Vanessa’s 2nd children’s Gymnastics book now available.
River’s Olympic Dreams (River’s Adventures Book 2) Kindle Edition $7.70
Category: books & manuals
Changing Gymnastics Culture
Dave Tilley is a coach and sports medicine professional. His goals:
1. Provide gymnasts with healthier, more successful, and more extended careers.
2. Provide coaches, medical professionals, parents, and support staff with more education on how to help gymnasts achieve goal 1.
In Dave’s experience the high rates of injury and drop out in WAG are due in part to …
• questionable methods for motivating gymnasts
• inappropriate flexibility techniques
• suboptimal strength and cardio programs
• insanely high skill repetition requirements, or lack of attention to athlete recovery
• training methods that are applied without a sound basis of coaching rationale or scientific evidence
• a lack of collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to gymnastics training
Dave’s made his book free. Click through to download. If you can’t read the entire book, work through Dave’s “Take Away Points” at the end of each chapter.
The book is 3 PDFs.
Changing Gymnastics Culture – a review
I just finished my first skim of Dave Tilley’s new book, more than 450 pages.
Something for every coach: sports medicine, injury prevention, conditioning, ethics, …
I’ll be going back through and excerpting some of my favourite sections.
Dave was partly inspired to put his ideas together by the Nassar crimes. He sensed “outdated training methods and a toxic culture can foster abusive practices” in Gym … making it possible for a pedophile to go undetected for decades.
Coaches spent inordinate amounts of time with young children and parents place complete trust in them. Young athletes are taught that their dreams may depend on the approval of a famous trainer or coach. They are also programmed to believe that obeying orders given, without question, is the only path to achieve their dreams.
Together, these truths about certain areas of our sport, while not necessarily inherently malicious in nature, certainly open to the door to abuse and mistreatment of young athletes. …
I certainly recommend you download and check it out for yourself.
Dave’s made his book free. Click through to download.
The book is 3 PDFs.
In addition are two resources: Myofascial Release Checklist and a Splits Complex.
cover girl Laurie Hernandez
Professor Keith Russell many times brought in male gymnasts to “demonstrate” in Anatomy class.
(via theGymter.net)
Laurie Hernandez – picture book
Laurie’s second book drops Oct. 9th. In time for Christmas.
Nile Wilson has a book coming
via Gymternet Clan
Nemov’s 2010 memoir
Luba is posting a translation on gymnovosti.
… for a long time I didn’t know my father. I was already in third grade when he was released from prison. He was imprisoned when I was two years old. And after doing his time he came back to us but we didn’t stay together for a long time, perhaps, only for 1,5 years or so. Father drank and beat my mom …
This is a sad story. Then my parents got divorced. …
FIRST CHAPTER OF FAIR PLAY BY ALEXEI NEMOV
Aly Raisman’s Fierce – a review
Before starting the book I was predisposed to like it.
1) Aly Raisman is one of those few international gymnasts who speaks with authority.
2) She wrote the book with Blythe Lawrence, Gymnastics expert.
Blythe has several other books including Great Moments in Olympic Gymnastics. (2014)
I bought the audio version with an accompanying PDF including photos. It’s available too in hard cover and Kindle.
Most reviews of Fierce focused on Aly’s reveal of having been abused by the U.S. National Team doctor. It’s damning for Nassar and USA Gymnastics. Of all his victims, Aly Raisman has the largest audience. She successfully got the message out to the general public announcing it on 60 Minutes the week of the book launch.
Indeed, protecting everyone from predators has been her mission since.
We appreciate Aly’s time, energy and bravery in taking on this most important issue. She’s done more, personally, to educate Americans than has USA Gymnastics collectively.
If, like me, you are still trying to understand how one of the USAG medical team could abuse so many gymnasts for so many years without being caught, read Aly’s chapter on the Survivors.
___
Fierce is as good a gymnastics celebrity biography as I can recall. I enjoyed it start to finish.
Her relationship with her coaches and Marta Karolyi is heartwarming. A great insight from one of the most decorated American gymnasts.
Aly has already had one of the greatest careers in international gymnastics history, but the book modestly focuses on her failures. Her many 4th place finishes. Her lowest moments.
As a child she was never the best gymnast in her group. The future Olympic Floor champion had problems learning back twisting on Floor. For months she was the only girl in her group training layout rather than full twist.
Like Shawn Johnson, she (mostly) went to regular school. She played many other sports, especially soccer, and attended physical education class when a principal would not count Gymnastics training as equivalent.
Her many young gymnast readers can relate.
I was shocked to read about her self-doubts over the years. Watching Aly from the cheap seats she appeared to be the best prepared, the most consistent medal contender in the world. Fierce and confident.
The section on her participation in the 2015 ESPN Body Issue is excellent. Another important message.
For her second Olympics Aly worked with a dietician. She details her program. I’d advise gymnasts not to blindly copy what worked for Aly Raisman. Get your own dietician. Every body is different.
One takeaway I got from this book is that USAG should abandon The Ranch as a training centre.
Aly Raisman was twice the Olympic team captain. Has 6 Olympic medals, 3 of them gold. Yet there’s no rah rah hyper patriotism in this biography. She’s much more interested in her family. Her teammates. Her friends.
It’s upbeat but not a fluff piece.
My only complaint is that I’d like to know more. She scarcely speaks of club teammate Alicia Sacramone, for example. I’d like to have had more insights into what happened at all those secretive team camps.
To sum up, however, I’d highly recommend this book as a Christmas gift.
Click PLAY or watch Aly’s Gold medal Floor from London on YouTube.
related – Jessica and Spencer posted an audio review – GymCastic #282
Doc Ali’s new book
The Leadership Warrior: Coaches Edition
by peak performance coach, author, and speaker, Dr. Alison Arnold.
Based on the rigorous ethics, loyalty, respect, and discipline of the Samurai warriors, this book integrates it all for athletic coaches. Noble. Disciplined. Creative. That is the warrior way.
Alexei Nemov’s memoir “Fair Play”
Luba Baladzhaeva:
The book (2009) is absolutely fascinating and also includes chapters by his coach and his wife. However, it’s never been translated into English and likely won’t ever be. I am currently reading the book and posting the highlights in English on twitter. All the tweets are then assembled into a story on Storify.
His first coach kept notes and wrote that at the beginning Nemov was physically weak, lacked endurance, poorly behaved and was prone to sudden mood changes …
He talks about food and hunger a lot. He still remembers (and holds a grudge) how Voropayev stole his breakfast …
He bought his first car in 1995. At the time coaches didn’t like when gymnasts left the Round Lake territory even on the days off, so Arkayev often confiscated his car keys …
Between 1995 and 1997 there was a huge drug problem at Round Lake. Mostly weed, but some heavier drugs as well …
