The Physiological Demands Of Women 's Competitive Gymnastics Routines

According to Chris Mallac, the Sports Injury Doctor, gymnasts suffer many growth problems. This includes back problems. One problem includes Scheuermann's disease. One is diagnosed with this disease when the front portion of their back does not develop. In fact, gymnasts are commonly diagnosed because of the repetitive flexing and arching of the back. This disease leads to hunchback. Specifically, the spine starts to wedge out. Scheuermann's disease can take gymnasts out of the sport for periods of time to let their spine grow and function properly. Gymnasts are also commonly diagnosed with premature osteoporosis. This is when the bones weaken, leading to bone loss and severe back pain. These problems are caused because the back never has time

trained athletes will have a lower heart rate during this period of exercise. Recovery heart rates –

Gymnastics is the world’s hardest sport. As a child, I was naturally drawn to it. My mother noticed that I would jump and climb all over the place. She enrolled me in toddler classes at 18 months, which ended when I was three years old. At the age of five, after begging my mother, I returned to gymnastics. I still love participating in the sport as a high school senior.

VO2max can be defined as the maximum oxygen uptake. This entails the maximum rate at which oxygen is readily available in the body to be taken up and used during aerobic exercise. (Fletcher et al.) It is a very important and commonly used indicator of a person or athletes level of cardiovascular fitness. A high VO2max demonstrates a high level of aerobic fitness, where as a low VO2max indicates a low rate of aerobic fitness. There are two factors that are important in determining a persons VO2max, which are the hearts ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles and the muscles ability to extract the oxygen from the blood and use it (Brown, Miller and Eason). This means that when a person has a high VO2max their body is able to deliver oxygen through the blood efficiently to the muscles in order to maintain high levels of aerobic exercise over an extended period of time. VO2max is a valued measurement of cardiovascular fitness in the Sport industry due to its ability to indicate cardiovascular fitness, as well as the pulmonary and muscular systems efficiency throughout the duration of the exercise (Brown, Miller and Eason). There are multiple tests that can measure VO2max

As a second grade girl it seemed like a right of passage to join a gymnastics class. I was so excited to be alongside my friends and I felt like gymnastics was the thing for me. I went to class every week total ignorant to the fact that I was skyrocketing over everyone else in my class at Rita’s Gymnasium. Awkward, lanky, and clusty, are all awful characteristics of someone aiming to be on the US Olympic Gymnastics team. The coaches paid absolutely no mind to me and focused on the girls that seemed to be rapidly advancing in their skills, but I just couldn’t get the hang of anything. I put in the effort and then some because I thought that was what being great would take, but sometimes we are just at a disposition in life

Also early preparation for gymnastics is one of the most important aspects. From personally knowing older gymnasts who started at ages three to five I know that this early intense training affects them immensely, both physically and mentally. ‘Recreational coaches have stated that a the age of three children should not be training or competing competitively.’ However elite Coaches believe that beginning to learn and over stretch children will assist with their gymnasts in later in their career, however this is not the case after this career is over. ‘The current methods for teaching gymnasts are extremely demanding at advanced levels, require that children give up many areas of their lives. This can have extremely negative effects on developing children.’ ‘Girls in gymnastics are especially vulnerable to delayed puberty. Menstrual cycles are often delayed and or stopped for an extended amount of time. Both girls and boys are susceptible to stunted growth due to over training and excessive dieting and the extreme stress that is associated with gymnastics.’ A gymnast’s career is usually from childhood to possibly early adult hood ages four to twenty seven. After this time many gymnasts begin to break down either physically or mentally. Their bodies cannot handle the pressure and they no longer have the power or strength to do the hard skills. Starting gymnasts at such a young age is mostly to get the most of their time and effort into gymnasts before they ‘burn out’. Its not necessarily the gymnastics that is disadvantaging the gymnasts it’s the amount of strenuous hours and injuries that occur during the trainings. ‘Some retired gymnasts had to retire at a very young age because or joint injuries. The intensity that they had to train at was extreme, and it was stated that it was hard to train when their joints could not

Cashmoore (2002) has described anxiety as ‘an unpleasant emotion, which is characterised by vague but persistent feelings of apprehension and dread’ (Cashmoore, 2002). There are many different types of anxiety including state, trait, somatic and cognitive (Moran, 2004, pp. 72-75). State anxiety has been defined as ‘subjective, consciously perceived feelings of tension and apprehension’ (Spielberger, 1966, p. 17), whereas trait anxiety is an acquired behavioral tendency (Spielberger, 1966). Somatic anxiety relates to the physiological manifestations of anxiety, in sport symptoms include: increased heart rate, rapid shallow breathing and increased perspiration (Davis, Hutchings, & Morris, 1981, p. 541). ‘Cognitive anxiety however is characterised by negative thoughts and worries’ (Moran, 2004, p. 73).

