Gymnastics Coaching.com

The big 4 are ranked in the top 4, as usual. But I spoke to one of the Stanford coaches, Mike Lorenzen, at Elite Canada last weekend. Mike thinks they can win it all this year, if they hit. With the Stanford Men ranked #1 (by a mile), we could see one University win both titles the same year for the first time.

2008 Women’s Pre-Season Coaches Poll

1. Georgia – 866 points (28 first-place votes)
2. Florida – 788 (1)
3. Utah – 779 (3)
4. UCLA – 743

5. Stanford – 727 (2)
6. Alabama – 685
7. Nebraska – 641
8. Oklahoma – 620
9. Michigan – 593 (1)
10. LSU – 591
11. Oregon State – 503
12. Arizona – 402
13. Penn State – 385
14. Arkansas – 365
15. Denver – 365
16. Missouri – 310
17. Iowa State – 285
18. Arizona State – 256
19. Auburn – 237
20. Ohio State – 202
21. Michigan State – 197
22. West Virginia – 130
23. Illinois- Champaign – 124
24. Kentucky – 104
25. North Carolina State – 72

UCLA Gymnastics Team Ranked No. 4 In Pre-Season Coaches Poll – Bruins open season on Jan. 4 in Las Vegas.

Avoiding injury is the highest priority for every team.

On Ask the Bruins, the coaches — Miss Val, Jim Foody and Chris Waller — respond to questions from fans. The most interesting NCAA coach interviews I’ve read so far this season: UCLA Bruins – Chat

In Canada, our good friend Stu Cram from Regina claims he is “retiring” as tabulator of scores for our major gymnastics competitions. He has done Nationals since 1981.

This is sad news for me.

When I hosted age group nationals over 20yrs ago, it was Stu who stayed up all night solving a computer glitch in our scoring system.

In the Canadian Gymnastics Hall of Fame, there will be a spot on the top tier for Stu.

Thanks for everything.

Stu will keep his website up for now as an archive of past meet scores. (I use it all the time.)

Gym Score Depot

Hamm proposed to long-time girlfriend Megan Shemanske … And she said “yes”.

Two-time Olympian Morgan Hamm had his engagement all planned out. He picked out the ring over Thanksgiving, planned a nice getaway to Jamaica to pop the question, and had the scene planned out in his head. Everything seemed to be on track until he got news that a tropical storm may be headed to Jamaica. …

read the story – News – Inside Gymnastics Magazine

Morgan is recovering from injury, planning to compete at minimum on 4 apparatus.

Brother Paul is training the all-around. And why not? There are fewer all-around gymnast competitors around the world than ever before.

“The most beautiful world championships of all times”, FIG president Bruno Grandi said about the world championships in Stuttgart.

I dunno know. Some people I talked to said it was the worst, rudest organizing committee ever. A disaster for spectators.

Still, the photos by Volker Minkus are fantastic. See a preview of a new book called The Beauty of Gymnastics (German and English text):

The PREVIEW uses that cool new “page flip” preview technology.

216 pretty pages:

However, ‘The Beauty of Gymnastics’ is more than just a documentation of the world championships in Stuttgart. The aim of author Andreas Götze, editor-in-chief of the gymnastics magazine LEON*, and his co-publisher Michael Weber was to present a book which also conveys the beauty and the fascination of gymnastics beyond the (world championships) days and which offers amazing insights into the world of gymnastics. Therefore, this illustrated book also includes interesting facts from the history of gymnastics and its world championships, a chapter about the development of the Code of Points, a presentation of famous ‘inventors’ as well as a collection of stamps with gymnastics motifs and much more.

With regard to the extraordinary design of the book, credit is owed to Andreas Aguilar, who became world champion on rings in Stuttgart in 1989.

The publishers will donate a part of the sales revenue to young gymnasts in Germany. …

home page

Good idea. But I’m not sure the straps will bind the mat tightly enough.

This unique, practical design transforms a standard pommel horse into an exceptionally effective trainer. Strapped securely in place, Pommel Horse Helper increases width of the horse by 2.75″ overall and lowers pommel height. Enables gymnasts to quickly build skills–including loops, back loops, spindles, Magyar Travel, Sivado Travel, Tong Feis, Russians, Rothlisbergers and Krolls– by slightly increasing degree of difficulty.

Helper consists of a crosslink core inside a very durable 18oz vinyl cover to which straps are permanently attached. 3-piece design and cutouts make it a snap to position. $119.00

gymnastic supplies, gymnastic equipment, gym mats, movement education supplies

– Cartwheel Factory

Our first-aid responders in the gym must be aware of how quickly students can suffocate once breathing is congested. There are not many specifics on this incident in the newspaper:

A teen gymnast and cheerleader who died Monday night after an asthma attack is being remembered as a good friend, student and teacher.

