A big theme in the comments of this blog, of late, has been criticism online of gymnasts and ex-gymnasts being fat.
What should we do about that, as a coaching group?
Best, it seems to me, is to confront the issue. And who are the best spokespeople? Gymnasts themselves.
It’s easy for a genetic ectomorph like Shannon Miller to be a role model for low body weight.
Mesomorphic women like Shawn Johnson more often have a tougher time keeping excess weight off. Here she talks about healthy body image.
… “There’s a huge push in the world on an image, a stereotypical, beautiful model image, especially in gymnastics,” Johnson said. “I was a huge target for that.”
She said it wasn’t unusual to hear stories in her sport about cases of anorexia and bulimia. She said that her 4 foot 11 inch muscular build wasn’t popular with some on Dancing with the Stars, either. Johnson said she was frequently compared to Holly Madison.
“I don’t know if you girls know who that is, but she’s a model and she’s like tiny and tall! And they’re like, ‘You have to become her,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m 4 foot 11, that’s not possible,’” Johnson said. …
(via Full Twist)
Mesomorph Sam Peszek is in.
… “I want to be the face of the fight against obesity,” she said. …
If you want to be a high level gymnast, percentage body fat is an important variable. But after retirement, it’s not a big deal. Most of the ex-gymnasts I know are far leaner than the general population.
21 comments ↓
I’m not expert but it seems like you have your body types wrong.
“Ectomorphs are lean, and have difficulty gaining muscle. In woman there are no defined curves, in other words a straight up and down physique.”
That doesn’t sound like Shannon to me.
I think Shannon, Shawn, and Sam are all a combination of mesomorph and Endomorph but Shannon is a little less endomorphic than the other two.
I’ve been really disgusted by the comments about canadian gymnasts weight over on intl gym forum lately. There definitely is still a lot of work to be done in the sport regarding body image and the stereotypical ‘ideal’.
“Mesomorph Sam Pezik is in.”
Also, it’s Peszek.
1. Our society has MORE of an issue with overweightness than under. What I hear from a lot of gym fans (and some fat people) is a desire to not face reality. To not call fat, fat.
2. It’s a very different thing to talk about the difference of Shawn having an extra pound or two before Olympics, verus FACING THE FACT that she was noticeably overwieght recently. Not just for sports standards but for NORMAL appearance and health.
3. Watch this video and look at the discussion of body fat:
http://avidityfitness.net/2008/08/21/body-fat-percentage-how-correct-do-you-calculate/
(see below for a link that gives a transcript and pictures if you don’t want to watch a long video.)
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Net, net: Shawn currently is well over 25%. yes, she has a muscular build, so when she does lose weight, she will still have some thickness. But that current heft is NOT MUSCLE people. It’s not muscle on her mom either! Nothing evil about this. Just physical truth! Just look at the pictures and how they try to hide her fat. It’s a charade.
The good thing is she can EASILY, safely get her butt down to the high teens. This will do wonders for her sports-wise. Will have NO impact on reproductive function (unless she actually gets pregnant or needs to nurse!) And this is something she can do REGARDLESS of the knee having problems (and who knows how that will go), and regardless of growth giving her issues with skills (and who knows how that will go).
It really is a very easy training lever to push. Instead of thinking of this as a negative, she should think of it as a positive. This is something she can work on and lick, no matter what! In fact the feeling of progress on diet and weight can easily be motivation for her!
She’ll probably want to taper even lower as she nears major competitions. But that’s a decision to make then and not something she NEEDS to keep long term. But getting down from the 28% or whatever she is now? That’s a fricking no brainer!
And I hope she approaches it in a scientific manner, with paid advice from someone like Alan Aragon, Leigh Peele or Lyle McDonald. She can afford it and she’s worth it.
Not relying on gymboards, or Marta, or gym coaches. Who may know a LOT about biomechanics of UB saltos. But who do NOT blow me away with their understanding of nutrition science journals or competitive nutrition for athletes (ala Lance, et al.) So I am NOT saying just “Memmel it”. I’m saying make a deliberate, planned, scientific change for training efficacy.
Pezzek must be the most mispelled name on the net. I bet she takes it OK, though. Seems pretty centered.
I’ve learned my lesson on the links and the spam filter, so I separated this link out and put an intermediate post with no link.
So here’s Peele’s video content in a blog post (for fast reading, vice video watching).
http://www.leighpeele.com/body-fat-pictures-and-percentages
Atler is an example of a girl who was well overweight after leaving gym. Watch the Starting Over videos. Regardless of being in gym shape (which is not really a life sport, hiking is), Atler just as a NORMAL PERSON should keep a trimmer figure than what she had on that show.
And don’t give me a binch of boo hooing about how hard it is to be a woman today. She can put down the ice creams spoon, pick up the salad fork, and go for a walk.
Oop. Fixed that mispel.
THANKS Sher. Made the fix.
I don’t think it’s hard to be a woman today. I think it’s hard to be a coach sometimes, though
And yeah, if people really want to make changes (barring real medical conditions like thyroid issues and major physical problems that can make exercise near impossible) they can. It’s just hard for people to NOT look at eating better as a “sacrifice”. I prefer to think that by eating poorly I am sacrificing more energy, better skin, hair, and overall body fitness/look.
I wrote a HUGE message and then deleted it… not worth all the details. But I will sum it up…
Ex-gymnasts are 90% of the time over weight. Especially those that go into coaching. In Alberta, I can think of 4 or 5 coaches that are NOT over weight… not a very good statistic.
