Elite gymnastics

On any given Sunday they're out there. On the sidelines of tennis courts, football pitches and swimming pools, yelling at their kids to try harder, go faster and, above all, to win. These zealous parents believe that pushing their children today will make them the sporting champions tomorrow. Perhaps today they'll be a little quieter. News that Martina Hingis, who won Wimbledon at the age of 16, may retire from tennis due to repeated injuries, has reignited the debate about over-training young sports stars. If Hingis, who is 21, retires, she will join other prodigies on the American tennis circuit whose careers ended prematurely. Tracey Austin gave up through injury before her twenties, as did Andrea Jaeger, who was ferociously trained by her father, an ex-boxer.

In Britain young football stars such as Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard of Liverpool, and Kieron Dyer of Newcastle United, had new or recurrent injury problems last season. All of these players began training young, going through the Football Association's academies.

More than 20 years ago, an opinion piece in the journal Archives of Diseases in Childhood warned of the risks of intensive training in young athletes. Its author, Professor Nicola Maffulli, now head of the department of trauma and orthopaedic surgery at Keele University medical school, was himself an athlete, a wrestler who represented Britain at European championship level. He argued that fast-growing young athletes were particularly at risk from injuries due to overuse of muscles and joints.

So concerned was he by stories of elite young athletes being damaged by the 'catch them young and train them hard' philosophy that he set up a research study to quantify the problem. 'We did the study because there were all sorts of reports about how we were going to experience an epidemic of catastrophic injuries among young athletes', says Maffulli.

The results amazed him. The Training of Young Athletes Study looked at the rate of injuries over five years in more than 450 elite young athletes between the ages of nine and 18. The athletes played either football, gymnastics, swimming or tennis. Injuries were surprisingly rare and usually trivial. 'The athletes got on average one injury a year,' says Maffulli. 'None of them had to retire through injury during the study. In the long term it doesn't seem that a high intensity of athletic participation causes high levels of chronic injuries.'

Even so, there's widespread concern among the public and sports governing bodies that our best young athletes are falling like ninepins. 'There is a difference between the public perception of injuries in young athletes and the scientific evidence. We remember only the bad cases. In general, elite sport is safe but every so often when you compete at the highest level something catastrophic happens. We can't predict when it will happen or who it will happen to.'

Gymnastics Apparel 2010-11 Catalog

The 2010-11 GK Men's Competitive Gymnastics wear and Warm-Ups catalog features the newest designs, styles and colors available for men's gymnastics apparel. In addition to GK's selection of Men's gymnastics apparel from stock, GK features Special Order apparel to create your team look.



Men's Special Order Competitive Wear

Infinite Possibilities. Our Champions always have choices. That's why GK Offers the world's largest selection of super stretch fabrics yielding millions of combinations on a three color comp shirt
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Infinite Possibilities. Our Champions always have choices. That's why GK Offers the world's largest selection of super stretch fabrics yielding millions of combinations on a three color comp shirt

Gymnastics Apparel

From the GK Spring Gymnastics Workout Essentials Leotards and apparel Catalog, we will continue to carry this highly popular leotard through the Summer! Made from Candy Pink Mystique and Black Mystique, this striking leotard features an asymmetrical strap design. The back features a negative image of the front.

Girls Gymnastics Outfits

The Holidays are a time for fun with the kids. GK offers a great variety of kid-friendly designs.

Girls Gymnastics Leotards

Let’s be honest. Some companies talk a good game but deliver something else. You need more. You need a team who’s as dedicated to your long term success as you are with an intimate understanding of your sport.

Child Gymnastics Leotard

Turn your little girl into a butterfly at the gym, in GK Elite's NEW Spring Gymnastics Leotard Collection, Style Number: E1434. This style is a classic Purple Spandex with White Sparkle Childrens Gymnastics Leotards with an adorable butterfly applique and a matching hair scrunchie

Girl gymnastics

Five star gymnastics

The competition format was Men vs. Women, and that alone should have been a sign that it would not be a serious competition. The gymnasts who participated in the "competition" were the same ones who are on tour now in the U.S. They included the 2000 Olympic All-around Men's Champion Alexei Nemov, and 2000 Olympic Women's Gold Medalist on Uneven Bars and Silver Medalist on Floor Exercise Svetlana Khorkina. Nemov and Khorkina were the two big headliners, fresh off their victories at the Olympics. Elena Produnova, the Bronze Medalist on Balance Beam, was also there.

