Move magazine by julie abelsen

IS S U E # 1 M A R C H /A P R IL 2 0 H

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M E N TA L TRAINING GABRIELLE DOUGLAS O LY M P I C C H A M P I O N

2012

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TRAINING METHOD

DEALING WITH MIND BLOCKS 10 - 17

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30 - 31 TREATING RIPS

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THE COACHES PAGE H

GRACE, GOLD AND GLORY

3 M 2EE 39 T G A B R IE LL

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MOVE

MAGAZINE

Editor

Julie Abelsen

Photoeditor

Greg F. North

Text editor Graphic designer AD assistant Webpage Printing Distribution

Nancy York Julie K. Abelsen Sofie Marshal www.movemag.co.uk Fagtrykk INTERPRESS US

Move Magazine Brooklyn Lane 10090, NY

info@movemag.com

EDOTORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NOTE This is the firs issue of Move Magazine. A magazine made for all gymnasts out there. We will dig deep into the gymnastis world and write about many things that you hopefully will find instructive and interessting. Gymnastics is a very challenging sport. Not just physically, but mentally as well. It comes down to being confident and consistent, in training and competition. Your mind either makes you or breaks you. In this issue of Move magazine, we are focusing on what happens in the mind of gymnastic athletes. Learn how to train your mind and being in control of your fears. Courage is just as important in this sport, as your physical skills. I hope you enjoy it.

The editor

Julie Abelsen

Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.

move UP FRONT

MIND BLOCKS TEXT: Dr. Alan Goldberg sport psychologist PHOTOS: Greg North As a sport, gymnastics is one of the very few where fear is an integral part of the process of participation. Gymnastics is a physically demanding sport with a number of flips, twists and routines that can be dangerous when not performed properly. Therefore many gymnasts get mental blocks when they have to do a trick.

UP FRONT

move Learning to control your mind, can help you overcome fear and mental blocks.

move UP FRONT It is too late to decide what to do while you are running towards the mini trampoline. Clear your head and focus. Then give it your best.

UP FRONT

move en m to ha ve Yo u it. do ta De lly cid pr e ep th ar at y e yo ou ur ar se e g lf to oin do g to it, do an th d no e tr t “ ick try , b ” t efo o do re y it. ou FEAR IN GYMNASTICS

The fear can be traced to two inherent elements: First, in most everything you do, you’re asking your body to do the unnatural and defy gravity. The human organism was not made to throw itself backwards or forwards, twisting and flipping in space. As a consequence, there is a certain amount of fear that is naturally stirred up in the process of trying to overcome the gravitational pull. In gymnastics there is always a very real and present danger of physical injury. The fact of the matter is that as the gymnast progresses up through the levels in this sport, the degree of skill difficulty rises and with it, so does the chances of sustaining serious injury. As a consequence, fear is almost a constant companion for the competitive gymnast. Whether it’s a fear of a release move, go-

ing backwards, a new vault or a dismount, there is no other factor in this sport that can kill an athlete’s joy, or drive a coach to distraction and totally confound the athlete’s parents than fear. Fear also carries with it the power to completely traumatize a gymnast and stop her dead in her tracks. Fear is probably the number one reason why talented athletes prematurely cut short their gymnastics career. There is nothing that saps the confidence and dampens the motivation in a gymnast like fear. For the average coach, a gymnast’s fear is an unwelcome obstruction to the natural learning process. Most coaches will tell you that fear is pretty normal and that you have to help the athlete through her fears. However, their attitude towards the gymnast who is totally immobilized by what they consider to be an irrational fear speaks otherwise.

