Victoria Filanovsky, Baltic Hoop All-Around Champion

Israel’s Victoria Filanovsky twirled her way to the highest top of the All-Around podium on the Baltic Hoop International Rhythmic Gymnastics Tournament held in Riga, Latvia on March 11 to 13, 2017.

Despite placing 10th in the All-around competition of the recently concluded 2017 Grand Prix Moscow, Filanovsky has now become the champion in All-Around this time with a score of 17.500 on hoop, 18.550 on ball, 17.600 on clubs and 14.900 on ribbon events, accumulating to a total score of 68.550. Her total is an astounding five point away from the silver medalist from Belarus, Yuljya Isachanka, who has 63.350. Bronze medalist Julia Evchik, from Belarus as well, was behind with a 62.200 point.

For the individual apparatus competition, Filanovsky only won the gold on ribbons while Belarusians Evchik and Isachanka led on hoop and ball respectively. Finally, Estonia’s Olga Bogdanova snatched the gold on clubs.

The host country, Latvia’s team led in the All-around with their five hoops, three balls and 3 ropes. They are also the hot ticket at the Ludmila Kachkalda Memorial Cup, a concurrently held group competition which is named after Latvia’s most famous rhythmic gymnast. Second to them was Finlad’s team and on the third was team Poland.

Baltic Hoop is one of the international events approved by International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) for this year and it doesn’t just surround the Baltic Sea as it has already reached other countries all around the world. This is the first greatest event for many young gymnasts in Latvia.

For a full list of results, click here.

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Mamun Clears The Clouds Surrounding Her Rumored Retirement

During the previous weeks, people have been speculating that Margarita “Rita” Mamun has retired from being a rhythmic gymnast. A lot of the fans are sad because they believe this is her most glorious time yet, after she has won the gold in the Rio Olympics All-around Championship. Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation President Irina Viner-Usmanova’s statement didn’t help at all in the cloud that is surrounding Mamun’s real state on the sport. The President said in an interview that Mamun has not trained for a while and she doesn’t expect her to come back.

To clear all these confusions, Mamun has finally spoken. In an interview with a Russian paper, Sport-Express, Mamun talked about her life after the 2016 Olympics, her relationship with swimmer Alexander Sukhorukov, and what her future plans are. The interview is in Russian and we tried our best to translate it so everyone can have an idea of what Mamun’s statements are.

The first question was, of course, the situation with her career. Mamun answered this by saying that she was merely in a hiatus due to back aches. It needed to be fully rehabilitated before she could go back to rhythmic gymnastics. She clarified that she’s still in the team and she did not go. As a matter of fact, she hopes to come back and perform once again. However, Mamun also said that if she would retire or not, all depends on her health. The decision would be announced later if she would fully recover or not.

When asked about her life after the Olympics, Mamun expressed her feelings about the public functions or galas she was invited to. She believed it was not for her, as she is not the kind of person who quickly makes new friends and immediately feels comfortable with strangers. Not surprisingly, she has already been invited to one of the dance shows, but she refused as her back wouldn’t allow her to dance. Although, she believes she has some dancing stuff she need to learn, teach girls in Novogorske, or open a gymnastics school.

Mamun wasn’t sure about coaching, and said it was still all guesswork. If there is something she would love to do after retiring, it was to enroll in an art class. She has this favorite hobby, which is painting, and she would love to put more time into that hobby of hers. She was looking into maybe even designing.

Mamun and Sukhorukov were engaged on December and the rhythmic gymnast said she answered yes without any hesitation. Their relationship has struggled during the last Olympic cycle as training forced them apart. But they succeeded in that obstacle and after everything, they vacationed in Dubai. Right now the date is still not chosen, but the wedding would be in the summer.

Keep up with the latest news and updates about the sport of gymnastics by following our official blogs and social media sites. Enroll today at Bianka Panova Sport and Art Academy and learn gymnastics for kids with us! Come and experience world class training and education!

Nastia Liukin, Youngest Texas Sports Hall Of Famer

February 21, 2017 marks the day when the 27-year-old artistic gymnast Nastia Liukin becomes the youngest member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2017 with seven other members. This is the sixth in a series of profiles on the Texas Sports Hall of Fame induction class.

“Gymnastics has taken me places I never thought I’d go,” she said. “It’s still part of my life today. It’s what I loved to do as a young child, I had a passion for it, which is why I went as far as I did. It’s really exciting to be honored for something that was such a big part of your every-day life.”

Liukin has grown to be one of the top gymnasts in the world with her nine medals at the World Championship, five medals at the Olympic Games and the gold medal in the all-around at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Her passion for gymnastics has brought her not only to a ride all over the word, but also to record-setting heights.

Nastia Liukin’s Life

Nastia was born on October 30, 1989 in Moscow to a father that is an artistic gymnast and two-time gold-medalist at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea—Valeri Liukin. Also, her mother is a world champion in rhythmic gymnastics in 1987 named Anna Kotchneva. Having both parents from the sport of gymnastics, people naturally assume they put her up to follow on their steps, but Liukin debunks this.

