Injuries

 

Like other sports, participating in gymnastics may occasionally result in an injury.  During the course of a typical workout our gymnasts will perform hundreds of skills. During a week thousands will be executed. Over the course of a year hundreds of thousands will be performed. A gymnast who stays in our program several years or more can expect to throw well over a million skills.

 

No matter how well conditioned they are, no matter how agile or coordinated, no matter how many mats or pits we have to land in, no matter how skilled they are and no matter how many thousands of times they have performed the skills successfully, they will occasionally make mistakes and there may be times when those mistakes might lead to injuries. The majority of the injuries we experience in the gym are minor bumps, scrapes, rips or mild sprains.

 

Injured gymnasts are expected to participate in their normal practice schedule. In most cases, it is possible to work around injuries and turn a difficult situation into something positive by giving an injured athlete a specialized training plan to work on flexibility, strength and specific skills not related to the injury.

 

Care for Injuries- R.I.C.E.

 

• Rest the injured body part

• Apply Ice to the injury 20 minutes at a time, 3-4 times a day, for at least 48 hours after an injury. The application of ice in this manner can cut the healing time in half.

• Apply Compression.

• Elevate the injured extremity above heart level.