Note: For those of you who get this via e-mail or thru a reader, you will want to click through to my site – there are a lot of videos in this post. Trust me, you don’t want to miss these.A long time ago Reader Lys asked me about doing gymnastics in the gym. A long long time ago Reader Sally asked me for more stories about my days as a gymnast. A long long long time ago everyone who knows in me in real life asked me to never speak of gymnastics again as it is one of those stories that manages to be very boring despite having a lot of gore (broken bones! snapped necks!! team-wide PMS!!!) and shiny costumes. But thanks to the miracle of the Internet I have a collection of hilarious gymnastic pictures and videos that need sharing so badly they’re threatening to pop out of my computer like a red thong under white bike shorts (you know who you are) so today’s all about the gymnastics.
Sally’s question ought to be answered first: There’s only one way to say this and so I’ll just get it out there. Despite participating in the sport up until I was a sophomore in college and loving it with all my heart and thinking of nothing else every waking moment, I was – how to put this kindly? – a very mediocre gymnast. I’m not just being modest either. I was the Jimmy Fallon of the gymnastics world: all heart but no skill. (What, have you SEEN the clips making the rounds on the ‘net from his new show? It’s like a youtube knockoff of a Saturday Night Live parody of Leno copying Letterman filling in for the janitor on Carson’s set. Justin Timberlake, on the other hand, was brilliant. They should give him the gig.)
My non-brilliance started with my size. Even though I was a twee 5’3″ at the time, that’s freakishly tall for a gymnast leading judges to give me comments like “I love her long lines… but she lands heavy.” and “She’s very graceful… except when she falls and gets flustered.” and my favorite “She has perfect vault legs.” Masters of the backhanded compliments, they were.
The last comment lead into my undoing, however. See, one thing all gymnasts need (besides talent, which we’ve already established that I did not have) is fearlessness. I was afraid. I was afraid that my butt glue – yes, I’m serious – wouldn’t hold and I’d get an atomic wedgie (see pic above) during a competition and everyone knows that you will get points deducted for picking a wedgie during your floor routine. I was afraid of falling straddle on the beam. And forgetting my choreography. And throwing up from nerves. And ripping a toenail off on my bar routine, arcing blood through the air like World Rhythmic Gymnastics production of The Saw. (All of which I did, thank you very much.) But most of all, I was afraid of the vault.
Consider: you are running at sprint speed at a big chunk of leather and metal bolted into the floor. You are supposed to run the exact same number of steps – yep, we count! – and then hit the springboard on the sweet spot which will then allow you to fly at just the right angle, velocity and power to do a death-defying flippy thingy over the massive object in your way. People who watch gymnastics often think vault is the filler apparatus. The bars earn all the high-flying oohs and ahs, the beam is obviously very hard – it’s 4-inches wide, like duh – and the floor is everyone’s favorite both to compete and to watch (and the only one you get music for!) . But I’m here to tell you that the vault is the true measure of athletic ability. And because of my “athletic thighs” (side note: you can always tell a vault specialist by her thighs – poor child looks like an East German powerlifter who wandered into a midget ballet recital) the vault was the one apparatus I could get some decent scores on. So why the dread? Because if you mess up even one tiny piece of the process this happens:
Despite the title of this video, it is not in the least bit funny.
This one, though, I must admit is as hilarious as it is frightening:
Anyhow, you don’t just fall, like on beam or bars, or step out of bounds, like on floor. Oh no, you screw up on vault and you’re the middle car in a six-car pile-up on the highway. You crash. I remember watching a girl in my gym miss her vault during practice and literally snap her neck. I heard the pop all the way across the gym. She lived, thankfully, but was in a neck brace for months. By the time it had healed, she’d decided not to return to the team. And so it was in that moment right after I’d signaled to the judges and right before I took that first step that my heart would seize up in my chest. If I made my vault it was total relief that I had survived to compete on something I really enjoyed doing (albeit badly) and if I missed… well, I never had a bad miss.
