MGoBlogs: Men's Gymnastics, Vol. II, No. 1
11/18/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
Preparing for the Season
TUESDAY | NOVEMBER 18, 2008
Senior Kent Caldwell (Charlotte, N.C./Charlotte Latin) kicks off the weekly installment of the men's gymnastics team player blogs. In his first three years with the program (2006-08), Caldwell has been a College Gymnastics Association Academic All-American, an Academic All-Big Ten recipient, and has earned U-M Academic Achievement honors. He competes on floor exercise, vault and high bar and has performed these events at the NCAA Team Championship, as well as many other competitions throughout the season. He was the bronze medalist on floor at the 2007 Big Ten Championship, and he was also the first gymnast in the world to compete with a quadruple twisting backflip.
Well, I have been given the daunting task of starting our player blogs for the men's gymnastics team, so here it goes. Hopefully, these quick insights into our daily training habits and cycles will provide everyone who reads this a better idea about what we do and clear up some of the complexities of our sport. We are also hoping to provide some short video clips of some practice highlights so that you have a better idea of what we are talking about when we mention specific gymnastics terminology.
I've been unfortunate enough to start off the year with a cracked fibula, but my injury has given me a chance to get a kind of "bird's eye view" of our team's development. This time of year is especially exciting for us as we are in a transition from working on individual skills to putting our routines together for the upcoming season. I have been watching everyone train during the fall semester, and I couldn't be more excited about where we are and where we're headed. Though our season technically runs from January through April, we began the 2009 season almost immediately after NCAAs last year to work new skills and add difficulty to our team's repertoire. Most of us spent the majority of the summer in Ann Arbor, pushing one another in order to stay in shape and learn the kinds of tricks that it will ultimately take to win a Big Ten or NCAA championship.
The hard work has led to some great strides in increasing our difficulty. I don't have the room to name everything here, but I will try to point out a couple of highlights. On floor (tumbling) we are as strong as ever. Senior Jamie Thompson has been performing a unique and flashy "front full punch double front" combination. Senior Scott Bregman, battling back from a lis-franc dislocation and a medial malleous fracture that has plagued him over the past two seasons, was able to hit an entire floor routine last week (check out the video of Scott performing a front layout to immediate double front flip).
On pommel horse, sophomore Chris Cameron also hit a full routine last week in practice demonstrating his excellent endurance and high degree of polish. Our rings lineup, piloted by senior co-captain Phillip Goldberg, has made boundless strides in improving their rings strength for the upcoming season. On vault, we have several guys working "6.6 vaults" (those are the extremely difficult, Olympic-caliber) but perhaps the highlight from last week was sophomore Andrew Vance, who landed a "Kasamatsu full" (round off onto the table and double twisting back flip off) for the first time in practice. On parallel bars, junior Mel Santander has still got one of the most precise and technically sound dismounts in the entire NCAA.
Our High Bar lineup, which perhaps lacked some of the big skills last year that provides fan appeal, is shaping up to be an incredible one. Senior Joe Catrambone is once more leading the way with his traditional style and triple back flip dismount. Last week, sophomore Ian Makowske caught an extremely difficult sequence of half Tak to immediate Def (a release skill with one flip and 1.5 twists before re-grasping the bar). I know most of you reading will have no idea what that means, but what you should know is that I can only think of one other gymnast in the world who has ever competed with that combination. Senior Ryan McCarthy has added an awesome release sequence as well (Kovacs, Kolman, and Tkatchev) that is sure to excite spectators. Since "Kovacs, Kolman, and Tkatchev" probably sounds like gibberish, check out the video of Ryan performing each of these skills in order (The first two releases involve flipping twice before re-catching the bar).
The transition from individual skill-work to 10-skill routines is never easy, and is a big shift in training style for many of us. Still, we are making that transition with confidence, and are looking forward to an exciting season next semester. I hope you continue to follow our player blogs and that they provide you with a clearer insight into the world of men's gymnastics. Go Blue!
Players Mentioned
