Acrobaddict – Joe Putignano

Publisher’s Weekly:

After reading former Olympic gymnastics hopeful Putignano’s sinister yet intoxicating memoir of addiction, recovery, and more addiction, you wind up feeling like one of his closest friends.

The first-time author, who now portrays Crystal Man in Cirque du Soleil’s traveling production of Totem, divulges what must be nearly every significant detail of his journey from the basement of his parents’ Massachusetts home, where as an 8-year-old he taught himself flips using old couch cushions; to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs …

Amazon

5-Acrobaddict

(via FIG)

Power Tumbling – triple triple

Kristof Willerton from the U.K.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

related – Kristof Willerton – crazy triples

(via FIG)

Knee Injuries In Gymnastics

Dave Tilley and Joe Myhren posted a detailed article on how professionals can assess risk of serious knee injury. The post opens with some alarming statistics:

Traumatic knee injuries such as ACL tears are 4-6 times higher in female athletes compared to males for jumping and landing sports, with some study models suggesting even a 10 times greater risk at baseline

This risk may be increased 10 fold for the young female athlete of high school age, meaning some models would place certain high school aged gymnasts to be 14 – 20x more likely to suffer an injury at baseline

The estimated cost of medical management following traumatic knee injuries is between $17,000 – $25,000 per injury.These numbers can further increase with more complex injuries that require extensive medical interventions and rehabilitation.

Some traumatic knee injuries have been associated with potential long term loss of sports participation, lowered academic performance, long term disability, major functional deficits, and a significant risk of future meniscal injuries/ knee osteoarthritis.

😦

Best practice is to avoid serious knee injury. Teach great technique from a young age to lower risk later in life.

The article includes many graphics. A couple of examples:

double

single-leg-squat-side-view1

If interested, click through.

Prevention of Traumatic and Progressive Knee Injuries In Gymnastics: Assessing Risk Using Jumping, Landing, and Squatting Technique

explaining Beam to Africans

African Gymnastic Championships is putting together a series of video spots in advance of the competition Mar 26-30th in South Africa.

Click PLAY or watch the Beam info clip on YouTube.

David Kenwright to Aussie

The Canadian coach of Kate Richardson, Brittany Rogers and dozens of others is heading Down Under. Congratulations.

David

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Mykayla Skinner – Cheng

2014 Fiesta Bowl Invitational
February 8th, 2014

Note that one hand barely touches the horse. She should lower the preflight.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

via GymFever