Up and Coming Gymnast of the Week: MORGAN STEIGERWALT!!!

Hi everyone,

  Here is our first post for our special section on gymnast of the week!  Congratulations to Morgan Steigerwalt for being our first gymnast selected :)!!!  Most of the information is courtesy of her official website http://www.morgansteigerwalt.com/index.html.  Everyone should check the website out if you want more information on this amazing up-and-coming gymnast!!!

Here is her bio information:

Level- Junior National Elite

Club- Parkettes in Allentown, PA

Age- 15

Favorite event- beam

We better get to know her name because she was the US Challenge AA Champion last year!!!  She also won vault and beam and placed second on bars!!!

Here is a video (I hope...) of her on her favorite event beam at the PKI last year where she placed third.  Great Job!!!

I love her switch leap, back tuck combo at the beginning.  Her switch side leap and front tuck are SO solid!  What a great dismount to end this routine with!

She lists her goals as making a US national Championship and a world team and getting a college scholarship.  Good luck to Morgan, you can DO it!!!

Thanks everyone for checking out this first post in the series and let me know how I can improve or what you liked :)!

Gymmie

Getting a REALLY good toe point

Everyone knows that toe point is a huge part of making every routine look pretty.  One skill with floppy feet can totally ruin an otherwise eye pleasing routine.  Just like EVERYTHING in gymnastics you have to work to get a really pretty toe point.  Here are some stretches I found that have worked well and others that I am certainly going to try!

Spell the alphabet out with each foot, one at a time is easier so that you can easily concentrate on one foot and really make the letters big!

Kneel with your bottom on your heels, one option is to lift both knees at the same time or you can do one knee at a time (you also might want to put your hands on the ground to stabilize yourself), make sure you're resting on your toes a bit, you'll feel the stretch along the top of your ankle and foot.

Sit in the same position as above, lean back so that your knees are coming off the ground and your chest is touching your thighs (to get even more of a stretch lower your knees and curl your toes more), push the tops of your feet as far forward as you can, you'll feel the stretch in the top of your foot and ankle and again. :)

Sit in a pike position with your feet flexed and firmly touching the wall, keep your legs straight and arms behind you, with your ankles/feet push off the wall into a toe point position, your entire body should be moved away from the wall.  It seems to me that this stretch is like working on jumping through to toe point in slow motion so that you get more of a stretch and no joint pressure because of the jumps' landings.

Let me know how these go and what you think and if you have any more toe point stretches or exercises that work well too! :)

Thanks,

Gymmie

Weekly Special

I was thinking of something fun that could become a weekly tradition here on the We Love Gymnastics blog.  I came up with profiling a "lesser" known gymnast each week.  I don't mean lesser in any mean way just saying that they aren't as prominent in the gymnastics community as Shawn Johnson or Nastia Liukin.  The post will probably appear most often on Sundays (right before I go to practice) and happen every week.  I will research a particular gymnast and give bio information, hopefully some pictures and what would be even cooler is videos of some kind!

What do you bloggers think?  Sound like an idea?  I really hope I am not copying another blog!  If I am the idea is of course totally out of the question!

Thanks for readin'

Gymmie :)

Pictures...

Hi everyone!

  Sorry about the lack of pictures... I can't seem to get them to show up in my posts.  I will keep at it!  I apologize!

Thanks for bloggin'

Gymmie

Yay!!! Gymnastics recognized by Sport's Illustrated

It's so exciting!  Despite its amazingness, gymnastics rarely gets media attention in years other than an Olympic one so it is great that Shawn and Nastia especially are continually forcing the media to take a look at what crazy stuff we are doing!!!  

The USA gymnastics website reports that Nastia and Shawn are a part of Sport's Illustrated "best photos of 2008" http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/gallery/featured/GAL1149767/1/index.htm Check out numbers 15, 40 and 44.  I love Nastia in 15!!!!  Holy moly!  With the audience in the background the perspective is sooooo cool!  

Sam Peszek training at Sharps

I know that this is kind of "old" news, but what does everyone think about this? 

I think this will be a good fit for her.  I know that people were talking about how great of a match Chows would be for Sam.  I definitely agree her style is very similar to Shawn's, but Sam always tells us of how enjoyable her life is outside of gymnastics.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that if Sam went to Chow's she would have to relocate and leave her school and friends???  This would not do good things for Sam.  

Also, I always think it is a great idea to get a coach who has a different style from you so that way the gymnast can work to combine the two types of gymnastics to make herself an even better gymnast!  I absolutely LOVE Bridget Sloan's technical gymnastics (I was so proud of her at the Olympics and rooted for her all the way :))!  I hope that Sam can add some of this technical preciseness to her already amazingly powerful gymnastics.

I wonder how Bridget is doing at the gym now that she has another elite training partner?  I know Coach Sharp says in this article (http://www.xenite.org/features/womens-gymnastics/) that "the arrangement is working well" but I would really like to know how Bridget is feeling now that she isn't the only "star" at the gym and Coach Sharp has to split his time between the two champions!:)  

Can't wait to see how this works out for everyone involved in the meets to come...  Let me know what you think... Good or not so much?  See Sam at a different gym?

A gymnast's wish list

1. Confidence to perform a gorgeous beam routine with absolutely no wobbles or falls (of course!)

2. Find some special glue that will make your feet sticky so you'll have no problem sticking your vault

3. Never have a grip fail at exactly the wrong time (ex. rip the night before state championship... everyone knows what that feeling feels like... yuk!)

4. Feel no pain in beautiful oversplits that rival rhythmic gymnasts

5. Have no problem adding that extra twist to their most despised tumbling pass

6. Move closer to the gym so the commute is shorter back and forth... or while we are at it let's just move into the gym!

7. Figure out how He Kexin does her amazing release comb on bars, and then added it into your own bar routine. (Whoa... won't that will show last year's state champion on bars what you are truly made of!)

8. A leotard that... makes your team stand out from all the others, shows what you're really made of, and most importantly doesn't give you wedgies!!!

9. Learn how to multi-task even better than you already know how to now.  Eventually you will be doing your history homework while doing vault runway sprints... Won't that be something! 

But most importantly, what we gymnasts want most for our gymnastics is to...

10. Get inside those judges heads!!!  Because they are completely unpredictable.  It would be great to know if they are in a good mood because they received a phone call from their college student son or if they are in a bad mood because there was no complimentary breakfast at the hotel so they had to settle for a banana they picked up on the car ride over :)

I hope that everyone enjoyed my first "leisure" post (meaning not news or informative of any kind :))  Thanks for reading!

Gymmie :)

Welcome!!!

Hi everyone,  

  Welcome to the We Love Gymnastics blog just newly opened today!  I really hope everyone checks this out often because I'm really excited to get going!!!  Any suggestions or comments please leave them for me, and I'll be sure to check them ASAP!!!  Let me know of any types of posts that you want me to write or suggestions on how to better improve the blog...  I know that there are quite a few gymnastics blogs out there so I want to make this a unique one!!!  Let me know anything I can do to make this happen...

 

Thanks!

Gymmie :)