The men's and women's 2000 U.S. Olympic teams made up the rest of the teams, as well as 1996 Balance Beam Gold Medalist Shannon Miller and 1996 Olympian Dominique Moceanu.

Some of the routines were so outrageously non-gymnastic the gymnasts should have been ashamed for having the nerve for even putting such a routine into the competition and hoping to get big points for it. And it was even worse most DID get the big points!!

There is nothing wrong with being entertaining while performing gymnastics; the problem was that too many of the routines were ONLY entertaining, and included no true gymnastics at all! Some of the gymnasts were able to combine entertainment and athleticism, but those routines did not necessarily score the highest.

John Macready had the worst routine of the night. It was a travesty, unbelievable! Macready came out, shirtless, and hung a doll, dressed like a wrestler, on the high bar. Macready ran up to the high bar, and knocked the doll off the bar. He "wrestled" with this doll for a while, finally got up, as if just realizing, "Oh, this is a gymnastics competition, huh?"

He then mounted the high bar, and swung around aimlessly a few times. He attempted a double somersault over the high bar, but fell off the bar. Macready retreated back to his doll and wrestled with him for a while longer. Then, John Roethlisberger came and joined him, and they both mounted the high bar together, continuing the antics for a few more torturous minutes, before they finally dismounted and went back to their "wrestling." Macready finally managed to pin the doll down, Roethlisberger counted to three, and then announced that Macready had the match.

Gymnastics training

The origin of gymnastics dates centuries before the ancient Olympic game. Acrobats have entertained the Egyptian royalties about 7000 years ago. This can be deduced from the drawings on the ancient frescoes which depict that acrobats have jumped over the backs of bulls on the island of Crete during the Minoan civilization during 2700 B.C. In China, ritual mass gymnastics were practiced as part of the art of ‘Wushu’.





The word ‘gymnastics’ is derived from the Greek word which means naked. The reason behind this is that in ancient Greece, the male athletes trained and competed completely nude. The activities included under gymnastics at that point of time included running, jumping, weightlifting, wrestling, throwing and swimming. The athletes trained and practiced in the ‘palestra’ which was a square open area that was completely walled and equipped with changing rooms and baths.

The Romans were not far behind and followed the Greeks to a point. The concept of gymnasium came into place where the Roman legions trained themselves. matter of fact, the wooden horse was a Roman innovation used to train the soldiers to mount and dismount horses quickly. However, the Romans never looked at gymnastics as a form of sports and also viewed the Greek practice of nudity and gymnastics with great distaste and as leading to the vice of homosexuality.

Then came the fall of the Roman Empire. Fortunately though, acrobatics survived and during the medieval times, the traveling minstrel shows included songs, stories and a lot of tumbling. Modern gymnastics was brought into picture by Johann GutsMuths from Germany who developed a complete program consisting of exercises that were designed to improve balance and suppleness and also the muscular strength of the body. Johann’s follower, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn who was a gymnast teacher by profession developed three apparatus which are used till date. The apparatuses developed by Jahn were the high bar, the parallel bar and the rings.

Gymnastics became popular in Europe primarily as physical training for the military. Over years gymnastics was limited to the military federations. But in the late 1800s civil federations were formed across Europe. the first gymnastics club, the German Gymnasts club was formed which was the first of its kind. The European Gymnastics Federation was founded on July 23, 1881 and included representatives from Belgium, France and Netherlands. years later, this federation became the International Gymnastics Federation and had sixteen members.

Rising stars gymnastics

Perhaps, the biggest highlight of this infrastructure jack up is the construction of the Commonwealth Games Village. This is a residential project sprawling over 27 acres of land right next to the iconic Akshardham Temple. A total of 34 apartment buildings with 1168 flats are being erected over an area of about 3,500 square feet. The smallest apartments have two bedrooms in a 1400 square feet area, while the biggest ones have five bedrooms over 3,500 square feet.

