The researchers proposed that the change in the range of motion may have primarily come from increased tolerance to the discomfort of nerve fibers that detect stretch pain, as the fibers were becoming more desensitized. Champagne, IL: Human Kinetics. Im not saying all the stretches or flexibility approaches we use must be discontinued because they are dangerous. Med Sci Sports Exerc. Anyone who wants a fantastic read and more elaborate background on these concepts again I recommend you read this article: The The Hyperflexibile Hip: Managing Hip Pain In Gymnasts and Dancers. However, in my twenty-five years of being a gymnast, a gymnastics coach, and a Sports Physical Therapist who treats hundreds of gymnasts per year, flexibility is by far what I get the most questions about. Physiother Res Int 2002;7:1-13. Although there are conflicting viewpoints on this discussion, I have boiled my thoughts down to three main contributing factors as to why gymnasts may get stiff as they participate in gymnastics. You can download all three here below, and I will also be sure to share lots of other free resources throughout this blog post for people to use at home. The research in the world of hip micro instability, labral tears, hip stress fractures, and other injuries commonly seen in gymnasts has been rapidly developing in the last decade. 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. Keywords: gymnastics, stretching exercises, flexibility, balance 1. Its for good reason too. Its important to recognize that the range of motion a gymnasts hip, shoulder, or other joints display are directly related to their underlying anatomy. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to know whether reported discomfort during stretching is a safe and expected result or an unsafe atypical response. Soft Tissue care, specific stretching, and eccentrics can help male gymnasts get where they need to be. 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. I will say take these research studies with a grain of salt due to their methods, smaller sizes, and sometimes using cadavers as subjects. There are many possible reasons for why a gymnast can or cannot move their hips into a full split position or move their shoulders overhead into a full handstand position. 387 403. When used in the right context, it can augment the flexibility needed for advanced leaps or jumps, inbar skills, and tumbling mechanics. Due to these reasons and the research I have read about the human body, there will likely be a very limited long-term change in flexibility that change gymnastics skills. I dove headfirst into the scientific literature over 2 years and starting playing around with many new methods in the gym and clinic. Exercise selection, strength program balance, and athlete individuality also have a significant impact on limited progress in flexibility. A rolled ankle or inversion sprain is definitely among the most common for gymnasts. Foam rolling as a recovery tool after an intense bout of physical activity. Herbert RD1, de Noronha M. Stretching to prevent or reduce muscle soreness after exercise. If the exercises above are biasing stress on joint capsules and ligaments more so than the lat, teres major, and pec muscles, we should look for an alternative solution. The Layer Concept, Determining the Pain Generators, Pathology, and How Structure Determines Treatment. Glutes, Deep Hip Rotators, Core, etc. They outline, as do many other great researchers, that correctly performed stretching bouts of 10- 30s that move to tolerable discomfort can be effective. 115-122, Reinold MM, Curtis AS. Gymnastics at Home Worksheets- Static Flexibility Before you start you'll need: - A wooden spoon - A sofa/ seat - Some cushions - A wall/ closed door If you need to improve your flexibility in a certain area then the exercises in this worksheet will help with ideas of how to practice safety at home. 2014 Jun;29(6):636-42. doi: 10.1016/j. It directly relates to this conversation on the need to understand anatomy, as well as active and passive structures, and knowing where discomfort is or is not expected. Its very important to remember that certain joints are not inherently built for lots of flexibility. 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. That said, there are certainly changes in muscle stiffness, as well as the length of a muscle, again when appropriately used stretching methods are used. Beam, Parallel Bar, High Bar Technique Drills Involving Splits This can be repeated with the hands in an under grip to bias the muscular soft tissue of lats/teres major, can be repeated with the hands on top of each other to mimic beam for female gymnasts, and can be repeated in eagle grip for those gymnasts who perform these skills. Journ Sport Rehab, 2015, 24, 286 292, Nelson RT, Bandy WD. I urge people to not automatically push splits or pull shoulders open when they see a gymnast with limited range of motion. More specifically, the inferior glenohumeral ligament and capsule, as well as possible parts of the middle glenohumeral ligament and capsule. 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. These structures and systems tend to have much more potential to change through training. In another, the gymnast may naturally have lots of hip and toe rotation in but not have any moving toes out. A full movement evaluation and something known as a Craigs test is the best way to practically assess if a gymnast may fall into one of these categories. Wilk KE, Andrews JR, Arrigo CA. This approach is especially useful for gymnasts who are not as fortunate to be naturally mobile. 