“When we moved to Texas, we didn’t have the money for a babysitter to watch me all day long,” Liukin said. “So I spent the days at the gym with my parents. Luckily for them, I fell in love with gymnastics. People thought because my parents were successful gymnasts that they pushed me to follow in their footsteps, but it was the opposite. I wanted to do gymnastics because it made me happy.”

Their family has moved to US when Liukin was just two years old, in search of a new start after the fall of the Soviet Union. They then settled in Texas after being in New Orleans for a while. Her father and his former teammate opened a gym in Plano called World Olympic Gymnastics Academy. This is what became as Liukin’s second home.

Nastia Liukin’s Career

By spending too much time in the gym, the Olympian has fallen in love with gymnastics that she devoted too much time on it until her talents began to show. By the age of six, she has registered for her first gymnastics competition, her father as the coach. That was the beginning of her budding start career.

At the age of twelve, Liukin competed in her first junior national meet. She did not finish splendidly at it, but she qualified herself for USA’s Junior Pan Am team. At that event, she finished second in the all-around, helping Americans claim a team gold medal. Since then, Liukin grew and matured to the point that she even won multiple junior national and world titles.

Like many other athletes, Liukin has dreamt of becoming an Olympian, although she said it was hard to say when the Olympics became a reality. When she was on the age ten to twelve, it was when it started to become achievable. Only one thing stood in her way: she was not as powerful when it comes to upper-body strength like her other world-class competitors. She made up for it with her unmatched balance and grace though, and became a beast on the uneven bars and the balance beam.

In 2007, she had an ankle injury which prevented her to compete much on that season. Liukin being a strong-willed athlete, she came back with a fury, determined to make her dreams come true. She won the American Cup and finished second at the US Championships. At the US Olympic Trials, she won a second place, which gave her ticket to the Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

In China, she showed the world what she has to offer with the performance of her lifetime. She brought home five medals in all, including helping the US women to a team silver medal. Among all awards, she also claimed that “heavyweight belt” of gymnastics, defeating US teammate Shawn Johnson for the all-around title and a gold-medal.

After that win, she had a layoff because of tours. She immediately got back to training soon enough, in hopes of returning to Olympics in London. However, Liukin couldn’t bring back her old flame. She fell face-first on the mat during the bars competition of the US Olympic Trials. She stood up and finished her routine, but she has lost her chance for another Olympic Games.

Although she did not have any regrets at all, soon after that she announced her retirement from the sport. She was contented from having accomplished so much, add to all her medals a diploma from New York University, but she didn’t get away from her beloved sport that much. She still spent last summer in Rio as a part of NBC’s Olympic broadcasting team.

After all of that whirlwind of a career and life, now Nastia Liukin is a part of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame—before even turning 30.

Keep up with the latest news and updates about the sport of gymnastics by following our official blogs and social media sites. Enroll today at Bianka Panova Sport and Art Academy and learn gymnastics for kids with us! Come and experience world class training and education!

Are Gymnasts’ Bones Healthy?

Most people take for granted the health of their bones and only think about it once they are in midlife or later, by which time is can be too late to do very much to protect against serious bone loss and resulting fractures of all the physically-demanding activities they have done in their younger years. Especially athletes like gymnasts, who mostly start their gymnastics careers at a very young age, and sustains a lot of injuries their entire careers. So it would not be a surprise if sometimes we ask ourselves, are gymnasts’ bones healthy?

At What Age Does Bones Develop?

Researchers who study bone health said that concerns about the strength of one’s bones should start in childhood and continue through adolescence, because this is the time when the body builds most of the bone that must sustain it for the remaining years of life.

The best time to pay attention to bone development is from childhood through adolescence, since once the peak bone mass has been reached, further gains are minimal. Between ninety and ninety-six percent of girls’ peak bone mass are gained by age twenty, while for boys peaks occur only a few years later. Conversely, abut twenty-six percent of total adult bone is accrued in two years around the time the bone mass increases the most, at ages 12.5 in girls and 14.1 in boys. The amount of bones added during those two years is about the same as what is typically lost in the 30 years between ages 50 and 80.

In all of the mentioned years above where bone masses are developed, gymnasts have started training and probably ended their careers already. The peak times for gymnasts are around the same ages, from childhood to until twenty years old, so it means that while their bones are still developing they are doing harsh physical trainings and competitions simultaneously.

Growth and Gymnastics

Based on a study in 2004 published at “The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism,” the impact of stress and physical training on growth is influenced by a lot of different factors like the intensity of training, the type of exercise, and the time that the physical activity began. Competitive gymnasts spend usually between twenty-six and twenty-eight hours a week on training. Aside from this, the time spent on competing is at the same time of puberty. The said study proved that the intense physical training of gymnastics really does impact the musculoskeletal growth and maturation that is supposed to occur during puberty.

In the same study, the researchers evaluated growth and skeletal maturation in male and female artistic gymnasts between ages thirteen and twenty-three. The results reflected that both male and female artistic gymnasts were shorter and slimmer than normal girls and boys around the same age bracket, exhibiting a significant delay in skeletal maturation. This observation is also more evident in males. 

