Every gymnastics gym has super flexible girls (and, once-in-a-while, a boy). They often get steered into Rhythmic Gymnastics.
In some countries those girls may be selected to be contortionists.
A non-acrobatic coach asks this question:
Are there any studies of the contortionist/gymnastics training these children are receiving?
Are there any local or international monitoring agencies? Are there health agencies involved to evaluate the stresses of the training? Is there any oversight at all for the training and pre-training of potential future athletes?
Astonishingly, some people are born with a range of motion far beyond the norm. The most flexible girl I ever coached seemed to have no limits in hip mobility. It was not from training. She could do extreme oversplit in every direction without pain the first day she walked into the gym.
But is it possible to injury such an athlete?
Certainly. The stretching I’ve seen done by contortionist coaches has been too severe, in my opinion. I particularly worry about the lower spine and knees.
However, the bigger story is just how uninjured are contortionists compared with the normal population. Perhaps there are some advantages in having such lax joints.
Leave a comment if you have an opinion. Or if you’ve seen any research into contortionist injury.
Some girl, somewhere, is already catching Kovacs. You can’t stop her.
So … routines getting longer. Difficulty increasing, long-term.
What are we to do?
Two things:
Promote the concept of specialists. That’s a done deal in Men’s Gymnastics already. Fewer and fewer of the best in the world want to do the AA.
It’s even more necessary in Women’s gymnastics. And can’t happen fast enough for me. The all-arounder in Artistic Gymnastics should be like the Decathlete in Athletics.
I want to see what the best vault specialists can do. The best beam specialists.
Specialists will need less training hours. Have fewer overuse injuries.
Secondly, we need to devise more sensible developmental regulations for age group gymnasts.
The goal should be a healthy, safe set of rules where most of the kids in any division can get through the routine, scores are fairly high, and the “winners” are those who stick landings, have slightly better rhythm and “perfect” execution.
It happens now-and-again already in some lower levels of competition. I love those meets — where one wobble drops you 10 placing on the apparatus.
Kids really focus. They learn.
That’s an exciting competition!
Oh — and they should do the All-Around for as long as possible.
Leave a comment if you have other ideas, not on how to make gymnastics EASIER, but how to make it BETTER for gymnasts and coaches.
I’ve been avoiding weighing in on a rekindled controversy buzzing on the internet right now.
But the time has come to put things in perspective. I’ve heard too many alarmist and wrong statements.
Parkettes in Pennsylvania, one of the top elite women’s gymnastics programs in the world, invited CNN into the gym a number of years ago to do a documentary.
Now … CNN editors could have done a piece showing how strong, dedicated, determined and fantastic are elite gymnasts — but that would not get good ratings.
An expose sells far better.
If you did not see the original documentary, it’s on YouTube:
Aside from trying to generate ad revenue for CNN, a secondary purpose of the documentary was to bring some facts to light:
elite women’s gymnastics is very difficult
coaches (in all sports) sometimes get emotional; say and do harsh things
injury rate is quite high, especially overuse injuries
All true. I commend CNN for that. The general public needs to be better educated.
I advise athletes and parents of athletes NOT to accept invitation into an elite program unless you understand the risks.
Any coach who steps “over the line” should be disciplined and reprimanded. Even jailed.
Elite gyms should have an open door policy, parents welcomed to bring cameras and camcorders any time.
Girls who are unhappy with their elite training in Artistic have many other options: diving, cheer, circus, dance, fitness, etc. (I know a half dozen girls who switched to pole vaulting and were nationally ranked within a year.)
Here are the facts waiting to be highlighted by a future CNN documentary: (Don’t hold your breath.)
there are no better “protected” young female athletes than gymnasts
gym clubs are one of the few places in their lives where there is no profanity
gymnasts are the fittest females of any Olympic sport
ex-elite gymnasts go on to be disproportionately successful in their adult lives
Gymnastics, trampoline and tumbling are still, in my opinion, the best sports available for girls. From that starting point they can do anything.
I go to many multi-sport coaching conferences. Each and every time I come away thinking that gymnastics coaches are the most impressive and dedicated of all. Our sport is the most difficult — and it develops the best coaches and athletes. Period.
Leave a comment below if you have something to add.
The bad reputation of Elite Women’s Artistic Gymnastics, especially within the medical community, is one of the biggest issues faced by all gymnastics coaches.
