Prepare for the meet!

You got to warm this stuff up!

Any gymnast can tell you that warming up at a meet is drastically different than in practice. Especially on beam and bar, you have to be ready for it.

At a meet, you get to warm up on the apparatus for a time proportional to your team. In level 7, each gymnast gets 90 seconds. You add up the total amount of gymnast in a team, and that team gets to warm up for that long. This year, my team gets 4 1/2 minutes to warm up.

Because you get a limited amount of time, a lot of the drills that we would regularly do, can't be done. On floor, we usually warm up round-offs and back handspring drills. At a meet, you can't do all of that.

Most of us are ok with the shorter floor prep, but it's more of an issue on beam. I got my back handspring on the beam about a week before my first meet. So I had to get ready for the warm ups pretty fast. For difficult and scary skills, like back handsprings, we usually start on a low beam and work our way up. We like to use the low beam first to build confidence. If we can get our hands on a low beam, we can get them on the high beam. Unfortunately, most meets don't have a low beam to practice on, so you have to be ready to go from  the floor to the high beam. I remember this before our routines. I stopped doing back handsprings on the low beam, because I know that I won't get to at the meet. If I can't do a back handspring right away at my home gym, in my own territory, I probably will freak out at the meet.

Most of us like to warm these up on a low beam first.

On bar, you have to be consistent. Today, I got to warm up a couple of cast to handstands before I did the giant. I don't get to do that at the meet. You have to be able to do your skills right away, without the warm up. It's pretty important to be ready for that.

Superstitions!

I'm a little superstitious when it comes to gymnastics. Not like wear my lucky leotard or anything, but I have some rituals I have to go through.

I'm the most superstitious on bar. And not until I started working on giants. Here's my list of rituals!

1. I MUST chalk up before every giant. My coach Samir asked us to stop chalking up as much because it took so much time. So I took a turn without getting more chalk and flew off the bar! Since then, I chalk up fast but before every giant.

2. I wear elastics around my grips. I don't know how effective it is, but, heaven forbid, if I don't wear any, I'm afraid my grip's velcro will come off!

3. I started doing this new drill two days before I made my giant. So now I'm convinced it helps a ton.

On beam!

1. I ABSOLUTETLY, WITH NO EXCEPTIONS, eat yogurt before competing beam. I've even had my Mom go to the store on the way to the meet for yogurt. At my old gym, our coach thought it helped beam (I have no idea why). But I ate it before beam then, and it feels wrong not to now.

2. I get chalk on my hands before doing back handsprings. It started when my hands slipped when I didn't have chalk. (of course it couldn't have anything to do with incorrect hand positioning I did back then. Chalk, it must be the chalk!) It wouldn't surprise me if I used almost as much chalk on beam as I do on bars. :$)

Do you have any rituals before competitions or hard skills? If so, comment below!

I Made the Giant!

Definitely. Those days when I only stopped because Samir (my coach) didn't want a bloodstained bar. Those days when I kept going even though I was sore. And tons and tons of chalk. All for the giant. 

I was SO close yesterday. The cast was there. Samir and I decided that's better to do a giant with bent legs than none at all. So I had that going for me. I thought I was going to make it. But just as I was coming over the top of the bar, I came down the wrong way. Samir promised me we would go to bar first thing tomorrow.

My hands were sore from yesterday's efforts, my hips were bruised, too, from all of the casts. I didn't want to waste time with the low bar. I wanted to make that Giant. I jumped to the high bar, the cast was nonexistent. Was today going to be one of those days? I tried again. A better cast but not enough power to make it around. Samir left and walked over to help some girls with vault.

"I can do it. Just go, it's not like he's doing anything standing there. I mean come on, you'll just come up short and twist off of the bar like always. But what If I make it over? That's unlikely. I'll go for it"

I jumped up on the low bar, preparing myself mentally for the task ahead. I jumped, swung out far, and casted high. "Yes, that should do nicely." I bent my legs to help give me more power, the way I've been taught. I hate bending my knees during giants, but I'll do what it takes. I came over the bar. I heard some of my teammates cheering. I squealed a little, both out of fear and excitement. I had conquered the giant and that wasn't a fluke - I made several more afterwards.

After It was clear I was consistent in making them,

my teammate Kiera videotaped my giant.

Ugh! I did SO much better in practice!

Last week, at my meet, I messed up my bar. I didn't make my giant, totally goofed up my free hip at the meet and my cast was nonexistent compared to some of the ones I was doing at practice. I have done way better in practice and might have made it to state if I had done as well as I could on bar.

                                


Usually, a bad performance at a meet is attributed to nervousness. I have another theory.
I'm far from consistent in my giants and during warmups I tried to get as many turns as possible. As my coach said. "It's not a workout, Theresa!" As a result of my strenuous practice, I was tired and my arms were slightly sore when the time came to compete.

I think it's possible that when gymnasts really push themselves in a meet warmup they get tired for the real deal. Nervousness may have something to do with it, but I think worst then usual performances might happen because of overly intense warmups. I know that, in practice, my third floor routine is my worst, because after two routines, I'm pooped. The same effect could happen after a hard warmup.
Do you agree? Have you ever been tired before a routine and it affected
your performance?
~The Gymnast.

Ties! How are They Resolved?

I was at my meet last week, and one of my teammates and I tied for first place all around. We wondered, how do they resolve a tie? Some meets announce a tie at the awards, but not how they resolve it. So I looked it up!
The USA System for levels 5-9: 
 Add the two highest execution scores to break the tie. If there is still a tie, then the highest single judge’s score is used to break the tie. If there is only one judge, then there is no tie-breaker.

Although some meets allow two gymnasts to place the same, most don't. I was at one where they gave one of the girls who tied a rose and mailed her a trophy or medal later. Most meets use this system and one girl places higher than the other based on their two highest scores. 

Team Awards
Northwest ~ 2nd Place

You might remember at the 2012 olympics, there was a tie. Aliya Mustafina tied with Aly Raisman for third all around. Now the tie breaking system I was talking about applies only to levels 5-9 in the USA gymnastics system. This tie was at the olympics, so we used the FIG, the federation of international gymnastics, system. What happened was that they took the three highest scores and combined them. Whoever has the highest combined total wins. Aliya Mustafina had a low beam score but higher scores on the three other events.  Aly Raisman, on the other hand, had more consistent scores. In the end, Mustafina won third.

Aliya Mustafina ~ Third Place AA

Aly Raisman ~ Fourth Place AA

~The Gymnast