August 13, 2014

Day 3 at Lilleshall!  Now I don't want to leave!

Today I woke fairly sore (shoulders and wrist). Training is tough and I am growing.  It will feel a bit better as we warm up. I met Tom, Sam, Sam, Isaiah, Corbin and Euin for breakfast then we all went back to my room so I could give them Canada shirts, shorts, sunglasses and other things I’d brought from Canada.  They were all really happy! I’ll give out the Canada pins, badges and pencils to the other boys on squad once we get to the gym.

We started warm up with jogging, as usual. My friends wore the Canada t shirts I gave them J . As we run Baz tells us to hop, swing arms above shoulders and things like that to mix it up and change it every day.  After some stretching we did pommel circles on the floor.  Baz takes a demo boy and shows how he wants hips and shoulders. Then he asks what that boy did correctly or incorrectly and asks us to try again.  It is hard with my wrist but I do one.  I had to ask Baz if I could do other exercises during this time.   I joined the young boys’ warm up on the other floor for a bit.  My group continued flares to handstand on floor as well as learning handstand pirouette back down to flares, flares role on your shoulder over to straddle support, Russians and spindles.

Once my squad was done all the floor pommel work I asked Sam, leading the 9-10 year olds, for permission to rejoin my group. I joined in on handstand, pirouette lines as before.  We did them individually (groups of 5 of us across the mat at a time) and Baz said we all did really well. Then we helped a teammate do 30 second perfect handstand with tiny spot/correction.  (We watched Tommy do his vault, cheering him on to land it.)

Our first event of morning training was Parallel Bars.  The little boys were still conditioning on the bars so we started with healy practice on the floor with mats. (Kristian Thomas and Dan Purvis started on floor tumbling beside us.)

·       Stutz practice going well

·       Tippelt practice, getting corrections to work on – delay the straddle so legs don’t touch first; good one with light touch of the legs, hands hit first, ‘awesome’

·       Diamidov practice – made it!, ‘good one’ from coach ;-)

High Bar was next. The switch to high bar happens in seconds basically and we are warming up.

·       Stalders, pirouette, endos to start

·       Healy’s – very consistent with the catching now

·       Dismount practice…letting go at height of swing for double layout; it is getting much higher and straighter from handstand now

Rod floor was next.  After a quick warm up we did:

·       Round off back layout 1/1, stick, present J

·       Round off back layout 1 ½ ready for connection

·       Round off back layout 1 ½ punch front – big improvement

·       Round off double back twist, I get it on the first try now

·       Round off back handspring double back tuck, getting more height and sticking/finishing properly as they say;

·       We warm up really quickly then go from skill to skill. We don’t spend hours warming up one skill in other words. We just ‘get on with it’ as they say here.

Two of the women’s Commonwealth Team are here as well as the juniors. They are, of course, working hard just as the men are.  The only ‘sitting’ is after training when athletes are rolling and stretching and before training.

We finished with half an hour of flexibility work then sprinted to make the lunch time! (the dining hall closes at 1:30p! ) It is raining a bit, which is normal for England, but 90 percent of our stay has been in sunshine.

After lunch I saw Jamal Mashlab, a physiotherapist who has worked with British Gymnastics for many years.  He assessed and treated my right wrist and said it is just overuse, not to worry. He massaged the forearm for a long time which felt really great.  Then he gave me very specific exercises for strengthening my forearm which I am to do with elastic bands for at least 6 weeks.  It is great to find out what I can do to heal and prevent injuries in future too.

Training started with Sam leading us in 5 teams of lines:

·       Beatboard jumps (straight, straddle, 1/1 turn, front tuck, front pike, standing back tuck, best person was chosen to do tuck back full twist, , stick, ‘finish’ scoring teams

·       To the pit gym for fast track work: front layouts down the track; after we each did them, the coach gave us all feedback about how each layout needs to be long, the same height and straight legs.  Then as each of us went he would ask the rest for corrections on that boy’s go. By the third time everyone was improving and I got a ‘well done’.

·       Front layout 1/1, front layout

·       Next we ran down almost to the end, did one normal front layout then one really high one in to the pit; next we added a late 1/1 twist in the high one. I started to get it by the last go.

·       Low front layout at the end of the track, then double front into the pit. ‘impressive Elijah’

The little boys did trampoline into the pit for their aerial awareness training. 

Pommel was next.  Now that my wrist was feeling a bit better I could try again.  The seniors were on pommel at the same time – the group going to a competition in Spain that is.

·       Scissors nice swing and high; each boy takes 1-2 turns then another boy so there is rest for wrists between sets

·       Each boy works on their own skill – some Magyar, some spindle or turn in, some scissors

·       Step up on one handle mushroom

Our coaches are:  Sam Hunter (National Developmental coach), Baz Collie (National Junior coach), Lee Woolls (from Birmingham), Dave Murray (not at Lilleshall, but at Birmingham and from Leeds), Ionut Trandsburu (worked with me together with Ovi), and at least 6 other coaches, and my coach at Lilleshall, Ovi Rugina (my coach at Lilleshall is mainly Ovi)  from Romania originally.  One of the great things about training at Lilleshall is that you are with one steady coach, but the other coaches all have input in warm ups, fast track, trampoline, any event. Everyone’s goal is to make a strong team and that means everyone is ‘on it’ all the time – coaches and athletes.

Senior Men’s coaches are here as well: Ed Van Hoof, Andrei Popov and others. It’s hard to remember all the names!  Most of the Commonwealth Games Team is here training as well as another team of seniors that includes Dom Cunningham, going to Spain tomorrow to compete.

Rings was our next event in the main gym (no pits):

·       Started with dislocates from uprise, firming up body position through back giant (almost to handstand hold) – a different way to get to handstand on rings; cool to try something new

·       Tried same thing for front giant, starting with dslocates and trying to end in handstand – swinging right through the handstand; ‘good!’ plus getting my arms in good position to hold the handstand

·       In the back gym we did honma/johannosson and dismounts

·       Double full is getting better into the pit; I am learning how to keep the tuck through the twist

Our last event was vault.  We did this in the pit gym as well.

·       Warm up half on, half off

·       Full twisting kasamatsu in tuck position; getting a better run and better height (beatboard into pit)

·       1 ½ twisting kasamatsu

·       Lots of full twisting kasamatsu’s, working on Ovi’s corrections

·       Tried kasamatsu in layout position and made the full twist the first time, the second was more piked

·       I finished with a tucked full twisting kasamatsu

We always end with stretches and flexibility.  We stretch each other and the coaches help stretch too.  Every moment of training is used! Baz went around checking our form and improvements in flexibility compared to the beginning of squad this week.

Baz gave us a talk as always at the end of training.  He told about our good events and how he was really proud of how hard we were working.  As a reward, after 4 hours tomorrow morning, we will just have short warm up in the afternoon then games and a movie.  I have to go home L at 4p so I will miss the fun activities.  It is really like a family here now.  The boys are just great.  Ovi told mom she can go with Ed to the airport tomorrow, but Elijah is staying here on squad to train.  He is gruff so mom thought he was serious. J  

After supper we usually meet at 8pm outside for a football game and general exploring and running around. It is good fun to get some fresh air and have fun before going to bed.