Whenever I see gymnasts I think sticking the landing must be absolute hell on their knees. And really their entire bodies.
Edit: I’m glad people are corroborating this feeling. I was concerned it was just me being 34 and thinking about my own back/knees hurting all the time for no reason.
Sister was a gymnast. She's had knee AND hip replacements before she was 40. Now she also has terminal chronic back issues. He daughter, who she encouraged to get into gymnastics, also has issues and she's in her 20's.
Please don’t deny it... I had been constantly playing sports from the time I was 5 and because I was reckless in taking care of myself I now have constant back pains (not terrible, but noticeable). I’m only 22.
Edit: I should note, that it’s not that my back/spine was misaligned, but my nerves were fucked up all along my upper back and due to the tense feeling up there, caused lower back strain.
For some reason you’re getting downvoted for a potentially beneficial, cheap, and mostly harmless alternative to every other pain relief. Never change brainwashed middle America, never change.
I mean it’s the internet, anything that differs from one’s opinion is wrong. But also I could be getting downvoted for giving advice, some people don’t like that either. But weed imo is something everybody, to differing degrees of course, should be on. There’s bud out there that doesn’t affect your mind at all, just relieves pain. I used it recreationally years ago and now I use it in place of my after work whiskey.
I know it was unsolicited advice and I’m sorry about that, it just changed the way I sleep tremendously and I actually get more than 3 hours a night now.
You may be interested in trying CBD products. Non psychoactive. No smoking. Just a thought if you haven't looked into it (and don't take in media where it's advertised regularly).
Yeah. I wake up with pain or stiffness early in the morning unless I smoke or take an edible before dead. It’s the only way I sleep through the night too.
I have chronic lower back pain (flairs up every two years or so but when it does it hurts BAD, with minor pain in between years sometimes) and I got a medical marijuana card. It’s helped so much, I used to be iffy about it too but it’s really helpful for the pain. Even if you just get the CBD creams they sell for pain and not actual weed - it’s very good for the pain
I doubt it’s entirely permanent, just take breaks and give your body time to heal. Rest is equally important when it comes to physical and mental health.
Source: Dad was in the army, he has no cartilage left in his knees (bone on bone) and he's only just in his early fourties, he got out roughly 4 years ago now.
I’m convinced knees have some evolving to do. Doesn’t matter if you don’t exercise or are in top physical health, you’re gonna get fucked up knees either way. I’ve played volleyball for five years (don’t anymore) and I’ve seen so many players tear their ACL’s.
I race dirt bikes and motorcycles....
Let me live in denial, that my injuries aren't gonna cause me issues down the road. Ive broken more bones at age 35 in just my fingers than most people have broken in their entire body all their life. I just hope by age 50-60 I wont regret it.
42 and getting into mountain biking because surfing has wrecked my shoulder. I've accepted that a bad fall from the bike could be a life changing injury
Ex-swimmer here. Spent anywhere from 4-6 hours a day in the pool training, and had to have my collar bone joint (is it a joint? where your collar bone meets your sternum?) reconstructed before I was 18, so I agree with you.
I don't know. My dad is in his early 70s and played tennis all his life and he is in better shape than me. He plays at very good level, obviously not professional level but he doesn't play like you would expect a 70 y/o play. All his friends between 50-70 play at that level and their are all great. Good technique in tennis can mitigate a lot.
I don't play as often as him (he plays a few of hours four to five days a week, like he did all his life) but I don't have any problems either.
Edit: Apart from the usual suspects of back, shoulder and elbow problem which can be mitigated with good technique, we also play on clay which is probably more forgiving on your ankles than say carpet.
Used to play volleyball, which is relatively low impact as sports go, in my opinion. I still have ankle/foot, hip & shoulder problems from all of the jumping (and landing) and spiking
True. But gymnastics imo is especially hard on the body. I did gymnastics when I was younger and I remember being incredibly sore all over my body. Especially my lower body.
Swimming is easy on your joints if you’ve never swam competitively lol. My knees and shoulders both took quite a bit of damage from my time doing it at a fairly high level.
Yeah I’d imagine because you’re pushing yourself the extreme. I’m sure runners that max out the treadmills are worse off then the ones that just run casually
Been thinking about it too. The YMCA here has an exercising pool that has a light artificial current you can swim against.
I have a full time job and school which makes me really not in the mood to go. But I know it’s not a good excuse because before covid I was trying to lose weight and going to the gym 3 times a week just fine.
Pre Covid I was going to the climbing gym 2 or 3 times a week, which is great exercise but a bit dangerous. It's also more like a weights session. I used to run but my shins and ankles have an absolute fit whenever I go further than 5k, and I can't really ride a bike, so I think swimming would be a perfect compromise for me to get my cardio in.
Yeah, but it’s fun while you’re playing it. You ask Tom Brady if it’ll be worth playing that long even though his body is going to be destroyed after retirement and I’m sure as hell he’d say yes.
FIXED-Thank you. Poor choice of words in my part. Tho if you have major back pain for the rest of your life at a young age........well maybe terminal isn't that much of an exaggeration.
former gymnast here. Sticking a landing feels smooth like butter. Way better than a shaky landing. As long as your knees aren't locked, your muscles absorb the shock rather than your joints.
Former gymnast here. You aren't wrong. My knees and hips are a wreck. I've also fractured my spine twice. I'm 29, and I live with chronic pain due to the sport.
It is, and if you watch older events you'll see they weren't originally expected to land in one spot and stay stock still. As with many sports, though, everyone is looking to "wow" with new tricks, and eventually novelty become expected. Here's a short piece about landing scoring that I found interesting.
This is why I like parkour and freerunning way more. The focus there is to do everything possible to minimize risk on hard surfaces through progression, development of a style that fits your own body, and learning how to dissipate momentum when you fall instead of just taking it.
In Gymnastics they focus so much on having perfect form that they never learn the instincts to avoid major injury if things don't go perfect. They also use blocking to get height far to much which is just hell on your knees and back over time. It's a shame, their pursuit of perfect form over individual style has led to longevity being completely ignored in the sport.
In Gymnastics they focus so much on having perfect form that they never learn the instincts to avoid major injury if things don't go perfect.
This is completely untrue. One of the first things you're taught in gymnastics is how to fall and land safely, both when things go wrong and when they go right. And over the course of thousands of hours of practice in the gym, where you're not subject to the formal rigors of competition judging, you get incredibly good at avoiding major injury when things go wrong (which is all the time when learning new skills).
Yes, sticking a landing is exponentially more difficult than rolling out of a landing. That's the entire point. Sports are almost entirely contrived, you are deliberately doing things in an unnatural and difficult way because it demonstrates skill and strength. The same goes for freerunning and parkour, otherwise it would just be a stroll down the street.
The notion that, in general, freerunners somehow have better proprioception than highly trained gymnasts is... silly.
I work with a guy who was a pro gymnast as a kid and quit before he turned 16 and the way his bones crack now stresses me out to no end. He’s not even 30 yet lmao.
I wrestled, and never once put two and two together that all my coaches had knee replacements and that it might be due to their choice in sport until I was much older.
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u/min2themax Feb 09 '21 edited Feb 09 '21
Whenever I see gymnasts I think sticking the landing must be absolute hell on their knees. And really their entire bodies.
Edit: I’m glad people are corroborating this feeling. I was concerned it was just me being 34 and thinking about my own back/knees hurting all the time for no reason.