Gymnastics Coaching.com

A shocker:

Australian coach Peggy Liddick said officially Dykes was just taking some time out to deal with motivational issues.

“I spoke to her in December and she just needs some time to think about things,” Liddick said.

“I’m meeting her (in Canberra) this week to see how she feels after having a couple of weeks out of the gym.”

But Hollie’s mother, Julie Dykes, said her daughter had quit the sport for good and was not just taking a break.

She said she was prevented from going into details about the reasons for Dykes’s departure because of a legal contract with the Australian Institute of Sport.

Liddick said at this point she would not even be attempting to convince Dykes to come back.

“She has to convince me that she wants to do it – that’s how it’s going to work,” she said.

“I’m not going to force anyone to go to the Olympics. …

Gymnast Hollie Sykes quits before Games | The Courier-Mail

Hollie is clearly one of the best gymnasts in the world. I’ll be very interested to hear her reasons for giving up before Beijing.

(via difficulty plus execution)

Gymnastics on wheels. I love these converted buses.

Price: $20,000
Condition: Excellent
City: Lexington, Kentucky

A unique gym on wheels for sale. 1992 Int’l 390. Designed in jungle motif, including special paint and wall carpet. Extra thick cheerleading floor pad to insure safety for children. 2 round swings, monkey bars, slide, rock climbing wall inside, zip ride, mini tramp and other fun activities. 2 roof top air/heat units, diesel generator

Unique Tumble bus for sale | Sports Classifieds – Gym Chat

I’ve tried the “trampoline bike” at Woodward West Action Sports Camp.

Fun. But dangerous. (If you land on top of the bike on the trampoline.)

This looks a better, safer version:

photo by Bryce Shaw

Click PLAY or watch the video on YouTube.

More video and details on Jumpclub.

Tom Beach once again has Tammy Biggs on the homepage of Gym Smarts, the world’s #1 distributor of gymnastics videos.

No surprise, she’s a favourite clinician of most everyone who has seen her present.

Develop and Strengthen the Most Important Shapes that Affect All Events

What are the critical basic elements for developing gymnasts? In this DVD Tammy Biggs explains the body shapes necessary for gymnastics. She shows the candlestick, bridge development, and chest roll, moving into and out of the positions, shaping the body and shoulders and then conditioning to strengthen these shapes. This is lecture was presented at all the regional and national congresses and one of Tammy’s most popular lectures. It’s great for staff training and development.

GymSmarts videos

No arguments here.

Great choices:

Inside Gymnastics magazine is pleased to present the 2007 Gymnasts of the Year Awards, based on readers’ votes placed at InsideGymnastics.com.

Gymnast of the Year, American Female – Shawn Johnson

Gymnast of the Year, American Male – Jonathan Horton

Gymnast of the Year, International Female – Jade Barbosa (Brazil)

Gymnast of the Year, International Male – Fabian Hambuechen (Germany)

Click through for details. Next edition of the magazine will announce more award winners.

News – Inside Gymnastics Magazine

Our favourite tabulator of competition scores Stu Cram of Gym Score Depot is trying to retire. (We insist he cannot.)

Stu emailed:

Free Software for Results & Forms at Gym Meets

GymScoreLite’08 (Macintosh and Windows)

– Excel workbooks for men’s and women’s competition
at a club level (no teams or combined scores)

– Easy entry of gymnast info and scores

– Automatic calculation of ranks and ties

– Latest GCG forms for judges’ sheets and chits

– Many extras (audience lists, big numbers, etc)

– Special score sheets for BC and Sask beginner levels

– User’s Guide included

Link: gym-score-depot.ca/software/

Other software available includes the older but full-featured GymScore 2000 (Mac OS9 only, Men & women, teams, combined scores), and TrampScore (Excel) for beginner club meets in T&T.

Let the computer scoring people you know know about this great offer. User guide included.

Tyler Hass of RingsTraining.com emailed:

… the final production run of Classic Elite Rings is finished, I am putting them on sale for $50 a set. This offer is valid while supplies last. First come, first serve. Once they are gone, which shouldn’t take long, they will be gone forever.

Sale details

If you pick up any set of rings, consider adding on an “agility ladder”.

Click through to see a video explaining how it works:

For the month of January, if you buy a set of rings, you can use the coupon code “ringsladder” to purchase an Elite Agility Ladder for $30 (40% off).

Elite Agility Ladder

Related posts:

STRENGTH – Fitness Straps or gymnastics rings?

innovation in gymnastics rings design

If you’ve been following the evolution of the B.A.S.E. jumping wing suit, here’s the best article yet.

By Matt Higgins in the New York Times:

Jeb Corliss wants to fly — not the way the Wright brothers wanted to fly, but the way we do in our dreams. He wants to jump from a helicopter and land without using a parachute. …

Jeb Corliss

Extremely dangerous. We’ll see many deaths as this technology improves by trial and error.

Click through to see video:

Flying Humans, Hoping to Land With No Chute – New York Times

(via Team Geared Up)

A great story …

You’d have as much chance removing the perma-grin Alexandra Orlando wears these days as you would wiping the smile off the Mona Lisa.

Her constant state of euphoria dates back to September, when the Toronto native earned a spot to represent Canada at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics with a ninth-place finish at the world rhythmic gymnastics championships.

If you knew how heartbreaking it was when she missed a berth for the 2004 Athens Games by a mere one-tenth of a point, then you’d understand why she’s been floating on a five-ringed cloud ever since.

“I hope it doesn’t stop,” says Orlando, 20. “I hope I float all the way through until August.” …

TheStar.com | News | Alexandra Orlando: Gymnast

The standard progression is for the gymnast to jump off a box into a low free hip circle:

Click PLAY or watch it on Youtube:

Jumping from the box makes it easier to get a good “down swing” with the centre of mass as far from the bar as possible.

More advanced is John Carney’s Tower of Power drill:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I love the “lobster” (Bungee Mat) by Tumbl Trak.

You can rig up the “Tower of Power” for yourself without an air inflated mat. But you’ll need to find a way to brace a mat up against the high bar. (I used climbing trestles one time. That worked well.)

These drills work far better, far faster, than spotting the gymnast.