Pole Bending Phase

Set a 12 to 24-inch box or step securely on the ground in front of you. Swing your arms behind you as you place your body in a short squat position. Jump focusing the momentum through your ankles, knees and hips to propel yourself onto the platform. Make sure you land with your knees bent to help absorb some of the shock and then step down off the box one leg at a time before repeating.

Did you ever wonder how to successfully complete the three events of a powerlifting competition? The three events of each competition are the squat, followed by the bench, and finally the deadlift. About five years ago, I wanted to compete in powerlifting but did not fully understand the requirements of each type of lift. However, now after competing numerous times, I have a great understanding on how to successfully complete these three lifts. Powerlifting is a complex and challenging sport, but when dedicated, it is very rewarding and exciting.

Before your name gets called out, try listening to some pump up music. You can find hundreds of playlists on YouTube or iTunes. Once your name is called, judges give you 70 seconds to get under the bar and lift the weight. Once under the bar, get your knees parallel to your shoulders and lift the weight up. Once in full control of the weight, look the judge in the eye, he will then raise his hand in the air and yell squat! When you squat, you want to make sure you get your butt parallel to your knees. Once you think your low enough stand back up. Finally, the judge will tell you to rack the bar, in which you must take 2 steps forward to do. Once racked, the judges will decide if it’s a good lift or

This is what I’ve been waiting for, I think as I cheer along with the rest of my team onto the mat. There’s nothing like the adrenaline rush you get running out onto the nine-paneled mat, knowing you are about to perform in front of hundreds of people. In the few seconds before the music starts, it feels like the entire world stops and holds its breath. The music begins, and everyone springs into action. Everyone knows their formations, stunts, jumps, and dances like the back of their hand. After a superb opening, I move into the first stunt. As a base, I know the importance of keeping your flyer safe and stable during a stunt. I also know that the success of the stunt depends on how willing I am to work together with my fellow base, back-spot, and front spot. Full-up, split, sponge, half-up! Torch, heel stretch, scorpion, scale! Clean, cupie, dip, twist cradle! All stunts hit stupendously, and I move to the next formation: jumps. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, I repeat the counts in my head. The music dings in time with each jump hit. Clap, up, swing, pike! Swing, toe touch! Swing, toe touch! Swing, right-front hurdler! Each person transitions to a different position on the mat; the second jump sequence is about to begin. Clap, up, swing, toe touch! Back handspring, back handspring! Turn, back handspring, back handspring! Perfect! I move onto the pyramid. The four stunts form a line and load into their stunts. We push to extension and the flyers connect arms in what is known as a paperdoll. The outer sides flip to dismount. The inners do a half-twist

In phase one, the approach, the athlete takes 2 to 3 large steps from the starting position, to build up momentum, and places themselves a few feet from the net which helps the athlete to get in a squat position in preparation for phase 2. Phase 2 starts with the athletes' spine slightly extended. This is followed by the spiker lowering themselves into a partial squatting position. The squat consists of hip and knee flexion, and dorsiflexion of the feet. Once in an optimal position, the athlete explodes upwards from the squat position by switching from flexion to extension of the knees and hips. Once the spiker is airborne, phase 2 is completed.

The first two skills I had to acquire were a cartwheel and a handstand. These skills required upper body strength which I lacked. I worked on push-ups, inch-worms and bridge push-ups to build my upper body muscular strength. Similar to my custom of asking for help from my school teachers, I pleaded with other gymnasts to help me develop my skills. After a month of unremitting exercising, I achieved my first skills as a gymnast: a cartwheel and a handstand. Although first level skills, I was proud of my accomplishment. My principle of implementing hard work and commitment to achieve anything I set my mind towards once again proved successful. The next skills I need to acquire are the front walk-over and the back walk-over. I eagerly look forward to that momentous day when I advance further in my

“Gymnastics is a modern sport that develops and displays physical agility and coordination.” Flexibility and balance are the center of gymnastics, it makes up most of this sport. Gymnasts are always trying to figure out how to become more flexible and make their movements smoother. With flexibility, gymnasts are able to achieve very specific positions. An experiment was done a few years ago, highly experienced gymnasts participated in certain exercises to see if their flexibility in split leaps would increase. This experiment lasted for about one month.

