As a child, gymnastics was my absolute favorite thing to do. One night I was at practice later than everyone else, I was determined to perfect my vault before the big meet the next day. I wanted to win every event at this meet and nothing was going to stop me. I was testing out the spring board when my heel slipped off. There was a crunching and a sudden pain. Immediately, I knew I had done something very wrong to my foot. At this point I had two options: tell my coach and give up the meet, or continue through the pain. There wasn’t even a choice, of course I was not going to give up all my hard work now, so I continued to practice that night despite my pain. The pain was horrible, but nothing I couldn’t ignore in order to be the best. After practice, we …show more content…
I still had not told anyone about my foot when one of my coaches noticed the huge lump on the side of my foot; she immediately got an ice bucket. My coach would have let me scratch out of the meet and not compete that day, and she would have fully supported it because of my injury, but there was no way I would do that. So throughout the meet, I carried around my ice bucket and dunk my foot into it. When it came time to compete, I dried it off, warmed up, and did what I had to do. Although there was an agonizing pain, I put it aside and competed beautifully. The feeling of triumph I received when they announced my name for the all around champion was incomparable to the torment of the injury. Eventually, my mother managed to get me into the doctor after a week or so later. My tendon had chipped off a piece of my bone, meaning I had competed through a broken foot- and won. When I have a passion for something, I devote myself into it completely. Very few people have this kind of drive and commitment that I have had throughout my life, and still have today for my education and future. I would love to continue my studies at SIUE, receiving a high quality
By universal definition, "sport" is listed as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively." Football, basketball, baseball, soccer and other primary activities have always been concretely defined as sports in society. However, one of the most physically demanding activities is constantly forgotten when it comes to the realm of sports- dance. Dance requires a tremendous amount of training and creates an aura of competition in which people compete to be the best, win, and take home the trophy- just like in traditionally accepted sports. These sports, however, do not possess an element of psychological health threats that some competitive dancers unfortunately must account for due to the emphasis placed on physical appearance.
It’s a time out, all of those Friday night lights, shining in your face as you toss your best friend into the air as she kicks and twists and lands right back in your arms. Football season, every high school cheerleaders favorite season. Down on the track, lined in perfect lines, they yell at the crowd, “Are you proud to be a Tiger?” and the immediate reaction from the football fans in unison was, “Yes we are!” Most people say they’re at the games for the attention during school, but if you’d take the time to ask the cheerleaders why they do what they do, you’d get the same answer that I got from my sister when I interviewed her. She took the time to explain to me why she became a cheerleader and then progressed into saying, “I stick with it [cheerleading] because
Movies portray cheerleaders as the popular girls that everyone likes and aspires to be. But when reality hits at Salem High School, it’s a completely different story. Cheerleading was taken as a joke by the other athletes and even students. It was considered a hobby, but to me it was a passion and something I worked hard to be. Being on the cheer squad in high school was difficult to deal with in school because we were constantly being snubbed by the other athletes and students in our school ever since we were kids in junior high which should not happen because everyone has the right to do what they love and they should not be judged for it being different than everyone else. It was always us versus them up until my junior year of high school when we finally earned the respect of our peers.
Gymnasts are more vulnerable to the onset of distorted eating than other teenagers in society, due to the very nature of what makes for athletic success in the sport. Gymnasts’ bodies have to be young, healthy, petite and muscular, therefore they have to do large amounts of conditioning and eat the proper amounts and type of food. The main factor to gymnasts being vulnerable to distorted eating is because they are at very young ages when they excel in the sport. Gymnastics is structured around young fit bodies, so these athletes are facing a lot of pure pressure and big decisions at young ages. They may start to restrict their diet because, in the sport, it is expected for them to have petite and fit bodies and they are receiving pressure from their coaches and others opinions. A Canadian study of youth gymnasts at an average age of 13.4 years old, reported that 10.5% saw themselves as overweight, 27% were worried about the way they looked and 39% reported dieting behaviors (momsteen.com). When gymnasts restrict their food intake it will not enhance their performance, instead it will harm it because of their weakened bodies condition. They decide to reduce their food intake because of what their body, as a gymnast, is supposed to look like. With the average age of gymnasts being 13.4 years old, they are at the age where it is very easy to feel insecure about their body due to others around them, but it is very unhealthy for high-level gymnasts to not be fueling their body with the proper foods thy need. The sports nature also plays a large role in how far the athletes will go for success. Gymnastics is a very involving sport that requires very long training hours for the young athletes. The proper amount of training hours for the ...
Especially in high school, you see and interact with many people on a day-to-day basis. Some are your close friends you know really well, while others you barely know. Therefore, one of the struggles of high school is getting to know people you don’t usually see outside of class. Having to interview Marissa Braddock, someone I don’t see outside of class, gave me an opportunity to learn new things about her. Being involved in multiple athletics, being extremely committed to family, and having dreams and aspirations to travel when she’s older reveals Marissa to be a very well rounded girl.
Be strong, i’m here for you, why do you feel the need to do this to yourself? Those are some common phrases I hear from day to day. I have always been a happy girl, I have a good family good house and a amazing gymnastics career, but two years ago my life changed forever. Ever since I was a little girl I had always known my goal and pushed myself to the highest levels to get it. My goal was the olympics and there was nothing holding me back or at least that's what I thought.
