Get a Grip!

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah gymnast Georgia Dabritz doesn't wear grips, resulting in large callouses on her hands. Thursday February 6, 2014 in Salt Lake City.

 Dabritz:

Gymnasts typically use grips on the bars to protect their hands and improve their hold. But Dabritz, who is just 5-foot-1, couldn’t fit her hands into the grips when she was first learning her gymnastics skills.

She tried them again a few years ago and it was a disaster.

"I peeled right off the bar," she said. "After that, I wasn’t dying to try and use them again. I didn’t want to have to relearn all my skills."

Instead, she took the unconventional route and built up callouses on her hands through hours of practicing. There have been plenty of rips and tears through skin, but neither she nor her coaches would have it any other way.

"I don’t know of anyone else who does it," Utah coach Greg Marsden said. "It works for her, so we aren’t going to mess with a good thing."

 Of course, "traditionally", Romanian, Russian, and Chinese gymnasts at varying points have been reputed to not wear grips.  The explanation that seems to be commonly told is that when they are young, they cannot afford the grips; and as they get older and make it onto the international scene by which time you'd think their federation could get them grips, the gymnasts simply aren't used to them and decide to do without.

Video description, posted February 2009:

Congratulations! You almost won!

A couple of weeks ago, Rick linked to an interesting Slate article on the Silver Medal Face:

Academic studies have found that silver medalists are less happy with their reward than the bronze medalists they’ve outperformed. Third-place finishers are thrilled to be on the podium. Silver medalists—particularly those who’ve just lost championship games—are still in the grip of self-recrimination and gold medal envy.

San Francisco State University psychology professor David Matsumoto and Bob Willingham of World of Judo magazine conducted a study of Silver Medal Face by examining photos of judo competitors at the 2004 Athens Games. They found that 13 of 14 gold medalists smiled at the end of their matches. So did 18 of 26 bronze medalists.

The silver medalists were either blank-faced or rueful, and the ones “who displayed something displayed discrete, negative emotions.” On the medal stand, they were much more likely than other athletes to display forced smiles.

Now, a tour of some of the sourest second-place finishers in Olympic history.

Guess who's first up?  Check out the article.

Scientific American:

Psychologists Victoria Medvec and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University, and Scott Madey of the University of Toledo think that this phenomenon can be explained by counterfactual thinking. This means that people compare their objective achievements to what “might have been.”

The most obvious counterfactual thought for the silver medalist might be to focus on almost winning gold. She would focus on the difference between coming in first place, and any other outcome. The bronze medalist, however, might focus their counterfactual thoughts downward towards fourth place.
She would focus on almost not winning a medal at all. The categorical difference, between being a medalist and not winning a medal, does not exist for the comparison between first and second place.

It is because of this incongruous comparison that the bronze medalist, who is objectively worse off, would be more pleased with herself, and happier with her achievement, than the silver medalist.

Rick followed up his post with the following Seinfeld clip:

Impress with Presses

I posted this before:

Also worth checking out:

Jason Mortimer's straddle press handstand progressions
Valentin Uzunov's Teaching the Press Handstand
Jay Thornton's straddle press to handstand

Via GymnasticsCoaching.com:

Yuri Marmerstein:

What we are looking for is that the arms are vertical. This means that the shoulder should be directly over the hand. …
Can you stack your hips directly above the hands without learning forward? Probably not unless you have amazing flexibility and the right proportions of length of arms, legs, and torso. This means that we must be in a mechanically inefficient position for some time.
Shoulder lean can be minimized by maintaining a strong base and demonstrating maximum compression in the body. …
“Order of Operations” in Press Handstand

When I was working at Redlands YMCA part-time, out of high school, I had a kinder-gym class with one 6 year old who could flawlessly do a straddle press handstand with zero shoulder lean.  Just naturally strong and flexible enough to get compact and circle her legs around the side and up to a handstand.  I've never had anyone as good at it, since.


Quality might not be totally there...but on quantity:

And to top that, 115 consecutive press handstands in under 10 minutes:

The feat is impressive, but totally unnecessary beyond a certain point, as time can be better spent improving on other attributes for the sport.

The only other person I know who might be able to give her a challenge is Makoto Sakamoto. 

I remember once in the Yates gym at UCLA while he was visiting with his BYU gymnasts (sometime in the early 90s, maybe), he did something ridiculous like 40 pike press handstands on the parallel bars followed by 40 handstand push-ups.  Just insane.  I asked him what his secret was and he basically told me that he maxes out every day.  It goes counter to the conventional wisdom of needing about 48 hours of rest in between sessions to give muscle fibers time to repair and grow stronger against future stress and damage.

The most recent feat I can find on the 'net, from almost a year ago, a bio at Hawaii Academy:

On his 53rd birthday, Mako performed 163 handstand pushups (in 30 minutes), touching his shoulders on each count, and without coming down from a handstand… a record no one has touched.

You can find out more about Andreea Iridon at The Couch Gymnast

Great read on Makoto Sakamoto here.

The Difference Between Experts and Beginners

Workout Wednesday with Eddie Umphrey

The Soul & Style of a Gymnast

If gymnastics is coming from your soul, then you will be an unforgettable gymnast, a gymnast with your very own style.

- Natalia Yurchenko

A profile of British gymnast and World & European Bars Finalist sensation, Ruby Harrold:




I love that she and her coach are mining old school bar skills for possible ideas and inspiration.  I get bored seeing carbon-copied routines constructed around the CoPs over artistry and originality.

Also blogging:
GymnasticsCoaching.com

Maroney Height

Gymnastics World

There was a time when I used to enjoy filming and editing videos/montages.

Here are two I put together for Ariana Sokol-Sanchez and her mom, Wendy:







The title comes from the video game, "Homeworld", whose music selection I chose.

I just never got around to filming her beam stuff.

Elite Physical Preparation

Lia Whitmen of Salcianu Gymnastics: