Go Broadway!

Great moment at North SoCal State Championships last weekend:

I'm glad the judges here have not been afraid to award 10.00s if they feel it is deserved (I believe it was at 3rd prelim that another level 3 from Waller's Gym Jam scored a 10.00 on vault).  Congratulations to Alexis and her coaches at Broadway Gymnastics School!

Sunday Funnies

Happy T Day!

Hope you find time this weekend to stretch something more than just your stomach.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Backhandspring Progress & Shaping Drill

We only have one vault table and I normally don't get to do this drill setup with my girls on a regular basis.  This was a preteam/new level 3 kid on Saturday.  She made some big improvements on her backhandspring.

Sunday Funnies

Press/Cast Handstand/Stalder Shape Conditioning

Have not done this exercise in a very long time:

That's a preteam/new level 3 kid.  Thought I'd try it with her at the end of her practice.


Below, I think this was a level 5 kid; maybe training old level 6:

Assisted Press Handstand Station

Ankle Weights

Dr. David Tilley:

To start, I’m aware this is a another controversial topic in gymnastics. I have spent quite a long time organizing my thoughts and how to present them in a positive, constructive article. As a younger coach I used to do a ton of ankle weight work, but have changed my approach quite a bit in the last few years. I hope to outline the reasons why I don’t use ankle weights based of the research and literature I’ve read, as well as the increase in hip related injuries I have treated gymnastics patients for lately. Then rather than only being a “negative Nancy”, I’ll offer alternative ideas as to what I do in practice for improving hip strength, power, and skill development.

Read his thoughts.

I've never really used ankle weights; and have consciously been turned away from them for the past few years, in part from reading discussions at the Chalk Bucket Forum and with the advocacy of therabands as an alternative.

Sunday Funnies

Choking

Via JAG:

Moments of "just messing up" in high-pressure situations may seem random and uncontrollable, but scientists are beginning to demystify just why it is that we choke, and how we might be able to prevent such high-stakes errors.
It turns out that being too attached to winning may have been what caused Maroney to choke, according to some new research from neuroscientists Johns Hopkins University.
Whether you choke under pressure might have more to do with your motivation: specifically, to what extent that you are driven by a desire to win or by a desire to avoid losing. If you're very loss-averse -- meaning that you hate losing more than you love winning -- your chances of choking will be lower. But for those who value the rush of winning over the pain of losing, the likelihood of choking is often higher.
The Johns Hopkins study found that those who hated losing the most choked when told that they stood to win the most, while those who cared more about winning choked when they stood to lose something significant. In other words, it's all about how you frame the incentive: as a loss or as a gain.
“We can measure someone’s loss aversion and then frame the task in a way that might help them avoid choking under pressure,” Vikram Chib, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a statement.
The researchers explain this phenomenon by looking at the ventral striatum, a brain region that may connect incentive-driven motivation and the execution of physical performance. The activity of this brain region suggests that an individual's attachment to winning is key to how they perform under pressure.

Read the entire article at HuffPo.

Sunday Funnies

Sunday Funnies

International Gymnast June 1988