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UP FRONT

Fear disrupts the coach’s program. It literally slows down progress. It’s a time and energy drain that most coaches feel they can’t afford to put up with. Persistent fears in a gymnast exhaust a coach’s teaching bag of tricks and ultimately make that coach feel inadequate, incompetent and ineffective on some level. The problem with the stuck gymnast is that she won’t let the coach do his or her job. It’s these inner feelings of inadequacy that then lead to anger and frustration, which in turn may cause the coach to say and do things which further embarrass the gymnast, making her feel even worse. CAUSES OF FEAR IN THE GYM

When you look at the more obvious causes of a gymnast’s fears and balking, there are many. Sometimes the gymnast’s fears represent “good reality testing.” That is, the athlete may have broken a bone or sustained a serious injury the last time she or

he did an exercise. Although she didn’t sustain any serious injury, she really scared herself. Sometimes the fear is a product of a natural change in center of gravity and disrupted spatial awareness as the gymnast’s body goes through the physical changes of puberty. Along these same lines, fear can also emerge as the athlete’s emotional and psychological make-up develops and changes with maturation. Younger gymnasts tend to be more fearless because they literally don’t know any better. However, as the young gymnast’s brain and thinking processes develop, she begins to gain a greater awareness of the inherent danger of the skills she’s attempting. There are times that fear and balking are natural responses to outside pressures from parents and coaches. It’s not at all that uncommon for a gymnast who is pushed too much

UP FRONT

move One of the best ways to build self-confidence and help overcome fears is to build strength.

to develop incapacitating fears. Fear can also be a healthy warning sign that the gymnast does not have the spatial awareness, physical skills or body flexibility necessary to safely execute a skill. When a gymnast is not ready for a trick, fear is the natural internal warning response. Fear can also be a simple product of having to learn new and more difficult tricks. Sometimes a fearless gymnast who has progressed rapidly up the ranks develops incapacitating fears because of the “too much, too soon” phenomenon. If an athlete doesn’t have enough time for the skills to psychologically and physically “set” in her neuro-physiology before learning newer, more difficult ones, then fear can result. However, what confounds most coaches, parents and gymnasts are the many times when there appears to be absolutely no logical reason for the fear. Maybe the gymnast has been

UP FRONT

Everyone who coaches gymnastics has seen the fear problems of gymnasts from time to time

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effortlessly and flawlessly doing a skill for a year or two when suddenly, for no apparent reason, it’s gone! She’s afraid and no one, gymnast, coaches or parents can figure out exactly why or do anything to get her unstuck. An additional concern for many coaches is that fear, like the flu, seems to be somewhat “catchy” in the gym. It’s not at all unusual for one gymnast’s fears and balking to trigger similar responses in her teammates. EASIER SAID THAN DONE

So just how does a gymnast work through her fears? What’s a coach supposed to do when he has one or more athletes that seem paralyzed for no obvious reasons? On a more superficial level, there is one basic strategy for

overcoming any fear: Do the thing that you are afraid of the most, over and over again and that fear will diminish. The one behavioural strategy that always feeds fear is avoidance. When you avoid a trick or event that you’re afraid of, your imagination takes over and begins to exaggerate that fear in your mind’s eye. Naturally the larger the fear gets, the more there is the tendency to avoid it. Thus avoidance sets in motion an escalating cycle of ever increasing fear. Intellectually understanding how this fear cycle works is not enough by itself to put a stop to it. Knowing that you have to move towards your fears does not make the reality of actually doing so any easier. Similarly, a coach or parent telling a fearful gymnast that she has no reason to be afraid is also information that is useless to her because it does not in any real way diminish the fear.

UP FRONT

move It is also possible for gymnastics fear to originate from having seen another gymnast fall, either on the skill of which they are afraid, but also possibly on some completely unrelated skill.

There are situations we can say that the fear is literally stuck in the gymnast’s neurology and physiology. It is lodged in her brain and body, and no amount of conscious mental toughness techniques, encouragement, demands, threats, frustration or temper tantrums will significantly change things What most sports psychologists, coaches and parents don’t understand is that resistant fears and performance blocks have their basis in physical and/or psychological trauma, (negative experiences), of one form or another. Physical trauma can be something as simple as getting lost in the middle of a skill and landing hard, but without injury on your back, experiencing a scary near-miss, or a serious injury. The interesting thing is that the physical trauma underlying a fear does not even have to be confined to the gym. Accidents outside the gym can also have a significant impact on what goes on in the gym. Furthermore,

the physical trauma underlying a fear doesn’t have to be recent. Psychological trauma can include witnessing another gymnast getting hurt, being embarrassed by a coach or parent, or being forced to do a skill when you’re not prepared. BREAK THROUGH FEARS & BLOCKS

The negative effect of these traumatic experiences, however long in the past they may have occurred, becomes stuck in that athlete’s neurology and physiology, and directly affects their ability to feel safe and comfortably execute in the present. Whether the gymnast is consciously aware of the trauma behind the block is irrelevant. More often times than not, the gymnast have consciously forgotten about that troubling event. All she is aware of is her fear and an inability to get herself to throw a skill.