These apartments would be used for housing athletes as well as officials during their stay in India. Once the games are over, the apartments would be sold off to the general public. The services of some of the best overseas architects and interior designers were hired for this project. Unsurprisingly, everything in the Games village is world class, be it the security system, solar powered lighting, or bathroom fittings.

Berks gymnastics

Gymnastics training center

Today more than ever, we need encouragement on our pathway to eternity. As Christians there are tribulation times coming our way, not for our destruction, on the contrary, for our edification – even if, oh Lord, it is difficult for us to see it at such so many times. Just as with fitness and gymnastics, you can’t train for a day and the next to become the winner of the Olympics! No, it doesn’t happen overnight.

A friend gave me a new fitness video program and it has been a while since I have seriously worked out; when I first saw the trainer performing it to such speed I said to myself "I will never be able move that fast!" However, three weeks later I realized I was moving just as fast as she did! "Hmm, it was not impossible after all" I concluded.

At that moment, the spiritual parallel occurred to me; I saw that you can’t all of a sudden be strong in faith if you have never seen God pulling you out of deep dark fountains of despair or fear! Theory is good but practice is so much better; even if it is more difficult to practically go though pain, it is only then when we experience for real that God is undeniably with us, weighing the extent of our trial and not letting anything extra so as to destroy us. He doesn’t destruction! He wants to make us stronger and mature soldiers in His army! Yes, that’s why we need the hard training.

Also fitness trainers say that if you perform over 12-15 dumbbell lifts and afterwards you still can perform some more, it is time to change the weight of your dumbbell. If you don’t, you can’t reach the performance you want, you settle for much less. So it happens with our "spiritual muscles"; if God would give us no weight at all, we’d never use our "spiritual muscles" especially when we keep in mind that we were born to fight, a spiritual fight of course, not killing or harming each other but on the contrary, showing purity, truth, love and a humble all people.

Yes, but just as it is with fitness, we can’t train for one day and get all the fat over with and all the muscles we want! It takes time and serious training, actually if we want to be fit, exercising has to become a way of life.

It is the same with the "spiritual muscles"; how can you imagine giving your life , being willing to die for your faith just as the first Christians did, if today you can’t stand the way your neighbor has talked to you (because you are a Christian). Although, you might be right, you need to get used to these "small dumbbells" and spiritually "perform the exercise" until you don’t find it difficult any more. Yes, you’re right, once the present dumbbell becomes light… time to get a heavier one!

Remember that soldiers go through rough training programs to achieve all the physical mental endurance they need for the battle. Just as they do, we as Christians fight but with different kind of weapons:"for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."2 Corinthians 10:4,5

Leotards for gymnastics

From the outside, Beijing's Shishahai sports school is unremarkable. It would be easy to walk past it, a functional-looking building a couple of miles north of Tiananmen square, without even noticing. Inside the main entrance, in the gloomy hall, the first thing you see is the noticeboard, on to which the pictures of five athletes have been pinned. The five, former pupils of the school, were all at the Olympic games in Athens this summer. One of them, Zhang Nan, came back with a bronze medal. The others - Luo Wei, Zhang Yining, Feng Kun and Teng Haibin - won gold. One school, three individual and two team gold medals. as Olympic sport is concerned, that makes the Shishahai Sports School more successful than Canada.

In the school's huge gymnastics hall, dozens of tiny children wearing leotards or just their underwear are balancing on beams, cartwheeling across the floor, hanging from rings and swinging from asymmetric bars. Officially, the youngest are five, but some look younger. If they fall off something, they are picked up by one of the many coaches and put back on. Everything is done again, and again, and again - until it is done right. They look neither happy nor unhappy. All are perfectly behaved, and it is eerily quiet. It's an extraordinary place, this gymnasium, an enormous room full of tiny, muscular little children, quietly being turned into gymnasts.

Three Chinese gymnasts won medals in Athens, not an especially proud tally for the country. But two of the three - Teng Haibin, who got gold in the men's pommel horse, and Zhang Nan, who was women's individual all-round bronze medal winner - started off in this room.

