Your legs should be at a 90 angle. Sports Med. The same argument can be made for the hips of gymnasts. Paralleled to the shoulder, the hip joint is made up of the socket (acetabulum) and the upper thigh bone (femur), with the femoral head serving as the ball. By using a variety of drills that include the basic movements (hip extension, shoulder flexion with rotation, etc.) Effect of Stretch Frequency and Sex on the Rate and Gain and Rate of Loss in Muscle Flexibility During a Hamstring Stretching Program: A Randomized Single-Blind Longitudinal Study. Simply throwing a bunch of random flexibility drills you recently saw at a clinic or on a video (Im majorly guilty of this one) is a quick way to ask for complaints of hip pain. Although its not as common as the hip and shoulder post, I still have seen it quite a few times when in gyms. A systematic review. This screen measures hypermobility through looking at elbow hyperextension, knee hyperextension, the ability to touch the floor in a pike stretch, hyperextension of the pinky, and hyperextension of the thumb. 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. It should be considered to be a skill with many pieces that must be broken down to achieve success. Hip Flexors, Quads, Groin, Calves, etc. 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. 2014 Jan; 46(1): 131-14. 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. 1) increase ankle range of motion and 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. I suggest these to outline the complexity of the human body, in hopes that people are more cautious in some flexibility decisions they make. Before you apply new flexibility ideas, take a step back and consider the scientific rationale behind them. Warm ups and cool downs are another common topic that comes up when discussing flexibility. Konrad A, Gad M, Tilp M1. In my mind, the warm-up should not really be the main time we are looking to make massive changes in flexibility. 95 97 In theory, it incorporates not only neural encoding but also motor skill acquisition and deliberate practice. They outline, as do many other great researchers, that correctly performed stretching bouts of 10- 30s that move to tolerable discomfort can be effective. While puberty can make a big negative impact on flexibility, I feel that the cultural norm of gymnasts just automatically getting tighter as they age is overexaggerated. As mentioned, the important take away here is to focus on things we can change, like the muscles themselves. The Relationship Between Stretching Typology and Stretching Duration: The Effects on Range of Motion. Is there a distinct pattern to the acetabular labrum and articular cartilage damage in the non-dysplastic hip with instability? 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. Limitations in thoracic spine flexibility can create a situation where a gymnast is unable to get their arms fully above their head or behind their back. This shallower hip socket, and natural hypermobility, creates a situation where the gymnast cannot afford to have limited dynamic structures for protection. Due to the outlined research effects of foam rolling, stick or other forms of self-massage, I regularly recommend it as a piece of a gymnasts flexibility training. Why Do So Many Gymnasts Struggle Even When They Stretch Daily? Simultaneously, draw the foot at the back further behind you. From there I will take a deep dive into some cultural issues that exist in gymnastics, and then conclude with step by step flexibility examples for each main region of the body that gymnasts struggle with including the shoulders, hips, ankles, and wrists. 1) improve range of motion and For me, I think the discussion must start with the intended goal of the flexibility work. The sport of gymnastics is more than just flashy routines you see on the competition stage. We will start with some background anatomy, term clarification, and discuss some of the theoretical reasons certain flexibility methods seem to work. With this concept of overuse muscular stiffness in mind, I want to pause for a critical point. 2016. They measured ankle range of motion and end range stiffness before and after these stretches. 2014 Jul 1;7(3):202-211. eCollection 2014. Nho, et al. Due to this, they may not be biasing the proper muscular tissue intended and as a result may show limited effectiveness. The goal is to make hand contact with the wall. Sports Health. Some research has suggested it can also be helpful to reduce perceived muscle soreness, enhance blood flow, and make an impact in recovery (41-43) I encourage all athletes that I work with to do some form of light, soft tissue prep before every workout. This often happens when the gymnast is working one legged leaps or jumps, takes off for a skill off balance, or lands with their weight more onto one leg. There are screening tools that coaches can use to assess these issues, in addition to many great assessments that medical providers can use to break down problems. Beardsley C, Skarabot J. The reality of the human body is that there are hundreds of factors related to anatomy that can influence a gymnasts level of flexibility. I feel this issue comes up during fast dynamic movements like jumps, kicking drills, leaping, running, mens pommel work, and so on. Because exercise can shorten your muscles, skipping your post-activity stretch can decrease your mobility over time. In a research study by Ben and Harvey (9), thirty healthy adult individuals were compared to 30 people in a matched control group to see if regular hamstring stretching would. So here are some main take always to help. 