Masters Gymnastics

Adult Gymnastics In Ireland

mastersgymnastics — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:14:20 +0000

Marvelous slideshow from Renmore Gymnastics in Galway Ireland. They have adult gymnastics classes for two hours on Wednesday nights. Details here. Remember to check our class page for a list of classes in the US and abroad.

Adult Gymnastics Class at Renmore In Ireland

Found this via the fabulous RecreationalGymnastics.com site.

University of Tennessee Tumbling Club

mastersgymnastics — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:03:54 +0000

The University of Tennessee's 2012 spring semester tumble club members. Photo Courtesy of Rozzie Bomar

The UT Tumbling Club at Knoxville practices at Premier Athletics every Monday and Wednesday from 8 -9:30 p.m. Since the gym is off campus a carpool meets in front of the Hess dorm at 7:30 p.m.

Rozzie Bomar is spotting Kaite Kurdziel doing a standing back tuck. Photo credit TNJN /Fox, Chelsea

Via the school paper: Catherine Pomeroy, a freshman at UT, has been a member of the Tumbling Club for the entire year. She made the statement exclaiming, “Practices are really fun! We always start out with a group warm up and we basically have the entire gym to ourselves so that’s a variety of trampolines and spring floors. After warming up, we then have the opportunity to split up and go anywhere in the gym to work on the things we want to.”

You Asked and We Listened: Masters Gymnastics T-Shirts Are Here!

mastersgymnastics — Thu, 17 May 2012 05:18:19 +0000

We are THRILLED to announce the arrival of the Masters Gymnastics CafePress store! We love love love all of your Heard In The Gym stories. Based on those, we’ve created t-shirts, sweatshirts, bumper stickers and iPhone cases (eh, what the hell?) for both men and women. Per your wonderful requests, our first series is based on Mary’s Heard In The Gym submission.

If you have more sayings or requests you’d like us to use on a shirt, bumper sticker etc., just say the word!

CafePress has nice soft shirts (American Apparel), but not all of the design options we’d like to have. For example, we’d like to print on the back of the sweatshirts and on the sleeves of the t-shirts, but CafePress doesn’t allow for that. If anyone has a suggestion for another print-on-demand service that is better than CafePress, please let us know. Do you think we should make a shirt based on Dominique Moceanu’s tweet to us below? How about, “Adult Gymnastics: The Fountain of Youth” …?

Dominique Moceanu

In addition to our shirts, you can support Masters Gymnastics by purchasing items from our Amazon Store. There are gymnastics workout videos, home gymnastics equipment, our much beloved tiger paws and some of our favorite gymnastics and masters athlete books. If you aren’t interested in those, you can just click through to Amazon and shop normally by using the Powerd By button. We’ll get a little credit when you link through our store.

“I’m showing the younger generation your career doesn’t have to be over when you’re 16-years-old” -Nastia

mastersgymnastics — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:04:46 +0000

Love what 22 year-old Nastia has to say in this article! Golden Girl Liukin Savoring Grind of Late London Bid

“I’m excited to be where I’m at,to be able to do gymnastics again. I’ve missed being able to flip in the air, flip on the beam and swing on the bars.”

Despite the intensity and toil involved in her London preparations, Liukin said she would be content even if her Olympic bid fell flat, and plans to enroll in New York University in January to study sports management.

“I’m showing the younger generation your career doesn’t have to be over when you’re 16-years-old,” she said. ”If that’s what you love to do, you should be able to do it as long as you can.”

Gymnast Nastia Liukin poses for a portrait during the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Media Summit in Dallas, Texas May 14, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jacks

31-Year-Old, 3x Olympic Trampoline Medalist Karen Cockburn’s Strength Workout For London

mastersgymnastics — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:16:01 +0000

Trampolinist Karen Cockburn, a three-time Olympic medallist, works out at her training facility in Richmond Hill, Ont Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail

Cockburn has medaled in three consecutive Olympics in Trampoline. Basically, she’s a major, mega bad ass. Her discussion of training in Sunday’s The Globe And Mail article caught our eye not just because of the her age but because of her discussion of the science behind her training.