Artistic gymnasts have a reduction of growth potential, especially males, but the females of rhythmic gymnastics, on the other hand, only have a significantly delayed genetic predisposition for growth.

A study in the same journal, only conducted in 1999, evaluated 255 female rhythmic gymnasts from ages eleven to twenty-three years old during the 13th European Championships. The researchers studied the skeletal growth and sexual development in the said elites and they observed that the rhythmic gymnasts had a significant delay in both skeletal and pubertal maturation. However, the study states that the final adult height of the athletes was not expected to be affected by their involvement in gymnastics.

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Exercises To Prevent Injuries To The Wrist

In most sports, especially gymnastics, the wrist is forced to hold an overwhelming amount of weight, and is exposed to huge amount of trauma by performing different activities that exceed normal daily activity. 

While doing a tumbling or a handstand, the wrist of a gymnast is often required to hold his own bodyweight while bending his wrist backwards. Also, most of the movements done by the gymnast require fast and sudden movements that may stress their wrists and hands too much.

Daily exposure to this kind of stress may cause fractures, sprains and dislocations to the wrist of an individual. Luckily, there are several exercises that you can perform to avoid to protect your wrist for these kinds of injuries.

1. Wrist Extensor Stretch

Extend your hands with your palm facing up and elbows straight. Using your other hand, pull your extended hand downwards. You would feel a mild to moderate stretch in your wrist while doing this. Hold this position for 10-15 seconds and then repeat using your other hand. Do it for three sets.

2. Wrist Flexor Stretch

Stretch your hands by keeping your elbow straight and then pull your wrist backwards using your other hand. During the exercise, you should feel a mild to moderate stretch. Hold this position for 10-15 seconds before repeating with your other hand. Repeat for three sets.

3. Resistance Band Wrist Flexion

Using a resistance band, wrap the band around your hand while your palm is facing up. Put your elbow by your side and keep your elbow bent at a 90-degree angle before slowly curling your wrist up, just like doing a dumbbell curls. Do it for 15 repetitions before repeating on your other wrist.

4. Resistant Band Wrist Extension

Wrap the resistance band around your hand with your palm facing down. Keep your elbows at your side and keep it bent to 90 degrees and curl your wrist up slowly, just like doing a reverse dumbbell curls. Perform 10-15 repetitions before repeating on your other wrist.

5. Tennis Ball Squeeze

Grab a tennis ball and squeeze it as hard as you can without hurting yourself. Do it for 5-10 seconds and repeat 8-10 times.

It is very important to take care of your wrists as it serves a lot of function for you as a gymnast, and as an individual. However, keep in mind that these exercises are meant for preventative measures only and are in no way to be used to cure existing injuries. If you are already injured, you should consult your physician and you should not just rely on information found on the internet.

If you are looking for a great and reliable school that teaches gymnastics for kids you could check and visit the official website of Bianka Panova Academy.

Flexibility Exercises For RG

Flexibility is by far the most important and focused aspect of the sport of rhythmic gymnastics, while some other aspects like core strength is just secondary. This is important because the routines require great flexibility of the gymnasts to bring the music to life through their bodies—so important that stretching and flexibility takes up most of the warm up routine.

While stretching the body to its extremes is necessary for success, a rhythmic gymnast needs to make sure that they are performing this task without causing any injuries. While stretching, she should listen to what her body is telling her because there are two types of pain: good and bad. A good pain is described as the uncomfortable feeling of the muscles being stretched and although the gymnast is uncomfortable, she should still be able to control her breathing and remain somewhat relaxed. On the other hand, a bad pain is described as the feeling of muscles being pushed too far, the feeling of something dislocating, pulling, or being in so much pain that she starts tearing up and breathing abnormally.

Sadly, some gymnasts who want to increase their flexibility endure through the bad pain just to have immediate results. What they need to remember is that this is a slow process and needs to be taken with caution.

Many coaches and gymnasts have different approaches to achieving their desired level of flexibility, but here we have gathered some exercises to help someone out there get started with their flexibility foals.

1. Butterfly Stretch

This is probably the most famous and most basic kind of stretch for someone who’s just beginning their flexibility exercises. Although even when a gymnast is already in an advanced level, they still do this.

The butterfly stretch is done while sitting down on the floor. Starting position is sitting with your feet stretched in front of you, flat against the ground. Now pull your legs together, with your knees to the sides, until your soles connect. Now pull your heels as close to your groin as possible. In the beginning of course you can only pull your heels in for a little distance, but as you continue doing this for weeks, eventually your heels would connect to your groin.

After you’ve pulled it as close as you are comfortable, start gently bouncing your knees up and down to loosen the muscles. Do this for about 10 seconds, then use your elbows to gently press your knees toward the ground for another 10 seconds. After a while you’ll notice that your flexibility has improved because it has become easy to press your knees to the ground.

