Safety

Gymnastics should be a very safe sport. Children are much safer in the gym than they are in the car en route to the gym, for example.

Our equipment is specially designed to keep kids safe.

Of greatest concern is long term overuse injury; especially ankles, knees, wrists, lower back. If minor nagging pain becomes chronic, the gymnast may need to lay off those drills which irritate. Fortunately, there is so much to work on in gymnastics that we can shift the focus of training to work around minor injuries.

Tips for keeping gymnasts safe:

Practice landings; forward, backward, sideward; into safety rolls; to flat back and to prone fall. Train the kids until they are expert. Good technique on these landings must be automatic.

Minimize the number of back bridges done with feet on the floor. Much safer & better is to do bridge with the feet elevated. This results too in better technique for handsprings, walkovers, etc.

Use as much matting as you can, especially under the bar, rings and vault. An unexpected fall can happen any time. Train gymnasts to move the mats around the gym as needed. (It is good conditioning!)

Tumble on soft mats rather than the competition Floor. Learn new tumbling skills on a trampoline and down sloped mats