What I did instead was broke my foot. I snagged my toe on the low bar during a simple transition to the high bar and broke it all the way up my foot. My toe was literally perpendicular
to my foot. And yet I didn’t want a cast or anything else incapacitating because then I wouldn’t be able to compete. So we had it set and taped it. I rebroke it two weeks later on a hard landing on the beam. Reset. Retape. And then two weeks later did it again. But this time I did it by dropping a container of flour on it while making cookies. My mother, completely fed up by this point, set my foot on the kitchen table. At my next meet, all I could think about on vault was my bones slipping out of gear in my foot and sending me flying to my death. I quit the team.
Gymnastic Inspired Workouts
I did, however, continue to dabble in the sport just for kicks and giggles. So Reader Lys’ question is one I have often contemplated myself. When you talk about doing a gymnastics workout, you have two options:
1. Actually doing tricks. This requires apparatus like fiberglass uneven bars and a gymnastics floor with 2 feet of springs and foam padding (you all do know that the Olympic gymastic floor is like one gigantic springboard right??). Unless you actually workout in a gymnastic facility these items are hard to come by. I don’t recommend improvising, like say kipping on the chin-up bar. The Y actually removed our chin-up bar and part of me suspects it had a lot to do with me hanging by my knees and cherry dropping off of it.
2. Doing the conditioning portion of the gymnastic workout. It’s less fun to watch but every gymnast does daily conditioning as part of their training. This involves tortorous moves like hanging abs, V-ups, handstand walks & push-ups & static holds, pull-ups and other assorted drills. These are easily done in most gym settings, as long as you don’t mind getting looked at funny.
For those of you interested in incoporating some gymnastics moves into your strength routines, here are some resources:
– An Olympic hopeful takes Women’s Health through a conditioning workout. (I’d start with this one.)
– The Gymnastics Workout of the Day gives you something new every day. (Do note that it’s a site for male gymnasts so they say things like “hold parallel for 3 seconds and then press to handstand.” Uh huh.
– Beast skills offers guided tutorials of some of the skills (again, men’s gymnastics). My fave was the “no-handed one-arm chin-up.” Eek.
Other options are doing basic skills like handstands, cartwheels, walkovers (front and back) and other tricks that don’t require a spot or a equipment.
I know a lot of you out there are ex-gymnasts – what are your fave gymnastics-inspired workout moves? For you non-gymnasts, you don’t have to have done it to appreciate the humor! Here’s one last funny video for you:
oOH am I the first commenter? That’s exciting! I’m a former gymnast, too, and you know that first video of the vault… that was me, in one of my first competitions. (Except without landing on the male bits, since I don’t have any.) I somehow skidded on the springboard when I hit it and instead of flying up into the handstand on the vault, I hit it squarely in the middle, rolled over it, and lay flat on the mat below, watching in horror and unable to move as the vault tilted above me – I saw visions of squashed Sara – then thudded back into place. (And you know how heavy vaults are, Charlotte; I hit that thing HARD.) Other than that, and almost leaving my little toe behind in a crack between the mats while doing layouts, though, I escaped unscathed. No broken bones or even (too many) bruises. One of my teammates broke an old set of uneven bars she was working on, though, and an assistant coach had the whole team in stitches when she told about the time that she (in competition) did a back flip OUT OF A WINDOW.
Currently, I am trying to get my walkovers back (it’s been thirteen years since I stopped gymnastics, and I didn’t think to do one every day, like you!). I still do the stretches and conditioning I remember (V-ups, definitely!)
Think that’s all for now. Thanks for posting!
I forgot to say, after I hit the vault and it ponderously tilted back into place, those huge metal legs hit the gym floor with the most appalling, earth-shattering CRASH THUD imaginable. The whole gym must have heard. It probably knocked a poor gymnast off the balance beam and caused the girl on bars to miss a grip. It was that loud. After my coach had rushed over to help me up and make sure I was ok, I could see all the judges at their table were staring straight ahead with that glassy, teary look of people biting the insides of their mouths to prevent themselves from rolling off the chairs and disgracing themselves forever.
Oh man! I laughed and groaned at those videos! Also winced at the thought of your broken foot, broken again, and again, and again…
How old were you when you started gymnastics?
