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Don’t Feed The Fire: Modifying Strength To Increase Flexibility

This is something I have been thinking about as I continue to treat a lot more gymnasts who come to me with injury or performance issues. I'm always trying to break down the problem to help the athlete, but also find the "spark" that created…
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Why Gymnasts Must Change How They Land

The topic of how a gymnast should land continues to be controversial for many coaches, gymnasts, and judges. I'm not the first person to bring this up, as my good friend Dr. Josh Eldridge as well as Rick McCharles have written on this up before.…
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Gymnastics, Please Stop Doing These Stretches (Part 1)

I try my best to not be on the offensive side of the coin when it comes to my writing. However, lately I have seen a ton of flexibility drills that I feel are not only dangerous, they likely are causing large performance drops in gymnasts.…
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From Clinic To Practice #4: Gymnast With Chronic Hamstring Injury and “Tightness”; Due To Core Control Issues

I recently evaluated an optional gymnast who was struggling in the last year with pretty intense high hamstring pain and "tightness" limiting her splits, leaps, sprinting for Yurchenko's, and inbar skills. As it turned out, I felt her hamstring…
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Why I Don’t Use Ankle Weights With My Gymnasts

To start, I'm aware this is another controversial topic in gymnastics. I have spent quite a long time organizing my thoughts and how to present them in a positive, constructive article. As a younger coach, I used to do a ton of ankle weight…
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Elastic Band ASSISTED Hip Drills For Better Angles and Control

Elastic band drills are all over gymnastics mainly being used as added resistance to hip motion. In the right scenario I think the resistance can be useful. However, I have noticed many gymnasts I work with show huge passive hip motion, but…
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Improving Split Mobility and Transferring It To Beam: “Performance Complex” Hip Example

One of the biggest things I see is problematic in terms of performance and injury in gymnastics is when we focus so much on mobility, but then neglect the steps that should come after to change movement. These include drills to add dynamic…
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How Much Flexibility Is Too Much For A Gymnast?

I've been touching on this concept a lot in the last year, and I think it's very important for the people involved in gymnastics to consider. Gymnastics is well known as a sport that requires an excessive amount of mobility and flexibility (I…
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5 Reasons Why I Don’t Push My Gymnasts Down During Splits – Part 2

The response to Part 1 of this post was incredible and ended up being one of the most viewed pieces of content on the site. I got some great feedback and it was awesome to see people enjoyed it. I think it's a topic many people involved in gymnastics think…
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5 Reasons Why I Don’t Push My Gymnasts Down During Splits – Part 1

Bet that title caught your eye as you were browsing. Well it's true, safe to say I haven't really pushed anyone down during splits or much of any flexibility for quite some time now. I had plenty of memories as a gymnast standing up after…