new – RecGymnastics.com

by site editor Rick McCharles

RecGymnastics.com is a new site I’ve just launched. There are already 16 posts published.


“… where coaches, teachers, educators and program directors can discuss ideas, games, lesson plans, etc. … Everything non-competitive.”

Anyone can read and comment. But what we really need to make it take off is 20-30 experts who have “permission to log-in” to start new posts.

Here’s how it works for those who have “permission”.

Email Rick_McCharles@hotmail.com if you think you might want to be a micro blogger on RecGymnastics.

Of course you can subscribe to RecGymnastics.com by email or RSS.

Stanford vs UCLA Sunday

A great rivalry.

Stanford is rocking, jumping from a preseason #6 ranking to #2 (behind Florida). And Kristina Vaculik has yet to make the big splash that everyone expects.

Defending National Champions UCLA, by comparison, have had nothing but problems so far this season, losing to #4 Utah and # 20 Southern Utah.

Miss Val chewed out the Bruins (VIDEO).

In that interview she tells that the Bruins will take a “skeleton crew” to Stanford.

Details on that competition – Go Stanford.

Click PLAY or watch a Stanford promo on YouTube.

Stephen Garcia will be covering this meet for Gymnastike.

new The Gym Press

Valentin Uzunov has just upgraded his The Gym Press site. I recommend coaches join that social network.

new URL – http://thegympresslibrary.phile.com

Valentin, now coaching in the States, is a great student of the game, collecting as many clinic videos as he can get.

That site links to books and videos. The best section, I feel, hosts the sport science articles.

It’s all FREE unless you decide to buy one of the resources.

The forum is yet to get going. The faster he has enough coaches join to gain momentum, the better.

The new site is a work in progress. Leave suggestions on their Facebook page.

Olympic Rings necklace

… the “Tamayo” necklace from Mimi and Lu ! Symbolizing the 5 Olympic Rings, the first necklace will be part of the Silent Auction at this weekends fundraiser! After that it will be available for purchase and 40% of each purchase will go to Flip for Charlie.

via Facebook

Illinois, Cal, Stanford

College men get off to a slower start than the women. Most teams have only had 1 meet, so far.

17 January 2011 – by Total Season Average

more rankings on GymInfo

Blair Lowe pointed me to this SAVE Cal Gymnastics video.

University of California, Berkeley men’s gymnastics promotional pre-season video. Edited by Nic Blair. Our program has been cut and this is our last year as an NCAA division 1 program. Go to www.calgymnasticsforever.com to pledge and save our program and http://www.calbears.com for season schedule and roster. Contact nicolasblair@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (some profanity)

As of Jan. 19th the fund had reached $700K towards a goal of $1 million by Feb 1, 2011

quick links …

NCAA Collegiate Schedule | Friday NCAA WAG | Saturday NCAA WAG | Sunday NCAA WAG | American Gymnast videos FREE

… ANNOUNCED a new Recreational Gymnastics blog

2011 Year of the Comeback

Blythe called 2010 the Year of the Comeback in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

But 2011 could be much bigger in the USA:

• Shawn Johnson
• Nastia Liukin
• Chelsea Memmel
• Anna Li
• Casey Jo Magee

Ivana Hong is back too, though she never has retired.

It’s a long shot for all of these gymnasts. But the prize – Olympics – is big. And they sense that they have a chance to make the team if they can get in good shape and be uninjured.

Casey Jo’s blog is refreshingly honest:

… Beam has needed one adjustment after the other. Once I got the triple turn consistently I added it to the routine in addition to my double connected that I started connecting with a single full turn. I also was having some consistency issues with the side somi out of the aerial, so I went back to doing that by itself, and put the aerial step through with the switch leap tourjete like I competed at the qualifiers this past summer. They have since improved quite a bit. We rearranged and added in some different dance…and then I was over time! So, we had to take out a bit of dance, and now it looks like every other elite routine –> skill, pose, skill, pose, skill, pose…not what I was hoping for. …

4 Weeks Left

(via Split Leap)

The Science of Gymnastics

Last year we had two important books published, both linked from this site.

• Building the Gymnastic Body
• Championship Gymnastics

This year we anticipate the release of a new text, contributors including Bill Sands and John Salmela, titled The Science of Gymnastics.

UPDATE: likely a March 2011 release

• energetic, physical and physiological assessment
• training principles
• diet, nutrition and supplementation
• growth and development issues
• kinetics and kinematics
• angular and linear motion
• angular momentum
• stress, anxiety and coping
• motivation and goal setting
• mental skills training for practice and competition
• the psychology of learning and performance.

Amazon