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Inside Out - Taking What I Learned Inside the Kines 361 Classroom and Applying It To (One of) The (Many) Sport(s) I've Come To Know and  Love...

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Inside Out - Taking What I Learned Inside the Kines 361 Classroom and Applying It To (One of) The (Many) Sport(s) I've Come To Know and  Love...

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My parents like to say that I cartwheeled out of the womb... While I think this is a gross exaggeration, they are correct in the fact that I've been moving-and-a-grooving ever since I set foot onto this wonderful planet of ours just over 21 years ago.

Coming from a family in which both of my parents were largely involved in sports from a very young age, it's no surprise that my sister and I grew up to follow in their footsteps, each of us playing three sports a year from the time we were two to, well, now.

After having spent so much time growing up in the realm of athletics, I have come to acquire quite a bit of knowledge about both the sports I have actively participated in over the years, and those that I've simply watched on TV or picked up while playing outside with the neighborhood boys.

One of the best things about amassing all of this knowledge over the years has been being able to apply it to the things I have been learning in the classroom, particularly, the kinesiology classroom, through my Kinesiology major at UW-Madison.

A few of these applications I've been asked to share with you below, as part of an end-of-semester assignment.

So, feel free, check them out!  I'll try to make them as interesting as possible... I mean really, how can GYMNASTICS be boring?
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Picture of little baby me at USAG States in 20??.

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Sensation plays a huge role in any gymnast's life.  If you can't feel what it is you're doing, feel all the intricate ways your muscles are contracting and moving through space, no way could you ever even dream of making it to the Olympics, let alone scoring above an 8.0 in competition.

This feeling of sensation, otherwise known as somesthesia, is absolutely essential for creating and/or becoming the next Shawn Johnson, not Just A Girl Who Does Gymnastics (And Not Particularly Well, Might I Add).

There are various sensory receptors involved in the process of somesthesia, but each sensory receptor fits into only one of four categories of this seemingly challenging concept.

For the purpose of this assignment and this class...

There are four types of sensory signals that can be sent to our brains to be processed: touch, pain, temperature, and limb position.  In gymnastics, we'll choose to focus on touch, limb position, and, yes, pain.  Lots and lots of pain.

Let's begin with touch. Cutaneous mechanoreceptors, found in the skin, are the primary receptors for touch, pressure, vibration, and stretch in the body.

It is these receptors that allow a gymnast to feel her feet leave and  land on the beam following a switch leap.

It is these receptors that allow a gymnast to feel the vibration course through the spring floor, up through her body, following the completion of a 1 1/2 on floor.

It is these receptors that allow a gymnast to feel the pressure of her own body weight pushing down on her, as she swings giants around the high bar.

Simply put, it is these receptors that help make gymnasts GREAT.

Next, we'll cover limb position, and how proprioceptors play a key role in technique adaptation...

Proprioceptors are mechanical receptors that detect muscle contraction and, in turn, react to position the joints and limbs of the body according to its current location in space. In gymnastics, proprioception is key, especially when you are rotating 10 feet up in the air to complete a tumbling pass, or flipping over 360 degrees to complete a vault. Without proprioceptors, a gymnast would not be able to determine where she was in space, inevitably leading to far more time spent on the ground (well, more time than we already do).

Which leads me into my next point--pain! Pain receptors, also called nociceptors, also play a key role in any gymnast's career.  Nociceptors are responsible for signaling to the brain that a particular part (or, as is often the case for gymnasts, parts) of the body is (are) in pain.

Nociceptors are responsible for recognizing an injury before it becomes more serious, as well as the recognition of the pain that follows a potential career ending injury.  Both types of pains differ greatly in their severity, but are generated through the very same nociceptors, acting to keep our bodies safe, day in and day out.
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Laurie Hernandez (Olympic gymnast) working her cutaneous receptors, proprioceptors, and, possibly but unlikely, her nociceptors, out on the beam.

