(46-48). Med Sci Sports Exerc. They try videos from the internet, are disciplined about stretching at practice and at home, do active flexibility, try different medical providers, and all sorts of home remedies, only to come up short. J Bodyw Mov Ther. I feel to see a notable lasting change in the range of motion that shows up in gymnastics skills, we have to approach the entire movement system with our mobility work, and not just aim to improve the range of motion seen. Doing a high volume of these movements may create ongoing stiffness in these areas, and as a result further contribute to the persistent loss of overhead mobility. 2014 Jul 1;7(3):202-211. eCollection 2014. An Acute Bout of Self-Myofascial Release in the Form of Foam Rolling Improves Performance Testing. 2018. That same drill may cause significant pain and limited motion in another gymnast who has very retroverted or less shallow hip joints. A complex typically includes these steps (I will offer links to videos below), Pre Test Screen It by no means is the perfect solution, but when based on a movement assessment and used with other strategies, self-myofascial release can be very beneficial. Although its not as common as the hip and shoulder post, I still have seen it quite a few times when in gyms. Many gymnasts struggle with excessively tight hip flexors, inner thighs, and quads. There has been conflicting research on the long-lasting changes in range of motion from various stretching methods as well as self-soft tissue work. At face value, they can all appear as someone who is tight or unflexible. Which leads me to my most important point of this section: Splits and over splits should not be viewed as an inherent thing a gymnast has or doesnt have. Coaches understand that with more strength and technique training in a more structured environment they can progress quickly. Oct; 19(4): 747 758. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2012; 26(8) 2119 2129. I feel this issue comes up during fast dynamic movements like jumps, kicking drills, leaping, running, mens pommel work, and so on. Its not that these are bad, but there needs to be equal amount of hamstring, glute, and deep hip external rotator work as well. Although there are conflicting viewpoints on this discussion, I have boiled my thoughts down to three main contributing factors as to why gymnasts may get stiff as they participate in gymnastics. Acute Effects of Stretching on Passive Properties of Human Gastrocnemius Muscle-Tendon Unit: Analysis of Differences Between Hold-Relax and Static Stretching. JOSPT November 2014. Forcing a split down into extreme ranges of an oversplit without a proper assessment behind it, asking a gymnast to perform over splits when they are not even close to a split on flat ground, or blindly pushing someone down just to be tough, is most definitely dangerous. People assume that progress is being made, rather than having some comparative baseline for observing changes. 2014 Jun;29(6):636-42. doi: 10.1016/j. 0, pp. This is where things start to get important. A large body of research has emerged in the last decade outlining that regular stretching does increase range of motion over periods of 4-8 weeks, with both changes in the muscle tissue and changes in the nervous system as an underlying mechanism. This means not only for the ankle joint, but also the rest of leg chain all the way up to the hip and lower back. Improves flexibility in shoulders, feet, and hamstrings Wall sits - To do a proper wall sit start with your back flush to the wall, and position yourself like you are sitting in a chair. Slowly stretch into the desired position, as far as possible without pain, and hold the stretch for 15-60 seconds. This end range compression and increase in capsular laxity over time may predispose shoulder instability, subacromial impingement of the rotator cuff or biceps tendon, and labral damage. Simply doing more splits or pulling shoulders open with stretches that are a bit extreme will likely not get to the cause of the issue. There appear to be short-term changes in range of motion, but often does not stick around too long without follow up strength work or consistent practice of flexibility. Given that gymnasts already straighten their knees andtend to show very knee dominant landings (versus proper hip dominant squat deceleration landings), we really dont want to putting them more at risk for landing lock legged and having something going seriously wrong. Corrective exercises consist of stretches that improve chest and lat flexibility (fig. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Naturally, hypermobile kids may do well in sports like gymnastics and baseball. Weber AE, Bedi A, Tibor LM, Zaltz I, Larson CM. Determination and Desire are however the most important traits for successful participation in any Rainman, Thornburg. ), Ankle Rockers At Wall x10 reps with 10s hold at end, Hands and Knees Wall Rocking (for straight elbow movements) . This is because a large body of manual therapy and self-soft tissue work does not recommend very intense/painful pressure, or extremely long bouts of foam rolling are needed to gain the positive benefits. As a result, gymnastic branch-specific stretching exercises increase the balance and flexibility parameters in a positive way; it is thought that the longer duration of training programs will have a positive effect on the athlete's performance. Hip Flexors, Quads, Groin, Calves, etc. Champagne, IL: Human Kinetics. Elastic band openers, shoulder circles to mat laying on stomach, PNF techniques J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 25(6):36479, 1997. Please share with your community, and I hope you find it helpful! I suggest these to outline the complexity of the human body, in hopes that people are more cautious in some flexibility decisions they make. Int J Exerc Sci. These children are often detected through an early talent identification and are quickly put into competitive team tracks. 