Entries Tagged 'books & manuals' ↓

Gym Rats is a new series of books for kids by Mary Reiss.

The first in the series is already available for $10:

Read about Morgan as she goes through the highs and lows of going for her round-off back handspring for the first time! Meet her best friend, Madison, and be up close and personal as you read their notes to each other. Also, learn some great drills and techniques for your round-off back handspring from Morgan and Madison’s coach …

Gym Rats: Basic Training (Book 1)

Leave a comment if you’ve read it.

Book 2 – Gym Rats: Toe Jam will be available September 17, 2011.

Details on the publisher’s website.

I heard about the books on Chalk Bucket forum.

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This is a repost from my Rec Gymnastics blog.

Attention Recreation Program Directors.

I’m impressed with the 2nd Edition of the CANGYM recreation program developed by Gymnastics Alberta. It’s a significant improvement on the original.

The CANGYM National Badge Program is Gymnastics Canada’s National Skill Development and Evaluation program for Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

This program is intended for use with participants of varying abilities aged 6 and older, including beginner level participants through to entry level competitive gymnasts.

Utilizing the CANGYM badge program allows participants, coaches, and parents to monitor progress in addition to being a motivational tool for athletes. …

Gymnastics Canada

It’s a big binder with supporting documentation available on an accompanying disk. There is no on-line support, however.

CANGYM looks expensive at $110 from Gymnastics Canada. But a club needs purchase only 1 copy. Everything is photocopy ready. In fact, I would say it’s a bargain. I’m not aware of any other badge system as good.

The CANGYM levels are often used for Report Cards.

The program is not perfect for every club, but it’s a great “starting point” for building your own program.

The most controversial part is the CANGYM badge program. Many clubs use it. Savvy coaches break some of the levels into 2 parts, allowing more kids to progress more sessions. Some clubs even produce their own badges rather than use the astonishingly expensive official badges. ($2.53ea).

Overall, I highly recommend the binder as a resource for every recreation program.

details on Gymnastics Canada

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From Ollerup, Denmark.

This work features the first international biography of Niels Bukh (1880-1950), the charismatic founder of the special Danish school of modern gymnastics.

His team of young elite gymnasts traveled around the world demonstrating his gymnastics, and in Japan, his school is still attracting thousands of pupils.

Bukh’s private life and his fascination with the German Nazi party makes him a very controversial figure even fifty years after his death. It includes a DVD with 131 film clips in Danish, English, and Japanese. …

Amazon

A gay Nazi collaborator. Sounds interesting.

Read a review by Wendy Varney.

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UPDATE on this issue from Wayne Goldsmith:

Sport Coaching Brain

Thank Diving Examiner Tom Trapp for the link.

Anyone who claims “There is no such thing as talent” is wrong.

There are some excellent comments on this post, by the way. Ono paraphrases Michael Shermer, Founding Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, in saying that success in a combination of talent, hard work and luck.

Olympic Champion Kyle Shewfelt was not the most talented guy who ever walked into his gym, for example. (That was Bardana.) But he put in plenty more than 10,000hrs, was very talented … and also was the right kind of athlete to win the 2004 Floor title. He happened to have a short back handspring at the exact time it was essential to do 4 tumbling skills in series without going out of bounds. He happened to be an artistic gymnast in a quadrennial when that rewarded.

Good timing.

______ original post from June 30th:

Coach Howard posted the best summary I’ve seen on the theory that many people can become expert at something if they put in 10,000 hours of focused training.

Coach Howard credits K. Anders Ericsson for popularizing the concept, but I first saw it in the 1985 book Developing Talent in Young People by Dr. Benjamin Bloom. (A must read for every coach.)

That all said, I don’t really believe it.

The 10,000hrs correlates with excellence, but correlation isn’t causation.

If I had trained 10,000hrs, I still wouldn’t have made the NBA.

You need both talent and training. Nature and nurture.

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Coach Jeff Summers from Flames Gymnastics, Arizona has written a short book for gymnastics parents about what to do, and NOT do at home.

Get an understanding of the kinds of exercises that can and should be trained at home as well as what should be left to the coaches.

Paperback $15.96 or eBook $9.98 from Lulu

Thanks Jeff.

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2008 Team Olympic gold medalist, 19yr-old Li Shanshan, has a book.

“I Am My Own Queen on Balance”

(via Chinese Gymnastics Blog)

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For coaches, gymnasts and Moms.

SGP – Recommended Reading for June 7

… I like the 7 Mommy Musts for Chaperoning a Bunch of Girls on Mommy Warriors – Fighting the everyday battles of motherhood

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A new text for coaches from Routledge Sport Science is now available everywhere, contributors including Bill Sands and John Salmela, titled The Science of Gymnastics.

Several people have told me it’s good.

• energetic, physical and physiological assessment
• training principles
• diet, nutrition and supplementation
• growth and development issues
• kinetics and kinematics
• angular and linear motion
• angular momentum
• stress, anxiety and coping
• motivation and goal setting
• mental skills training for practice and competition
• the psychology of learning and performance.

Amazon

It’s available in paperback or ebook for $54.95. From that same Routledge link you can preview some pages free. University instructors can request a Complimentary Exam Copy.

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If you like the Coach Howard articles online, check this out. His best stuff.

You need to BUY NOW though. The sale ends no later than April 27th..

- Level 4, 5 or 6 Package, that’s 3 books normally at $141, now just $67 (you save $74)

- Level 7 or 8 Package, that’s 4 ebooks normally at $178, now just $67 (you save $111)

- The Whole Store Package, that’s 12 products normally at $524, now just $247 (you save $277)

details on Gymnastics Zone

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by Dan Kindlon PhD

… In his new book, Kindlon turns on its head the traditional views held by many social scientists that adolescent girls are psychologically disadvantaged compared to their male peers.

Instead, Kindlon finds in his research that American girls are by and large outstripping the boys who are their contemporaries in academic terms and in self-esteem levels, and in general increasingly appear to be better equipped to succeed. …

… the “young woman who is destined to be a leader. She is talented, highly motivated, and self-confident.” …

There’s a new type of teenage girl growing up in America today, and she is having a profound and beneficial influence on society. That’s the conclusion of Dr. Dan Kindlon, the widely respected child and adolescent psychologist and the coauthor of the bestseller Raising Cain. …

Amazon – Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World (2006)

I haven’t read this book. But the premise rings true. Girls growing up in 2011 are better off than those who grew up with me in the distant past.

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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:

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Has anyone read this book?

It sounds terrific.

Cost is only $12.76 direct, or $19.36 from Amazon. Plus shipping.

HOW THE FALL OF THE IRON CURTAIN CHANGED THE WORLD OF GYMNASTICS

During the heyday of Soviet gymnastics, Vladimir Zaglada coached Olympic gymnasts at the famous Moscow-Dynamo gymnastics school (he was head coach of this club for 20 years) …

In his book he attempts to …

Explain the Soviet system for training coaches and gymnasts, including in-depth explanations of some of the pedagogical approaches used …

it also contains stories from the world of gymnastics that will be of interest to any fan, particularly those intrigued by the international aspect of Olympic sports. …

For example, the book includes a special profile of gymnastics World Champion Olga Mostepanova (Russia), now the mother of 5 young children.

It also takes the reader inside the Moscow-Dynamo Gymnastics Club, which produced many other champions beside Olga. …

CoachZaglada.com

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Scheduled for an April 2011 release:

Mr. Celzani finds himself consumingly in love with an Amazonian gymnast with whom he shares an apartment block. The machinations of their fellow inhabitants notwithstanding, he finds his romantic efforts repeatedly thwarted by his beloved’s single-minded focus on her rigorous physical discipline. …

Amazon

Actually that’s a reprint of a novella by Italian Edmondo de Amicis (1846–1908).

It could be interesting. An exploration of female fitness, sexual stereotypes and gender roles in nineteenth-century Italy

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