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"Now, Go SIT Over There And Practice Your Beam Routine"

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"Now, Go SIT Over There And Practice Your Beam Routine"

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The amount of gymnastics knowledge and, more generally, life knowledge and athletic knowledge I have accumulated from my gymnastics coaches over the years can only be described as one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. I have learned so much from each and every one of my coaches in the many, many years I have been their gymnast and I feel so grateful to be able to share even one tiny tidbit of all of the advice they have bestowed upon me as part of this assignment.

And that tiny tidbit of advice is mental practice.  Now I know what you're thinking, and before you get too far ahead of yourself, it's not meditating.  Rather, it is the active cognitive or mental rehearsal of a particular or a set of physical skills in the absence of overt physical movements.

Now, there are two types of visual imagery involved in this kind of mental practice, internal and external, but we'll choose to focus on internal for the purpose of this assignment.

Internal visual imagery is the practice of imagining oneself performing and experiencing the sensations associated with the particular skill or set of skills one is looking to practice or perform in the physical environment.

In my personal gymnastics experience
with this particular practice, this was a time when, often before beam, our coach would instruct us to step away from our teammates, find a (relatively) quiet spot to sit, close our eyes, and do leg locks, a drill used to help us practice staying tight.  As we closed our eyes and performed these leg locks, we were told to picture our routine in the exact way in which we wanted it to go, our perfect beam routine.

And though it may sound silly to some, I swear it works.  Even if I didn't make every beam routine following this mental routine (Sorry Kris and Debbie), the simple act of rehearsing the skills I was going to perform in my head was enough to calm me down and help me perform, if not a "perfect" beam routine, at least a quality beam routine, which, in turn, helped me improve upon my skills when I was actually, physically practicing them.

To this day, before I attempt a new skill, I close my eyes and take a second to picture exactly how I want it to be done, exactly how I was taught to do it, and then 1-2-3 GO...
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This is a video from when I was in the beginning stages of learning my front giant into a straddle back... Notice the momentary pause I take on top of the low bar before beginning the skill... Mental Practice...

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Natural Ability - Something Not All Gymnasts Have But Every Gymnast Wants

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Natural Ability - Something Not All Gymnasts Have But Every Gymnast Wants

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An ability is defined as a general trait or capacity an individual contains that serves as a determinant of that particular individual's achievement potential for the performance of a particular type or set of skills.  It does not change with practice (as it is genetically determined) and can be one of the primary limiting factors keeping a GOOD gymnast from becoming a GREAT gymnast.

For those that know a thing or two about gymnastics, a common observation is that every Olympic gymnast, regardless of gender, nationality, etc., is short. Really freaking SHORT. We're talking anywhere between 4'8" and 5'2" - and 5'2" is pushing it! They're all short! And it's not just because the IOC is biased towards short people when it comes to choosing the select few that get to represent our country every four years; no. It's because short people are MADE for the sport of gymnastics. The sport was specifically designed to cater to them, the reason being that being short gives you a natural ability to succeed in this sport.  It just does.  The skills, the equipment, you name it--if you're tall, it's hard to make it to the big leagues, it just is.

That being said, I feel obligated to mention that I am not particularly short (despite what my younger, yet taller, sister is constantly telling me). I am 5'6", average height for a girl. And while there are certainly skills I was unable to accomplish, or even attempt, due to safety reasons, due to my height (the beam just doesn't get any longer!), I was still able to compete as a Level 8 USAG Gymnast (out of 10) and a Level 1 JOGA Gymnast (1 is the highest) for the majority of my life.

So you see, abilities don't keep you from doing what you want to do and doing it well; sometimes they just keep you from achieving the most elite levels of competition.  Not everyone can be an Olympian, after all...
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Below is a picture of my family (Dad, Mom, and Sister on the right) and one of my best friends from gymnastics (Pieces and her Mom on the left) meeting SHAWN JOHNSON! Check out the height difference between our families and this little Olympian!