2014 Jan; 46(1): 131-14. Its not always because they are not trying hard enough. Heres 3thoughts about why. The on-going process of training will include the development of strength, co-ordination, spatial awareness and the core gymnastics movement skills which are the foundation upon which high level and good quality gymnastics are based. The average quality of studies included in this section of the review was slightly higher than the average qualities of the studies in the review overall. The active structures are more what people know about from gymnastics flexibility methods: muscles, tendons that attach muscles to bones, and the nervous system. Ensure you are warmed up correctly Ankles are one of the most frequentlyinjuredbody parts ingymnasticswith a variety of injuries from getting crunched on short landings, chronic impingement, sprains, stress fractures, and more. It will be much less explanation, and more just videos and examples on how to help. Your foot of the leg at the front should lay flat. Here are 8 gymnastics exercises that will help improve your flexibility: Pike stretch The pike stretch is great for improving your upper body flexibility. We must remember Dr. Sands advice to view flexibility not as a static quality, but as a dynamic quality that incorporates strength, power, and control. I find many gymnasts who have shoulder injuries or are struggling with flexibility display significant strength deficits within their upper back and scapular area. Clin Biomech (Bristol, Avon). I do not mean to suggest that this shoulder stretch will cause injury in a gymnast and should never be used. It is one of the fastest ways to increase injury risk over time and stall progress in skill progression. Examination, treatment, intervention, and rehabilitation for athletes should only be performed by a licensed medical professional. I will dive into this more below. Not to mention their flat feet may cause those same outside ankle structures that may be inflammed/damaged to get re-irritated when impinged upon. Flexibility: developing effective movement. Skills like Shaposh releases for female gymnasts, Tipelts for male gymnasts, and other extreme overhead motion demands require this amount of mobility. Stretching the hamstrings typically produces discomfort in the middle of the back of the thigh, not high up in the buttocks where the hamstring attaches to an open growth plate in pre-pubescent gymnasts. If you don't feel any pain or discomfort, hold this stretch for about 30 seconds. There may be a lot of variation on exact exercises/stretches included in your athletes' warm-up, but do try to include ALL of the following components: 2015 Jun;25(3):346-55. doi: 10.1111/sms.12228. (17) Adjunctive radiographic X-Rays or advanced medical imaging can also be helpful to see a boney congruency. Why Do Gymnasts Lose Flexibility In The First Place? 2) change tissue properties of the calf muscle. In the most basic sense, I dont think oversplits are inherently bad for gymnasts. I think the more accurate way to describe them is that over splits may be bad for a particular gymnast at that moment in time. The main way people approach increasing the flexibility of the active structures is through regular stretching. I have found that it not only can yield quick changes in flexibility, but it can also make longer-lasting changes that show up in gymnastics skills. Instead of just jumping to pushing down the knees of gymnast to get better lines or fix bent knees, I strongly suggest that people take time to figure out why the gymnast has bent knees to start with. Keep this position for a couple of seconds and do the same for the other arm. Some may have a combination of dysplasia, hip socket rotations, femur rotation, and different pelvic alignments. Alistair MM, Saran MR. Micro instability of the hip-it does exist etiology, diagnosis and treatment. You may remember the shoulder joint has a very shallow socket, which allows for lots of motion but then creates a situation where stability is needed. Lastly, I have made a Gymnastics Pre-Hab Guide that includes daily soft tissue work, stretching, and weekly circuits to help with reducing the risk of injuries in gymnasts. Plan Some degree of abnormal hip bone motion may be needed for success in aesthetic sports. Routledge: New York. Many gymnasts will continue to see me in the competitive season for maintenance care, as they can notice how adaptively stiff they become through high volume of training or competing. I fear that what many people write off as small strains is actually the start of more serious issues like labral tears, pelvic bone stress fractures, and rotator cuff or biceps tendon damage. The Theraband strips should be black in color or they should be among the stiffest of the elastic material you can obtain. Huang R, Diaz C, Parvizi J. Acetabular Labral Tears: Focused Review of Anatomy, Diagnosis, and Current Management . May 22, 2022 | In hot and cold water therapy for feet benefits | . This is closely related to the one above, but many of the wobbly ankles come about because the gymnast has lots oflaxityoverall. We also do not want to cause excessive irritation of soft tissue through boney compression. The most popular thought process is that we are affecting resting muscle tone, possibly increasing blood flow, perhaps changing the amount of water hydration level within the muscle or are offering a competitive neurological stimulus for muscle soreness. