Year: 2011

USA Gymnastics – we’re good

Team USA did have a very good meet at Worlds in Tokyo.

Click PLAY or watch a rah-rah montage on YouTube.

Right now I’d project the Americans 2nd in WAG (behind Russia), 3rd in MAG (behind China/Japan) at the London Olympics. But the gap is closing. Nastia and Gabby on Bars, for one wildly speculative example, could win the Team competition for the USA.

In a 3-up, 3-count Final, the depth of Russia and China on Bars is lessened.

Of course in a 3-up, 3-count Final … anything can happen. It’s going to be exciting.

street acrobatics compilation

An interesting edit. Scary in places. I don’t like raising ‘difficulty’ by adding height.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Russia again Olympic favourites

Aliya Mustafina fans can heave a sigh of relief: The 2010 World champion’s knee and Olympic hopes are intact following her comeback performance Friday at the Voronin Cup in Moscow, her hometown.

Mustafina, who tore her ACL at the European Championships on April 8, showed an extremely impressive level of difficulty in her first meet in seven months, given that the knee injury prevented her from training floor or vault for several months.

Mustafina finished sixth all-around after a fall on beam …

read more on Examiner – Aliya Mustafina: The comeback is on!

Komova won the meet. Yulia Belokobylskaya was second and Valeria Maksyuta of Israel (formerly Ukraine) was third.

Still, the BIG story is that Mustafina is back in record time. If she and Komova are both healthy in London it will be tough for the USA or China to beat them.

Couch Gymnast links to videos.

Gymnastics Fear Cure System $377

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link on the bottom of this post – Overcoming Fear in Gymnastics

Sounds like quackery, for sure. Please leave a comment if you know anyone who’s tried it.

That post has some good content, but misses some of the most important factors regarding serious fear issues in gymnastics:

• almost exclusively WAG, not MAG
• almost always on backwards skills
• almost never very young gymnasts
• most pronounced just before and during competitive season

Strategies often not considered by WAG coaches:

– progress slower on backward skills, faster on forward skills
– introduce forward skills first (e.g. forward flyaway before backward)
– spot backwards skills as little as possible
– train more difficulty early season than you want to compete (take out skills to reduce distress when you get close to season)

MAG coaches need not worry, though these are strategies I like to use with boys, too.

Courtney has the right idea — at her club she feels the boys train smarter than the girls.

If girls trained more like guys, they’d have fewer mental blocks due to fear.

Jason Shen – How Gymnastics Taught Me to Man Up, Get Tough and Crush Fear

How To Avoid Achilles Rupture

Stephanie McGregor from Oregon State tore her Achilles. 😦

Could that have been avoided? This would have been her last year competing.

… it’s not easy.

What are the signs my gymnast is getting a tendon injury or progressing toward rupture?

Brandi Smith-Young:

… In the early stages your athlete will report pain at the beginning of activities. Prime example would be reports of pain in the tendon or insertion during warm-ups which subside after getting “warmed-up”. No pain during actual practice. Reports of pain and the need to ice the tendon after practice. May or may not have any swelling present.

Read the entire article by Brandi on Gym Momentum – HOW TO AVOID TENDON RUPTURE

Yulia Chemaryova – Bars

Best Bars at Top Gym, Belgium, the meet for girls age ineligible for Olympics. Results.

… Chemaryova is coached by Maria Nazarova, alongside World Floor Champion Ksenia Afanasyeva and 2010 world team member Ksenia Semenova. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Great potential.

I saw that routine on Rewriting Russian Gymnastics – Evgeniya Shelgunova – Top Gym tournament success

Facebook missed messages

If someone you are not yet friends with on Facebook tries to send you a personal message, you are not notified. It’s hidden away in a place called “Other Messages” — even if you have minimal privacy settings.

When I checked my “Other Messages” I had missed some important events. 😦

Facebook fail.

Details on Lifehacker – Your Facebook Has Two Inboxes, and You’ve Probably Missed Messages from the Second

On the upside, I think the new Facebook Timeline is pretty cool. Easy to install. And you can test it for a week before showing the world. Here’s how to set it up in two clicks.