By Mubarak Simmons,
Most people think gymnastics belongs to kids. You grow up, you age out, you move on, and the sport continues without you. But something has been shifting quietly, and now very loudly, in the world of adult gymnastics retreats. Adults are coming back to gymnastics in numbers nobody saw coming. Some of them never left. Some are discovering it for the first time in their 30s, 40s, and beyond. And two people built an entire world around that movement.
Jenny Woudenberg and Hugh Smith are the co-founders of Adult Gymnastics Retreats, a business combining gymnastics training, personal development, and adventure travel in some of the most incredible destinations on the planet. On Episode 4 of the GymnasticsVille Podcast, they joined me to talk about what they have built and where the adult gymnastics movement is headed.
It was one of the most energizing conversations I have had on this show. Here is what we covered.
The Adult Gymnastics Movement Is Bigger Than You Think
Before we get into what Adult Gymnastics Retreats actually is, it is worth understanding the landscape it exists in. This is not a niche hobby. This is a full-on movement.
Jenny shared a stat during our conversation that stopped me cold. In 49 states, any given week sees over 427 adult gymnastics classes happening across the country. She knows this because she made an entire presentation about it for USAG when discussing their role at Congress. The people running gymnastics at the national level were surprised by those numbers.
They should not be. Anyone paying attention to the gymnastics community has noticed something shifting in the last few years. Adults are not just watching gymnastics, they are doing it. They are training, competing, and yes, going on retreats built around it.
Jenny put it simply on the podcast: “Adult gymnastics is truly for everyone. You never have to leave ever.”
Hugh, who spent 15 years on Canada’s national gymnastics team and has coached for 25 years, echoed that. He described the community as filled with people from all walks of life who are healing old experiences, competing seriously, and training three to four days a week. It blew him away when he first encountered it, and he has been inspired by it ever since.
“This community has blown me away,” Hugh said. “It is a very unique, special community that is filled with people from all walks of life, all backgrounds that are just there because they are finding themselves.”
How Adult Gymnastics Retreats Got Started
The origin story of Adult Gymnastics Retreats is the kind of thing that does not come from a business plan. It came from a cheese mat and a postpartum moment.
Jenny had just had her baby and was going through a difficult stretch. She wanted a break, something just for herself. She started searching for a gymnastics retreat because yoga felt too quiet. She could not find one anywhere. So at practice one night, perched on a cheese mat doing backward rolls with Hugh, she asked: what if they just built it?
“I want to go to Cancun,” she told him. “I want to be warm in January, be on turquoise water, do gymnastics in the morning, and play at the beach the rest of the day.” Hugh was in. And true to form, by the next morning Jenny had already sent him spreadsheets, contracts, and a potential itinerary.
“I woke up to Jenny’s spreadsheets, contracts, a potential itinerary,” Hugh said. “And I’m like, my goodness, she is exactly who I need to work with.”
Their first retreat sold out. So did the ones after that. The partnership worked because their strengths are almost perfectly opposite. Jenny brings the organizational power, the event management background, and the drive to make things happen. Hugh brings the coaching expertise, the wellness credentials as a certified life coach and personal trainer, and a gymnastics network built over decades.
There was an early moment that captures how much the community responded. When they started posting about it on Like Fine Wine, a Facebook group with 18,000 adult gymnastics members, people initially thought it was a scam. Too good to be true. Hugh laughed about it during our conversation. The fact that they kept showing up anyway, kept delivering, and kept selling out says everything about what they built.
What a Retreat Actually Looks Like
I asked Jenny and Hugh to take me through a day at one of their retreats, using Colombia as the example. Here is what it sounds like.
You wake up in a house where everyone is staying together, which Jenny says is a key part of the experience. Those late-night conversations matter. Hugh leads a morning movement session, whether that is breathwork, lymphatic flow, or yoga, something to get your body ready. Then breakfast, then everyone piles into a van and heads to a four-hour gymnastics practice with Hugh coaching and small group ratios, usually three to four athletes per coach. Personalized spotting. Skill-specific work. The kind of coaching most adult gymnasts never get.
After practice comes lunch. Then the adventure part of the day. ATVs through the jungle. A rooftop pool club. Horseback riding. Sailing. Dinner in a castle in Malta. Wine at sunset. Then at night, personal development work. Workshops where people go deep, get vulnerable, share things they have never shared with people they have known for decades.
In Colombia, Hugh added something that nobody saw coming: fire walking and arrow breaking. He put a real archery arrow against his trachea, pressed the other end against a wall, and stepped into it. Two attendees joined him. One said the adrenaline she felt breaking that arrow was the same she experienced the day she saved her husband from choking. That is the kind of story that only happens at a retreat built around transformation, not just gymnastics.
The three pillars Hugh outlined are movement through gymnastics, personal development, and adventure. He put it well: “We want people to leave feeling empowered, feeling transformed, feeling like they can accomplish their goals.”
The 2026 Retreat Schedule
Adult Gymnastics Retreats has three destinations on the 2026 calendar: Cancun, Colombia, and Salt Lake City.
Cancun is the flagship. They return every year, always in the winter, because nothing compares to escaping the cold for a week of gymnastics and beach time in January. Colombia is the international adventure option, where the retreat digs deep into the personal development side while also packing in the gymnastics and the local experience.