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. A very useful research review on this topic was performed by Weppler and Magnusson titled, Increasing Muscle Extensibility: A Matter of Increasing Length or Modifying Sensation? (18). ISJPT 9(6) 2014. Attempting to apply one general stretching exercise that a naturally mobile gymnast showed in a presentation may cause some serious problems for such a gymnast. Its not that we want to freak out every time someone is reporting discomfort in a split. We want to make sure we are not over-stretching or overstressing passive structures like the shoulder ligaments and capsules. J Bone Joint Surg Am, 2013 Sep 18; 95 (18): e133, Dumount GD. Another version of an overhead stretch, pictured below, is an example of the opposite. This may be one reason why so many gymnasts say their hips hurt when they do jumpingdrills, running, or skillswith ankle weights on. And lastly, passive or active flexibility exercises alone will not have a substantial impact on the nervous system to change movement, build strength, or correct technique. Also, aggressively pushing a gymnast down in a split or not taking the time to break down why someone is limited can also lead to serious injuries. 90 Minutes of Must Hear Gymnastics Coaching Expert Advice, Master the Basics: Gymnastics Drills for Kips, Fly Aways, and Giants, Nick Ruddock Shares His Best Uneven Bar Methods for Giants, Flyaways, and Cast Handstands, Understanding and Treating Back Pain in Athletes, 5 In-Season Gymnastics Tips for Maximizing Meet & Routine Performance, Gymnastics requires significant amounts of flexibility and mobility, which makes it a primary area of training, It can be very confusing and easily overwhelming, especially with the rapid increase in scientific advances and the internet, Anyone working with gymnasts should have an understanding of basic anatomy and physiology before assigning flexibility drills, Although research is conflicting, there appear to be both neurological and mechanical reasons as to why regular flexibility training increases range of motion, Its crucial that proper methods are used to reduce joint stress and bias the stretching of soft tissue structures, especially in hypermobile athletes, Static stretching has a role to play in gymnastics but must be used correctly and at the right dosage. In the long term, the increased strength of the upper back and follow up technique work will solidify the flexibility gains made. Philadelphia: Churchill Livingston. Despite our best efforts we may continue to see cast handstands that lack open shoulders, leaps that do not have larger angles, and parallel bar swings that lack a large front swing. In short, stretching the toe point more may be exaggerating this imbalance, leading to issues both in their injury risk for inversion sprains as noted above but alsoother ankle injuries. In this setting, we are looking to ramp down the body and assist in recovery (known as facilitating parasympathetic tone). There is a much better way that is safer and has valid science behind it for support. Im just saying there are many factors to consider and that there may be a more optimal approach to take. This creates a situation where the femoral head has more access to move in larger ranges of motion, creating significantly more hip mobility in all planes. The body of research regarding foam rolling and manual therapy or massage is a bit confusing regarding the theoretical mechanisms. Now let me tie this into why I no longeruse of ankle weights. If you look down at your arm (and are wearing a shirt) your actual arm within the shirt sleeve represents the first golf ball on a tee bony layer, and the shirt sleeve surrounding the arm represents the second layer made up of joint capsules and ligaments. Its also really important to remember that the upper back, or thoracic spine, and the next play a huge role in shoulder motion. BMJ 2002;325:468. The muscles of the shoulder blade and upper back are often not nearly as developed as the chest and underarm muscles mentioned above. Stretching has been around for decades in gymnastics as well as other sports. (2 ed., pp. Many of them tell me that they try searching online, going to clinics or camps, and asking around at gyms about how to help, only to become significantly overwhelmed. Warm-ups are typically best looked at as a time when you can prepare the available joint range of motion that a gymnast has. My thoughts on hip mobility and why we choose certain exercises closely echo my thoughts on shoulder mobility, and I again will not