2. Swan Stretch

This exercise is commonly seen in the gym. You can do this like how gymnasts do it by lying face down on the floor with both hands in front of your shoulders, fingers facing forward, like how you would start a push-up. You should then press into your hands to lift your belly off the floor. While keeping your abs tight, shoulders down and pelvis grounded, lengthen your upper body away from the floor, reaching out and up from crown of the head. Pull your shoulder blades together, at the same time opening the chest, and then hold it for 30 to 45 seconds. Release and then repeat.

3. Ceiling And Toe Touch

This exercise is what its name suggests. While sitting on the floor, extend both arms over the head, fingers pointing to the ceiling, for as far as you are comfortable. Then, stretch your left arm towards the ceiling for 10 seconds. Relax it and then do the same with the other arm.

Once those are done for a couple of reps, lower your arms in front of you. Bend your waist and reach for your toes. Do this for 10 to 15 seconds too.

This exercise can be done while standing up as well, but sitting down is better as it lessens the weight in the lower back.

4. Over-splits

Before doing this particular stretching, it is important to remember that this is only done by gymnasts who has some degree of flexibility already and not for beginners as this is really hard and dangerous if not done right.

Over-splits is what it is called when a regular leg split went over 180 degrees angle. You can do this by putting one foot on an elevated object like a chair or table while the other leg is stretched directly behind you. This position is held for 2 to 3 minutes.

It is important to keep in mind that while in this split position, the torso should be up and hovering above the ground. If your pelvis is touching the ground, then you need to increase the height of the object her elevated leg is resting on. Conversely, a coach or team mate can help increase flexibility by carefully pushing your pelvis towards the floor.

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3 Things To Look For In A Nutrition Label

As parents of gymnasts, we prepare their meals most of the time so it is important that we know the proper nutrition for young gymnasts and how to properly check if a food is good for our kids or not. This is why we prepared a list of three things to look for in a nutritional label. 

Reading nutrition labels, or nutritional facts, are not only good for ourselves, but especially when cooking for other people like our young athletes. If our children are gluten free, we need to make sure that we cook something that doesn’t have any gluten in it. If our child’s diet doesn’t include a lot of carbs for a day, we need to be able to properly compute how many carbs there are on a food that we cooked. 

Nutritional labels of different food products aren’t exactly all the same, but reading a regular nutrition label can still help. As long as we know what we are looking for, we should be able to decode any kind of nutrition labels. So here we have prepared pointers on what we all need to know about reading nutrition labels. 

Serving Numbers and Serving Sizes 

When it comes to the number of servings and serving sizes, it is important to remember that nutritional facts are mostly based on one serving only. Always check the serving size to know how many servings we are going to take from a certain product, or how many servings we are letting our kids to eat. This means that the bigger the serving, the higher the calories. 

Take a bag of chips, for example. Usually at the top of the label, it is indicated how many chips make up a single serving. From there, we can identify how much sodium our children are going to eat from a serving size of eleven chips, for example. And as athletes who follow a strict diet, their intakes of salt should be very limited. 

On instances that we are comparing nutrients and calories between two different food brands, always check the serving size to ensure that they are based on the same measurement. 

Calories from Fat 

The “Calories” label under “Amount per Serving” is where we can see the number of calories the product has per serving. We will also see the amount of calories from fat here. 

Take note that even if something is fat-free, it doesn't mean that it's also free from calories. Even if a product is low-fat, it may have the same amount of calories as other products have, so we should always check the number of calories in the label. 

One thing to keep in mind is that just because something has a lot of calories, it doesn’t mean that our children are eating badly. We should look out more on how many of those calories come from fat. If a lot of the calories are from fat, then it’s good to steer clear of that product. Or, we could look if another brand has that product with less calories from fat. Then, we’ll still be able to get the food our young athlete wants and it will be a lot better for them. 

What is the %DV 

A lot of people doesn’t know what this means, but if you have been in charge for your child’s diet for a while, you might be familiar with it. %DV or the percentage of Dietary Value that each nutrient gives is essential for us to know how much of each nutrient we should allow our kids to consume daily to attain the health he needs for his sport. This is also a great way to find out if our children are not consuming enough of any particular nutrient. We need to make sure that we record all the %DV that our kids consumed each day. If any nutrients go over 100, then we’ll know he’s consuming more than he needs to. We should try to keep it as close to one hundred as possible. 

These are just three things to look for in a nutritional label, to read more and get updated on all important health information, follow the posts on our Facebook Page. Looking for a fun and exciting way to learn gymnastics? Then come and enroll at Bianka Panova Sport and Art Academy today :) Come and learn gymnastics for kids with us!

New FIG World Cup To Be Held In Melbourne

Gymnastics Australia has confirmed today that International Gymnastics Federation’s (FIG) new World Cup Gymnastics is going to be held in Melbourne as a part of the 2017-2020 Olympic Cycle. The organization has successfully bid for one of the four stops on the Individual Apparatus World Cup four-year circuit along with Cottbus (Germany), Baku (Azerbaijan), and Doha (Qatar). The discipline included in this stop of the circuit are both men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics.