Wow talk about acrobatics. I could never bend my legs that much.
I wanna know how old you were when you started too!
people are always trying to get me to start the Tornado in hardcore gymnastics and I say no.
I wonder if she’ll resent that i didnt later?
oh-my-GOD! “BUTT GLUE”??!! SERIOUSLY??!!!!!!!
BFP xxx
here’s a good lower back exercise and stretch all in one….i like to do the splits then put my arms over my head ballet style reach over and touch my foot and then lift back up with my arms still by my ears, i do 5 full reps and then ten pulses, then repeat then switch sides, i wish i could give you a visual aid, but let me know if this text doesn’t suffice
great post charlotte! first and third videos….no….second video yes
the arms by the ears are crucial so that you dont use the momentum of swinging your arms to lift your torso off your leg, you are using just your back,..just wanted to add for any other commenters reading and trying to figure out what the H-E-double hockey sticks I’m talking about, okay, thanks!
Also a former gymnast…and coach. I kept this info from my children because I didn’t want to sway their preferences in hobbies (or be one of those horrible stage moms.) After tasting and rejecting piano and track, my 7 year old tried gymnastics…and loved it. Then my 6 year old son followed. Not what I had hoped for, but they are happy. My daughter will never have the skill to compete on an elite level – for which I am VERY grateful. I will support them both as far as they want to take the sport. (And I did fess up to my kids about being in gymnastics, dance and cheerleading.)
I agree with Charlotte about the vault. I, too, was terrified to vault over it or even spot on it. There is just so much speed involved. I, too, have known a girl to snap her neck on it (no, I wasn’t the spotter that time) and after months of neck braces and rehab decide to quit.
I would love to get on my soap box about how ridiculous it is to put toddlers in gymnastics so their mothers can live vicariously through them in hopes their little one will some day make it to the Olympics…but I will restrain myself. My experience as a coach is that if a child has a lick of talent, they can walk into a gym at age 7-8 and within a matter of months surpass the skill of the talentless children who have been there every week since they were babies.
delurking to say hi, still loving your writing and my oh my that last set of bloopers was hilarious.
I always wonder about the non-spectator part of gymnastics where you spend hours and hours honing your routine. How much of that time is spent in pain? There has to be twisted ankles, bruises, flying toe nails and the like. Of the group you were with, how many were out of action over the time period you did this?
Those videos made me cringe. I guess I only think something is funny if the person isn’t obviously hurt.
I did gymnastics. Kinda. I was 9, and so bad that my coach would often get mad at me, like I was deliberately doing terribly. She made me do things like forward rolls on the beam, even after it was clear that I was rolling in such a way as to hurt my spine (she got in trouble when another coach saw her yell at me for stopping when I wasn’t in the competitive group and clearly in pain).
She’d also do things like ignore the others teasing me, unless they said something so funny that it made me laugh too (I knew I didn’t belong there), usually in the middle of something I was doing.
Not too much gym. experience. I’ve know a few very good gymnasts as one of my neighbors was the gym. coach for our university. My favorite event is the uneven bars. I met our new assistant coach last week. He’s Romanian 🙂
Wow – never really thought about how dangerous this sport is. Those videos – omg!!! I hated gymnastics when I was a child. I couldn’t even do a somersault. Then again, I was very overweight and it wasn’t exactly easy to move all that weight around. It was an awful experience and I still don’t think I’ve gotten over it. 🙁
Every one of those so called “Bloopers” left me cringing. Possibly because a few years ago I signed my daughter up for gymnastics and not only did she love it – but she was good at it. I, having never been in anything more than a tumbling class, had no idea what we had gotten into.
Eventually, I came to my senses – my young child was plagued with a nagging repetitive stress injury and her coach not only didn’t care about her well being but pushed her harder; we took the summer off and never went back.
Possibly my smartest parenting move to date.
Egads can’t watch those videos, am cringing too much!