Outside of her trampoline workouts she does “…short sprints on the bike, and weight training. I focus on lower body for power to weight ratio. Now I’m in a force phase, so I’m lifting heavy weights. Yesterday I squatted 305 pounds – I weigh 120 pounds. You need strong legs to get height on the trampoline because we’re going up to 18 feet in the air. I’m judged on three elements out of 10: form, difficulty and then “flight time,” so power-to-body-weight ratio is important to get height. I do ballet once a week to help with form and posture and hot yoga twice a week to stretch me out and de-stress; I like the sweat and the heat.” Read the full article here.

Her 2011 prelim routine at the Birmingham WC.

Learn more about her in her book, Soaring High.

82-Year-Old Gymnast Ron Rodger says “You’re a Gymnast All Your Life” – Check Out His Moves

mastersgymnastics — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:25:24 +0000

82-year-old Ron Rodger still practices gymnastics twice a week

Great story in the Daily Mail about 82-year-old British gymnast, Ron Rodger. He started gymnastics in his 20′s then became a three-time British Veteran Champion (equivalent of masters) until retiring from competitions in his early 70′s.

“I suppose it’s quite unusual for someone of my age. I’m not as good as I was in my prime when I was 75, but as long as I can still do it I will carry on,” says Ron. “‘I was once made an honorary member of a German gymnastic club and given a certificate that read ‘You’re a gymnast all your life’, and that’s been in my mind all of my life.”

Check out the photos of the exhibition he did for friends and family on his 82nd birthday on the Daily Mail site. Read more here.

Rod Rodger on parallel bars

Anna Li’s Is Doing A What? The Rybalko, Now Available For Women’s Uneven Bars

mastersgymnastics — Sat, 12 May 2012 07:06:19 +0000

Anna Li photo credit Brigid McCarthy/The Couch Gymnast

There was a lot of buzz this week about Anna Li’s new uneven bars skill. This isn’t normally a subject we cover. However, we think it’s really freakin’ cool when a gymnast outside of the stereotypical teen years is innovating at the elite level. Anna did a “Rybalko”, a hop 1.5. This is especially difficult because she has to finish the turn very early in order to get straight and avoid whacking her heels on the low bar.

The 24-year-old, member of the 2011 World Championship team, known for her exceptional and seemingly unlimited bag of tricks on bars, showed a men’s high bar skill at the national team training camp. USA Gymnastics posted a partial video of her routine showing this skill.

There are rumors that Amanda Borden did this skill at the 1995 American Classic but a video has never surfaced. Even if Borden did compete this skill, it wasn’t done at an international competition and could not have been named for her. If Anna makes the Olympic team, the skill could be named the “Li.”

Now let’s take a look at what this thing is. It kind of looks like a one armed pirouette or 1/2 hop to healy. A Rybalko is a men’s high bar skill. If you have watched high bar ever, you have seen this:

Here is multi-world medalist Fabian Hambuchen’s Rybalko:

The greatest male gymnast of all time Kohei Uchiura’s Rybalko:

Here is Anna Li’s version, the full video is here:

There was Twitter discussion (sparked by super-researcher Between The Olympics Blog), of Yezhova performing this skill. But GymnasticsCoaching.com agrees that this is a hop full to higgins-roll, rather than a Rybalko. Full video here :

We’ve only ever seen one Rybalko that is truly done 100% hands-free done by super-human Legendre. We are sure Anna could do it this way too, if that stinking low bar wasn’t in the way. She’ll probably learn this for next season along with a Pegan, Kolman etc. etc. Just like us, she just gets better with age!

