As we head into the last month of summer, hopefully everyone heading to campus is not only joyful but rejuvenated for the upcoming year!
Getting ready for season is not only about having the skills when you come back to school, but being strong and healthy enough to sustain the amount of activity you will be doing for the next nine months. After a long season, summer is the perfect time to go back to the basics, play around with different skills, and set new goals. Arguably, however, this short turnaround period from May to August should not only be focused on these aspects, but more importantly taking the time to relax, rest, and recover after a jam-packed year.
Every athlete has a different plan for what their summer training looks like but also for how they are able to decompress both physically and emotionally. For some, taking a break is the ideal way to come into the gym more motivated, while others like to get right back into a routine as they had become accustomed to throughout the previous year.
Reflecting on my five seasons in the NCAA, each summer and what I did to prepare for the next season look different. I felt relatively prepared going into preseason as I was that second athlete example of wanting to stay in a familiar practice routine. However, going into my senior year, I felt the most prepared this season out of the five due to the other types of training I was doing on top of gymnastics.
Strength training was the most beneficial addition to my own workout regimen, and I came back to school not only feeling stronger but knowing how much more my body would be able to take going into another year. I had the opportunity this month to speak with James Potter, the athletic trainer for California’s women’s gymnastics team, and get his perspective on the importance of strength training, rehab, and recovery in a sport so physically demanding year round.
Potter started off the conversation by speaking first on the importance of rehab and NCAA gymnastics specifically. “We are always trying to combat the cumulative fatigue,” said Potter. “Early in the year before the fatigue really starts to set in, within these first couple of weeks, we try to get everyone consistent on certain recovery techniques, whether that be ice baths, Normatecs, … (or) preventative programs for chronic injuries.”
Coming into preseason, no matter what you did during the summer to prepare, you definitely feel this soreness and fatigue after the first couple of practices. Like Potter said, getting on a consistent plan early in the year as the volume begins to increase with more practices and competitions every weekend, it is really important to prioritize this recovery in order to ensure your body can sustain this all year.
“ [The biggest change from preseason to season in terms of recovery] is how frequent this recovery is; [the girls] really start to feel the effects of such constant activity,” shared Potter. “Once we really get into the postseason and have double meet weekends, we want this recovery for them to already be routine.”
As much as an ice bath might be your worst enemy, taking the time to heal and recover in these beginning stages sets you up for success in the back half of the year in how well your body keeps up with competing every weekend from January to April.
Hand in hand with getting on a rehab plan for a nagging injury or doing Normatec after a really hard practice is making sure that your body is strong and those weak areas are being targeted. This is where strength and conditioning comes into play and is where I truly felt improvements being made when I started lifting during my career. The benefits of adding in strength training are undeniable if done right, especially when it comes to injury prevention.
Potter explained gymnasts have a lot of fast twitch muscles which are important for the sport, but lack “extended eccentric contraction” which is why, especially in the last couple of years, we have unfortunately seen so many tendon injuries. When I asked Potter his take on if he had seen any trends on this type of injury, especially Achilles tears, he shared, “There is an unavoidable weak point at the achilles and the way you move in gymnastics. The last joint that feels the force when you [take off and land] is the ankle, so your Achilles tendon is always the last to feel that, especially when you are back tumbling.” Like Potter said, although the Achilles is an unavoidable weak spot, targeting this and placing some of the focus in the weight room on these types of movements, like eccentric calf raises for example, won’t necessarily fix the problem, but will definitely aid in preventing an injury like this.
Athletic trainers play a pivotal role in ensuring their athletes are safe and healthy, but also are one of the biggest communication vessels when it comes to what an athlete is able to do. All year, trainers and coaches work together to determine what is safe for an athlete, whether they have a nagging injury, are coming back from one, or what their body can take as the year goes on. Just like the trainers communicate with the coaches, they also work hand in hand with the strength and conditioning staff on what the team is doing in the weight room. There are conversations about specific athletes, what they might need more work on, or what modifications might have to be made, but, there are also discussions about the team as a whole, building off the previous season to be stronger for the upcoming year. “[For the team], we look at what injuries we had frequently last year. [We talk about] some of the areas people are generally weak and then make these adjustments with our strength and conditioning coaches,” said Potter.
There is so much that goes into injury prevention and so many people involved in making sure athletes are safe when the competition time comes. Another way Potter shared how they are able to get these athletes to a point where they are able to perform at such a high level is by tracking their progress throughout the year. Potter states the team does a lot of testing, going specifically into detail about depth jump testing. “We do jump testing frequently; [the girls] stand on a box two feet in the air and we test how long it takes them to find their stability on each leg and you want that to be as quick as possible [to show they are stable on that leg].” With these types of tests, the trainers and strength coaches are not only able to monitor an athlete’s progress, but they can identify a risk for injury and communicate with the coaches to put them in the best position going into a competition.
Having these people on your team, and having the resources to make sure you are staying safe is one of the best aspects of college gymnastics. There is always someone there to help you in whatever capacity so you can go into the gym tomorrow better than you left. However, leading up to college gymnastics, more times than not, there are none of these resources at your club gym (aside from having your own physical therapist, or lifting on your own).
I asked Potter what his one piece of advice would be to club athletes looking forward to collegiate athletics who may not have these resources and have to make these decisions on their own. “Go off a checklist for how you should approach each day,” said Potter. “Ask yourself, ‘Is this safe?’ ‘Does doing this put [me] at risk for an acute injury?’ ‘ Is this sustainable?’ … Find a level and modifications to train at, but also still allow the injury to heal.”
Athletic trainers and strength coaches were one of the best assets during my time in the NCAA, and showed me the best ways to take care of myself in and out the gym, during my career as well as after. College gymnastics is about so much more than the three months of competition, but all the extra work, doing the rehab, getting daily treatment, and doing these strength workouts, allows gymnasts to be in the best position when it comes time for competition season.
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Article by Julianna Roland
