Gymnastics
Is your head holding you back in the gym?
Fear and blocks are common for gymnasts. How you handle them determines how fast you’ll move through them!
For almost every gymnast, fear and the sudden and “mysterious” inability to do skills that were once “easy” are a normal and regular part of your gymnastics career. Fear can be triggered by learning new skills, experiencing a scary close call, fall, or an injury, or by seeing one of your teammates fall and get hurt. Fear is often one of the biggest mental challenges facing the gymnast, their coach, and the parents.
Becoming a mentally tough gymnast means that you need to learn how to change your relationship with fear in the gym. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you or that you’re mentally weak! Fear not the enemy! In fact, fear keeps you safe in the gym and is frequently a signal to your brain that your body may not yet be ready to safely attempt a skill. (Perhaps you lack the flexibility, spatial awareness, or timing to accomplish it). Fear is also a positive indication that you’re moving up to the next level in this sport. Every time you attempt a new skill or otherwise step outside of your comfort zone, fear will be there to greet you.
However, fear will almost always pop up after anything scary happens and when it does, it can temporarily knock your trained performance skills offline. So what do you do about this or any kind of fear in the gym? Most coaches, parents, and even gymnasts believe that the athlete must push themselves towards their fear in order to overcome it. Let me let you in on a slightly obvious secret here! This is far easier said than done!
Strategies for overcoming fears and regaining lost skills
- Understand that fears are normal. There is nothing wrong with you for being too scared to go.
- How YOU respond to your fears and lost skills will determine how fast or slow you move through them.
- Understand that you’ve lost your skills because you feel unsafe inside (even if you don’t feel afraid!) and your nervous system is instinctively protecting you by freezing.
- Be patient and forgiving when you can’t get yourself to go.
- Take steps to help yourself feel safer as you work on the lost skill: Get a spot, pile mats up, do lead-up skills, etc.
- Don’t put time deadlines on yourself. They will only increase your fear and make your block worse.
Often many performance fears and blocks in the gym are fed by past physically and/or emotionally upsetting events.
What causes the gymnast to lose skills? All too often, gymnasts who mysteriously lose their skills can’t simply get themselves to “just go for it!” They tell us, “No matter what I try, I can’t get myself to go!” or “Something in the back of my mind is stopping me!”
Often the root of the problem can be traced back to a frightening or upsetting experience. Maybe the gymnast got lost in the middle of a skill, had the wind knocked out of them, took a hard fall or simply scared themselves badly.
When the body gets scared (whether we want it to or not), the nervous system automatically records and stores information about that event. Whether we realize it or not, the memory of that experience can remain in the body long after the conscious memory has faded. You may not see a block right away. In fact, the gymnast may continue training without difficulty for weeks or even months.
Then, at some point, a “trigger event” occurs. The gymnast has another scary fall or encounters something that reminds the nervous system of the earlier event. It’s these unresolved past upsets that can leave the gymnast feeling unsafe inside and instinctively triggering a freeze response. Suddenly they can’t get their body to go for the skill even though they desperately want to.
Gymnastics training products
Price range: $129.99 through $144.99
Price range: $224.99 through $244.99
Price range: $349.99 through $389.99
Price range: $129.99 through $144.99
Price range: $224.99 through $254.99
Price range: $19.99 through $24.99
The good news here is that with a little training and practice, you can learn to systematically recognize and work through your fears, regain your skills and develop mental toughness.
This is the process that we teach gymnasts, along with how to develop the other mental toughness skills which will help them take their performance to the next level.
Remember, your physical skills and talents as a gymnast are always limited by your mental skills and ability to deal with the fear. Don’t leave this all-important part of your training to chance.
As a Sports Performance Consultants, Dr. G and his daughter, Sara Vatore, work with gymnasts from around the world, from Olympians on down, specializing in helping them overcome fears and blocks and perform to their potential. Dr. G is a USA Gymnastics National Congress Clinician. Sara and Dr. G present at clubs around the US, training parents, gymnasts and their coaches. Dr. G is the co-author of This Is Your Brain On Sports: Beating Blocks, Slumps and Performance Anxiety For Good! His audio mental training program, Gymnastics With The Competitive Edge is specifically-designed to help gymnasts overcome performance fears & blocks. Sara is the author of Embodied Confidence: 30 Days of Radical Mindset Shifts for Gymnasts. Check out their Mental Toughness Training Products and Packages in the shop.
Testimonials
Amazon Reviewer
Wesley
Jack
Ken S.
CR – Parent
Mohammed
Frank
Monica
I have a 10-year-old gymnast and your audio program is fantastic. She has always struggled with her fears.My kid actually comes home from practice happy now since she’s been listening. With gratitude.
Dina
A relieved mom
Lauren F
Dr. G! Ellie won State Champion on beam! She said it was your book Sticking It and the audios! She told me that she imagined herself at her home gym as she competed and was calm and composed! Thank you! Thank you! Thank You!
Alex
I can’t thank you enough for your program! Yesterday, my daughter did her first back handspring since “losing” it this summer. Today, she did her first round off, back handspring connection since “losing” it this past spring. Both accomplishments literally brought her to shaking tears. I can’t tell you what this has done for her- February 2014 she was doing several back handsprings with beautiful form and connection along with her round off, back handspring, back tuck. For whatever unknown reason, she “lost” them in March. It has been such a painful time for my husband and I to watch her be so sad and to watch her ask “why” she couldn’t do the skills that once came so easily to her. She was lacking in “mental toughness” as you call it. She is gradually gaining in that area, all thanks to your program and her willingness to persevere. She said last night that Santa came early and helped her get her skills back. Magical gifts come in magical ways. Thank you so much for your quick email reply a few weeks ago.
A Happy and Relieved Parent
Ricky G
Your fears & block audio’s have turned my kids around in days! The concentration and championship thinking audio program has really helped my kids break away from the break and get those extra tenths. They go to meets with a healthy attitude and an extra level of confidence.
RG
Resources
She was afraid of her back handspring on beam and so kept balking, unable to get herself to go for the skill. First the coach responded with impatience and disgust, as if this 10-year-old was deliberately being oppositional.
Are you struggling with a seemingly mysterious performance problem? Have you or your athlete suddenly lost BASIC abilities? FINALLY understand where this FRUSTRATING problem comes from and what you can do about it!
The mental pain caused by your injury and the temporary or permanent loss of your sport can be far more devastating than the strained or torn ligaments, pulled muscles, ripped cartilage or broken bones. Unless this type of pain is directly addressed and “treated”, your overall recovery will be slow and incomplete.
Gymnastics training products
Price range: $349.99 through $389.99
Price range: $129.99 through $144.99
Price range: $224.99 through $244.99
Price range: $224.99 through $254.99
Price range: $129.99 through $144.99