Tips in Safety in Gymnastics by isshmen

With the current interest in safety in the United States, the safe conduct of a sport like gymnastics is essential to its very existence. It is a basic assumption that gymnastics can be conducted safely. To make safety a reality students and teachers alike must be alert. Teachers must explain hazardous qualities of every stunt, and students must take their role as spotters (helpers) seriously.

Every participant can have fun, but no participant should ever fail to carry out his responsibilities as a spotter. Likewise, if a student does not fully understand his spotting assignment, or has not been taught the spot in question, he should inform his instructor promptly so that no unnecessary hazard need be overcome by his buddy.

If a student discovers a potentially hazardous situation relative to the condition of apparatus or other equipment, he should be encouraged to report the condition promptly. The class should recognize that some risk is inherent in any activity, but that needless risk is foolhardy. Needless risks should never be tolerated. The activity is by nature daring, and as such, even under ideal conditions, will test the mettle of any male.

Selection of Apparatus

The selection of apparatus and equipment for gymnastics activities is a very complex undertaking. It is perhaps sufficient to say that quality gymnastics apparatus must be considered a long-term investment. All effort and attention should be directed toward obtaining the best quality material and workmanship. There is no real need to seek a bargain in this area, because the equipment will still be in use 25, 35, even 50 years after the original purchase - if quality materials are selected initially, and effort made to maintain the apparatus.

Care and Repair of Apparatus

There are numerous reasons why equipment should be cared for and maintained in top condition. The foremost reason, of course, is that students would be needlessly injured if allowed to work on faulty equipment. This same consideration might become a financial one if needless injury occurred and a lawsuit developed.

The other chief consideration is that it is financially much more prudent to maintain any sort of equipment in top repair than it is to allow it to depreciate. For instructional purposes, equipment should always be in good repair. In general, it is an excellent policy for the instructor to examine all equipment at least once each week, and for maintenance or engineering personnel to examine the structural aspect of the equipment once each year. Any needed repairs should be made promptly.

Use of Mats for Protection

Mats are much less costly than doctor bills or the inconvenience of injury to students. Sufficient mats should be available to place under the apparatus being used and around the area if dismounts are likely. Wherever possible, the mats should be cut to fit the apparatus and protect the student from making contact with the apparatus itself, in the event of a miscalculation when dismounting.

The Use of Mats for Spotting

Ropes and web belting materials are frequently interlaced beneath mats which are held by six students to provide a pliable landing surface for the student who is attempting a difficult or dangerous stunt, such as the front somersault. Under these circumstances, the mat is usually held about waist high and allowed to descend to approximately six inches above the floor upon contact of the participant.

Protecting the Hands

It is recommended that beginners be introduced to the use of palm protectors early because often the condition of the hands limits the workout period. It seems that boys who work as beginners without protection find it difficult to utilize palm protectors when they become competitors. With particular reference to the horizontal bar, use fine memory cloth to keep the bar free of caked chalk. Always provide plenty of hand chalk, and insist that it be used to keep the hands dry.

Take these few safety precautions and all your gymnasts will be much less likely to be injured.

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A Brief History of Gymnastics by Dragomir Vasile

Gymnastics is a graceful and artistic sport that requires a combination of strength, balance, agility, and muscle coordination, usually performed on specialized apparatus. Gymnasts perform sequences of movements requiring flexibility, endurance, and kinesthetic awareness, such as handsprings, handstands, split leaps, aerials and cartwheels.

Gymnastics as we know it dates back to ancient Greece. The early Greeks practiced gymnastics to prepare for war. Activities like jumping, running, discus throwing, wrestling, and boxing helped develop the muscles needed for hand-to-hand combat. Additional fitness practices used by the ancient Greeks included methods for mounting and dismounting a horses and a variety of circus performance skills.

Gymnastics became a central component of ancient Greek education and was mandatory for all students. Gymnasia, buildings with open-air courts where the training took place, evolved into schools where gymnastics, rhetoric, music, and mathematics were taught. The ancinet Olympic Games were born near this time.

