May have torn something tonight

Absolutely stressing over this right now, it's been a while since I've hurt myself in the gym in a way that would set me back in any way. I've been a gymnast since I was 3 years old (currently 23) and tonight on floor while warming up a back 2.5 (single straight body flip with 2.5 twists) I over rotated a bit, rolled my left ankle outward and heard a loud pop.

Stayed sitting down on the floor for a few minutes afterward while my teammates exclaimed "That didn't sound good.. At all." and asked multiple times "Do you want any ice...?" Iced up for 30 minutes before leaving the gym, I'm glad I know how to drive my car clutchless because the one or two times I indeed had to use the clutch, I was in pure agony.

Suffice it to say, I'm going to be pissed if indeed I tore something tonight. I almost opted to go running and lift weights tonight instead of training; kicking myself in the ass for not doing that.

Depending upon what tomorrow brings I may be headed to an ortho soon to have it checked out. Luckily there's no swelling and luckily I had some hydrocodone here to keep the pain tolerable while having to walk. Pain is shooting at the joint and proximally to the foot with my achilles tendon.

Just a slight rant as I'm pretty angry at the moment! I've had 4 surgeries thus far and I'm really hoping this will not lead to my fifth.

 

Woke up today hardly able to walk, called the doctor and managed to get an appointment at 1pm. Doctor could tell I've hurt this ankle a lot in the past due to the amount of outward movement/instability. I was given an air cast to wear for the next 2 weeks, some Voltaren gel and recommended I keep my ankle strong or else in the future I'll most likely be requiring surgery to tighten the tendons.

 

No followup, I'll probably have one of the partners at my surgeon/"mentors" office take a look at it in 2 weeks barring there are any further complications.

Thanks for the link too; Voltaren Gel is one I know very well, we give the sample tubes of it a lot to patients at the office I see patients in.

 

I'm not yet an MD though I will say, my own experience with orthopedics is what made me want to make a career out of it; though I'm more interested in the hand/wrist/arm than I am the foot/ankle.

 

Was he in the JO or FIG meet? Who does he compete for and if you don't mind my asking, what's his name? The Winter Cup meet (barring it's the one in Vegas you're talking about) is pretty difficult to get into. You're required to send in a video for them to screen just to be allowed to compete in it these days!

I twist to the left; luckily I wasn't training for a meet, I'm all but done with competing these days unfortunately. I did my last judged exhibition in February and from here on out I'm done. I'll probably take up diving until I finish up college, though I'll never be completely done with gymnastics.

 

Aha, I competed with Eddie in my rotation a few years back at a US Qualifier out in California. It was the Pacific Cup Classic in Oakland - I believe that was 2006. Talk about a meet where anything that could go wrong, went wrong!

Rings is the one event I haven't touched very much - save for strength training - over the last few years. My shoulders are in rough shape at this point and I try and go easy on them as High Bar is rough enough with eagle swings. I'm already 4 surgeries in on my wrists, I'd rather keep it limited to that!

 

Limiting the amount of swinging I did on rings combined with nightly icing definitely helped mine out a lot. I was able to swing pbars fine once I took rings out of the equation. Strength on rings wasn't as rough on them as merely swinging/giant work was.

Damn! That's a hell of a pass. He seemed like a great guy when he was in my squad several years back, we were all having issues with our competitive floor though it was completely different than our warm up floor. They gave us quite possibly the most loose floor they possibly could have to compete on. I remember he dumped his double double and I completely botched my triple full and a couple of other passes.

The best ringman I have seen have been the guys you'd never expect to have insane combinations on rings. The NCAA Ring Champion as well as the runner up (both had nearly the same start values, both were the highest in the country) were guys that didn't look that big but certainly had a lot of definition. One of them was actually from West Point, I'm blanking on his name right now though.

Thanks for the offer! I should be alright though, I'm able to walk on it fine now, it's not sore in the morning at all, and it's only painful through my Achilles tendon when I land on it. I'm pretty much done with training at this point though, I have to finish up school and there's just too much going on and too much to risk with getting hurt again; this last injury was a wake up call for that! Thanks again for the offer though!

Are you just friends with Eddie, or were you one of his teammates?

 

Ohhh ok I see, I see.

Nakayama's were never too bad on my shoulders, Azarian rolls on the other hand I would definitely feel for a few days aha. What did you do for a dismount on rings?

I cannot even imagine the sheer strength it takes to go from hang and pull up to an invert; it's like the Japanese guys that go from a cross to an invert without even changing the position of their shoulders, or the same for a cross to an invert... It's just absolutely insane!

 

Haha, I see, I see. Ahh I wish my gym had a foam pit, it was the one thing I always yearned for! Suffice it to say, my gyms owner was an extremely cheap man.

The skills are very similar, and the muscles used are basically the same, but I think the rolling back on the shoulders and then pressing upward is what caused the extra stress on my shoulders with an Azarian as opposed to a Nakayama.

Tomita was incredible and I'll second that Chen Yibing is quite possibly - to date - one of the best ringman to be seen. I didn't get to watch NCAA's this year but my coach went and said it was extremely impressive. As awesome as the Olympics were the last time around, I'm really looking forward to seeing what big skills and combinations we'll be seeing this next time around. It'd just be nice if the FIG would stop screwing with the Code of Points and would settle upon something!

Definitely is, be glad you have some good striation in your shoulders! My friends have always been jealous of that with myself!

 

Pits and floors are indeed expensive, one way to quell costs of having to replace the springs every few years that the owner of my gym did, was he doubled up on the springs for the two diagonals of the floor, apparently it's holding up well thus far.

I hadn't heard that. Jesus, though he wont be the first to do double double, possibly the first to compete it though ... I'm going blank on his name right now, but a guy from Stanford a few years back was the first to do it. He had all kinds of insane Kovacs' that he threw, he accidentally (I'm assuming it was an accident) grabbed the bar with one hand after a Kolman one time and did a giant out!

A triple flipped Kovacs is just insane though, WOW. I really hope videos of that start popping up on Youtube soon!

 

Triple twisting doubles on floor I really think are going to be more and more common these next few years. Justin Spring has been competing it for several years now though I'm really not sure why he didn't do it at the Olympics.

I'll definitely have to look up those videos. I'm waiting to see more flipping Takachevs too, I have yet to see anyone ever actually catch one though I've seen several training videos of it. Apparently there were quite a number of guys doing full twisting laid out Takachevs at NCAA's this year according to my coach.

Gymnastics has come along so much just since I began ~20 some odd years ago, I'm really curious what it'll be like in another 20 years.

One skill I'd like to see make a comeback is a one-armed-giant and people doing release moves out of that; it was fairly common to see guys doing Takachevs out of one-armed-giants back in the mid 90's and now I cannot remember the last time I saw someone do that. Xu Li Mings tend to be the more common form of one-armed-giants done though, and when done from a stoop through jam it's an absolutely beautiful skill for sure. I remember training that at a clinic I was supposed to be coaching at, wearing street clothes and using someone else's stretched to hell grips. Not the best results!