seeing an Olympic membership bump?


United Sports Academy is a member club using one of the USA Gymnastics TV Campaign ads. (PDF)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

For the first time USAG is offering two TV commercials that can be customized for member gym clubs.

Cost is as low as $100. Click through the PDF link if you want to know more.

They can be used on club websites and social media. Or presented on local TV stations.

Great idea.

Springers – “Sweaty Fridays”

General physical preparation, end of week.

Springers Gymnastics, Winnipeg, Manitoba:

We have no air conditioning so we turn up the tunes, get a good workout, and sweat it out!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Acrobatic Gymnastics injuries

Physical Therapy in Sport :

Original research
Acrobatic gymnastics injury: Occurrence, site and training risk factors

Melinda Purnell, Debra Shirley, Leslie Nicholson, Roger Adams

Discipline of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Australia

Setting
New South Wales acrobatic gymnastics clubs.

Participants
Surveys were completed by 73 acrobatic gymnasts (69 female) aged 8–26 years.

…

Results
Half (50.7%) of the participants had sustained an injury associated with acrobatic gymnastics in the past 12 months, with 28.8% of participants affected by chronic injury at the time of the study.

Age of onset for acute and chronic acrobatics-related injury averaged 13.9 (SD ± 3.03) and 14.7 (SD ± 3.85) years, respectively. Injury sites were predominately the knee, ankle and wrist. Risk factors for injury were having an age of ?13 years and training for ?8 h per week at age 11 years.

Conclusions
The results suggest that the 11–15 years age period is critical for the occurrence of injury in acrobatic gymnasts. This is possibly due to the adolescent growth spurt which may create an increased vulnerability to injury if training volume during this time is above a certain threshold. …

The full article is available here for $31.50

Click PLAY or watch some of the top Aussie athletes on YouTube.

cliff divers on twisting

After Blake Aldridge’s new dive at the the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series in Boston …, it’s worth explaining … the twist.

Done correctly it can be one of the most aesthetically pleasing moves in the sport. And the more a diver does, the more their dive will rate on the degree-of-difficulty chart. Here some of the world’s top cliff divers break it down for you…

Click PLAY or watch it on Red Bull.

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Interesting. Though they land feet first — like a trampolinist — they use diving arms position to twist (one arm behind the head).

Has any cliff diver yet used other arm positions?

Clarification — “piking” only slows the twist. They need to “untilt” to stop twisting.

Tumbling – Front Handspring

Valentin:

The following are notes/paraphrases taken from a lecture/presentation by Enrique Trabanino …

… Basics should be taught patiently, with care and a focus on ideal form. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Read the rest of that post, with additional video, on Coaching Methods.

Leave comments on that site, too. Valentin loves to discuss technique.

Gamers love Elsa García

Laura García Rodriguez Blancas (her sister):

… my sister is the gymnast who performed to The Legend of Zelda’s theme (at the Olympics) …

Overnight she went from the best gymnast Mexico has ever had to poster child for blending beautiful athleticism and awesome video game soundtrack music. …

… Elsa performed her floor exercise beautifully and made her country (and Koji Kondo, the original composer of the Zelda theme) proud. …

My Awesome Sister is the Zelda Gymnast and Yes, She’s a Lifelong Gamer

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

related – Nintendo Life – The Legend of Zelda Music Makes Olympics Appearance

on bossy children

Gymnastics is one of that last places where kids experience discipline, structure.

Line-up. Warm-up. Conditioning. Heading to first rotation. …

Tony Retrosi linked to a Tom Burgdorf facebook commentary:

Most 7 year olds are cute, they have been on this earth 84 months and they don’t know how to multiply yet. How did they get so much control and power in a family? We are seeing more and more families catering to the desires and whims of 7 year olds as if they know what is right for them. As if they are “worldly,” educated and have a grasp at right and wrong. Doesn’t that seem odd? …

Parents, Teachers and Coaches – 7 Year Olds Obey, They Don’t Dictate

Read the rest of Tom’s post on Gym Momentum.