As the Roman Empire ascended, Greek gymnastics for was more or less turned into military training. In 393 AD the Emperor Theodosius abolished the Olympic Games completely. The games had become corrupt, and gymnastics, along with other sports declined. For centuries, gymnastics was all but forgotten.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries two pioneer physical educators, Johann Friedrich GutsMuth and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn created exercises for boys and young men on sseveral apparatus they had designed. This innovation ultimately led to what is considered modern gymnastics. As a result, Friedrich Jahn became known as the "father of gymnastics". Jahn introduced the horizontal bar, parallel bars, side horse with pommels, balance beam, ladder, and vaulting horse.

In the early nineteenth century, educators in the United States followed suit and adopted German and Swedish gymnastics training programs. By the early twentieth century, the armed services began publishing drill manuals featuring all manner of gymnastic exercises. According to the US Army Manual of Physical Drill, these important drills provided proper instruction for the bodies of active young men.

As time went by, however, military activity moved away from hand-to-hand combat and toward fighter planes and contemporary computer-controlled weapons. As a result of the development of modern warfare, gymnastics training as the mind and body connection, so important for the Greek, German, and Swedish educational traditions, began to lose force. Gymnastics once again took on the aura of being a competitive sport.

By the end of the nineteenth century, men's gymnastics was popular enough to be included in the first modern Olympic Games held in 1896. The sport was a little different from what we currently know as gymnastics however. Up until the early 1950s, both national and international competitions involved a changing variety of exercises the modern gymnast may find a bit odd such as synchronized team floor calisthenics, rope climbing, high jumping, running, and horizontal ladder just to name a few.

Women first started to participate in gymnastics events in the 1920s and the first women's Olympic competition was held in the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, although the only event was synchronized calisthenics. Combined exercises for women were first held in 1928, and the 1952 Olympics featured the first full regime of events for women.

By the 1954 Olympic Games apparatus and events for both men and women had been standardized in modern format, and scoring standards, including a point system from 1 to 10, were implemented. Modern Men's gymnastics events are scored on an individual and team basis, and presently include the floor exercise, horizontal bar, parallel bars, rings, pommel horse, vaulting, and the all-around, which combines the scores of the other six events.

Women's gymnastic events include balance beam, uneven parallel bars, combined exercises, floor exercises, vaulting, and rhythmic sportive gymnastics.

Until 1972, gymnastics for men emphasized power and strength, while women performed routines focused on grace of movement. That year, however, a 17-year-old Soviet gymnast named Olga Korbut captivated a television audience with her innovative and explosive routines.

Nadia Comaneci received the first perfect score, at the 1976 Olympic Games held in Montreal, Canada. She was coached by the famous Romanian, Bela Karolyi. Comaneci scored four of her perfect tens on the uneven bars, two on the balance beam and one in the floor exercise. Nadia will always be remembered as "a fourteen year old, ponytailed little girl" who showed the world that perfection could be achieved.

Mary Lou Retton became America's sweethart with her two perfect scores and her gold medal in the All-Around competition in front of the home crowd in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

These days gymnastics is a household name and many children participate in gymnastics at one time or another as they grow up. Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, and Mary Lou Retton, along with all those gymnasts since, have helped popularize women's competitive gymnastics, making it one of the most watched Olympic events. Both men's and women's gymnastics now attract considerable international interest, and excellent gymnasts can be found on every continent.

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Basic Facts About Tumbling Mats by Lynn Taylor

Once you start looking you realize tumbling mats come in a lot of different shapes and sizes and depending upon what you are going to use them for will help determine the thickness and the style and the length that you want. If you seen any of the high level gymnast doing their tumbling routine it's quite amazing and you can see why they need the mats for protection as well as the spring and jump ability that they offer to the high level athletes. American Gymnast is one of the top names when it comes to the standard tumbling mat for gymnast but anyone who is in martial arts cheerleading or general exercising no about American Gymnast.

The amount of softness and the shock absorbing is always important, and if you are using the mats for some more lightweight exercise or just general physical education then you may not require the more heavy duty mats that are offered to the high-end tumbling gymnast. You can get a lightweight mat that fold into 2 foot stacks for transportation and storage to any off-site activities. Most mats come with Velcro fasteners on the ends to help with the carrying and storage.