I only took gymnastics for one year when I was about 8 years old (OLD for a beginner gymnast!), and I loved it to bits but then I moved and didn’t get back into it. It was wonderful. I can be very clumsy though so I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten very far 😉
Thanks for all these links! And OUCH about your poor foot!!
I remember when I was little, backbends and cartwheels came so easy. Well, this morning in yoga, I thought I was going to die by the time we did wheel, and after 2 minutes of nothing but handstand preparation, my arms and legs felt like jello. Was I really that strong when I was younger, or did I just ignore the pain?
Ex-gymnast here myself too. I LOVED vault, floor, and learned to love beam, but bars were my kryptonite. I was about 3 levels ahead of every apparatus but bars and I think it might have been one reason I quit (that and I wanted a life). I’ve seen my share of vault and beam biffs, but I swear the worst ones always came from flinging off the bars.
I miss the adrenaline though. I miss feeling the fear of being about to do something crazy and doing it anyway. I wasn’t totally fearless but I learned to channel my super competitive nature to be stronger than it.
Ok, I need a big ass trampoline like we used to have or a diving board and a pool NOW. I wanna do something that involves a flip. Tee hee.
Thanks! Yay gymnastics! I love reliving the drama of competitive gymnastics with others. Ooh…the wedgies. Thanks for the ideas too. I’m going to try the conditioning workouts, and hopefully get to do walkovers again! Good ol’ back injury (guess the culprit…hmm?) makes those tough but I’m determined. Great post!
I've always enjoyed watching gymnastics, but my only experience with it was a class when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I sucked at it; I could not climb the rope and was afraid of the higher of the two uneven bars. But I did enjoy doing some minor tricks on the school monkey bars, though.
I do remember going to a friend's sister's competition. Every floor routine for the entire day used that Blood, Sweat, and Tears (how appropriate!) song, "Spinning Wheel." Ack!!! Talk about your ear worm!
I don't think all kids' gymnastics classes are about training wannabe Olympians, although I'm sure there are places that take it a little more seriously than others. My son took many sessions of toddler gymnastics through our local parks & recreation program. The instructor was great and totally low key, and it was all about making it fun for the kids and helping them develop balance and coordination.
what does it say about me that the first thing I thought when I saw your “atomic wedgie” pic was “oh my gosh, how does she have such a rock hard amazing butt?”
I loved the videos in this one! My youngest sister was a gymnast. They required her to quit after 3 breaks on the same foot. I think in the past a girl had to have a limb amputated due to the severity of breaks. It’s a dangerous sport in many ways!
I was once a gymnast, too… I didn’t last more than a few months, I was too scared to try most stuff because I feared I’d end up in one of these vids. Somehow now I think I would’ve been really good at it, flexibility, balance, aaand the rock-hard thunderthighs. 🙂
Ah, I can’t wait until my kids are good enough to graduate from Y gymnastics and move on to a valid competitive school. Eating disorders, drugs, injuries, bloopers (fun for mom if it’s not my kid), but they’re so small it’s either gymnastics or becoming jockeys.
Laughing aloud by myself at the midnight hour is not at all appropriate.
Thank you, I needed that!
Elaine from FB
Hey Charlotte,
I know there are lots of different tacks to take for when and what to eat before a workout (with the obvious bottom-line that it will be what works for that particular individual), but…nonetheless, I would like to ask some advice because I feel like the question is complicated when it deals with multiple workout days. It sounds like you often workout more than once a day, so do you have any advice? Sometimes if there is even a smidge in my belly from two hours prior midworkout i’ll feel neasous and like I could throw up, but on the other hand, being tired and having no energy for a workout sucks too! Thanks!!!!
I took gymnastics as a kid, but had to quit when a)we realized I had NO talent for anything other than cartwheels, b)my Jewish parents nearly had coronaries at every meet, and c)I had a growth spurt and grew 6 inches in less than a year.
I did have a friend who was approached by trainers for the Olympics, but she and her mom decided it would be better for her to have a life, instead. Now she’s happily married with kids, runs a theater company, and posts hilarious videos on YouTube. (“Soccer Mom Ho” is one of hers!)
Veni, yikes, LOL.