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HOW TO

MOTIVATE

GOALS

Help your gymnasts setting big goals, and tell them what to do to reach them. Set smaller goals along the way to the biggest one. In that way you vil give the gymnast belife in their self along the way.

FUN

Don’t be too serious and harsh all the time. Humor is important for everyone. As long as you have fun, you’ll be motivated to stay and keep coming to the gym every day of practice. Variation is also important to make the practice more fun. Doing the same over and over is demotivating.

TEAMWORK

Make your gymnast work together as a team. They will motivate and each other to be better gymnasts. At the same time, they will become better friends. Having somone to share your up and downs makes it easier.

POSITIVE FEEDBACK

Everyone needs to hear it when they do something right. Of course as a coach it is your job to make your gymnasts better athletes. But always telling them what to to different isn’t always the right thing to do. Positive words are even more important to keep the gymasts going.

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COACHES PAGE

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BODY AS ART

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ART YOUR BODY AS

Gymnasts are capable of doing movements with their body, that no one else can. They defy gravity and move in a way that most pepole look at as impossible. Gymnastics is about expressing your feelings trough exeptional inhumanly movements that most people are not capable of performing, in a perfect way.

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Many people like to express their emotions through art. Gymnasts expresses their feelings trough movements in their body

BODY AS ART

move Gymnastics can be a form of escape, a form of self-realization, a form of expression, a story, exercise, and so many other crucial things.

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TRAINING METHOD

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MENTAL

TRAINING text :

Nancy Marshal

photos :

Greg North

Gymnastics is a sport for thinkers. It takes a great deal of mental discipline to execute routines well, maintain composure during competition, set and attain goals, and overcome mental blocks such as fear or anxiety. Mental conditioning is just as valuable as strength or flexibility. Without mental strength, you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t me able to do this sport.

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CONFIDENCE AND FEAR ARE RELATED IN GYMNASTICS

Self-talk plays a major role in how you motivate yourself as an athlete. Negative self-talk can have a very damaging effect on your mental toughness in gymnastics. Self-talk can cause you to feel like a situation is worse than it really is. It can also negatively affect your self-esteem and confidence. “As soon as you let negative thoughts creep in they will affect your performance,” says Coach Mary Roth, Head Coach of the Ball State University Women’s Gymnastics Team. Blaming yourself for mistakes you’ve made will not eliminate them. In fact, it may cause you to feel worse about the situation. It is easy to think negatively when having a problem with a skill or when having difficulty learning a new skill. Frustration can often be coupled with negative self-talk and can cause you to feel less confident about performing the skill. Not only can positive self-talk can help you focus on the positives of the situation, it can also create confidence.

Dwelling on your own imperfections can make the situation worse and can leave you feeling less confident than when you started. “Confidence and fear are related in gymnastics,” says Roth. Being over-analytical can be detrimental to your performance and can work against you. Thinking too much about the consequences of performing a skill instead of the proper technique to correctly perform the skill can leave you feeling fearful. The less confident you have in yourself when performing new or “scary” skills, the more fearful you will be and the more difficulty you will have. It is up to you to trust your ability and to let your body do what you know it can. Coach Roth also believes that “if you don’t think you can do something, you are going to be battling yourself from the start.” Focusing on the positives of your performances and trusting yourself can help you feel more confident in yourself. It can also help you handle mistakes in a more productive manner.

TRAINING METHOD

move Gymnasts and coaches should not underestimate the power the inner mind has over a gymnastÂ´s performance.

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TRAINING METHOD

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Gymnasts and coaches should not underestimate the power the inner mind has over a gymnast´s performance.