As the trainers began to come towards me, I get up off the court stumbling and limping. All of a sudden I feel pain rushing up my leg with a pop, following that my knee slams back in place. Hobbling to the sideline trying to avoid showing the pain I was in. I take my seat thinking and remembering how my teammate Felicia was out for the entire season after her knee injury. I said to myself, I cannot, and will not be out for the rest of the season. After two-quarters go by, the game comes to an end. A feeling of nervousness ran through my body as I prepare to see the trainers. With whispering going on between the trainers and the look they were giving my coach I was not pleased. The trainers insisted that I see the doctor first thing the next morning. The next morning, as I listen to the doctor tell me my season looks like it will have to come to an end ; with tears rolling down my face I asked the doctor what can I do so I can still play. He began first to tell me I have to get some of the swelling to go down in order to start the healing process, but I really would suggest you hang this season up so you can get a full recovery said the
I didn’t care I still tried out. The cheers they had us do were easy the jumps were jumps I was doing in first grade. I made the team. I was happy even though deep down I was upset that I could be on the worst team in history. So as I started on the team, I soon realized that my idiot brother had no idea what he was talking about and it was a good team. I wanted to go back to my old coach so that I could learn how to do a back hand spring because everywhere I went I just couldn’t get myself to do it. Some coaches told me that it might be because I don’t trust them enough to do it. So I had a private class with her before her normal cheer practices. We were working on my round offs and cart wheels when she walked away to go answer her phone I went for my round off and didn’t land right and fell because it felt like my knee gave out. I got up and kept trying. When it was time for her teams to practice I was sitting on the floor in pain doing stretches with the girls thinking maybe if I just stretch it out itll feel better it didn’t I ignored it for a while till I went home and took my shoes off my foot swelled up like a balloon. I could barely walk
McKayla Maroney, the retired gold-medalist, has made her mark in USA women gymnastics. She also made her mark as one of the many women who spoke out against the abuse of former USA Gymnastics’ team doctor, Larry Nassar. Nassar has made headlines these past months on his charges of child pornography and sexual abuse of over 100 victims, some even being underaged. Maroney recently filed a lawsuit fighting USA Gymnastics’ confidentially agreement that she claimed she was forced to sign in 2016.
When this happened, I always tried to be optimistic and come out of this injury with more than I went into it with. From not playing soccer for one year, I gained so much knowledge of myself just from writing in a journal that I still keep at my house. I read it from time to time and I can still see the progression of my writing since I started writing, to the last entry in that journal. This part in my life was beneficial because I now know how to write at a college level. Before I tore my ACL I couldn’t write to save my life. I was a horrible writer and thanks to tearing my ACL I improved drastically. If this part of my life were to not happen I would probably be going to The University of Hawaii at Manoa with the rest of my classmates because that’s what our education pushed us
She immediately scheduled an appointment with an ankle specialist, who diagnosed me with hairline fractures throughout my ankle. At this moment, I thought that my career in sports was over as I would never come back from the months spent in a boot, unable to participate in any form of physical activity, and the months of therapy that followed, but I persevered and returned to playing condition before too long. Some people aren’t so fortunate. They sustain career ending injuries which often include soft tissue damage. The problem with injuries like these is not that they will never heal, as many of them will, but the time it takes for them to heal.
Many parents are unsure as to when they should enroll their children in enrichment activities and which activities to select. "How soon is too soon?" "There are so many choices, where do we start?" These are just a couple of questions interested parents ask themselves as their children enter the toddler years. A great activity to get your child involved at an early age is gymnastics for toddlers.
In my opinion, there is no greater gift to life than a sound, healthy body. My life has been dedicated to actively pursuing a healthy journey with proper nutrition, ample water consumption, sufficient sleep, and numerous hours dedicated to the sport of gymnastics. While I realize a sound healthy body involves more than having your daily vitamins and dancing in the sun, I have become fascinated with how genetics and the body's composition have a tremendous impact on any obstacles or successes. Over the years, I have become more captivated to explore whats inside the body with my own eyes. At 18 months old, I started pulling myself up on the kitchen counter to watch my mom cook.
My injury was an accident, but I viewed it as a failure. Not only have I believed I failed my team and parents, I thought I failed myself. I had a goal for myself and that was to bring a championship to the program. But for it to end so suddenly caused negativity to fly around in my head, constantly bringing me down. I let my “failure” affect me mentally and a result of that, I was
It was the start of summer 2002, and the Mid America Youth Basketball (MAYB) national tournament was taking place in Andover, Kansas. Along with the rest of the team, I was excited to play some basketball for the first time since the middle school basketball season was over. Our team, Carlon Oil, had been together and played every summer for the last four years. We were a really good team, with an overall record of 65-4 over those four years and were hoping to continue our legacy. Lonnie Lollar, our coach for the summer, was also the coach of our high school basketball team. I had a history of groin injuries, and every summer it seemed that I would have to sit out at least a game on the bench icing my groin. But this summer was different, and I along with everyone in the gym wouldn't have expected my summer to end with a injury such as a broken leg.