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: Champagne, IL: Human Kinetics. I will talk more specifically about oversplits below, but I feel that the lack of education around this topic is why so many people are using aggressive methods. I now look back to how I coached and trained as a gymnast 10 years ago, and am blown away with all the things I was doing that were not backed by scientific support. If you took the time to read through everything, a major kudos to you. Being able to achieve a full over split, or even a regular full split for that matter requires many things to be going well from a movement point of view. They include rope, hoop, ball, clubs, and ribbon. 2011. Typically not a time to increase joint motion, as the body is usually in a very high-stress state and has just taken a lot of training volume, A naturally hypermobile type genetic structure, and shallower hip joints (acetabular dysplasia), Proper spinal control, alignment and awareness that does not stress the lower back or hip joints excessively, Adequate muscle length in the hip flexors, quads, hamstrings, and groin, Adequate muscle strength in the core, glutes, deep hip stabilizers, and rotator muscles to safely support the hip joint, Adequate full range control and strength for the central nervous system to allow leg motion to occur safely, Consistent training and regular use of newly acquired motion to transfer motion to skills in the long-term, Proper mental and psychological developmental/maturity of the athlete to actively be engaged in the training, know normal versus abnormal levels of discomfort and consistently work to seeing progress, Skendzel, et al. Seated Overhead Screen with Stick Sitting at the wall with the lower back flat and head against the wall, the gymnast raises the bar overhead with the arms shoulder-width apart and palms down. In a sport like gymnastics, where very high forces are going through shoulder, hip, and spine joints at extreme ranges of motion, this level of force can quickly cause already mobile passive tissues to stretch out more. Many people say how easy their jumps and skills feel after taking them off, but I think this is a short-lived neurological trick that may not have the best long term carry over. Hip Instability: Current Concepts and Treatment. When correctly applied certain stretches into this position can augment skill development. When this acquired excess in joint laxity is paired with a lack of strength, lacking technical development, high repetition, and fatigue in not fully matured athletes, this may have a variety of negative consequences. I believe addressing this common imbalance in strength volume is a key contributing factor for seeing long-term shoulder flexibility gains and reducing overuse injuries related to the shoulder joint. Eccentric training and static stretching improve hamstring flexibility of high school males. The passive structures include things like the bones, ligaments, joint capsules, and the inherent boney alignment we are born with. Foam rolling as a recovery tool after an intense bout of physical activity. This becomes more important as the athlete gets older, starts training higher-level skills, or are spending more hours per week in the gym. (Image credit: Unknown) Sit on the floor with straight legs at about 90 apart. In parallel to the points made above, it is not that this stretch is inherently bad or dangerous for a gymnast. Subacromial Impingement. As it also highlights, there may be changes in the tissue over time, as well as neurological changes, There are times after a hard training session or light training day where I will have gymnasts perform a whole body soft tissue session and follow it up with more passive stretching. These are the muscles themselves, to a small degree the tendons that connect muscles to bones, and largely the nervous system. Cur Rev Musculoskelet Med. (25). For choreography or specific drills, this may be very appropriate when not pushed quickly to extreme ranges of motion. Much of the change in gymnastics to prevent these common injuries comes down to applying the research of anatomy as well as stretching and updated commonly used methods that may not fall in line with the literature. 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. The ability of the good quality gymnastics are based. If a gymnast is already very mobile and lax, pushing further on the ankle joint my only be making it worse. Second, most times there are a lack of pre and post-tests (line splits, checking objective shoulder flexibility screen against a wall) to see if what is being used for exercises is effective. People assume that progress is being made, rather than having some comparative baseline for observing changes. After having various conversations about flexibility with people in the gymnastics community, the safety of training over splits is typically the biggest question. I encourage people to dive into the research of background hip anatomy, as well as the current thoughts on hip injuries within the medical or strength fields. I feel this approach not only makes more sense from a gymnastics technique