Starting blocks really help because runners have a push off of something. Before the running blocks, athletes would just have to stand straight up and start without having an extra push. Starting blocks have not only helped me but many others as well. By using starting blocks, it has helped athletes decreases their time and become a lot faster(“ISPORT”). In the 1950’s, a fiberglass pole was just starting to be used for an event called the pole vault. Pole vault is similar to the high jump. Pole vault is when an athlete takes a pole and runs with it, sticks the pole in the ground, and there is a bar way up in the air and you use the pole to try and thrust your way over the bar. The pole vault is a very complicated event and takes a lot of practice(“ISPORT”).

Upon landing a vertical jump, the athlete exerts a force on the ground and as a result, experiences vertical

I venture up to my starting mark-palms sweating, heart pounding. Three deep breaths followed by a few warm up tuck jumps. Following my routine warmup, I begin the highly technical ten-step approach to ensure the correct take-off position. From here I let my pliable body take over to be able to arch my back over a bar.

Figure 1 and Figure 2 are action shots of the athlete doing the set activity. The first image according to Carr (1936:152) [is the] Preparatory Movements and mental set up [stage, this is] the motions and mental processes that your athlete goes through when setting up and getting ready to perform. Through each of the stages, which are correctly stated in the appendices, they show that the athlete attacks the ball at a slant to give themselves power and speed to get accuracy for the shot. On your last stride, you want your non-kicking foot to be "planted" right next to the ball. As soon as your non-kicking foot hits the ground, your kicking leg should bend at the knee so that you heel almost touches your behind. (Phyre, 2009). Here is a brief description of how the athlete should be striking the ball. From the screenshots that are provided, the athlete runs up to the ball and they do plant their leg to the side of the ball and use their right leg to extend backwards at a 109° angle. According to Brancazio(1985:403) the ‘kicker dilemma’ is that he must chose a laughing angle, somewhere between extremes of 45° and 90°. This is an improvement for the athlete as their angle reached 109° so therefore the athlete should be aware how to improve this because it could save them an injury. Hip flexion is the primary hip movement in straight ahead kicks because the player swings his leg straight back while

The first three events which are the floor, bars, and vault were a success and I was satisfied with my scores. However, I still needed to perform my last event, which is the beam. In order to

The judge raises her hand, a sign for me to begin my beam routine. Beam. A four-inch piece of wood that they expect us to jump, twist, and flip on while never losing our balance. It seems illogical, but girls everywhere risk their lives performing these acrobatic skills just to place first at every competition. And I am one of them. As I approach my greatest opponent, never having conquered it at all in the season, I remember all the hours of practicing I had to prepare for this moment—the national competition. Although the arena fills with cheers, the strength of my concentration zones it out only to hear the thumping of my racing heart. After successfully performing my mount, my hands moisten with sweat and anxiety. My focus is impenetrable, but each skill stuck brings an unstable wobble along with it; my hope and confidence begin to fall. Almost to the end of my routine, I can finally breathe again, but my most faltering skill is there to ruin my performance. Thinking back to all my practices of sticking my beam routine, I remember my coach’s words of wisdom frequently spoken around the gym: fear is the only thing in your way of achieving success. Winding up for my back handspring series, I regain my confidence knowing that my

The athletes were asked to step off the bench and land in a squat on the mat beneath. After repeating this several times, we moved onto standing squat jumps. The idea here was to work on the concentric muscle contraction, rather than the eccentric contraction of the depth jumps. After repeating for 3 sets of 10, I put both movements together so it became, step-squat-jump, to help develop a strong stretch-shortening cycle. Finally, I moved into two-footed forward jumps with each jump being around 1m long. By gradually increasing the complexity of the exercises I carefully monitored the movements of the athletes and was constantly assessing their technique before advancing to the next

The approach includes the steps before the foot plant. This article found that the greater distance the step is up to 1.6m the more powerful the kick will be. The biomechanical purpose of this phase is to generate power by increasing momentum. The contact phase occurs after the opposite foot has been planted and is the “beginning the forward motion of the kicking leg onto the impact on the ball” (What… 2014). During this phase the flexion of the knee in the kicking leg increases to cause an overall deceleration of the player but an increase in acceleration of the kicking leg to generate more velocity. The follow through phase is where contact is made and the kicking leg comes closer to the elbow on the same side of the body as the kicking leg. The leg essentially completes the path it began in the forward swing of the kick. The article goes on to mention the main biomechanical principles that influence a player’s ability to achieve maximum velocity. They are the angular velocity of the lower limbs, coefficient of restitution, and ground reaction force.