go into much depth as this was covered in an earlier chapter. This capsular and ligamentous hypermobility is not inherently a bad thing, as it is part of what makes a gymnast good at the sport. It was found that thirty minutes of supervised hamstring stretching to the point of discomfort, five days per week for six weeks improved overall range of motion but did not increase the muscle extensibility. Proper assessments and specific stretching methods must be used so that excessive strain on passive tissue like bones, ligaments, and joint capsules is avoided. The Approach to the Evaluation and Surgical Treatment of Mechanical Hip Pain in the Young Patient. Many different thoughts and practices exist in daily gymnastics training. Draovitch P, Edelstein J, Kelly BT. The researchers proposed that the change in the range of motion may have primarily come from increased tolerance to the discomfort of nerve fibers that detect stretch pain, as the fibers were becoming more desensitized. In its most basic form, stretching involves taking a muscle to its end range of motion, and holding the elongated state for a period of time. North Am J Sports Phys Ther 1(1):1631, 2006. Neurological vs Mechanical Effects of Stretching, Why We Must Change Certain Stretches for Safety. Regular Stretch does not increase muscle extensibility: a randomized control trial. The Hyperflexible Hip Managing Hip Pain in the Dancer and Gymnast. The Hyper Flexible Hip: Managing Hip Pain in the Dancer and Gymnast. My mentors have outlined that this was a crucial part of their work in professional-level sports through the competitive season, so I have adopted it into my practice with gymnasts. Just as with the warm-up concept above, it is only one piece of the bigger puzzle to increasing shoulder or hip flexibility long term. The search was conducted on PubMed, WOS, Scopus, Sport Discus and Google Scholar databases, and . There is also a very fine line between stretching the correct active structure to see improvement and overly stressing the incorrect passive structure to cause injury. Second Edition, 2009. Due to many gymnasts having inherent hypermobility, we do not want to place excessive stress on the ligaments and joint capsules of athletes. As mentioned, the important take away here is to focus on things we can change, like the muscles themselves. They also tend to have excessively mobile hip capsules, similar to the shoulder. Now please dont take this as me not being a fan of external loading for gymnasts, as I am a fan of that when properly used (see article here). I dont want readers to think static stretching is bad, and that we shouldnt do it. I view the different goals fo flexibility in this light. By the end of a few months, they usually just throw their hands up and say he/she is just unflexible, they have bad genetics. Without a proper movement assessment being done first, the application of regular stretching and other flexibility exercises may fall short of revealing progress. Department of Exercise and Sport Science University of Utah Most gymnastics coaches would agree that flexibility is an essential aspect of gymnastics training and performance. So I know this has been an absolute beast of an article. Gymnastics requires a significant amount of flexibility for skills to be done correctly and safely. I will then end with some important notes on other joints like the knees, elbows, and spine. I hope that this guide can be a place for everyone in gymnastics to find some useful information without feeling so frustrated and overwhelmed. 2014. They explain that the short-term effects often seen from stretching must be supported by other qualities of athleticism. Andrews, J., Reinold, M., Wilk, K. The Athletes Shoulder. For many people in the gymnastics community, it comes down to a professional discussion on taking away overly aggressive flexibility methods, following the science of shoulder anatomy and making subtle changes in training. It is worth noting that both authors have extensive experience in elite level gymnastics, spending the majority of their career researching gymnastics biomechanics, injuries, and sports performance. 2017 Apr;21(2):446-451. doi: 10.1016/j.jbmt.2016.11.006. They should not produce discomfort on the top of the shoulders, which is more indicative of rotator cuff or soft tissue impingement under the coracoacromial arch. There are some cases where young children do not have natural hypermobility but are gifted in their bodyweight strength abilities. Lats, Teres Major, Pec Major and Minor, Thoracic Spine, etc. The problem is, between the massive amount of information on the internet, the rapid progression of scientific literature, and the wide range of possible reasons behind why someone struggles with flexibility, it can be absolutely exhausting to learn about and use practically to actually see long term results in the gy. These stretches below are seen daily in gymnastics. Active Flexibility in New Range of Motion and Eccentrics As noted at the start of this article, gymnasts are typically our hyper in their joint capsules. I call them 10 Minute Gymnastics Flexibility Circuits. There are some times when we are aiming to just get the body going, and other times when we are looking to truley increase joint range of motion. 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