Coaches are often asking athletes to land softly. Absorbing the impact force like a cat.
The science is fascinating.
Cats can famously fall from skyscrapers and only suffer the most minor of bruises, including the recent story of a cat surviving a 19-story fall in Boston with only a bruised chest. What’s the secret of this feline survival? …
Graham Michael James (born 7 February 1952), is a former Canadian ice hockey coach for the Western Hockey League and convicted pedophile, and was named Man of the Year by The Hockey News in 1989 after coaching the Swift Current Broncos league championship win, and became the General Manager and coach of the Calgary Hitmen in 1994.
James attracted national attention two years later when Sheldon Kennedy and an unnamed colleague came forward to accuse him of sexually abusing them over a period of years as their junior league coach. James pled guilty and was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.
After completing his sentence, James obtained a federal pardon and left the country, settling in Spain and Mexico. However in 2009, Theoren Fleury published a book alleging he too had been abused by James in the 1980s, which James again acknowledged as true. In March of 2012, he was sentenced to another two years in prison.
victim - Theo Fleury
James was given a lifetime ban from coaching by the Canadian Hockey Association. When the CHA learned that James was coaching in Spain, it complained to European ice hockey officials, and he was fired …
There have been a lot of crashes at the Pacific Rim Championships. In the Jr Women’s Bar Final only 3 girls of eight stayed on.
This WAG Code has too much incentive to add another tenth of difficulty, not enough incentive to try to save a tenth in execution deduction.
Inside Gymnastics (www.insidegymnastics.com) on Facebook:
We just caught up with Georgia Simpson… She said she’d like to thank all of the fans for their encouragement and support…. For her recovery after surgery, she’ll have two weeks on completely non-bearing activity and then doctors will evaluate from there. We are wishing her a speedy recovery…
… Georgia Simpson, from East Perth Western Australia, has suffered a dislocation to her left ankle, with bone protrusion, whilst competing at the 2012 Pacific Rim Championships in Everett, Washington, USA.
Georgia was performing a full twisting double somersault (on Floor) …
Martha suggested that Gabrielle Douglas’s poor performance was due to her trying a bit too much of her difficulty all at one time. She was “overpressured” Martha said, first by having done so well in New York two weeks ago and then being expected to do it all again here, and Douglas is a gymnast who needs to feel “absolutely secure” in her routines to do them very well.
Martha suggests that dramatic changes (apparently Liang Chow wanted to introduce even more difficulty into her bar routine, giving her a 6.9 D-score, but that was seen as a little too much, so some of the difficulty was taken out at the last minute) suddenly don’t work with Douglas, and that Chow may still be getting to know his athlete and what works for her.
We have school groups in our Gymnastics Club every day. For recreational gymnastics. The number of overweight and obese children is shocking.
Kottke linked to an important Daily Beast article:
Ten years after his seminal book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser reflects on how little has changed in the production, safety, and consumption in America—but why he’s still hopeful.
Every day about 65 million people eat at a McDonald’s restaurant somewhere in the world, more than ever before. The annual revenues of America’s fast-food industry, adjusted for inflation, have risen by about 20 percent since 2001. …
About two thirds of the adults in the United States are obese or overweight. The obesity rate among preschoolers has doubled in the past 30 years. The rate among children aged 6 to 11 has tripled. And by some odd coincidence, the annual cost of the nation’s obesity epidemic — about $168 billion, as calculated by researchers at Emory University — is the same as the amount of money Americans spent on fast food in 2011. …
Of all athletes, Rhythmic girls have some of the most extreme body types. The general public assumes disordered eating.
Here’s a recently published study.
BODY COMPOSITION PROFILE OF ELITE GROUP RHYTHMIC GYMNASTS
Carvalho L.A., Klentrou P., da Luz Palomero M., Lebre E.
84 RG group gymnasts from the 2009 and 2010 World Cup were evaluated. Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated using standard procedures. Relative body fat (%BF), fat mass and lean body mass were estimated from skinfold thickness …
An increase on the age of the gymnasts participating in high level competitions seems to affect the new body appearance profile. Gymnasts are taller and with higher body mass than in the past. …
A few of the interesting statistics from that study:
• collected during the 2009 and 2010 RG World Cups in Portimão, Portugal.
• Chronological age = 18.59yrs-old (15.27-25.04)
• Body mass (Kg) = 53.05kg or 117lbs (41.10-63.10kg)
• Height (cm) = average 168.13 or 5ft 5in
• Body Fat = 16.74% average
• menarche = 15.92yrs-old average
• started Rhythmic training age-6.46
• training = 40.50hrs / week average
The more successful gymnasts began earlier …, had more years of practice, train more hours a day and had more weekly training volume. The Elite group RG gymnasts had a later onset of menarche than normal population. …
Read the entire paper (PDF) from Vol. 4 Issue 1: Science of Gymnastics Journal.
I don’t know enough about Rhythmic to offer much comment. But do RG girls really need to train more hours / week than Artistic?
That’s surprising.
Delayed menarche seems to be related to low percentage body fat, though the study does not weigh in on that.
Many suspect that competitive female gymnasts risk loss of self esteem from failing at a seriously difficult sport.
But is that true?
SELF-ESTEEM AND TRAIT ANXIETY IN GIRLS PRACTICING COMPETITIVE AND RECREATIONAL GYMNASTICS
by Donti O., Theodorakou K., Kambiotis S., Donti A.
I found this study difficult to read, but here’s the gist of what I got.
They assessed 161 female competitive and recreational gymnasts (10-12 years old), looking for differences between competitive and rec in these two areas:
1) self-esteem
2) trait anxiety
… there was no difference in most of the subscales of self- esteem (athletic competence, physical appearance, behavioural conduct, and global self-esteem), except for the subscales of scholastic competence, and social acceptance, which had lower values for the competitive girls.
Competitive gymnasts did report more ‘anxiety’ than did Rec kids.