Later on in their Twitter account, Gymnastics Australia has also proudly announced that Aly Raisman, a member of Team USA’ Final Five, the team which garnered gold at the Rio Games, would be the official ambassador for the World Cup in Melbourne and will be in Australia for the events.

The mentioned events are a part of the 2016-2018 FIG Artistic Gymnastics Individual Apparatus World Cup Series. The first stop of the series has already been held in Cottbus, Germany, on November where the Hungarian gymnasts grabbed three of the 10 titles, the most of any nation.

In Australia, the events will be held in Hisense Arena on February 22-25, 2017. The first two days will be the qualifying and the last two days are for the finals. Across all these eight events in the 2016-2018 FIG Individual Apparatus World Cup series, the gymnasts will be given points based on their rankings on each apparatus at the different World Cup stops. The points from each gymnast’s best three finishes will be added to determine the World Cup series winner on that apparatus. The prize for the winner is 5,000 Swiss francs and will be awarded at the end of the series.

Additionally, the events hosted in 2019 and 2020 will be used as qualifying competitions for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Reportedly, there are already 13 countries which confirmed their attendance to the 2017 Australian leg of the FIG Individual Apparatus World Cup Series.

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Familiarizing the Rhythmic Gymnastics Events

As a parent who is new to gymnastics and wants to learn more of it, maybe because you are thinking about letting your kid join the sport, you probably have some misunderstanding of it. Most people think of artistic gymnastics when they hear the word “gymnastics.” This is not entirely wrong, but there is also another kind, which is rhythmic gymnastics. In this article, we are going to help and make you knowledgeable in this unique sport.

In rhythmic gymnastics, there are five pieces of equipment. These set of equipment are also called “events” because they are performed one at a time. One performance cannot use two or more equipment. Every two years, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), who is the governing body for Gymnastics worldwide, designates four of the apparatus to be used, and the other to be set aside for two years.

Before explaining what these events are, let us first get familiar with the floor.

The Floor

Accompanied by music from 75 to 90 seconds, every single rhythmic event is performed on a floor mat which has a measurement of about 42.5 feet by 42.5 feet. The floor for artistic gymnastics is different from that of rhythmic gymnastics. For rhythmic, the floor doesn’t have the same amount of spring or padding compared to the artistic floor, as per the request of rhythmic gymnasts. According to most, it is much easier to perform the skills required on a floor without spring and padding.

Aside from the events, there are also exercises done on the floor and without any apparatus. This event is only on the introductory levels of competition in the United States and abroad where it is a compulsory routine. It won’t be seen at the Olympics and other international competitions.

The Events

1) Ribbon – This apparatus is a single strip made of satin or a non-starched material, about 6.5 yards long and 1.5 to 2.3 inches wide. The ribbon is attached to a stick made of wood or synthetic materials that is 19.5 to 23.4 inches long and .4 inches wide.

2) Rope – The rope is measured proportional to the height of the gymnast and is made out of hemp or synthetic material.

3) Hoop – This apparatus is made of either wood or plastic and is 31 to 35 inches in its interior diameter.

4) Clubs – The clubs has the same length, which is about 16 to 20 inches long. They are made from wood or synthetic material and should weight about 5.2 ounces each for easier handling.

5) Ball – The ball must be made from rubber or synthetic materials and should also be 7 to 7.8 inches in diameter. Neon-colored balls are not allowed and the only patterns approved on the ball are geometric patterns.

To know how these apparatuses are used, watch Bianka Panova herself perform on each here:

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USA Gymnastics National Team Starts Four-year Training Cycle

Due to a scheduling error at the USA Gymnastics National Team’s normal training site at Karolyi Ranch in Huntsville, Texas, the team ended up practicing and holding their first post-Olympic camp at Midwest Training and Ice Center over the weekend.

The national team’s quadrennial began last Thursday. Quadrennial is a four-year training cycle done in preparation for the 2020 Olympic Games. The members from the Trampoline and Tumbling Senior National Team, Senior National Development Team, and Junior National Team were all training together, and among them were 2016 Olympic trampolinists Logan Dooley and Nicole Ahsinger.

Before they were Olympians, the two trampolinists went through hard times like everyone else. Ahsinger was beaten by teammate Shalyee Dunavin in the USA Gymnastics Championships and she was afraid that she wouldn’t make it into the 2016 Olympics team. As luck would have it, Ahsinger garnered two Olympic selection points from the 2016 Elite Challenge and this helped push her score over Dunavin’s to claim a spot on the Olympic team.

Ahsinger was recorded to be saying that she watched the scores go up and thought to herself that she might have just done it, and when she told her mother, the older woman started crying. This selection into the 2016 Olympics made her the only female US Olympic trampoline athlete, and together with teammate Dooley they are the only two US Olympic trampoline athletes in Rio.

Logan Dooley also came from behind. He used to be an alternate for the 2008 and 2012 Olympic teams before he was the only male US trampoline athlete in Rio. Unluckily, he placed 11th in the qualification round and did not reach the finals. However, Dooley had the best Olympic finish in Team USA’s history for a male trampoline athlete. This motivates him to return to the 2020 Olympics by training harder.