I came, I cringed, I laughed.
I, too, am an ex-gymnast and I definitely have/had vaulter thighs. They did vault me to a few state titles (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun), but I still wish I was more of a Nastia Liukin than a Shawn Johnson, body-type wise. I started doing competitive gymnastics when I was 12 and quit when I was 16. I hit puberty really late, so I think that helped a lot (I was only 4’10 when I started high school, and I’m 5’6 now). As far as injuries, I broke my arm falling off the bars a week before state during my first season. I remember my coach screaming “Oh my god, I’m calling 911!” and me asking if it was broken and if I would be able to compete at state. Given that it was a compound fracture and my forearm was bent at a 90 degree angle, that state meet did not happen.
Lately I’m trying to get back into pull-ups. I remember we used to have to do them with our legs bent at 90 degrees with a small wooden block resting on top, so we couldn’t swing or whip at all. I used to be able to to 20. I can do 5 or 6 now but I’m hoping to be able to do 9 by the end of the year.
I’ve never done gymnastics in my life, but this was an interesting post to read. I read a nonfiction book last year by a former competitive gymnast, and I really enjoyed that, too. It’s just crazy to think of all the time, effort, and training that goes into that sport. 🙂
Charlotte I’m not ashamed in the slightest to admit the first clip was pretty funny.
I too am an ex gymnast, and just thought I would share my worst and terrifying moment. I was only about 9 – 10 years old at the time. I was on the bars doing a Tkatchev however missed the bar and somehow managed to fall and land completly on my neck. It was very frightening as my coach came over and told me not to move and my parents had witnessed the whole thing and I could hear them panicking in the background. Thankfully medics checked me over and I was fine. I was told to go straight back on the bars and do it again so just one of my many accidents that happend during my time as a gymnast. But out of curiosity does anyone suffer from pain since retiring from gymnastics. Im 26 and I have terrible lower back pain and my wrists are very very week. and i find im really stiff after excercising … surely after excercing you should get more flexible not stiffer! comments would be greatly appreciated!
p.s I started when i was two and was picked for british squad at 5. I retired when I was 14. I was in major competitions constantly and I have to admit gymnastics was the worst part of my childhood. Looking back at gymnastics I felt like I was brain washed by my coach's . If I ever have children this is one sport I do not wish them to take part in. It was almost like child abuse. I was even given pills to stop puberty. I even trained in Russia which have the most strictest coach's out there and was weighed on most training sessions. I still remember looking down and being only 4 stone. Doctors thought I was malnurished because of the amount of training I did (I did 46 hours a week and had home tutoring)
I love gymnastics, i'm a beginning coach because i started at 12 and quit at 13 for cheerleading and dance. now i'm 16 and a level 5 almost 6 in gymnastics i don't compete i don't want to and only take private lessons but i love it and wish i would have started younger and stayed in it, but i still compete in cheerleading and dance. i just wanted to say that this is a cool page and very interesting.
I also was a gymnast. It hasn't even been a year since my last practice. I had to quit because I wasn't going to go to a college with college gymnastics. I was just in a local club gym and now I coach at a USA gym. It's a lot different and I wish I could still compete, but I'm too old and I'm not going to do college gymnastics. I have to say that I do have a lot of pains like in my lower back, wrists, knees and my elbow(dislocation about two years ago). I would have to say that I loved this article because it is so true. But I would have to say my favorite event was bars. There's just something about the flying on them that is just so much fun! Even though that's the event I got hurt on. I was doing an uprise and lost my grip and slipped off and landed on my hand.
Hey I am also an ex gymnast! like the videos. The worst accident of mine was cracking my head opening in a double sumi so i feel i gt off lightly. trained 6 times a week for 9 years since being out of the sport 6 yrs im considering joining the uni club and trying to get back into shape before i do so. Luckily flexibily is still good just a few too many extra pounds! 😀
p.s totally agree with u racheal my gym experience was child abuse and was first told i needed to slim down when i was 4st as a child
wow those videos are crazy. Great post thought!
The dedication needed for this type of level of gymnastics is absolutely astonishing.