Just like most other products you can get different colors that include the brightly colored Rainbow Mat. This popular style of mats is used for tumbling, exercise programs, stretching, for yoga and the martial arts. Most of these models come with a vinyl finish that is resistant to water, rot, and mildew. All the mats are required to be flame retardant that meet at predetermined standard and usually can come clean with just a little bit of mild soap and water.

Another big name in tumbling mats is Alex Toys. They promote a lot of mats for the youngsters and is considered pretty safe for children. Their mats are considered great for indoor or outdoor use and are encouraged to be used in a cooperative group play that helps to build muscles and helps to teach kids to socialize with others. Most of their mats are very lightweight and easy to store and some parents have been known to use them for baby yoga, which seems to be catching on for people who want to get the children started early on maintaining a good physical health.

Having a tumbling mat that covers a hardwood floor or even a rug is a great way for adults or children to get in some physical activity and if you are exercising at home while watching TV or video of your favorite workout guru they offer nice protection for your body from the exercising.

10ft Trampolines-Ideal For The Young Ones by Paul Garnett

The 10ft trampoline is ideal for children up to the age of 6 years. Not only do they give the child a lot of fun, they also assist in the teachings of balance and co-ordination as well as providing soft exercise that is not strenuous on joints such as the knees. When you have you child at home how often do you catch him or her jumping up and down on your couch or bed? Quite a few times I would say. That is because the child has a lot of expendable energy and jumping up and down with the bounce factor is a lot of fun for the child.

So it's not such a bad idea to protect your expensive household furniture and buy a trampoline for your child to play with. The size of the 10ft trampoline is ideal for any small yard and can give years of use. Now the thing is there is a safety element with the trampoline. You don't want your child over jumping the trampoline and flying through the air to land on the hard ground and maybe doing some serious damage. So when you buy your 10ft trampoline buy one with a mesh enclosure included or if your desired trampoline does not have an enclosure then buy one separately. This mesh enclosure envelopes the trampoline preventing the child from over jumping.

Other safety measures you can also consider are additional foam mats to surround the trampoline on the ground and also a small ladder to enable to the child to easily mount or demount the trampoline. With these extra safety measures and of course yourself on hand for any unforeseeable occurrences the trampoline experience should be a lot of fun and very safe.

Pacific Edge Climbing Gym: The Best Indoor Rock Climbing Gym by Jeremy S. Abrahamson

Pacific Edge Climbing Gym is situated on Santa Cruz's east side and very close to Seabright Avenue and in fact, it has the honor of being the tallest of all indoor climbing gyms in the entire West Coast. It offers good services to all types of rock climbers - from the beginner to the expert and for beginners there is special training as well as personal assistance provided. For the expert, the opportunities to climb indoors are virtually limitless and thus they can climb for as long as they have the strength to climb one more step up the climbing wall.

A Premier Facility

Pacific Edge Climbing Gym is certainly a premier facility that provides alternate health club service to its members and among the services that are provided is rock climbing and yoga as well as mats Pilates and a lot more as well. As far as rock climbing goes, Pacific Edge Climbing Gym offers balance and flexibility as well as strength training and its main focus is to give its members the best in physical as well as mental workouts.

To be sure, there is no better indoor rock climbing facility than the Pacific Edge Climbing Gym which boasts of as many as it is believed fourteen thousand square feet of the very best in climbing terrain and the height of the climbing wall is all of fifty feet and in addition there is also a huge lead cave. Whether you are interested in bouldering or classic crack climbs, Pacific Edge Climbing Gym has the facilities for you and in addition, there is also the very best in cardio and weight training facilities as well as saunas and showers available as well.

If you need to buy climbing equipment, and then the Pacific Edge Climbing Gym also has a fully stocked Pro-shop where you can buy shoes, ropes, harnesses as well as guide books for the state of California. The climbing terrain is world class and the atmosphere is both relaxed as well as supportive, and there is even a beach just a few blocks away.

