Gymnastics Examiner posted an exceptional interview with Jay, the man who missed qualifying for two Olympics. Yet has become one of the biggest success stories in the USA with his website American Gymnast.
Examiner.com: Can you tell me a little about your childhood in gymnastics?
Jay Thornton: “I was very fortunate to have several a wonderful coaches from the beginning. I was a pretty good twister. I was a little bit bigger as a kid and I had that going against me. I’m about 5’10″ and competed at about 170 pounds. I was a bit bigger as a kid and wasn’t the most physically gifted, but my first coach, Tim Erwin, started preparing me with sound gymnastics technique from the day one.”
Examiner.com: When did you decide you wanted to go to the Olympics?
J.T.: “When I was 10 years old. It was 1984, the year of the Los Angeles Olympics and I, like every other gymnast at the time, was watching the ’84 U.S. Men’s Olympic team compete. When I saw them win that gold medal, I knew at that point that I wanted to become an Olympic gymnast.” …
Read about the coach who taught him to love gymnastics, Nick Brancheau. His inspirations: Roethlisberger and Bilozertchev. And how he reconnected with the woman who would become his wife.
Gymnastics Examiner – Catching up with American Gymnast’s Jay Thornton
The advantage of buying grips and equipment from American Gymnast is that Jay truly knows the sport inside out. Here’s his reaction to to Sho Nakamori’s post on his Reisport Ring grips tearing after only 2 days.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Jay’s younger brother Andy, who also competed for the University of Iowa, posts an excellent blog, Andy’s Angle, on American Gymnast. I read it religiously.
Note that the coaching video tutorial section has a new address: Gymnastics on Demand
3 comments ↓
If the advice is several days of non-big skills, that could take a lot out of someone’s training. I guess a way around this is for the gymnasts to have two (or three) sets of grips that they are using. So they can get one broken in, with simple work and not have to eschew big tricks for a few days (by using their other pair). I wonder how many actually do this. Would think you’d need some real discipline to label the grips, to know when they are broken in, etc.
For that matter, I wonder why they can’t be pre-stretched mechanically?
A lot of gymnasts (especially in the higher levels) do have more than one set of grips broken in so that if you break a grip at a meet, you’re not stuck in a rough, gripless situation.
I think the leather can’t be pre stretched because if stretches to fit your hand and grip around the bar. I don’t know that this is the definitive reason though.
Having 1 or 2 extra pairs of grips on hand at all times (especially for High Bar) is exactly what you should try to do. Like I said, I was just as guilty as everyone else about jumping up on a brand new pair of grips and doing my hardest skills within the first couple of turns. However, when I was diciplined enough, I would try and break in new pairs of grips by taking a few extra turns at the end of my HB or SR workouts on the new grips. Doing this over the course of a week or so would allow me to keep a pair always broken in and ready in case I broke my primary pair unexpectedly.
P.S. Sincerest thanks on the article Rick!
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