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. Skills like Shaposh releases for female gymnasts, Tipelts for male gymnasts, and other extreme overhead motion demands require this amount of mobility. Optimal Management of Shoulder Impingement Syndrome. In a study by Zollner et al (17), the researchers looked more at changes in muscle tissue when chronic stretching was used in simulated animal models. Ankles are one of the most frequentlyinjuredbody parts ingymnasticswith a variety of injuries from getting crunched on short landings, chronic impingement, sprains, stress fractures, and more. 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. 2015; 23: 203-212, Escamilla RF, Hooks TR, Wilk KE. A complex typically includes these steps (I will offer links to videos below), Pre Test Screen 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 is especially true when notallowing compensation from other body parts or excessive swinging for momentum. Rainman, Thornburg. I feel gymnasts should be doing regular soft tissue care routine to combat excessive stiffness that may negatively impact flexibility. I know there is a large spectrum of positive or negative views on soft tissue work. 3556). 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. A commonly seen stretch in gymnastics is when the lower back of an athlete is excessively arched, or the pelvis is excessively tipped forward as depicted below. This is commonly tested with something called a Beightons screening. Although these traditional training methods can yield short-term benefits and may help increase an athletes awareness of body position, problems clearly exist with this model. Gymnasts partake in stretching every day for months on end, so we cant conclude that changes in muscle tissue over time are not occurring. My thoughts on hip mobility and why we choose certain exercises closely echo my thoughts on shoulder mobility, and I again will not go into much depth as this was covered in an earlier chapter. Konrad A, Gad M, Tilp M1. Why Do So Many Gymnasts Struggle Even When They Stretch Daily? If the ligaments and joint capsules are already hypermobile, and have trouble dealing with high force, and then we add more laxity to them over time, we are likely asking for disaster regarding instability- based shoulder and hip injuries. Ensure you are warmed up correctly Shu B., Safran MR. Hip Instability: Anatomic and Clinical Considerations of Traumatic and Atraumatic Instability. Sometimes in such a high force sport, these bumps and bruises are inevitable. Long-standing hip micro instability is another concern that may be created without the proper training approach. Some of the movement-based components that must go right to perform over splits include: As you can see, there are quite a few things that can limit why someone cannot do a full split or over a split. flexibility exercises designed to enhance split flexibility. Heres 3thoughts about why. This is where the third layer comes into play, the muscular soft tissue. In an effort to help people out, I have decided to for the first time take everything that I possibly know about gymnastics flexibility and put it into one mega-blog post here. Unfortunately, this leaves the gymnast feeling very defeated as if something is wrong with them, not to mention still struggling with skills and possibly at an elevated injury risk. Without an in-depth medical background to understand human anatomy, the risk to reward ratio of trying to stretch ligaments and joint capsules are incredibly high. The issue is more about, The lack of assessments being used before and after stretching, The lack of flexibility exercises that target active muscular structures (muscles and tendons) over passive structures (ligaments and joint capsules), The lack of a consistency over intensity mindset that is supported by research, and also avoids aggressive techniques that may cause injury, The lack of individuality and specificity being used based on a gymnasts individual issue, The lack of stretching being used as one small piece for the overall flexibility approach that carries changes in range of motion to actual skills, The current body of research on stretching suggests that, Changes in the nervous system are likely the main reason why stretching overtime increases range of motion (changing stretch reflex, changing perception of discomfort, desensitization of specific nerves), Changes in the muscle or tendon tissue itself also likely occur (change in number of sarcomeres, length of sarcomeres, amount of stiffness in muscle tissue). In this setting, we are looking to ramp down the body and assist in recovery (known as facilitating parasympathetic tone). This means the hip bone was slightly migrating out of the hip socket to reach such large ranges of motion. These are just anecdotal experiences, but they are in line with what the literature outlines. These two things often happen together in very flexible gymnasts, theoretically as the contact of the femur on the pelvis creates a fulcrum type point for the head of the femur to lever against contributing instability. 