In fact, the building that currently houses Pacific Edge Climbing Gym was at one time a fish cannery and so, you will find that there are cavernous spaces that help to create an ideal indoor mountain and once you have had your fill of going up the climbing wall, you can then take a short walk to the Seabright Brewery and enjoy a pint of local brew. All in all, the Pacific Edge Climbing Gym provides a complete rock climbing experience and is certainly worth visiting.

PROGRAM INSTANT CALORIE BURN by Made

How to quickly get rid of fat covering your body muscles bulge Owner initiated routine Indianapolis Fitness and Sport Training, Mike Robertson, will force half of the muscles in your body works. This will provide an opportunity these muscles recover while you train the other half of the muscle. Not hard to do. Simply do the exercises shown in the guide below, one-minute rest between each movement, and repeat again until you reach 15 minutes duration exercise. 1. Lunge. Stand up straight, holding dumbbell on the outside of your body. Make sure your palms facing into. Contract your abdominal muscles as you step forward with your right leg. Use the heel first time right foot landed on the floor. Lower your left knee almost touching the floor. Return to starting position by using the energy from the heel push. Perform 8-12 reps for each leg.

2. Dumbbell Row. Grasp the dumbbell in your right hand. Put your left hand and knee on the bench. Make sure your spine flat and your upper body parallel to the floor for your right hand hung. Use your upper arm to lift the dumbbell toward your rib cage, press the shoulder blades back, and then lower the load to the starting position. Perform 8-12 reps for each hand.

3. Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift. Stand with your left leg as a pedestal. Hold the dumbbell with your right hand in front of the thigh. Position your palms facing you. Make sure chests and back flat. Bend your hips, lean forward, and lower your right arm. Immediately returned to the starting position at full stretch your hamstring. Perform 8-12 reps for each side of the body.

4. Pushup. Lie down facing the floor with palms slightly wider shoulders. The position of the finger pointing toward the front. Push your body upward until your body weight resting only on palms and toes. Lower your body slowly until your chest position almost touching the floor. Perform 8-12 reps.

So if you are really serious to get over your fat, you can join the program I provide only: Click Here!

How to Make Your Own Horserace Winning System by Jessisa Thomson

Horseracing takes place everyday all over the world and while a lot of people loose money there are the fortunate ones who make a fortune. There are many ways of betting on a horse and one can make good money with horse race betting. All horse race betters are always eager and for a look out for laying their hands on some good horserace tips to increase their probability of winning. However, there are no such 'magical tips', which can ensure a sure win for you, but there are systems that can be used and have proved to be quiet successful at many times. Many race enthusiasts have benefited from them on many occasions.

You might not be able to get these systems or horse racing betting out of a promoter or existing horse race betters, however what you will get out them will turn out to be of no help in the end. It is always better to come up with your own winning system, which is authentic, original and tested. After putting in lot of research, observation and analysis, you can come up with such a system, which can ensure higher chances of your winning a race bet.

Make your Own Winning System: While developing your system, you need to take in consideration the two important factors: the long-term view and the score that Prize Lay has performed well.

You need to be patient as well as perseverant, as you will require time to come up with your own system. You might have to stop betting or be prepared to loose on your bets while preparing the system. Observe and do your homework. On needs to be really practical and realistic while preparing their own winning system. For this, you need to attend many horse races and observe and analyse and note down your observations of several races down on a paper. You need to meticulously maintain this notebook and do the analysis on it as your homework. Make a system based on these observation and analysis. This system should be your winning betting strategies. After coming up with your own system, this is the time of testing it by putting it to a practical use. Try your winning strategy or system on paper to see how it works at your track and also to check whether you understand and comprehend it. This is the phase to check how well you and your system gel together. No system can guarantee you a hundred percent success rate, however a good and practical tested system can increase your probability of winning a rise to a considerable percentage. It is extremely important that the maker of the system should understand the system. That is the purpose behind 'paper testing' your system.

When testing your system by applying it practically by betting, do not bet money more than what you can afford. Also, do not expect success immediately. You might have to alter your system and modify it with new observations and analysis. Do not be disheartened or impatient.