Along a corridor, out through the yard, and into another nondescript building is the table-tennis hall, where dozens more children, older this time (the youngest is eight), hit balls to each other on rows and rows of tables. It's not quiet in here. In fact the noise is almost deafening - a ping-pong percussion symphony played on rubber bat and plastic ball, the harsher knock of ball on table, the squeak of trainer sole on wooden floor, with a melody of yelling kids on top. Given the echoing acoustics of the place, it sounds a bit like hell

China has always led the world in table tennis and won six medals in Athens. Zhang Yining, who won gold in the women's singles and doubles, first put bat to ball in this room.

There are similar scenes all round the school. Huge rooms, each with a giant Chinese flag hanging across one end, filled with obedient kids learning champions of the future - in volleyball, weightlifting, boxing, badminton and martial arts. It's a tough regime for the school's 550 pupils, aged between five and 16, and all of whom are boarders. They get seven in and exercise for half an hour before breakfast. Then they do school work. After lunch, it's physical training from two to five. Then they shower, eat and do their homework before going to bed. They can go home on Saturdays for one night with their families, and the very youngest are allowed midweek visits by their parents, too.

Gymnastics centers

A very important component of competitive figure skating are the highly acrobatic figure skating jumps that can be performed. The different types of figure skating jumps and spins are distinguished by the the number of revolutions that are completed in the air and also by the take-off edge of the skater. For person to be eligible for competitive figure skating, he/she should know all the basic figure skating moves and jumps successful.



The technique to perform these figure skating jumps depends on the skill level and the confidence of the skater, as the jumps can be performed in a clockwise as well as an anti-clockwise direction. It's standard practice though for to perform all his/her jumps in the same direction. This lends a systematic flow to the movements, and a person who performs their figure skating jumps and spins in a clockwise and anti-clockwise direction, in same sequence, is considered an amateur. Through this article, you will know information about how to do figure skating jumps. However, you must take expert guidance before executing them in a ice rink.

The Skates
Before delving into the dazzling figure skating jumps, one needs to understand the design and the function of the skates that the figure skaters wear. common skates have blades attached at the bottom, though there are some variations that come with wheels as well. Every blade has 2 edges to it, and these are known as the outside edge and the inside edge. The outside edge is the one that faces the outer side, for example, a right foot skate's outside edge will be the edge on the right side, whereas the edge on the left side of the same skate will be the inside edge. The skater can change direction and skate in circles depending on which edge they are skating on. To get a clearer picture imagine a skater turning to his/her right. To achieve this, the skater will be skating on the outside edge of the right foot, and edge of the left foot, if both feet are being made use of at the same time.

There are primarily, two classifications for jumps skating. A skater can either perform 'edge jumps' or 'toe jumps' depending on their personal preference. In a toe jump, the skater uses the toe pick of their leading foot to vault themselves into the air off the edge of their other foot. This adds more height to the jump. The are a set of large jagged teeth present on the front of each skate. On the other hand, edge jump the skater takes off directly from the edge of the foot that is behind. This adds less height to the jump but, carries out the move smooth motion. Jump variations in figure skating are determined by their classification as either an edge jump or a toe jump.

Gymnastics leos

Gymnastics coaches

Once the little girl with the bunches and the sunshine smile stunned the world with gymnastics that had simply never been seen before. Then she revealed the hideous hardship of her training and alleged that her coach had raped her. Now, after the pain and the achievement, comes the humiliation. Olga Korbut, the self-styled Most Famous Gymnast Ever, winner of four Olympic Golds, who at 17 and 4'11" captivated hundreds of millions of people as they watched her backflip her way into history, charged with shoplifting $19 (£13) worth of groceries.

Korbut, 46, was arrested not far from her mock-Georgian mansion home in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday evening. According to the police charge-sheet the gymnast had tried to steal cheese, chocolate syrup, figs, seasoning mix and a packet of Earl Grey tea from a Publix convenience store in the small town of Norcross. Korbut denies the charges and says that she is guilty only of a 'misunderstanding'. According to her lawyer, Korbut 'confident that once all the facts are brought out, the charges will be dismissed'.