1) improve range of motion and Elsevier. The research in ballet dancers made me reconsider what must happen at the hip joint go to achieve such large ranges of motion needed for oversplits. Similar to the study above, it was found that while ankle range of motion did improve, there were no significant changes in the muscle extensibility outcomes that would indicate tissue change. Is there a distinct pattern to the acetabular labrum and articular cartilage damage in the non-dysplastic hip with instability? There are usually large groups of people warming up, a limited amount of space, and a limited amount of time. . PLOS, 2012, 7(10): 1-10, Kubo K., Kanehisa H., Fukunaga, T. Effect of stretching training on the viscoelastic properties of human tendon stiffness in vivo. Plan gymnastics flexibility exercises pdf gymnastics flexibility exercises pdf. Due to many gymnasts having inherent hypermobility, we do not want to place excessive stress on the ligaments and joint capsules of athletes. This program is a four-day, upper/lower body split. Each comprehensive PDF is a step by step guide of the exact passive and active flexibility, strength, balance, and gymnastics specific PreHab exercises used by Dr. Dave Tilley with 1000s of gymnasts across the world. Many also claim that it helps them move in a larger range of motion with less discomfort before starting their practice. 2) change the hamstring muscle extensibility. They tend to be more biased towards strength or power and less towards inherent flexibility. We must always remember that the structures that have the most opportunity for improvement, the active structures, should be the focus of flexibility training. For many people in the gymnastics community, it comes down to a professional discussion on taking away overly aggressive flexibility methods, following the science of shoulder anatomy and making subtle changes in training. It uses either a floor bar or the other arm version to bias external rotation of the shoulder. Again, as presented by Beardsley and Skarbot, Self-Myofascial release does not appear to impede athletic performance acutely or in the short term. As noted at the start of this article, gymnasts are typically our hyper in their joint capsules. Gymnastics is, therefore, a sports discipline that seeks to provide strength and flexibility to the body, through specific exercise routines. If the gymnast is already hanging out in a down and in position, they are predisposing themselves to continuously catch their over and over, leading to the re-occuring injury part mentioned above. So here are some main take always to help. May 22, 2022 | In hot and cold water therapy for feet benefits | . Effects of self myofascial release: A systematic review. 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. 2, 3, 4). Some may have a combination of dysplasia, hip socket rotations, femur rotation, and different pelvic alignments. A rolled ankle happens when the gymnast catches their foot into a down and in position (plantar flexion with inversion) leading to the structures on the outside portion of the foot being damaged. Speaking beyond the research, I truly feel that both mechanical and neurological changes occur in muscles as well as tendons with prolonged stretching. 90 Minutes of Must Hear Gymnastics Coaching Expert Advice, Master the Basics: Gymnastics Drills for Kips, Fly Aways, and Giants, Nick Ruddock Shares His Best Uneven Bar Methods for Giants, Flyaways, and Cast Handstands, Understanding and Treating Back Pain in Athletes, 5 In-Season Gymnastics Tips for Maximizing Meet & Routine Performance, Gymnastics requires significant amounts of flexibility and mobility, which makes it a primary area of training, It can be very confusing and easily overwhelming, especially with the rapid increase in scientific advances and the internet, Anyone working with gymnasts should have an understanding of basic anatomy and physiology before assigning flexibility drills, Although research is conflicting, there appear to be both neurological and mechanical reasons as to why regular flexibility training increases range of motion, Its crucial that proper methods are used to reduce joint stress and bias the stretching of soft tissue structures, especially in hypermobile athletes, Static stretching has a role to play in gymnastics but must be used correctly and at the right dosage. Hip and shoulder flexibility limitations are one main contributor I see clinically to wrist, elbow, shoulder, lower back, and hip injuries in gymnasts. Keeping your back straight, walk your hands out in front of you. If not regularly and appropriately trained, flexibility can become something that really holds an athlete back from making progress in skills or possibly contributes to elevated injury risk. Recently many gymnasts are reporting to have hip flexor strains that they push through. This is true both in training and in our medical clinic. JOSPT November 2014. It canhelp to lower their injury risk for another ankle sprain, but it also can help their performance by increasing single leg and double leg landings/jumps etc. Knowing what I do now from all of the above research, I have mostly moved away from this approach of only using stretching to improve flexibility. Stretching Skeletal Muscle: Chronic Muscle Lengthening through Sacrocmeregenesis. Subacromial Impingement. A blind approach to gymnastics flexibility training can cause serious hip injuries as the current medical research field has demonstrated. The ligaments and joint capsule, along with the alignment of the ball on the socket, create what is known as the passive structures or stabilizers. Thomas E., Bianco A., Palma A. The gymnast is depending on those static stability structures because they probably have issues related to their muscles and nervous system not being able to assist withdynamic stability. There appear to be short-term changes in range of motion, but often does not stick around too long without follow up strength work or consistent practice of flexibility. The capsule resembles a balloon-type structure that completely surrounds the shoulder joint and serves as a thickened blending of ligaments. *Readers Note This gymnastics flexibility guide is a very long and in-depth blog post. 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