Last Thursday’s camp is the beginning of a four-day program including newcomers and elitists. According to Catherine Cabral-Marotta, High Performance Director of the USA Gymnastics Trampoline and Tumbling Program, the theme of the four-day camp was foundations because wherever an athlete’s skillset lies, the basics still have to be studied.

“The idea that we want to achieve at this camp is a lot of mental performance and goal setting,” Cabral-Marotta said.

In a performance sport like gymnastics, athletes learn to only compete with themselves and are taught to train their hardest and outdo themselves every year. These are some of the first lessons taught at camp.

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Do You Know What Ingredients to Avoid Feeding Your Child?

A few articles in our blogs have already tackled what are the best foods you should allow your athletic kid to eat and what could help develop his muscles and reduce fat. All over the internet, there are also countless materials talking about this, but do we really know what food ingredient we should avoid?

(Also read: Nutritional Needs of Young Athletes)

All around the places there are confusing articles saying one should eat this and shouldn’t eat that. The media further confuses people as one day they are talking about the disadvantages of fats, then the next day they would say that carbs are great for the body.

Food manufacturers also add to this muddle by printing misleading labels and bogus health claims. It had started to look like the whole system is set up to confuse and frustrate us into buying the latest and greatest packaged food.

But really, what ingredients are harmful to your young athlete’s health?

Listed below are the four ingredients you should avoid diligently.

1. White Flour

-White flour is a result of the processing of natural whole wheat until it is stripped off of nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Basically, once this happened an ingredient is nutritionally void already. White flour is also packed with calories that release quickly into your child’s system, creating a spike in blood sugar and leads to hunger and ravings. A good alternative to this is whole wheat.

2. White Sugar

-Once again, this is a result of a sugar cane plant that underwent an intensive refining process. By refining a sugar cane, all of the enzymes fiber, vitamins and minerals are destroyed. Aside from weight gain, white sugar has been linked to weakened immune system, ADD, hyperactivity, mental and emotional disorders.

3. High Fructose Corn Syrup
-This is another form of sweetener, but man-made. It is derived from genetically modified corn. It promotes hysterical hunger, fat storage, and spikes your child’s blood sugar levels. HFCS is found in many mainstream products like cereals, crackers, ice cream, salad dressing, energy bars, and soft drinks.

4. Aspartame

-Yet again, aspartame is an artificial sweetener that was denied by the FDA 8 times before being approved in 1973. It is said to promote cravings for foods high in calories and carbohydrates as it stows away sugar. When sugar is not available, the result is hypoglycemia and severe hunger.

These are just some of the ingredients a child should avoid. Read more fitness and gymnastics-related articles by visiting our educational blogs. Experience a fun and imaginative gymnastics training, come and enroll today at Bianka Panova Sport and Art Academy :)

Common Gymnastics Injuries and How to Avoid Them

Gymnastics is a very demanding sport that needs to start when a child is still young, while her body is still soft and developing. Aspiring professional gymnasts undergo years of severe training to make their bodies flexible and gain an amazing balance on the floor, beam, bars, or rings.

A gymnast jumps and lands on her feet or hands, runs, dismounts, swings, flips and do all sorts of body expressions. She uses the whole of her body in a routine with a tremendous force, from sole to the tip of her fingers, causing stress on the shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands.

It is because of this intense training that gymnasts are prone to injuries. Their muscles, joints, ligaments and tendons are stressed for years. Their kind of training makes small wears and tears on a young gymnast’s body, and through the years they accumulate.

Your child might look healthy now, but later on small injuries might start occurring. It is important that you, as a parent, know what to watch out for and, if it did happen, know what to do about it.

Common Gymnastic Injuries

1. Sprained ankles – These are due to floor routines or falls from the balance beam or parallel bars. If the ankle rolls outward while the foot rolls inward, it can cause ligaments outside the ankle to stretch and tear.

2. Achilles Tendonitis – This is another foot injury. The Achilles tendon is just above the back of the heel and can be injured because of repetitive stress of jumping and landing. This injury is the Achilles Tendonitis, where the tendon is swollen and painful.

3. Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury – An ACL injury occurs when a gymnast lands short or is over-rotated when tumbling, dismounting or vaulting. The ACL is found on the knee, providing stability, and can rupture when twisted suddenly under high forces.

4. Spondylolysis – This is a back injury caused by strains and breaks. It occurs in a specific part of one or more vertebrae.

5. Herniated Discs – This happens when the lumbar segments become misaligned, putting pressure on the nerves of the spinal cord.

6. Wrist Sprains – The wrist is the most heavily used part of the body in gymnastics and a constant strain to this part of the body lead to sprains, tears or tendonitis.

Prevent or Cure Injuries

As much as possible, it is best to prevent the injuries listed above. On how to avoid injuries, read: Protect Your Young Gymnast From Injuries

However, if an injury did happen, almost all hospitals offer physical therapies. Therapists will work with the injured to reduce pain and get them back on the bars and mat as soon as possible.