Another mental challenge that can hinder individual and team performance is letting mistakes get the best of you. On an individual basis, focusing on poor past performances can cause you to lose focus and overlook what you should be paying attention to, such as proper technique and safety. Focusing on mistakes in a team competition can put added pressure on teammates.

least one positive aspect about a skill or routine that you have completed. Although you may have not performed the way you had hoped, you can always reframe what happened. If you fell on bars in a competition, you can say to yourself, “I fell on bars, but I did a great job on the other three events and increased my confidence on beam.”

“The team aspect in gymnastics is really built on one person building on the next person,” says Coach Roth. Each member counts on each other to perform to their best ability and the first person up on each event is expected to set the standard for the rest of the team. If you are worried about a poor performance on a previous event, you will be unable to give your full attention to the event you are on presently and are will not be able to contribute completely to your team.

Work on ways to increase your confidence. Great gymnasts exhibit confidence in everything they do. You can increase your confidence by learning new skills, overcoming a mental block, and achieving goals that you have set for yourself. Also work on being confident outside of the gym. Developing confidence in yourself outside of gymnastics is a great way to increase your overall confidence and can in turn increase your confidence in the gym.

Focusing on the present will allow you to keep your head “in the game” and concentrated on what you need to do to successfully finish the competition. Remember, there will always be time to evaluate your performance after the competition.

Focus on the present. It is easy to get caught up in thinking about mistakes you have made in the past. A mistake or fall on your first event in a competition can have a big impact on the rest of the meet, if you let it. Worrying about a mistake you’ve made will not correct it and can cause you to lose your focus for the remainder of the competition. Even though you have already fallen, the competition is not over and you still have the chance to do well on three other events and end on a good note. It takes a mentally tough gymnast to be able to regain composure and focus after falling and finish out the rest of the competition strong.

Mary Roth, Head Coach of Ball State University Women’s Gymnastics, says: “Focus on the positive aspects of your performances. A positive attitude toward practice and competition is essential. Negative attitudes will only bring you down and your performance down too. You should always be able to find at

move NUTRISSION & HEALTH

If you do tear, treat the wound as quickly as possible. First, make sure that you wash all chalk out of the wound.

Next, clean the wound well to remove any blood, impurities and possible bacteria.

Finally, use a good antibiotic ointment like Neosporin and keep it covered as much as possible for the first day or two to foster healing. The ointment will help quicken healing and keep the tear moisturized.

Gymnasts have another tip to speed recovery during the night: Cover your hand with a sock (with finger holes cut out) or a glove to keep the ointment on your hand and not on your sheets. This treatment should continue until the rip has been covered by new skin.

NUTRISSION & HEALTH

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TREATING RIPS HEALING RIPS QUIQLY Because rips are painful and can interfere with your normal gymnastics and bar workouts and competitions, you will want to heal them as soon as possible. To do this, you want to keep them clean and free from infection, use medications that will speed the healing process and keep them uncovered an open to the air. There are any number of healing salves, creams and oils that you can use. Putting them on a fresh rip may hurt, but the sooner you use them, the sooner you heal. DON’T CRACK YOUR RIP Once a rip has begun to heal and a new layer of skin has covered the rip, you need to keep the rip moist. If the rip is allowed to dry up too much, the skin over the rip will crack and you will continue to rip again and again in the same spot. Rubbing Chapstick or a similar product over a rip that is drying up too much can also prevent cracking. ICE AWAY THE PAIN Just before a competition you can help deaden the pain of a rip by icing it. You can put it on an ice pack on your rip, hold a piece of ice on it until it melts or soak the hand in ice water. This will cool down the inflammation and ease the pain. You do not want your hands “frozen” when you have to compete, so make sure you have time to get your hands back to normal temperature before you actually have to compete.

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PORTRAIT

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GRACE GOLD AND GLORY text :

Liz Neporent

photos :

Greg North

Gabrielle Douglas was one of the shining stars of the 2012 Olympics. But the gymnast’s journey to the top of the podium in London this past summer wasn’t an easy one.

move PORTRAIT National Team Coordinator for USA Gymnastics, nicknamed Douglas the “Flying Squirrel” for her aerial performance on the uneven bars