Alexis Franco, 17, had an asthma attack while practicing gymnastics at Aspire Kids Sport Center in Chandler. She died later that evening. She was a junior and cheerleader at Corona del Sol High School in Tempe.

Franco had taken gymnastics lessons at Aspire for 10 years, gym owner Scott Barclay said. She had just begun working at the gym as well. …

Cheerleader died after asthma attack

Oscar Pistorius is the South African Paralympic sprinter who wants to compete against able bodied runners. It looks like his bid to switch to Olympic competition will be denied by the International Association of Athletics Federations.

IAAF report concludes that Pistorius’ Carbon fibre prosthetic limbs provide a “considerable advantage”

The IAAF tests on Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius have now been handed to IAAF President Lamine Diack, and the early reports are that the tests have indeed confirmed that the carbon fibre prosthetic limbs, knowns as “Cheetahs”, do in fact provide Pistorius with “considerable advantage” over other runners.

Unfortunately and frustratingly for us, the IAAF have issued a press release which states that “the IAAF does not plan to discuss the contents of the report, or make any public announcement about any decision related to the report, until 10 January 2008”. Because of this, we don’t have access to the specific results and so we cannot, unfortunately, bring you any more detailed insights or interpretation of the specific test results. But the lead researcher, biomechanics expert Prof Gert-Pieter Bruggemann was quoted in a German newspaper as saying that the advantage is considerable – several percentage points in size. Apparently Prof Bruggemann was himself surprised at the size of the difference. …

The Science of Sport: Oscar Pistorius banned – IAAF result

by Rick McCharles

As the editor of the world’s #1 site on a search for “gymnastics coaching”, I was invited to speak to some of the top coaches in Canada. Google says I’m an expert.

It’s been 4 weeks over 2 years of course work for the those graduating from Gymnastics Canada’s most advanced coaching certification. These fine people aspire to train Artistic gymnasts to compete internationally.

larger original

As usual, the course was directed by Keith Russell (far left) from University of Saskatchewan. Far right front is course organizer Bev Dickinson.

Thanks to our excellent demonstrators, front row.

Here’s my powerpoint presentation: “computers and the internet for elite gymnastics coaches” as a PDF file.

I organized topics of internet interest for elite coaches in 4 categories:

• coaches must be irrationally dedicated to succeed
• computers are frustrating and prone to failure
• computers can be time-wasters
• use them prudently

Communication:

• the internet is faster, cheaper and more efficient than phone
• email is essential
• instant messaging is not essential
• most coaches who try it, like Facebook
• good club communication prevents problems in future
• informal, interpersonal club communication is super important too
• schedule many opportunities for coaches, parents and athletes to socialize

Information:

• coaches first need to apply the information they already have
• keep a consistent, persistent training system
• Google is the best search engine
• I recommended Wikipedia as a place to get answers to general questions
• text (books, articles, etc.) highly over-rated as a communication media
• much better for inspiration are photos
• it’s easy to find great gymnastics photos on the internet
• coaches should collect and display good photos of their own athletes
• video is the most useful digital file type
• we need a bank of great video clips posted on-line
• YouTube is great, but low resolution
• YouTube gets worse every day, increasingly cluttered with crap
• YouTube has a lousy “filtering” system when you go to look for the good clips
• Gymnastics on Demand is the best on-line video source
• GymSmarts is the best source of DVDs
• recommended – Paul Hall DVD
• many websites are frustrating and rarely updated
• recommended – GYMmedia.com (Germany)
• recommended – International Gymnast magazine on-line
• the best websites have an RSS feed which lets you know when something new is posted
• recommended – Google Reader for RSS feeds
• blogs started as on-line diaries
• in 2007, most of my favourite websites are blogs
• recommended – Gymblog (WAG, MAG)
• recommended – difficulty plus execution (WAG)
• recommended – Perfect 10 (WAG)
• I wish more coaches would post blogs using WordPress or Blogger software
• best index of coaching articles is i-NEEDtoknow.com

Promotion:

• we need to promote our top athletes more
• we really need to promote our coaches more
• study the USA if you want to know how to “promote”
• some clubs are far better at promotion than others
• coaches need push their clubs to improve their websites (most are bad)
• recommended club website – Gymnastics Revolution

Administration:

• we have many good administrators, very few good coaches
• elite coaches should delegate administration to others, focusing on as few tasks as possible in their job descriptions

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

I use it to track what’s new with gymnastics coaching.

source

Try a Google search for “Gymnastics Coaching”.

Google is still the best search engine.

With China’s massive population it is not surprising that there will be plenty of records broken when it comes to people and the Olympics. A record 560,000 people volunteered for the Beijing Olympics, including some young females to play the role as Olympic hostesses for the opening, closing and various other ceremonies that require a pretty face. …

the photos are great – Chinese Olympic hostesses in training » Beijing Olympic Games 2008