Even though extensive training can sometimes cause an athlete to reach a plateau in VO2 Max, he can still use his VO2 Max test results to make further improvements in performance. This is accomplished as he pushes to increase anaerobic threshold and maintain that threshold for longer periods of time. This enhances both endurance and cardiovascular performance. To summarize, a VO2max value will determine the size of an athlete’s “engine”. Once an endurance athlete has his/her VO2max value, they can then determine their current functional capacity and gauge their future progress. The athlete can also use their VO2max value to determine the right heart rate training zones that will enable their body to not only use the right amount and kinds of fuels but to maximize performance and minimize injury and fatigue. This is primarily due in part to VO2 and Heart Rate having a linear relationship until the athlete reaches their

Gymnasts are known to be strong and have good coordination. I was a gymnast for eight years, and never once had gotten injured, or even gotten hurt the slightest inside the gym. Although outside the gym, that wasn’t the case. My coaches had always told my teammates and me to be careful outside the gym because that’s where we would get hurt the most. Boy were they right. That is why I have come to the conclusion and stand by the statement of, things aren’t always what they seem.

The more oxygen consumed, the more carbon dioxide is produced and exhaled into the Douglas bag for collection. Several studies have confirmed that VO2 levels increases during moderate intensity exercise (James and Doust, 1999). For example, one study examined individuals after a running exercise and found an increase in VO2 levels (James and Doust, 1999). Some studies also confirmed that an increase in VO2 levels can also be seen in high intensity activities as well (James and Doust, 1999). Studies in the past did not necessarily follow the exact procedure as this lab or made use of the same gadgets, for there are different kinds of computerized systems designed for the same purpose of measuring gas exchange during exercise. However, one study compared VO2 results using 2 methods; a more modernized gas exchange system and the Douglas Bag Method, results for the measurements of oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production were quite close (Bassett et al, 2001). Though the Douglas Bag Method can be somewhat inaccurate for the reason that not all expired air is later evacuated from the bag, there will always be some air containing O2 and CO2 left in the bag which might have an effect on the VO2 results of the next trial. (Hopker et al, 2012). The objective of this lab is to determine the values involved in the gas exchange during exercise using a computerized system similar to that

Certain personality traits make some individuals less likely to perceive situations and events as stressful or may predispose one to be less susceptible to the effects of the stressors (Petrie, 1993). Two such personality traits are trait anxiety (Petrie, 1993) and low self-confidence (Kolt & Roberts, 1998; Johnson, 2006). Lavallee and Flint (1996) found that there were positive relationships between high competitive anxiety and injury. Additional personality factors that have been found to link to injury susceptibility are hardiness, locus of control, sense of coherence, competitive trait anxiety, achievement motivation and sensation seeking (Williams & Andersen, 1998). Locus of control is related to an athlete’s perceived control over the outcome of any given situation. There are two different loci of control, internal locus and external locus. Someone with high internal locus of control would recognize that the outcome is within their control. Pargman and Lunt (1989) found in their study that the risk of being injured had a positive relationship with external locus of control. In another study Kolt and Kirkby (1996) discovered that a high internal locus of control was correlated with a high number of injuries among elite gymnasts. There are also studies that claim that mood states could be related to injury occurrence. Williams, Hogan and Andersen (1993) stressed that athletes

The purpose of this experiment was to ascertain the effect of intense exercise on heart rate. Heart rate is the number of times the heart contracts in one minute, meaning that an increase in heart rate will allow the heart to pump more blood to the tissues that require the oxygen carried by the blood. Heart rate can be measured by placing the fingers on either the carotid artery in the neck or the radial artery in the wrist. A resting heart rate below sixty beats per minute is lower than normal, and one above one hundred beats per minute is higher than normal. A high resting heart rate can indicate that the heart is not healthy and strong and requires more contractions to move the same amount of blood as a normal heart would with less effort (Bargar). Heart rate can be affected by a variety of factors; exercise, anxiety, and strong emotions usually increase heart rate, and sleeping generally causes heart rate to decline. This

As predicted, female athletes also demonstrated similar alveolar ventilation level as non-athlete ones. The differences between stroke volume and Pco2 rate in both groups were not found to be significant and thus rejected our hypothesis. It was determined that endurance and performance was greatly affected by both the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system, however, the differences in Pco2 and stroke volume were not significant between the female athletes and non-athletes.

Bessot et al. (2011) aimed to distinguish the effect of time of day on peak power during an exercise test and maximal aerobic power when the subject exercised at their maximal oxygen uptake. Researchers instructed fifteen male competitive endurance cyclists to perform a maximal incremental exercise test at 6:00 and 18:00. The work rate was increased by 30 W per minute until the respiratory exchange ratio reached 1.00 and then in steps of 15 W per minute until exhaustion occurred. Results of this study concluded that there were no significant differences in maximal oxygen uptake and maximal heart rate or biomechanical variables, such as maximal aerobic power and peak

Gymnastics has drastically changed since the time it began in ancient Greece. Looking back at it, nearly nothing is the same. It has gradually been modified into the sport that it is today. Whether it’s small changes like a switching the compulsory music to a different piece of music, or big changes like switching the number people who will go to the Olympics that year, there is constantly something different going on in the world of gymnastics. Gymnastics is also always getting harder than it was the previous year. While this makes it much more competitive and entertaining, it also becomes much more dangerous. So this constantly changing sport has both its advantages and its disadvantages.