As the 16-year-old Douglas recalled in her new book, “Grace, Gold & Glory,” she started out life homeless, her family living in the back of a van for nearly a year after she was born. Soon afterwards, they were taken in by relatives. Then, her father abandoned them, leaving her mother to support four young children on her own. One of the few African Americans in the sport of gymnastics, Douglas claimed she was cruelly taunted by her former coach and teammates at Excalibur Gym, in Virginia Beach, Va., who told her to get a nose job and sometimes described her as “their slave.” In an emailed statement, Excalibur denied the allegations and insisted that management never received any reports of Douglas being bullied. Somehow, Douglas’ Olympic dreams never wavered. “Yes I’ve had a lot of hardships in my life and in my career, but I never let that hurt what I do in the gym,” Douglas said. “I’ve always put my heart into gymnastics and pushed myself every single day, no matter what else was going on.” Experts often cite such unrelenting drive as a key personality trait in top athletes such as Douglas. Andrea Corn, a Florida

sports psychologist and co-author of “Raising Your Game,” said Douglas’ perseverance and ability to bounce back after disappointment have played a big part in her success. “No athlete goes through life unscathed. It’s how they respond when something doesn’t go their way on or off the field that makes all the difference,” she said. “The ones that can shake off those negative emotions and transform them into something they can use, they have a gift and they are the ones who do best.” Liang Chow, Douglas’ current coach, agreed. He said that leaving her home in Virginia Beach, Va., to learn gymnastics in the middle of the cornfields of Iowa couldn’t have been easy for the then-14-year-old girl, but Douglas has always been up to the task. “She has good physical talent, but she is also a very hard worker who is determined to reach her daily goals,” Chow said. “This determination has been an essential ingredient in her success.” Because gymnastics is such a demanding sport, Chow added, any athlete who hopes to rise up the ranks must have the same sort of attitude as Douglas or they won’t last. “Every athlete has dif-

â&#x20AC;&#x153;She has good physical talent, but she is also a very hard worker who is determined to reach her daily goals.â&#x20AC;?

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PORTRAIT

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if you give up, you will always have

regrets that you didn’t push through. and regret, that is the worst thing.

PORTRAIT Garbrielle Douglas on beam in the 2012 summer olympic games.

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PORTRAIT

move Gabby Douglas and her tem mates wins all round olympic gold.

ferent strengths and weaknesses but the purpose must be there. I can see the ones who have mental toughness and determination and they stand out,” Chow said. Corn believes that facing tough times may have helped elevate Douglas’ athletic performance. That’s because it can be harder for someone to stay at the top of their game when winning is always effortless and they never experience any sort of failure or disappointment, either in athletics or outside life. “Someone who rests on their laurels will stop trying to improve and perfect their skills. There’s always someone else who is hungry and striving that can come along and take their place,” she said. Not that there haven’t been times Douglas wanted to hang up her leotard and walk away from the sport. Just a few months before the Olympics, she told her mother she wanted to quit gymnastics. She’d been living away from home with a host family in Iowa for nearly two years so she could train with Chow - one of the most renowned coaches in the sport - and she was homesick. “As they were packing up to go home to Virginia I wanted to go with them. I told my mother I could work at Chick-fil-A and run track,” she said. But just as she had after countless injuries and

other setbacks, Douglas refocused on her goals. It took several family pep talks and a bit of coaching but, ultimately, she got her emotions under control and her mojo back. She threw herself into training once more and it paid off. In London, she grabbed gold in both the team and individual all-around competitions. Corn said Douglas’ bout of homesickness and self-doubt was normal, even for someone at the elite level. “Even the best will cry and sometimes feel miserable, but in time they learn something valuable about themselves which makes them better athletes and better people,” she said. Fortunately, for Douglas, the worst seems to be behind her. She isn’t ready to channel her trademark will to win into anything other than gymnastics for the foreseeable future and is now pointed towards the 2016 Olympic Games. She wanted the thousands of up-and-coming gymnasts who idolize her to know that the same sort of upbeat grit that has carried her through can help them reach their goals, too. “I always tell them to never give up. Times may be tough but sacrifices, they do pay off. If you give up, you will always have regrets that you didn’t push through and regret, that is the worst thing,” she said.

13 0 2 Y A M . 15 : E U S IS H T G N E R T S E H T 2 # D E S I G N B Y : J U L I E K O L S TA D A B E L S E N