How to Keep Your Aerial Training on Track Over Summer (Without Guilt)
What if I lose everything I have worked for?
That is the thought sitting underneath almost every message I get from aerialists around this time of year. The studio schedule has changed. A holiday is coming. The summer gap is opening up. And with it, that familiar, quiet dread.
I have been coaching long enough to know this feeling is nearly universal. I also know it is, for the most part, completely unfounded.
So before we get into how to stay active over summer, I want to make the case for something that might surprise you.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your aerial training is absolutely nothing at all.
The Case for Full Rest
A proper two-week break is not a setback. For many aerialists, it is exactly what the body and nervous system have been quietly waiting for.
We operate in a discipline that asks a great deal of us. Grip strength, shoulder stability, spinal load, hip flexor tension, proprioception under compression. The cumulative demand is significant, and most of us never fully decompress from it during the training year. A genuine rest period changes that.
Your nervous system gets to reset. Chronic training load keeps your nervous system in a low-grade state of activation. Rest allows it to downregulate properly, which means you return with better motor control, sharper focus, and more capacity to learn. This is not a soft benefit. It is a physiological one.
Connective tissue finally gets the window it needs. Tendons, ligaments, and fascia adapt more slowly than muscle. They are often the quiet casualties of a training year, not injured, but chronically under-recovered. Research on connective tissue adaptation suggests these structures require extended unloading periods to remodel effectively, something a rest day here and there simply cannot provide. Two weeks off gives them what a busy schedule rarely does.
Skills consolidate when you are not looking. This one surprises people every time, but the science is solid. Motor learning does not stop when you stop training. Your brain continues to process and organise movement patterns during rest. It is not uncommon for aerialists to return from a holiday and find that a skill they were struggling with before they left suddenly feels cleaner, more automatic. The rest was part of the training.
Your desire comes back. Fatigue and motivation are closely linked, and if you arrive at summer feeling flat about it all, that is a signal worth listening to. Rest restores the hunger. And that hunger, the genuine want to be back in the studio, is worth protecting. Longevity in this art form depends on it.
So if you go on holiday for two weeks and you do not train once, you are not falling behind. You are doing something intelligent.
But If You Want to Stay Active, Here Are Five Tips
Not everyone wants to switch off completely, and that is equally valid. Some people feel better with some form of movement in their week, even when they are away. Some want to come back to September feeling prepared rather than starting from scratch.
Here are five practical ways to stay connected to your training over summer without turning your holiday into a training camp.
Tip 1: Keep it short and intentional
Twenty minutes of focused conditioning will do more for you than an hour of unfocused movement. If you are travelling or have limited space, choose two or three things you want to maintain and do those well. Scapular stability work, hip flexor conditioning, and active flexibility are all portable and require no equipment. You do not need to replicate your studio session. You just need to stay connected.
Tip 2: Prioritise mobility over strength
Flexibility and mobility respond well to consistent low-intensity work and deteriorate faster than strength when you stop. If you only have time or energy for one thing, spend it on your splits, your shoulder opening, or whatever range of motion you are currently developing. Ten to fifteen minutes a day is enough to maintain what you have built.
Tip 3: Use cross-training as a bridge
Swimming, yoga, Pilates, hiking, dancing, even a long walk on uneven ground. These all contribute to the physical qualities that support aerial training. But honestly, the best movement you can do over summer is whatever makes you laugh while you are doing it.
Last year I travelled across Brazil, Colombia, and Florida on a working vacation. At some point in Rio, we found ourselves hanging off the pull-up bars at a bus stop and attempting straddles on the poles, absolutely crying with laughter. In Colombia, there was a gym on the beach. In Miami, we ended up at Muscle Beach with calisthenics champions, Acro Yoga practitioners, hand balancers, and cheer athletes, and had the most ridiculous, joyful session I can remember. None of it was planned. None of it felt like training. All of it was movement, and all of it fed something that a studio session cannot always reach.
You do not need to be on apparatus to be an aerialist. You just need to keep moving in ways that feel good. Summer is the perfect time to remember that.
Tip 4: Let your nervous system lead
Some days on holiday you will feel like moving. Some days you will not. Pay attention to that and honour it. Training through exhaustion or resistance when you are supposed to be resting is counterproductive. The goal over summer is maintenance and recovery, not progression. Give yourself permission to do less on the days your body is asking for it.
Tip 5: Have a plan ready for when you return
This is the tip that makes the biggest practical difference. The September slump is real. Classes resume, the schedule opens up, and you stand in the studio feeling like you have forgotten everything. What breaks that pattern is having something to come back to. A structured programme that meets you where you are and rebuilds your capacity progressively, without expecting you to perform at pre-summer levels on day one.
The Aerial Performance Lab is built for exactly this. It is app-based, so it travels with you if you want it to, and it is structured to meet you wherever you are in your training cycle. Whether you want a short session on holiday or a clear, progressive plan to re-activate your training in September, APL gives you that structure without the guesswork. You can find all the details at the link below.
The Bottom Line
Summer does not have to be a training disaster. It does not have to be a guilt spiral. It can be a reset, a recharge, and a reminder of why you love what you do.
Rest when you need to rest. Move when you want to move. Come back in September with a plan.
Your aerial training will be there. So will I.
References
Stickgold, R. and Walker, M.P. (2013). Sleep-dependent memory triage: evolving generalization through selective processing. Nature Neuroscience, 16(2), pp.139–145. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3303 Available via PubMed Central.
Magnusson, S.P., Langberg, H. and Kjaer, M. (2010). The pathogenesis of tendinopathy: balancing the response to loading. Nature Reviews Rheumatology, 6(5), pp.262–268. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2010.43 Available via Nature.
Meeusen, R., Duclos, M., Foster, C., Fry, A., Gleeson, M., Nieman, D., Raglin, J., Rietjens, G., Steinacker, J. and Urhausen, A.; European College of Sport Science and American College of Sports Medicine (2013). Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the overtraining syndrome: joint consensus statement of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). European Journal of Sport Science, 13(1), pp.1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2012.730061 Available via Taylor and Francis Online.
Murach, K.A. and Bagley, J.R. (2016). Skeletal muscle hypertrophy with concurrent exercise training: contrary evidence for an interference effect. Sports Medicine, 46(8), pp.1029–1039. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-016-0496-y Available via PubMed.
Disclaimer
The content of this post reflects the author's personal opinions, interpretations, and critical analysis of publicly available research. It does not constitute medical, clinical, or professional advice of any kind. Whilst every effort has been made to engage thoughtfully with the source material, the views expressed are the author's own and should not be taken as definitive conclusions. Readers are encouraged to consult qualified professionals and to form their own judgements based on their individual circumstances.
