Gymnastics Coaching.com

Coach Kyla is looking for animations. Here is another site offering a few for free.

The one shown below was created by George Novak from Edmonton, Canada.

Gifs.net Free Animations – –

By the way, handsprings done on the same spot are called … “spotters” by coaches in Cirque du Soleil. I had never heard the term applied to tumbling.

Very cool are forward spotters: flysprings done in series on the same spot. I saw a gymnast learn them on a tumbling tramp in about 15mins. She had great flysprings, but had never tried to undercut that much. (Looked like a good drill for athletes wanting to improve their front tumbling.)

Very few athletes can actually counter travel. That is, travel forward while doing backward handsprings. But it is possible.

Sands, McNeal and Jemni have offer advice for “coaches who are seeking to simplify and coordinate their conditioning programs.”

Gymnastics conditioning can be distilled to a group of only seven fundamental movements. Coaches should be aware that gymnasts train movements – not muscles. …

With only a few exceptions, most gymnastics movements are multi-joint, multi-planar, and multi-directional. Simple uniplanar movements rarely mimic sport movements and result in a somewhat misplaced priority for training and conditioning.

Training for gymnastics conditioning consists of the following fundamental movements:

Shoulder flexion – casting, press handstands, planche

Shoulder extension – kipping, uprise, downswing phases of in-bar work

Upper extremity pushing – handstand, handstand push up, rebounding during hand contact phases

Upper extremity pulling – pull up, pullover, withstand the bottom of swinging skills

Jumping and landing – tumbling, vaulting, mounts, dismounts, dance movements

Torso and hip flexion – piking, tucking, leg lifts, forward somersault take offs, hollow body positions

Torso and hip extension – arching, back bends, walkovers, flic flacs, most backward take offs

Seven Fundamental Movements for Conditioning Gymnasts

This is similar to what we use in Canada though the terminology differs. Canadians call this kind of conditioning taxonomy the “prevailing body actions” of gymnastics.

Useful to set and evaluate conditioning programs. Right?

The same authors did a follow-up article: Circuit Program Design

This is one of the best and funniest sports profiles I’ve ever seen. It happened right after Kyle Shewfelt won Floor in Athens.

Rick Mercer hosts the top rated arts and entertainment TV show in Canada — now called The Rick Mercer Report — and when you see this clip, you’ll understand why this comedian is so popular. He’s hilarious.

If Dragalescu from Romania had won gold on Floor in Athens, he would have been awarded US$65,000 by his, one of the poorest governments in Europe.

The payoff for a Canadian winning Olympic gold? ZERO!

Mercer is merciless in bringing that point home. I hope the Sports Canada bureaucrats were squirming when they watched this interview.

Click PLAY or see the video on YouTube.

Moving images on the internet can be very distracting.

But if the movement is subtle, and the image cute enough, I still like some of them.

Animation Factory – Royalty Free Animations, 3D Clip Art, Backgrounds, PowerPoint Templates, and Video Clips

If you wanted to use some of these on your own website, it costs US$30 and up for membership.

TRIVIA

The Portuguese-Canadian hip-hop star Nelly Furtado was named after the fantastic Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim. (Nellie Vladimirovna Kim)

The same Nellie Kim that is currently President of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee of FIG.

I remember her better as the one somewhat unfairly overshadowed by Nadia in 1976. Nellie Kim competed Tsukahara with 1/1 twist (Nadia did pike Tsuk) and double back on Floor (Nadia did 2/1 twist). Both those skills were Olympic firsts.

I have not seen the Autobiography of Nellie Kim (86 pages), but it is for sale and available in English. Two additional books are available but only in Russian.

Yes, Nellie Kim. She won a load of gold medals at the Olympics in 1976 and I was born in 1978. My mom thought the name sounded cool, so I am Nelly Kim Furtado.

interview with Nelly Furtado

Promiscuous

I love these little animations, even if it is the old vault horse.

This is the Tsukahara vault, of course. The name of Mitsuo Tsukahara is immortal now that this vault has his name.

Born in 1947, Mitsuo won three Olympic team gold medals: 1968, 1972, and 1976.

His son was an even better gymnast, I would say.

This gives new meaning to the term bubble boy.

Waterball, DanceBall, BimboBall, MoonBall, …

Enter through a zipper. You can walk or run on water. Recommended to add more air every 30min. Dance and performance troupes have used them off-water.

You can buy one from Hammacher Schlemmer for US$274.95

The New Zealand activity of zorbing is spreading around the world.

What is Zorbing? : Rolling down a hill in a gigantic plastic ball.

Adventure Blog – zorbing

Every day in my feed reader, I get a post from CrossFit Kids.

We’ve blogged about the excellent CrossFit program before. It’s an exercise regime for adults using body weight resistance like gymnastics. They may be in a gymnastics gym — or in the workplace inventing alternative exercises with what they have at hand.

All good.

My first reaction was that kids should be taking regular gymnastics class for the first few years. Then moving into CrossFit and whatever other sports / fitness activities they want to do as an adult.

On the other hand, if Mom or Dad is doing CrossFit — why not have the kids join in?

Decide for yourself. Check CrossFit Kids.

The Olympic Champion is profiled in a new book. It’s geared for girls age 9-12.

Might make a good Christmas present.

Carly Patterson: Be Strong (Positively for Kids Books: Gymnastics)