See It in Action — Video Feature Below
Crafted in the Off-Season
For freestyle aerialists, summer isn’t downtime; it’s the laboratory where tricks are built, refined, and stress-tested. For Ashton Salwan, the off-season is where foundations are laid — quietly, deliberately — long before results show up on a scoreboard.
May: Strength Before Flight
Every aerialist knows power starts on the ground. May was dedicated to dryland strength — explosive plyometrics, Olympic lifts, mobility, and core stability. In aerials, a fraction of imbalance on takeoff can separate a clean triple from a missed landing. The weight room may lack spectacle, but it’s where durability, control, and confidence are earned.
June: Numbers Over Difficulty
June marked the transition to water ramps. The pool provides a forgiving landing surface, allowing hundreds of repetitions without the risk of snow. This phase prioritized volume over difficulty — dialing in takeoffs, body position, and timing until movement became automatic. It’s where muscle memory replaces conscious thought.
July: Raising the Bar
With repetition established, July brought complexity. Higher numbers paired with increased degree of difficulty meant layering in triples and multi-twist combinations. Skills like bFdFF (Full-Double-Full-Full) demand precision inside chaos — four twists contained within a single flip. Each jump became a building block toward elite-level execution.
August: All Out
August is where aerials demands everything. High volume. High difficulty. Long days on the ramp. Competition-ready triples pushed fatigue to the forefront, turning the mental game into a deciding factor. Visualization, focus, and discipline separate those who endure the workload from those who grow through it.
The month also included the Ultimate Airwave, a mid-summer benchmark event used to pressure-test progress. Ashton delivered a strong 6th-place finish, validating months of work against top-tier competition.
"The Airwave is where you find out if the summer grind is paying off."
~ Ashton Salwan
September: Quality Over Quantity
As the competitive season approached, volume tapered while difficulty remained high. September emphasized refinement — cleaner landings, sharper form, and repeatable execution. With judging built on difficulty, execution, and landing, this phase was about alignment across all three.
October: Strength Reloaded
The cycle closed where it began — back in the gym. October returned to heavy lifts, stability, and conditioning, reinforcing the engine behind the technique. Strength supports consistency, and consistency sustains performance when the season opens.
Freestyle aerials isn’t just a sport of flips and twists — it’s a calculated progression of strength, precision, and mental grit. Every rep in the gym, every splash into the pool, every rotation in the air builds toward what comes next.
This is the grind before the glory.
This is off-season work, done right.
This is the road to the World Cup Tour.