Salt Lake City is the newest addition and Jenny described it as a mini retreat, a taste of everything they do, accessible and affordable. The itinerary includes a gymnastics session at a full-facility gym with pits under every apparatus, aerial arts, handstand workshops, a massage therapist on site, and a trip to a pink salt lake at sunset that Jenny called one of her favorite places in the world. The retreat closes with a pool party at a private mansion with a sauna, cold plunge, arcade, and trampoline.
If you have been on the fence about trying an adult gymnastics retreat, Salt Lake City is the entry point.
Hugh Smith: 15 Years on Canada’s National Team, 25 Years Coaching
One of the things that sets Adult Gymnastics Retreats apart from other adult gymnastics camps is Hugh. Fifteen years on Canada’s national gymnastics team. Twenty-five years of coaching. That is not a background you find leading adult retreats.
But Hugh reached a point, after all those decades, where he stepped back from the sport entirely. He missed it. He came back. And when he refocused on coaching adults, something clicked in a way it never had before. He told us he competed last month at the World Masters Cup, hosted at MIT in Boston, through the NAIGC. He had trained once in the two months prior. He borrowed a leo, showed up, and competed for the first time in years. Sophia Campana, who joined us on a previous episode, was the one who called him up and convinced him to go.
“As soon as I put on that suit, it was like a flashback in my body,” Hugh said. “Just like a flood of nostalgia. I could not believe that ten years had gone by just like that.”
He also dropped something that deserves its own headline. At the World Championships in Jakarta, where he and Jenny led a retreat group that trained on the podium equipment after the closing ceremonies, Hugh had dinner with the FIG president and told him directly: it is time for FIG to add an adult category at World Championships. The president did not say no. Hugh’s vision is a masters category at the world level, open to all ages.
The World Masters Cup is already organized by decade, with the oldest competitor at the Boston event being around 80 years old. The infrastructure for this exists. The community exists. The question is whether the international governing body is ready to recognize it.
Why Adults Are Walking Into Gyms Right Now
Kerry, my co-host, asked a question during the episode that I think a lot of people wonder about: how hard is it to actually get adults to take that first step into the gym? Gymnastics, even with the word adult in front of it, carries a reputation for being physically demanding and unforgiving.
Hugh reframed it immediately. At their retreats and in their classes, they do not think of it as gymnastics in the traditional sense. They think of it as movement. Movement for longevity. Everyone works at their own level, whatever that means for their body that day. No one is trying to impress anyone. No one is trying to win the Olympics. You let the coaches know your injuries and your comfort level, and you go from there.
Jenny added something that resonated with me. The stigma around gymnastics, the idea that you have to be a certain size, a certain age, a certain level, is fading. She was told by a coach as a girl that she would be too tall to ever succeed in gymnastics. Now she stands at five-foot-nine and runs a gymnastics retreat business, and her classes include people of every body type, every age, every background.
“Adult gymnastics is just therapy and my social life,” Jenny said. “And now it has become my career, my passion, my mission, my whole world.”
Hugh said it simply: “Just show up. That’s it.”
The Community Side Nobody Talks About
One of the things that came through clearest in this episode was how much the community aspect of adult gymnastics means to the people who find it. Jenny talked about it in a way that goes beyond the sport itself. It is hard to make friends as an adult. You are focused on your career, your kids, your obligations. The social connections that came easily in college do not happen the same way anymore.
Adult gymnastics retreats solve that. You already know everyone in the room loves gymnastics, values adventure, and is interested in personal growth. The friendships that form are real and lasting. Jenny mentioned people who met on a Bali retreat who are now traveling together and staying at each other’s homes. Hugh described every retreat group as somehow feeling like the perfect combination of people for that specific trip.
For me, it echoed something I think about often with CrossFit. CrossFit built a massive community around movement and challenge, but somewhere along the way, the emphasis on intensity pushed a lot of people out. What Jenny and Hugh are doing is different. The fundamentals of gymnastics, the movement, the skill, the discipline, are at the center. But so is the joy. So is the fun. So is the life being built around it.
Where to Find Adult Gymnastics Retreats
If this episode got you thinking about getting back into a gym or booking a retreat, here is where to start.
Their website is adultgymnasticsretreats.com, and their Instagram is @adultgymnasticsretreats. They also have an online school community through Skool (S-K-O-O-L) where anyone can join for free, access training tips, attend expert workshops, and connect with the broader adult gymnastics world. Hugh also offers individual online coaching for those working toward specific skills.
The 2027 retreat schedule has not been announced yet, but Jenny confirmed they will return to Mexico, go somewhere beachy, and have at least one European destination. Sign up for their email list to be first to know.
Listen to the Full Episode
This article covers the highlights, but the full conversation with Jenny and Hugh is something you should hear in their own words. Jenny’s energy and Hugh’s depth together make this one of the most compelling episodes we have done on the GymnasticsVille Podcast. Episode 4 is available now wherever you listen to podcasts and on our YouTube channel.
If you know someone who has been thinking about coming back to gymnastics, send them this episode. It might be exactly what they needed to hear.
Follow GymnasticsVille on Instagram for breaking news and coverage across NCAA and elite gymnastics.