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What You Need To Know About Concussions

Concussion is one of the most serious risks to young athletes. Kids’ body, at a young age, is still developing and therefore weaker than an adult’s. Whether the athlete plays football, hockey, soccer, baseball or any number of other sports that uses force or requires vigorous physical activities, a serious hit to the head or a repeated mild force causes a concussion, which manifest itself in different symptoms.

The Centers for Disease Control defines concussion as a brain injury that affects how our brain works and it happens even when the person who has a concussion haven’t been knocked unconscious.

The symptoms for this injury vary from person to person and with each injury, but the common symptoms include:

•Headache

•Confusion

•Nausea or vomiting

•Difficulty remembering or paying attention

•Balance problems or dizziness

•Feeling sluggish, hazy, foggy or groggy

•Slowed reaction time

•Sleep problems

•Double or blurry vision

•Bothered by light or noise

If you think your kid have a concussion, they should not be allowed to return to play on the day of the injury and should be brought immediately to the doctor. Playing with concussion increases the risk of repeat concussions, and these take longer to recover, causing a delay to your kid’s return to play. Repeat concussions in young athletes could also result to brain swelling or permanent damage to the brain, could even be fatal.

(Also read: Protect Your Young Gymnast From Injuries)

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Decorated Gymnast Lauren Mitchell Retreats

Australia’s most decorated gymnast, Lauren Mitchell, has announced her retirement which she decided during a recent trip to Europe.

The 25-year-old is only the second Australian woman gymnast to win medals at World Championships, but the first to ever win gold. She made history in 2010 when she became Australia’s first female World Gymnastics Champion on floor in Rotterdam. She is also two-time Olympian, and a 2009 World Championship silver medalist on balance beam and floor.

Mitchell has had multiple successes in a career she started when she was six, but in June 2015 she suffered what might just be the biggest challenge to her career yet. She was withdrawn from the upcoming 2015 World Universaide due to a serious knee injury that occurred during a training session. She was working on her floor routine when she sustained a ruptured ACL, adding to her ankle problems.

Nine months after this injury, she went back to training and even almost qualified for the Rio Olympics. However, Australia failed to qualify for the team event, leaving just one individual spot available for Rio. It was because of her knee injury that Mitchell’s chances to be chosen for that spot were slim, and Larrissa Miller was instead chosen.

On a recent interview, Mitchell said that tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee and missing out on a spot at the Rio Games were two of the hardest times of her glittering career.

The Real Reason For Mitchell’s Retirement

Indeed, those were trying times. However, Mitchell said that those weren’t the reasons for her retirement, or the recent announcement that the WAIS gymnastics program would be axed. Even the lure of competing at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018 wasn’t enough to spur her on.

Mitchell revealed that, "It would have been an amazing experience to compete in front of a home crowd. […]But I don't think mentally I would be able to push myself to be good enough to be able to make the team again. I've given everything that I could have to the sport, and I have no regrets. Mentally I couldn't have pushed anymore.”

Mitchell’s Future Plans

“I love the sport of gymnastics and I will still be involved in some way, shape or form.”

After her retirement, Mitchell plans to start mentoring the younger athletes and start motivational speaking not only to inspire the next generation of elite athletes, but also to inspire people in their daily lives.

“I’d love to give back to the community when they have given me so much,” she said.

Despite Australia’s failure to have an artistic gymnastics team in the Olympics for the first time in 30 years, Mitchell believed that there was a bright future for the sport nationally. She believed that there was amazing talent throughout Australia and if they can harness that talent and put it all together, they would go really well.

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Former Rhythmic Gymnastics Olympians Surrender Athletic Careers for Degrees

World-renowned Olympic rhythmic gymnasts Alisa Kano and Natalie McGiffert have both aimed for Olympic gold medals before, but it seems like their goal has already changed, and now they’re focused on getting degrees as full-time students at Loyola.

21-year-old Alisa and 19-year-old McGiffert were both part of the American Rhythmic Gymnastics National Team, which advanced to the Olympic competition in Rio de Janeiro after beating Brazil – the host country of the 2016 Games – at the 2015 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

The win earned them a qualification spot for the Rio Olympic Games. It was a historic achievement for the U.S., as it served as the first earned Olympic spot in rhythmic gymnastics team competition. The national team was filled with joy after knowing about the qualification.

“We finished our ribbon routine and we were so happy with how we did that we were crying of happiness,” Alisa said excitedly. “We were so happy we finished a clean routine and everyone else thought we were crying because we qualified [for the 2016 Olympics], but we had no idea.”

Group rhythmic gymnastics is a gymnastics discipline which has a distinct resemblance to synchronized swimming. Alisa explained that it is a combination of gymnastics, dance and ballet with apparatus work. The athletes perform leaps and turns while maintaining full control of their apparatuses. The sport focuses on flexibility and elegance instead of flipping, which is a bigger factor in other disciplines of gymnastics.

After the 2016 Rio Olympics came to an end, Kano and McGiffert both realized it was time to retire. 

