching in rhythmic gymnastics, so that the athlete could perform gymnastic elements with a wide amplitude.

To date, Natalia Pushkina’s warm-up method has become useful for coaches and their female students all over the world. The method has been used for over a year by coaches in sports clubs in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, China and the USA. Natalia’s method is also used by such athletes as Naomi Skotnikov (member of the US National Team, winner of the 2022 Amsterdam International Tournament, winner of the 2022 London International Tournament) and Belarusian coach Angelina Tyukha, whose students received 4 gold and 10 silver awards at the 2023 Dragonfly Minsk International Tournament in Minsk in February.

Natalia Pushkina’s warm-up methodology helps to reduce injuries and effectively prepares athletes’ bodies for intense physical exertion, increasing flexibility, strength and coordination of movements. In the context of the rhythmic gymnastics industry, where a high level of flexibility, plasticity and precision of movements is key, the warm-up methodology can play a crucial role in achieving optimal results for each student.

We congratulate Natalia Pushkina and her students on their well-deserved awards. Natalia deserves the Coach of the Year award like no one else. Now Pushkina is preparing her best gymnasts for the 2024 and 2028 Olympics. We wish Natalia and all her students bright victories and we are sure that her unique method of training athletes will really help them.