Fans of the sports star were shocked by her arrest and have bombarded websites devoted to her life and achievements with supportive emails. Since taking three golds in the 1972 Munich Olympics and a fourth four years later Korbut's life has been marred by a series of controversies. She has made enemies who will be swift on the slightest claim, however unfair, of wrongdoing.

Many in her homeland of Belarus felt she betrayed her country by moving - with her famous musician husband and son - to America soon after the Chernobyl disaster. Korbut's fundraising efforts for the victims failed to mute critics.

On arrival in America she started coaching gymnastics in New Jersey but resigned when youngsters complained about her tyrannical methods. She subsequently called American children lazy and spoilt.

But Korbut had learnt in a hard school. Her recent revelations about her early life have shocked many. She was idolised when, in a few short days in the summer of 1972, the tiny 17-year-old from Grodno, the youngest of four daughters a single-room apartment with their parents, produced spellbinding performances that changed the face of gymnastics.

Few realised there was a darker side to the story. Eighteen months ago, Korbut told a Russian newspaper that her coach, Renald Knysh, had plied her with cognac and then forced her to have sex with him shortly before the Olympics. She said Knysh - who denies all his former charge's allegations - and the other Soviet coaches saw their pupils not just as potential gymnasts but as future concubines. 'He trained me for sex,' she said and also alleged that he struck her and sought complete control of her life.

Knysh recently attacked Korbut, calling her 'very lazy, very capricious'. Korbut responded by calling her former coach 'a loner, a despot, a weirdo'.

She has also hinted that she was forced to take drugs to stop her body developing. She did not menstruate until she was 20 and smoked heavily to stay thin. 'I was always writing down what I could eat. I even counted how many sips of water I took,' she has said. She enrolled in a sport school at the age of 10 and sometimes trained 20 hours a day. Her famous backwards somersault on the asymmetric bars took five years and three head injuries to perfect. Another injury resulted in a metal rod being inserted arm.

Gymnastics Balance Beam

Gymnastic balance beam moves can range from the easiest to the hardest and the most complicated. The most easiest moves are given 'A' ranking, while the most difficult one is given an 'E' ranking. Earlier, the beam was more inclined towards dancing and was composed of variety of leaps, walkovers, handstands, dance poses and rolls. However, during the 1970s, its difficulty level increased considerably with of tumbling as well as other aerial skills. This change was brought by the two pioneer gymnastics, Nadia Comaneci and Olga Korbut. From that time, the complexity of gymnastics balance beam moves increased considerably. Some of the basic balance beam moves include switch leap, front flip, back dive with a quarter twist, etc. Read more on history of rhythmic gymnastics.

The routine of the gymnastics balance beam is of easy as well as complex moves. However, time limit that is given to gymnasts at most gymnastic events is 1 minute, 30 seconds and they have to perform in this set time. If the gymnast falls during the performance, she has 10 seconds to get up and continue her performance. However, if she cannot, she will not be allowed to continue. Also, if she does not finish her routine within the set time, her scores will be deducted. Though the gymnast does not have to mention the routine she is going to follow, there are certain elements that have part of the routine. For instance, there should be a step involving a full turn in one foot, acrobatic moves in different directions including backward, sidewards and forward, two dance elements i.e. one jump, leap or hop with the legs and 2 flight elements. also very important for the gymnast to use beam during her performance. Read more on how to build a balance beam.

Gymnastics dance

Good gymnastics floor music provides a medium that enables graceful movements, thereby enjoying the sport to . There has been improvisation on gymnastics performance techniques. Earlier more stress was laid on the techniques, but today introduction of music has accentuated the grace of performing the art. Gymnastics clubs and coaching centers play floor music in . With subtle choreography, the performance becomes more entertaining. Basically the music is more instrumental than lyrical. Check out tips and tricks practiced by performers on gymnastics floor along with music. You might also like to know about facts and objectives of gymnastics.

• You must learn the music completely before you start performance along with music. You must memorize every bit of the music including its crescendo, chorus and pause.
• Once you have completely memorized the music, take help of your trainer to set your moves according to the tune. Choreograph your progressions according to the flow music.
• Observe your footage and agility. Practice the movements until you

Gymnastic leotard

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