Dr. Gerald George, author of the current international best-seller Championship Gymnastics: Biomechanical Techniques for Shaping Winners will be speaking at the following meetings in 2011:
June 11-12, USA Gymnastics (USAG) Region 3 Congress, Vail, Colorado
August 12-14, US Association of Independent Gymnastics Clubs (USAIGC) Educational Convention, Las Vegas, Nevada
August 18-20, USA Gymnastics National Congress, St. Paul, Minnesota
September 30-October 1, Gymnastics Ontario Federation Congress, Ontario, Canada
If you can’t make one of those, check out his YouTube Channel:
Taller gymnasts like these two often rely on more twisting than somersaulting elements. It’s difficult to keep the feet together past double twist. And there may even be a slight biomechanical advantage in both the scissoring action and increasing rotation.
That said, both Nastia and Aliya are gorgeous and virtuous on most elements they compete. You can only deduct so much for this form error.
Update. There are some interesting comments on this post.
The feet are crossed partly as a result of the ‘torque’ takeoff. The same thing happens in figure skating.
But in Artistic gymnastics we’ve always deducted that as an ‘error’, not called it a ‘technique’.
Personally, I’d rather continue to discourage crossed feet with deduction. If we allow it, we’ll likely increase the number and severity of landing injuries.
Pommel Horse Exercises
Methods, Ideas, Curiosities, History (1998)
by Istvan Karacsony and Ivan Cuk
Forward by Hardy Fink.
The history section is fascinating, dating back to Alexander the Great. Of course the “horse” was used for military training.
Jahn was the first to document the difference between a “swinging” horse and a “vaulting” horse.
Emil Hafner (Switzerland) is given credit for the first “circle” (1868). Yu-Lienfeng (CHN) get credit for the first circle on one pommel (1954).
I learned of Julius Stockli (SUI) circa 1886.
Author Karacsony is from Hungary, a nation famous for Zoltan Magyar, Berki and many others. It may be that the Hungarians were first to train the “pig” twice a day.
Canadian Phillippe Delasalle gets credit for the “Flair” (1975). In Russia the skill was long called “Delasalle”.
Kurt Thomas is praised for the “Thomas Flair” (Flair Czech Flair – 1976). We are reminded that in 1980 he may well have been the best all-around gymnast in the world, … but the USA led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
A sad omission, though, are the true inventors of the Flair: Ted Marcy and his teammates from Hinsdale Central High school in Chicago.
Magyar‘s wonderful story is there. He was undefeated for 8yrs in any competition, twice Olympic champion.
9.9 … No deduction back then for “lack of extension”, obviously.
Here’s one Magyar story you’ve not heard. When I was a young man he came to Calgary, Canada to compete in an international invitational. Equipment was supplied (as I recall) by Mike Jacki, AAI.
Magyar warmed up his full routine with Spindle and Travel. No problem. Then the other gymnasts complained that the horse was “wrong”. The holes had been drilled incorrectly so that the horse was not close to symmetrical. Magyar hadn’t even noticed!
Jacki stayed up all night (as I recall) “fixing” that horse.
Bill Roetzheim (USA) was not the best judge in history. But he gets fair credit for the invention of the “flop rule”, greatly simplifying judging.
Another judge getting a shout out is Ron Smith (GBR) who simplified pommel scripting.
These authors, both University educators, have 4 apparatus books for Men’s Artistic Gymnastics (FX, PH, R, V) and are working on the other two.
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get your hands on them as there’s no world wide distribution, as yet. Ivan tells me they plan to sell them online in the near future.
Disclosure: mine is a review copy given me by the authors.
Last week I led a coaching course session on “biomechanics“.
As always, in addition to the Canadian curriculum, I added the 4 principles as invented by Dr. G.S. George in his 1980 text Biomechanics of Women’s Gymnastics:
Each is 8min or longer. You could watch them on YouTube or Gymnastike and have the chance to comment & rate, … but it’s far better to get your own copy of the textbook. ($79) … Or to see Dr. George live.
This is critical stuff for all coaches of Artistic Gymnastics.
This is the best of their 4 men’s apparatus books, so far.
And definitely the best of the series for coaches of women as there’s a lot of WAG content.
Vault
Methods, Ideas, Curiosities, History (2004)
by Istvan Karacsony and Ivan Cuk
Forward by Mitsuo Tsukahara
… Tsukahara started working “his” vault on the women’s horse in 1969 as his Yamashita (the winning vault of the day) was poor.
He competed Tsuk successfully at Worlds 1970. (Andzej Szajna from Poland was first to attempt Handspring Front, at the same meet, but sat down the landing.)
There’s a chart showing who first did each vault for men and women, regardless of whether or not it’s named after them in the respective codes. That will help answer a few coach arguments.
The history of this apparatus is fascinating, the first historic images dating back to 2500 BC.
This text documents the evolution of both horse and spring board.
Interesting statistics from Worlds 2002:
• most women took 13-15 steps
• most men took 13-14 steps
The main reason I like this text the best of the four in the series is the detail. Vault has much less content than the other apparatus, so (in the same 150 pages) the authors could include more biomechanics, specific conditioning, etc.
Even if you fancy yourself a vault expert, you’ll still learn a lot from this book. If you could only get your hands on it. There’s no world wide distribution, as yet. (Leave a comment if you know of someone who might want to distribute for them.)
The conclusion was no surprise:
The faster you run, the better. Male gymnasts should strive for over 10m/sec velocity. Female gymnasts over 9m/sec. peak velocity, decelerating as little as possible on board contact.
Zamo topped out at 9m/sec at the 2002 Worlds, for example. Dragalescu was well over 10m/sec.
The most argued phase is not clarified all that much … the hurdle for non-Yurchenko vaults.
Time of the hurdle is between .24 and .30 seconds. Maximum height of the feet was 35cm. But the conclusion I wanted (the shorter the time for any given velocity, the better) is not there.
There is an interesting finding that I’d not seen anywhere else. The top Yurchenko vaulters (i.e Scherbo) have a longer round-off. (i.e. 322cm from the take-off foot to the landing on the Board)
Obviously you need to run fast to do that.
OK.
There are a hundred other interesting points in this manual.
• Defer’s morphological statistics one month prior to winning the 2000 Olympics
• statistics on Dragalescu’s vault
• technique on selected vaults
• conditioning drills
There’s a long section written by Matej Tusak on the psychology of vault, including preventing burnout. Strategies for success.
…Back in the 1990s we several times sent boys to train with Karacsony in Hungary. And several times had him come to Canada as a guest coach. I see many of his favourite vault drills in this manual.
But more than anything else, this is a perfect example of why Men’s gymnastics is so un-artistic. It’s more advantageous to add a cheap C-part than to do any corner parts, … or even hold a V-sit.
I’m very happy Aliciaactually won the world Championships on Vault (VIDEO at 2min). Her unique personality and incredible height will be better remembered.
Geoffrey Taucer:
… I view block not as something that you do, but as something that happens when everything else is done right. …
That’s right, of course. But there’s a psychological element to “blocking”, as well. Like a boxer, you need to visualize. When I competed I always tried to topple the horse. It’s good to be angy when vaulting. … But calm for Beam.
Dr. Gerald George, author of the current international best-seller Championship Gymnastics: Biomechanical Techniques for Shaping Winners will be speaking at the following meetings in 2011:
