Gymnastics »

Over half a million people in the United States participate in gymnastics, making it an extremely popular sport. The risks of injury, however, are high.

This easy-to-read guide will teach you ways to keep gymnastics safe through procedures such as equipment safety checks and comprehensive warm-up routines before exercise. This book includes informs on:

Rehabilitating sprained ankles and wrists.

Maintaining focus at competitions.

Exercises used to strengthen damaged limbs or joints.

Warning signs of wear-and-tear injuries.

The importance of good nutrition.

The dangers of performance-enhancing drugs.

Children's Literature

Did you know that the very first gymnasts performed naked? Did you also know that women's gymnastics gets more media coverage and attention than men's gymnastics? These facts are provided in the history chapter of Gymnastics. The book goes on to provide tips and tools for students and others interested in conditioning, injuries, equipment, levels of competition, mental and physical preparation, nutrition, and performance enhancing drugs. The author does an acceptable job of presenting an overview of the sport of gymnastics, but it just might be too broad to be very useful for some audiences. A reader interested in gymnastics' basic scoring rules or history might not be very interested in injuries, and vice versa. There are also no diagrams for the suggested exercises, events, or apparatuses. The lackluster information on nutrition is standard fare. One of the pluses of this book, and others in this series, is the attention to the prevalence of injury. There is some other good information in this book; however selectors will want to consider if they prefer this book's broad coverage of several subjects, or separate and specific coverage in other sources. This book is part of the series "Getting the Edge: Conditioning, Injuries, and Legal & Illicit Drugs." Includes bibliography, suggested reading, and index. Reviewer: David Adams

Introduction 6

1 Overview of Gymnastics 9

2 Mental Preparation and Safety 27

3 Physical Preparation 37

4 Common Injuries, Treatment, and Recovery 51

5 Nutrition and Supplements 63

6 The Dangers of Performance-Enhancing Drugs 81

Further Reading 90

Find Out More on the Internet 91

Bibliography 92

Picture Credits 94

Index 95

About the Author and the Consultants 96