I’ve been there done it all… Started gymnastics at the late age of 11, stuck with it until I was 18 and a National Open gymnast. At 12 I was anorexic, at 16-17-18 I was over weight at 135lbs and 5’2″. Post-gymnastics I gained another 15lbs. At 20 years old I weighed 150lbs!! Now… fitness is a HUGE part of my life (now a Competitive CrossFitter, and Olympic Weight Lifter). I’m more fit and healthy than I ever was in gymnastics… 5’2″, 108lbs and around 10% body fat.
Gymnasts think they are “the S&^$”. They eat what they want when they want and how ever much of it they feel like. They can because they train upwards of 25 hours per week and can eat like crap and not notice. When you stop training, you actually need to watch what you put in.
I think it is hard to be a woman today. You are told to be thin, but it is just so darn easy to get convenience foods that will mostly have the opposite effect. You get judged on how you look and this can have an impact on your career path. Women are objectified now like they never were before. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svpMan9cWyo (it is very funny as well)
I think that being of a healthy weight is easier for some than others. As Rick was saying, it depends on how you are built.
When I was a student, I did not eat very well or exercise very well, but I gained little weight. My friend has to eat a fairly strict diet to keep herself in the healthy weight range.
In my exercise class, I was the lightest. None of us had exercised much. I was the small one. My body fat was lower than anyone else’s but I could barely do a press up and any weight exercises, particularly arm ones, were very hard for me (and they still are!). One lady with 50% body fat could lift heaps more than me.
Losing the fat was easy for me, gaining the muscle mass was and still is very very hard. The other women in my class found muscle mass easier to gain than me, but they found the fat hard to lose.
I think that there are loads of body image issues for women in society in general which are impacting on what people say about gymnasts. Too many people forget that gymnasts are young women before they are gymnasts. Too many people think that they can judge the body of a gymnast by looking at a few pictures. Gymnasts put themselves out there to be judged on their skills and execution, not their bodies. If an ex-gymnast is overweight, that is their problem, and I don’t think that anyone else should feel a need to comment on it unless they are the ex gymnast’s doctor or trainer/coach. I would not go up to a person in the street and tell them that they needed to lose weight. Why is it ok for me to do that to a gymnast?
Shawn Johnson may be fat …. compared to the average Kenyan marathon runner, NOT the average American. That isn’t really that much to be proud of, as the average American is FAT.
There are really two separate issues here. There are legitimate issues with how weight affects performance. In my opinion, it’s fair game to comment on how Nastia or Shawn look more like ex-gymnasts than practicing gymnasts when both of these girls are claiming they have no intentions of retiring.
Being overweight isn’t healthy, and Americans (and an increasing number of those in other nations who have imported our wonderful junk food) are far more at risk from the health consequences of overweight and obesity than they are from the consequences of “bad body image”.
The problems start when the discussions slide from health and performance issues into what are really assessments of female gymnasts’ physical attractiveness. I’d say that a good 90% of the discussions I’ve read on the subject of gymnast’s weight are really the latter masquerading as the former.
And that’s not cool.
But this is something deeply ingrained in our culture – that unless a women or girl is physically attractive, nothing else she achieves really even matters.
But you know what? 99.9999% of the Gymternet bashing that female gymnasts get for their clothes, their looks, their weight, and their style are generated by other females (and a smattering of gay men)…NOT the usual suspects – straight guys.
So ladies … before you complain about what the world is doing to you, look at what you are doing to yourselves.
That’s the beauty of MAG – a guy can have one leg three times bigger than the other or a face full of acne scars, and as long as he throws down when it counts, nobody cares.
And nobody cares if a male coach is a little chubby. Seriously, why should they? Stanford manages to do pretty well with a coach nicknamed “Butterbean”.
Watch the Peele video. Shawn is fat. Just watch her photo ops. They try to hide it with a lot of coverage and angled shots. But it’s shown fine by candid shots.
And really it’s no BIG DEAL. It’s an easily fixable condition. Way easier than learning a double double. I know. I lost 70 pounds in 6 months and did extensive research on the science and psychology of dieting.
And I don’t care if Americans are getting fatter, that doesn’t change the definition of fat. Shawn is. Pull out the calipers or shoot her in stark light, unflexed in a bikini. It’s obvious.
Oh…and…it IS A PROBLEM when Shawn is being a role model for health, or if she is trying to “change the definition” of healthy body image. Shawn is FAR, FAR from anorexic or a waif. She’s overweight.
If she is trying to “change the definition” so that what she is, is not fat…well I will fight her on the beaches, mountains, etc. like Winston Churchill against the Germans. Screw gym…this is just normal health science we are talking about. And I won’t approve of her encouraging Americans to be fat. They need the opposite.
Keep on typing, dude.
Trolling the Internet is a great way to lose weight and keep it off!
@ PolyisTCOandbanned
(1)
It is not possible to diagnose whether Ms. J is slightly overweight from a picture. In order make any diagnoses on Ms. J, you would need to do more analysis than looking at her photo. Even if you have been overweight, you cannot diagnose others from a photo. I have asthma and I would NEVER attempt to diagnose anyone else with it.
(2) Unless you are her doctor/coach, it is none of your business. I suggest that you work on keeping yourself fit rather than tearing down Ms. J.
@ Ono No Komachi
Agreed.
BS. You can tell a lot from photos and we have had a lot of them. Watch the Peele video. Think, people, THINK!
And I don’t personally CARE if she is a heffer, except…
1. I resists a “defining deviation down” that is a bad example for others and for health in general.
2. This is a discussion board (well sort of) so we can discuss gymnasts.
@ PolyisTCOandbanned
What is it that makes you so bitter and angry all the time? Does Poly need a hug??
[voice of the plant in Little shop of horrors saying "feeed meee"] Huuuug meee! [/voice]
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