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Augmented Feedback - AKA Your Coach Yelling At You Across the Gym To "Fix This" or "Squeeze That"

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Augmented Feedback - AKA Your Coach Yelling At You Across the Gym To "Fix This" or "Squeeze That"

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Augmented feedback--otherwise known as constructive criticism!  Defined as information about a person's performance that is meant to supplement sensory (intrinsic) feedback and is provided by a source external to the performer, for instance, a coach or judge.

In gymnastics, the sources of augmented feedback are practically endless.  From your coaches and teammates at practice, to judges at meets, to apps that record and allow you and your coach to analyze your every move, it's safe to say that the amount of augmented feedback being provided in the gymnastics setting is certainly far from lacking.

That being said, these various types of augmented feedback (and by types I mean various sources of augmented feedback) can be further subcategorized into two main groups: knowledge of results and knowledge of performance.

Knowledge of results consists of externally presented information about the outcomes of an attempt to perform the skill. For example, your coach may say "You're twisting too early"  if they were correcting some sort of back twisting tumbling pass on floor.

Knowledge of performance, on the other hand provides information about a particular movement characteristic that led to the performance outcome.  For instance, "You're not setting your hips high enough before beginning your rotation."

Both forms are highly valuable (despite how frustrating they can be at times) and are absolutely essential to the learning process.

However, there is such a thing as too much augmented feedback. If a coach provides feedback following every skill (impossible at a gymnastics practice packed full with 30 kids practicing at, often times, two different events all at once, but that's besides the point) the athlete can become dependent on it, unable to make improvements on their own.

In fact, on multiple occasions, I have found myself in this very same situation. When you're constantly getting hurt, and are limited in what events and skills you can practice, you end up rotating around the events you can do apart from the rest of your teammates. Obviously, this wasn't always the case, but on occasion it was. When I found myself in this situation, I found that I had to rely on video recordings in order to analyze and make adjustments.  I could feel something wasn't quite right, but without being able to see it myself (duh) and no one to provide that augmented feedback I needed, I was at a loss.  In this case, the option to video record myself became both a form of good and bad augmented feedback.  Good because I could see the corrections I needed to make in the video, and not so good because there were times when I used it as a crutch, and struggled to improve without it.
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In this video, two different sources of augmented feedback are displayed: 1) The video recording itself 2) The "Nice Lex" from my Coach Kris, that can be heard in the background.

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Bilateral transfer:  The type of Transfer of Learning that takes place following the learning of the same task just with the contralateral limb.

There are two primary forms of bilateral transfer, asymmetric and symmetric, but we'll choose to focus on asymmetric transfer here.

Asymmetric transfer occurs when a greater amount of bilateral transfer occurs when a person learns a skill using one limb either before or while simultaneously learning the same skill with the contralateral limb.

A primary example of this kind of bilateral transfer and its application to the sport of gymnastics can be seen during the performance of  “basics,” a procedure gymnasts undergo before beginning their workout on the floor exercise.

Often, gymnasts are asked to perform cartwheels with both their dominant (preferred; “good foot”) and non-dominant (non-preferred; “bad foot”) feet as part of warmups before beginning practice or competition on the floor exercise.  Usually, gymnasts are asked to perform cartwheels on their bad foot first, as this usually leads to better cartwheels on their good foot later on.

This improvement in good foot cartwheels following bad foot cartwheel practice is evidence of bilateral transfer taking place.  In other words, it is evidence that the performance of the skill with the non-practiced limb leads to an increase in performance for that particular motor skill, as a result of practicing the skill with the opposite limb.

(Though, I'll have you know, our coaches never explained these benefits of bilateral transfer to us... They just told us to do it!)
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Please enjoy this video of me using my basic/bilateral transfer skills to perform a "no-handed cartwheel" (for all you amateurs out there), otherwise known as an aerial.

Please disregard the little skippidee-doo-da I do out of it... I have bad ankles and was nervous about landing without being taped and braced like I normally am, haha.