Weekly Work 9/27/13

This week to achieve my goal I went to practice everyday. My coach helped me focus on the basic skills of gymnastics like cartwheels, back walkovers, and handstands. I did all of those to make sure that I had correct body positions to do harder skills. I also focused on flexibility and strength. For flexibilty my coach had me do a lot of different drills to increase my shoulder back and leg flexibilty. We did wall spilts, over splits and she at on me when I did splits so my legs could go down farther. As she was pushing me down my leg wa up on a mat that was 2 feet tall. She set a goal for me to have my splits all the way down with my foot up on the 2 foot mat. For the strength part my coach made me condition alot each practice I ran 5 miles . I also did 250 pull ups, 250 chin ups, 50 one arm pull ups on each arm, 50 one arm chin ups on each arm, 500 sit ups and 400 squats. I also did handstands against the wall for 5 minuets. I have been very sore all week but to do harder skills we have to get stronger.

Weekly Work 9/20/13

This week I was at gymnastics Monday through Saturday  for 6 hours each practice. I will had my goal of getting a 9.7 on each even in  my head all week. I also be practiced with my coach one on one 2 hours after practice 3 days this week. During practice I did all my routines and worked on new skills for the competition season. When I stayed after practice  my  coach gave me techniques to make each skill deduction free along with a lot of conditioning so I am getting stronger and the skills become easier. My coach also made me start from basics which means doing simple stuff like back tucks, handstands, back handsprings, cartwheels and round offs so I can make sure that I had the correct body positions and good form to make the harder skills like round off back handspring full twist look better. This week I struggled on floor. During my routine I was off on the music and I ended too late every time. I fixed it by taking out some stuff in routine so I could be with the music and end on time. If you don't end with the music its a deduction. I also struggled with one of my tumbling passes. The first pass I do in routine is round off back handspring full twist front tuck. Every time I did that I would fall on my knees. My coach helped me stick it by making sure when I do the front tuck after the twist my chest is up and I look at the wall so my body isn't leaning forward.

Outside of practice I watched videos of myself from competitions last year and I had to figure out what skills did not look good or the skills I had to work on the next day at practice. I also watched videos of Olympians and I watched all their body positions and how they go about doing each skill. I also watched for how the they did their routine. I looked for smiling and good clean movements on floor, powerful run on vault, body positions on bars, and balance and extension on beam.

I struggled a little bit this week because I wasn't feeling well and I was really exhausted.It was really hard for me to push myself through each 6 hour practice but I ended up doing it. Because I was so tired it effected my skills on beam. I was off balance and I couldn't stick alot of routines. Tuesday I ended having to do 60 of each correction because I fell so many times during my routines.

9.7

    My 20 is to get a 9.7 on all four events during a  gymnastics competition this season. I have been a gymnast for 14 years. I started at 2 years old in a class that was one day a week. I really loved it and  fourteen years later I am training 36 hours a week as a level 9 at Great Lakes Elite Gymnastics.Gymnastics has been my passion since I started at 2 years old. All the hard training is for competitions that happen between the months of November and May every year. At a competition you do your routine in front of 3 judges on each event and they give you a score out of a 10.0. Getting a 10.0 means your routine is perfect and you did nothing wrong and it is very rare that a person receives a perfect score. Each skill you do your legs have to be together and completely straight, your toes have to be pointed, and your arms can not bend. Every time you do one of those things the judges deduct .1 out of 10.0. So if you do one skill and your legs are bent and not together  and toes not pointed your already at a 9.5. I want to get a 9.7 on every event because I work so hard every day and it feels great to know that your hard work has payed off.  I have never gotten a 9.7 on all four events at one competition but I have gotten multiple 9.8's but not more than one in a single competition.