sloan¹² #AKA1

The only reason why people believed gymnastics and figure skating careers ended before you were 20 years old was due to the absurd and abusive overtraining practices of Eastern European countries. The West copied their strategies with less success simply because there was no institutional support from the state to keep young women hostage to the training regime. It was only when USA Gymnastics hired the Karolyis and recreated the Eastern European standards did USA Gymnastics Women begin winning more gold medals... and then similar abuse took hold. So what were some of these standards? I want to focus simply on the physical impact of the sports... 1) Overtraining - training without adequate rest between sessions. 2) Training on injuries - training without being allowed to fully heal and recover. 3) And the biggest one... weighing as little as possible. There is a false belief in women's gymnastics and figure skating that you have to be as lithe as possible to perform the sports. Muscle had to be lean and limbs had to be as thin and elegant as possible. Afterall, how could one get off the mat (or the ice) if you weighed too much? This is how you ended up with so many gymnasts and figure skaters developing eating disorders--training 6 hours a day on 800 calories kind of stuff. The Karolyis started out this way with their American gymnasts, but soon realized the previously unknown advantage of *muscle*. The Karolyis even chose those famous white leotards for the 1996 gold medal women's gymnastics team to show off their abdominal muscles. And once the muscular gymnast strategy was fully embraced, that's when you saw the USA women's gymnastics dominance begin. These were no longer little girls doing the most insane acrobatics on flimsy limbs. They now looked like they could side kick you in the gut and break a rib or two. Gymnastics is a high-impact sport and having extra muscle not only allowed these women to launch themselves off of the mat, but land some of the most difficult tumbling passes and vaults we will ever see from female gymnasts. Muscle absorbs impact and this resulted in fewer injuries. Women's gymnastics careers started lasting multiple gymnastics cycles as a result. The world would eventually embrace this pro-muscle strategy, but the old ways would not go down without a fight. This is in my opinion most emblematic Aliya Mustafina, of an elite gymnast trained in the Eastern European method. Aliya was the Individual All Around World Champion in 2010, but tore her ACL landing a Yurchenko 2.5 in 2011. This injury forced her to downgrade all of her tumbling passes, vaults, and dismounts to not aggravate the ACL post-surgery. She did recover however, and went on to win 2 Olympics gold medals on the uneven bars (the apparatus with the least amont of impact on the legs) in 2012 and 2016, but you can see a sizable difference in musculature of her thighs pre and post injury. She knew she needed to beef it up to not get injured again. It's worth considering Aliya may have never torn her ACL if she had enough muscle mass to absorb the impact of that vault in 2011. So that brings us to modern day figure skating. Russia completely doubled down on the traditional training methods in this sport, despite following the muscle trend in gymnastics. They overtrained their athletes when they were young and at their smallest and lightest. Did they get massive results out of them? Absolutely. But their bodies were DESTROYED. Not only did they not have the muscle mass to handle the wear and tear on their joints, but the overtraining caused damage to their developing bodies. Training was cashing a check their bodies just could not write. People here argue that Alysa Liu's gold doesn't count because she didn't compete against the "best." But that is simply not true. Any country can have "the best" if they're willing to destroy the bodies of their athletes for the chance of 2-4 years of professional sport dominance. So many of those Russian figure skaters will never have a normal physical life due to the damage caused to them by their training regiment. Should an athlete have to live with permanent and significant physical limitations from the age of 18, 19, and 20 just to win a gold medal?? No. That's absolutely ridiculous. Alysa Liu has muscle. People are shocked she could take two years off of the sport, come back, and win. "It'd never been done before!" They said. Except, it HAD been done before... by Aly Raisman and Simone Biles in gymnastics... two very muscular women with long gymnastics careers previous unheard of. It's funny how valuing your body, allowing it to rest, actually eating food, and building muscle works for women's sports, too. *Even the graceful and delicate ones.* Aly Raisman and Simone Biles were groundbreaking in the modern gymnastics world. They elevated the sport to heights we couldn't even imagine in the 80s and 90s in the era of Eastern European dominance. Alysa Liu, although she did not do a triple axel or a quad during her Olympic routine, still won on technical merit. She wasn't nursing an injury or overtraining, so she could simply go out on the ice and win on skill, precision, and style alone. So in essence, muscle and healthy training practices trump the overtraining of the Eastern Europeans every day of the week. I don't want to tune into the Olympics every 4 years and watch a Russian figure skater do five quads in a row knowing she'll be a shell of her physical self in two year's time. I'd prefer excellence not come at the expense of a girl too young to know better that she is actively destroying her body... all because a coach and a government official convinced her this was the only way to win.