point of view, but also incorporates a lot of current scientific research on flexibility, soft tissue work, and human movement. I think there are not yet studied boney adaptations to the hip joints of gymnasts when correctly performed and consistent stretching occurs in younger years. Their hypermobility, along with any underlying talent or great coaching they obtain to control this range of motion, allows them to be quite successful at an early age. It may help improve range of motion acutely, but it will not change movement in a gymnastics skill-specific manner. More specifically, the inferior glenohumeral ligament and capsule, as well as possible parts of the middle glenohumeral ligament and capsule. Teaching gymnastics specific stability and whole chain coordination through single leg jumping, hopping, dynamic balance drills, and so on is usually the more beneficial route. There is more support in the literature for the use of static and dynamic compression, but I think lighter recovery sessions of self-myofascial release, light stretching, or even light aerobic exercise are valuable tools alongside other methods. You can read more about hamstring apophysitis here (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6322373/) and shoulder impingement syndromes here (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945046/). I view it as a tool to open the door for gymnasts to then perform strength, technique, and control work for gymnastics skills. Labral tears may progress to requiring surgical repair and putting an athlete out of training for months or even career-ending. However, I have seen these types of problems snowball into huge injuries quickly in gymnasts I treat. This can happen statically for a period of time (static stretching), with the use of momentum and holding of end range (dynamic or active stretching), or sometimes with muscle contractions and stretching together (PNF or proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation). The anatomy and theory, as well as some of the joint based material for this blog are taken from that chapter. I feel gymnasts should be doing regular soft tissue care routine to combat excessive stiffness that may negatively impact flexibility. Rainman, Thornburg. The most effective approach to increasing flexibility may be when stretching is used with proper assessments, consistency in stretching, follow up control work, strength programing including eccentric training and proper volume / fatigue management for athletes. Draovitch P, Edelstein J, Kelly BT. They also claim it helps following hard workouts or on light training days to recover. In this setting, we are looking to ramp down the body and assist in recovery (known as facilitating parasympathetic tone). 21, 788-792. Although there is a lot of research and textbook chapters written on these concepts (38-40), I have found that a multi step warm-up seems to be the best approach for this goal. While it is true that male gymnasts need extreme behind the back shoulder motion for pommel horse and pbars, I think there are much better ways to get it than being aggressive with behind the back stretch. J Appl Physiol, 2002, 92: 565 601. As a result, they have more ability to positively increase an athletes overall amount of shoulder or hip flexibility. An important note is that some athletes may have different bony morphology of their hips in which their femur or hip socket is more rotated forward (anteverted) or backward (retroverted). Flexibility: developing effective movement. Cross-body shoulder stretch. Many different thoughts and practices exist in daily gymnastics training. Flexibility Training for Gymnasts Many concerns have been expressed recently about what is acceptable practice with regards to stretching exercises and flexibility training for gymnasts. 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. Sometimes in such a high force sport, these bumps and bruises are inevitable. The hip socket being overly shallow is referred to as dysplasia. Some gymnasts with dysplasia or hypermobile hip capsules never have pain, but some are so far on the continuum of too excessive mobility that it leads to instability and injury. Many people have heard about the muscles of the rotator cuff, biceps, triceps, lats, and so on. 2018 Feb;48(2):299-325. doi: 10.1007/s40279-017-0797-9. J Athl Train 2004;39:254-8. 2012 Mar;5(1):18. doi: 10.1007/s1217801191058. Like in the shoulder, natural mobility of the hip allows them to move through a greater motion. The shoulder joint itself can be thought about as a golf ball sitting on a tee. When used in the right context, it can augment the flexibility needed for advanced leaps or jumps, inbar skills, and tumbling mechanics. [Epub ahead of print] Read this study here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29506306. There has been a large spike in the rate of hip flexor strains, groin strains , and cranky shoulders that I feel is being very much swept under the rug in gymnastics. Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach 2(2) 2010. I do not mean to suggest that this shoulder stretch will cause injury in a gymnast and should never be used. I want to emphasize that proper stretching and soft tissue work is not the only method to improve flexibility and performance for gymnasts. (1, 3, 5, 8-9, 15-16). 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