And I’m expecting a flood of bad press surrounding the selection of the American Team to the 2008 Olympics. There are many good candidates — but only a few can qualify.
The stories of those who do not make THE TEAM is are stories the media can sell.
I’ll understand if you are NOT interested in seeing a detailed view of a massive competition set-up.
But if you are, email me and I’ll send you the FULL floor plan as a large Excel (XLS) file.
small screenshot sample
Of course the final floor layout was much different than this, after tinkering. And the Floor Managers changed the configuration for some competitions depending on what was needed.
Many are more interested in the Congress and Trade Show. That will likely attract over 2000 coaches and other leaders in our sport. Three days, over 135 sessions. Check the list of presenters. (to be confirmed)
The line-up is impressive, as usual, but lacks many new voices, especially non-American speakers. Do organizers think there is no-one outside the States who can improve Congress? Or am I missing something?
Fluorescent colours, jammed with options. I don’t know where to start. You’ll have to see it for yourself.
Roxanna Ehsanipour from Gym Chat tells me they are getting a great response to the free gymnast websites offer:
They are packed with features: upload pictures/videos, post youtube videos, blog, message, connect with friends, organize schedule and competitions/results, custom design or use templates, plus more.
Also, we have a lot of privacy / security options in place, such as choosing friends only/public/all public view settings, friends only/members/all message post settings, and choosing how your gymnast web is indexed in the Find Member search.
… No web design or programming experience necessary!
I am surprised more competitive athletes don’t have their own websites. This may be a better option than MySpace or FaceBook.
Clubs can use an easy web builder to upload new schedules, results, pictures, videos, etc. and design their own teams web and build on their team community.
No more waiting for the web designer to make updates or high maintenance fees. Also on Gym Chat, check out pictures, news, videos, post/rate your gymnastics club, chat on our gymnastics message board, plus more!
Essential for this old blogger, however, are RSS feeds which can tell me when something new goes up on the site.
But the concept, I like. Check the animations on the official London201 site. It’s iPod commercial meets The Matrix.
UPDATE:
The video on the website has been changed. (Perhaps they are being rotated.)UPDATE: The “effect” I liked so much was pulled because of complaints it might trigger epileptic seizures.
One of the best clinicians I know is Svetlana Degteva, many years coaching at Gymnastics Mississauga in Toronto, Canada.
Though a petite female, she decided to coach Bars herself, spotting everything. (Tkachev is a bit intimidating.)
She recently presented a half-day clinic on advanced bar transfers including Pak, Shaposhnikova, and others.
Instead of showing the best performers at Worlds on video, she brought a video of her own girls — different heights, different levels of ability, typical problems — and this was much appreciated by the attending coaches. She is very honest and unpretentious.
all girls can do Pak and Shaposhnikova, regardless of their height though technique will vary.
if the kids understand the skill, progress is much faster. Have them draw new skills to get a feel for their comprehension.
it’s almost impossible to aspire to be competitive at the highest level unless you have 3-times-a-day training and a special school arrangement. (She does not have this now though she did in the former Soviet Union.)
with limited training time, physical preparation is even more important.
things will go wrong. Kids lose skills. Kids miss skills. Be prepared for anything and everything.
Svetlana “has a Bachelors degree of Physical Education and Sport from Lvov University in Ukraine.
Ms. Degteva is a former Russian National Team Coach and an International Judge.
She has coached at every level in Canada and produced many Provincial and National level Champions and medalists, as well as a number of World and Olympic Team members.”
Setting up for the Canadian Gymnastics Championships competition, my first question was:
Why is the Double Mini runway so much thicker and better than the Vault runway?
(I want the thick one for gymnasts.)
Next: Does anyone recall the vault runway that was attached to a wooden base attached to the vault horse? (Spieth sold such a configuration years ago. Everything hooked together. Nice.)
It’s 2007 and the runways at a competition are still moving around. This seems like an easy-to-solve problem without using endless rolls of expensive duct tape.
no way to attach runway to horse
We put concrete blocks on the end of our runways to help stabilize them.
Trampoline and Tumbling folks actually lashed (yellow strap) the Double Mini to weights to help stop it from moving around.
This is nonsense. There must be a better way.
Please leave a comment if you’ve seen a better solution in competition.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 