Legendre true hop 1.5:

38 year-old Jenny Hansen’s Beam Routine From The Final Elite Qualifier

mastersgymnastics — Tue, 08 May 2012 07:37:34 +0000

Our favorite 38-year-old gymnast, Jen Hansen, made her final attempt to officially qualify “elite” on Saturday and she went big! She scored a huge 13.9 on vault which put her in third on that event. On beam, the 3-time NCAA all around champion competed a front tuck mount, front tuck to back-handspring to layout, switch half to back tuck, the highest back-handspring layout that may have ever been done on a balance beam, and finally a double back dismount. Ah-mazing. But she fell on her full for a final score of 12.5. She placed second on beam a fall (results here).

She only competed on two events in order to qualify to Classics as an event specialist. Although she didn’t make it this year, her efforts can only be seen as a success. In addition to challenging age bias in gymnastics, it looks like she had lots of fun, proved she can compete with the best in the world and inspired a whole lot of people with her never-say-die attitude, upbeat demeanor and all around cheerfulness. This is a woman who loves what she is doing.

When we say “best in the world,” we mean that literally. If Jen had German, Irish, English, French, Austrian, Australian, Italian etc. etc. citizenship she would be competing at World Championships and the Olympics. Think we’re exaggerating? Awww, hell no! Compare her scores and start values to all of the other elite women competing this season the The All Around’s fabulous WAG 2012 score spreadsheet. Jen holds her own on that list. Hey Jamaica, you need a gymnast?!

Like Khorkina, who taught us that 5 foot 5 inches was in fact, the perfect height for becoming the most medaled gymnast of all time. Jen taught us that, as Aaliyah so deftly put it,”age ain’t nothing but a number.” If Jen has inspired you, let her know on her Facebook page or Twitter. Give her coach a shout out too, he volunteered to coach her this season. You can find him on Twitter here.

We hope that USAG will take this opportunity to put Jen to work as a spokesperson for the Gymnastics For All and Masters Gymnastics disciplines. It’s just such a shame that the US does not have an organization to champion adult gymnastics when so many other countries have (AAU women’s open division notwithstanding, of course). Jen would make an incredible representative for any masters sport but especially for adult gymnastics. USAG should snatch her up before someone else does.

When asked about her age in her final interview (link here) before competition last weekend Jen said, “My body is strong, my heart and mind are strong. So why not?” Her coach, Randy Lane, told CBS news, “By doing this sport and competing [at this age], she has already succeeded.” We agree! In conclusion, stereotypes are wrong and anyone who tells you otherwise can suck it and should be tied down and made to watch Jenny Hansen and Khorkina do gymnastics. Booya!

Heard In The Gym – What did the new kid say to the 38 year-old who was working out with the team?

mastersgymnastics — Wed, 02 May 2012 06:14:06 +0000

New comment in our heard-in-the-gym series. Keep ‘em comin!

From Audra Coldiron, ”I’ve had several comments from the little girls that make me laugh, but none as uplifting as the one above. I’m 38 and work-in with the team. New members will inevitably ask me my age. One response when I gave my age was, ‘Wow. You’re older than my dad!’”

Thank you Audra! Tell us what kind of comments you get in the gym by leaving a comment below.

June Masters Gymnastics Meets – Whistler, Canada & Wisconsin Dells register now

mastersgymnastics — Tue, 01 May 2012 05:33:53 +0000

Two gorgeous locations to pick from for a summer gymnastics vacation. The Wisconsin Dells has an insane waterpark and Whistler, is one of the most beautiful locations on earth.

June Meets

June 9th, 2012. High On Gymnastics adult competition at Whistler Gymnastics in Whistler, BC, Canada. Email info@whistlergymnastics.com for info and registration or check out the Meet Flyer.
AAU Age Group Nationals, Wisconsin Dells, WI. Ladies Division only – Wednesday, June 20 – Sunday, June 24, 2012 Meet Flyer, Rules. Check out Gymnastike’s page on the meet for a full explanation of how this AAU meet works. Deadline June 1st.