How Gymnastics Taught Me to Buck Up, Get Tough and Crush Fear

Practical tips for overcoming your fears

Photo: Singapore 2010 Youth Olympics

This is a three part series on what gymnastics taught me about acquiring and mastering skills, overcoming fear and delivering clutch performances.

I think most gymnasts consider pain and fear our twin companions. I certainly did. Gymnastics requires that athletes constantly challenge themselves to do more, much more. Routines that were performed in the Olympics in 2000 are being done by 15 year-olds in 2011. To learn new skills, you have to put yourself in scary situations.

One of the most important characteristics of a great gymnast is the ability to overcome fear and … Read the rest

What Gymnastics Taught Me About Acquiring and Mastering Skills

How deliberate practice works in sports

This is a three part series on what gymnastics taught me about acquiring and mastering skills, overcoming fear and delivering clutch performances.

In 1996, Men’s Health published an article where they used some ridiculous mathematical formula using variables such as fitness, skill, pain, brains, etc to figure out the toughest sport in the world. And gymnastics came up number one. Here’s what they said:

Male gymnasts may wear tights, but they score perfect 10’s for fitness and athletic skills, and near-perfect marks for injury potential, mental toughness and difficult conditions. Let’s see you spin in circles on the high

Part 3 (Finale): How I Blew Out My Knee and Came Back to Win a National Championship

This is the part three in a three-part series about the knee injury that changed my life and my road to an NCAA championship. In part two I talked about the physical therapy I did to recover from my knee injury, the return to competition and our team’s devastating loss to Oklahoma on home turf in 2008. Here’s how the story ends.

1. Channeling the pain

When you’re going for gold, getting silver really does feel like being the first loser.

I kept this picture of me in a Diamodov mid-fall above my desk for an entire year to remind … Read the rest

How I Blew Out My Knee and Came Back to Win a National Championship (Part 2 of 3)

This is the part two in a three-part series about the knee injury that changed my life and my road to an NCAA championship. In part one I talked about growing up as a gymnast, learning the Yurchenko double full, blowing out my knee and undergoing my first major surgery. Here’s what happened next.

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE

1. Try to make me go to rehab

I ended … Read the rest

How I Blew Out My Knee and Came Back to Win a National Championship

Today (January 19th) is the four year anniversary of the knee injury that changed my life. Most people I know have heard bits and pieces, and finally I’m putting the whole thing together in one place. This story is for every anyone (athlete or not) who’s struggled with an injury – yeah it sucks big time, but do ALL your physical therapy and be unreasonably optimistic. Things can and will get better.

The Synopsis

On January 19th, 2007, while competing for Stanford Men’s Gymnastics at the UC Berkeley, I suffered a total knee dislocation while performing a double-twisting Yurchenko. My ACL, … Read the rest