“There was such a huge chapter of our life that was gymnastics,” said McGiffert. “There comes a time where you get to the highest point you can reach and you need to move on.”

With their days practicing in the gym long gone, Alisa and Natalie moved on to Loyola, refusing to grab the opportunity to perform with their teammates on the Kellogg’s Tour, which is a national tour that features various elements from both artistic and rhythmic gymnastics disciplines.

“You need to discipline yourself with the transition,” Alisa explained. “Being a gymnast, we never had any homework. Homework and studying is a lot different than training.”

Both athletes have gone through massive changes for the sake of the sport. They both recalled the adversity they’ve gone through when they decided to compete at a professional level.

“We’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I moved from New York and [Natalia] moved from California. We changed our whole lives to come to Chicago and train for the team,” told Kano. “It was a big change in my life.”

McGiffert expressed her excitement now she has a lot more free time to spend. She’s looking forward to making plans with her friends and not having to work them in around her hectic training schedule. 

Kano, currently a psychology major, said she’s looking forward to having a professional career in physical therapy. McGiffert haven’t decided yet which course to take, but she plans to pursue a major in social work. Despite not having any plans to come back to their athletic careers, they still plan to return to visit their old gym. 

Both gymnasts plan to make the same approach on their academics as what they did on their gymnastics training – with determination and focus.

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Son Yeon Jae to Perform at Rhythmic All Stars 2016 with 2016 Olympic Champions

South Korean rhythmic gymnastics star Son Yeon Jae is scheduled to perform with the most renowned and top performing rhythmic gymnasts, including the 2016 Olympic Games champion, at the All-stars rhythmic gymnastics gala show to be held in Korea next week (September 16-17), her agency confirmed Tuesday.

Galaxia SM, Son Yeon Jae’s sports management agency announced that Son, together with Margarita Mamun – the Russia rhythmic gymnast who acquired the individual all-around gold at the Rio Olympic Games, will perform at a gymnastics gala event named “Rhythmic All Stars 2016”. The said event will take place at the Goyang Gymnasium in Gyeonggi Province. 

According to Son’s management agency, Russia’s Aleksandra Soldatova, the world’s third best rhythmic gymnast, will also perform alongside Son and Mamun in Goyang. Other world-class rhythmic gymnastics athletes, such as Melitina Staniouta and Katsiaryna of Belarus, as well as Kseniya Moustafaeva of France, will also appear at the event.

At the Olympic competition in Rio de Janeiro, the South Korean gymnast acquired the top 4 spot in the individual All-around final after obtaining a total score of 72.898 points from the four apparatus event. Staniouta acquired the fifth spot at 71.133, while Halkina took the sixth spot with 70.932 points. Moustafaeva acquired the tenth spot.

Aleksandra Soldatova was not present at the Rio Olympic Games because of the competition’s two-per-country rule. Margarita Mamun and Yana Kudryavtseva were the two gymnasts who represented Russia, and won the gold and silver medal, respectively.

Galaxia SM also announced that the Italian rhythmic gymnastics team, who clinched the fourth spot in the group all-around competition in Rio, will also be present in Goyang.

Son plans to use songs of different genres at her performance in Goyang, which includes K-pop and ballet.

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Simone Biles’ Outstanding Performances in Rio Boosts Gymnastics’ Popularity

Several gymnastics facilities across the United States have reported a significant surge in enrollment after the gold medal-winning performances of the 19-year-old gymnast Simone Biles at the competition recently ended in Rio last week.

According to the owner of the Klub Gymnastics in Los Angeles, Michael Eschenbrenner, the Summer Olympics usually brings a 20% boost in the amount of gymnastics newcomers in their facility. But this year, “it’s going to be at least that because of the whole Simone Biles amazingness.”

Simone Biles has been one of the most successful gymnastics in the U.S., having won a total of 4 individual Olympic gold medals and one bronze despite being a first time competitor in the Summer Olympic Games. She also owns a large number of World Championships titles, which adds up to her huge collection of gymnastics achievements.

Her success in the sport encouraged the young generation to try out the sport themselves. Watching her perform stunning routines in the Rio Olympic Arena inspired young gymnastics aspirants to be just like her someday.

Normally, the post-Olympics surge doesn’t come until the summer session ends and the school starts. But that clearly have changed this season, with more than 1,400 weekly enrollees at Klub Gymnastics – “higher than we’ve ever been,” says Eschenbrenner.

There is typically a surge in enrollment after an Olympic Games,” said USA Gymnastics’ spokeswoman, Jennifer Teitell. “For example, the women’s program had over 16,000 new athletes in 2012-2013 which was a 22% growth over the previous year.”

Names such as Simone Biles and Aly Raisman have encouraged a generation to try out gymnastics, a sport that’s often overlooked outside the Olympic season.

“Gymnastics is one of the most popular Olympic sports. All the kids are watching it, they see that and decide that’s what they want to do,” a coach in a gymnastics facility in Huntington said. 

After witnessing her impressive performances in the 2016 Rio Olympics, everyone suddenly wants to be just like Simone Biles.

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