The A to Z of Ballet Bar And Why You Need To Get One Now! by Robert Hull

Barre is a term popularly used by dancer to refer to the ballet bar. This term simply means a handrail that is utilized by beginners for practicing basic ballet movements or for added support during warm-up routines. In some cases, the term has become quite popular that it has been used to dub the exercises that are done using this particular dancing equipment.

There are several varieties to the ballet bar, but the more common is the wall mounted type. There are also several companies that manufacture free standing varieties, which is also increasing in its popularity. The bar material is typically made out of either metal or wood, with a standard height of 40 inches. However, experts would suggest that it would be best (especially for beginners or young children practicing ballet) to customize the height setting of the bar for their own safety.

Novice ballerinas must get their own ballet bar since it is an important aspect of training. Bars that are up to the waist help create support, enabling one to steady him or herself during the execution of the initial dance training, especially when one lacks the prowess of a professional ballerina yet. Its significance cannot be ignored since several exercises use the barre as reference point.

Hence, the ballet bar is every beginner ballerina's closest ally during the initial training. At this stage, the exercises are executed in a slow pace and mostly done in repetitions in order to become familiarized with those movements. Once you get to fully develop those basic movements, it will eventually improve the posture of the dancer and allow them to remain steady during the execution of poses. Aside from the bar, you will be mostly focusing your strength on the legs, thighs, and ankles.

What advanced learners need to understand though that they can also benefit from using a ballet bar, as much as beginners do. For instance, if you are trying to practice a move that consists of a partner, you can use the bar as an alternative of an actual partner. This will also serve as a good introduction when you are trying to become familiar with moves consisting of a partner.

When executing exercises on the ballet bar, it typically begins with the plies position. It will help to stretch out and add flexibility to your leg muscles, which will prepare your body for the next set of exercises. Your objective at this point is to train the body to assume particular shapes required with each pose. Then, you will move onto the releve. Apart from the legs, this one also focuses on your feet and ankles. Then, you will eventually cap that off with a battement tendu, which are mostly stretches done on the floor. Finally, there's the rond de jambe, which consists of the dancer executing a semi-circular motion with your foot on the floor for improve hip flexibility and leg strength.

Indeed, a ballet bar can make so many things possible when you enter the dance studio and provide more possibilities for any aspiring dancers to become better with the preciseness of their physical execution.

Adidas Gymnastics Leotards Review by Lee Reid

Adidas Gymnastics Leotards by Lee Reid

Adidas Gymnastics Leotards are known as being very hip, cool and in style. Their vision can be seen in their latest collection that is available in stores.

There are other brands that are licensed to make Adidas sportswear, with the most popular ones being gk elite sportswear and elite sportswear leotards.

When considering the points of quality, price, durability and craftsmanship, I would conclude that gymnastics leotards from Adidas deliver an excellent value for the money, especially since the brand is known as the choice of champions.

The top offerings from the company include the cheer apparel, compression shirts, Nastia Liukin Leotards and Shawn Johnson Leotards.

There are several net shops that offer deals that are usually much better than what you would pay at your local shopping mall. So when you are ready to buy, it is highly recommended that you take a few minutes and do a search on the web first.

Using the net gives you the chance to compare prices quickly and easily, so you can be confident in knowing that you are getting the best bargain for your dollars.

One of the best parts of net shopping is that you will be able to locate those rare or hard to find models of Adidas Gymnastics Leotards that you can't seem to find anywhere else.

Price Information:

If you are considering purchasing them at your local sporting goods shop or department store, expect to pay between $79.00 to $125.00 and up, depending upon the model. Keep in mind that bargains can be found on the net for up to 70% off of retail.

Company Details:

Adidas is known worldwide as the brand with the 3 stripes. The company is publicly held and has its origins in Herzogenaurach, Germany. It was founded by Adolf Dassler in 1924. Adidas is most famous for their shoes, and they also manufacture sportswear, toiletries and sports equipment. Their products can be purchases at their company owned boutique shops and in better department stores located all over the globe.