Let’s not pretend I am smart enough to come up with this information on my own. I found it in PSYCHOLOGY TODAY. Aditi Subramaniam, PhD. I have just adapted the language to make it more relatable in a gymnastics learning environment.
KEY POINTS
Deliberate practice involves paying attention, rehearsing with a clear goal, and repeating the process with purpose.
The benefits of deliberate practice include enhanced long-term memory retention and automaticity of skills.
Practice produces myelin around neurons, which increases the speed and efficiency of nerve impulses.
I recently delved into the art of drawing basic mandala designs, which have gained immense popularity for their mindfulness and relaxation benefits. Here is an example of a mandala:
Source: Alesia Kozik/Pexels
I first looked up basic mandala designs and went about practicing a few.
After dedicating approximately 20 minutes to practicing, I noticed an improvement in my mandala drawings. Though subtle, there was a noticeable increase in my confidence and precision, resulting in a neater and more refined final product compared to my earlier attempts.
If there is one thing that separates a great artist or sportsperson from an amateur one, it is practice. Practicing deliberately to enhance performance is not only crucial for acquiring expertise in an activity but it is also imperative. Studies indicate that while deliberate practice might not be the only factor that comes into play, it is an absolutely necessary one if someone is to achieve high levels of expertise in a domain.
Not All Practice Is Created Equal
Gaining expertise through practice involves more than just mindlessly repeating a task. For instance, a gymnast may spend several hours a week practicing their routine on Floor , but without deliberate practice, the results may be short-lived or inconsequential.
Experts emphasize that deliberate practice encompasses three fundamental aspects that differentiate it from rote repetition: attention, rehearsal, and repetition. By paying close attention to the task at hand, rehearsing with a clear goal in mind, and repeating the process with purpose, that gymnast can achieve proficiency and long-lasting results.
Example: When a gymnast goes out to practice their routine, WHAT IS THE GOAL? Is it to make a certain tumbling pass? To “stay on the music”? To keep their legs straight?
Once they do that- DO IT AGAIN- before they move on.
How Does Deliberate Practice Help?
While deliberate practice is an important and perhaps necessary component for achieving expertise, it is important to know that its impact varies across different domains, with certain fields such as music and sports showing a greater dependence on it than others.
In addition to helping us achieve expertise in a subject matter, deliberate practice can have the following benefits:
Practice enhances long-term memory retention of new information. When we practice recalling and applying new knowledge, we are more likely to remember it permanently.
Practice helps us eventually apply our knowledge automatically and without much thought. Repeated deliberate practice can thus help to free up cognitive resources, which can allow us to handle more challenging tasks.
Practice not only improves problem-solving skills, but also enhances the ability to transfer skills that we practiced to new and complex problems.
The cognitive gains we experience from practicing can often motivate us to continue learning.
The Neuroscience Behind Practice Effects
Gymnasts, musicians, and artists often speak about how, as they practice a skill, it seems to become second nature. While they might colloquially refer to this as muscle memory, it involves a structure called myelin, which insulates nerve fibers and increases the speed and efficiency of nerve impulses. The more we practice a skill, the more myelin we produce around the neurons involved in that skill, making them communicate faster and better.
One of the remarkable effects of practice is that it can alter the brain’s structure by enlarging certain areas that are involved in the practiced skill. A famous example of this is the “London cab driver study,” which showed that the intensive training that cab drivers undergo to learn the complex routes of London and earn their licenses leads them to have bigger hippocampi than average. The hippocampus is a key part of the brain for memory formation and recall.
How to Practice Most Effectively
Avoid rote repetition. Rather than mindlessly repeating a new skill, incorporate the principles of deliberate practice into their learning routine. The gymnast must pay attention, rehearse in a goal-directed manner, and repeat.
Break down a complex skills into its constituent parts (Part- whole method). Don’t start by trying to replicate an intricate and complex skill or routine That’s a formula for disappointment and injury. Start with practicing basic movement patterns, and once those become better and automatic, they can move to combinations of these patterns.
Start slow. I mean, literally. If they are learning a routine- make sure they learn it slow first before you add the music. With a new Vault, make sure they have the body shapes statically, then move through them slowly before they try to put it together. Speed can come later. (This is why, very often, classical musicians insist their students start practicing playing one note per beat, and only then moving to faster tempos and more complex rhythms.)
Don’t move to the next step without perfecting the first one. I have seen many coaches skip this part. They gymnast is at 60% of each part of the skill, then they throw it together and wonder why they have a less than 50% success rate. If they are learning a layout full twist on floor and they do not have good shape of the layout, what are you going to get? Go back and look if their round off back handspring is strong enough for them to have the power necessary for the layout. Set your gymnasts up for success- not failure.
Patience is key. When we watch World class gymnasts in competition their abilities appear seamless and natural, which can be discouraging when we struggle to grasp the same skill. However, we often overlook the countless hours they put into practicing to attain such mastery. Instead of growing restless for immediate perfection, recognizing the beauty and significance of the learning journey can inspire us to dedicate our time and energy to mastering new skills.
An Open Letter on Injury for Coaches, Physicians, Therapists, Chiropractors, Nurses, and the Media
William A Sands, Ph.D., FACSM Sports Scientist – Retired
In recent years I have read, seen, and heard an under-informed castigation of gymnastics based on athletes training and competing “with an injury.” The hyperbolic nature of this phrase does not accurately portray the milieu of gymnastics injuries. The following opinions and information are based on more than 50 years of experience in gymnastics as an athlete, coach, and sports scientist.
First and foremost, no one wants to see gymnasts injured and suffering. Gymnastics has a high injury incidence and rate and is often referred to as the football of women’s sports.
The Importance of Context.
What is an injury? Among the more common definitions of injury, there is a damaged body part or body system resulting from either a single trauma (i.e., acute) or repetitive trauma (i.e., overuse). Injury severity is often characterized by a measure of the :me lost from training, such as one day, one week, one month, and so forth. The type of injury remediation can also be used to measure injury, such as whether surgery, physical therapy, self-limited movements, or other treatments are involved. Injury prevalence, a simple tallying of injuries, and injury rate (i.e., the number of injuries per training session or multiple training sessions), or the percentage of an athlete group who suffered from an injury are standard methods of characterizing the injuries.
What is a gymnastics injury? Gymnastics injuries involve all the concepts listed in the previous paragraph, but gymnastics injuries remain challenging to characterize and categorize. A helpful definition of a gymnastics injury is “any damaged body part that would interfere with training” (2-5). This broad definition helps capture the idea that most gymnastics injuries are not debilitating but can interfere with some skills. Pragmatically, gymnastics injuries are skill-specific (5). For example, the athlete may have an injury (i.e., pain) on an aerial walkover but not an aerial cartwheel. When possible, a coach should accompany the gymnast to clarify what is possible and desirable. A video on a laptop or tablet can be very helpful. Experience has shown that medical folks can over- and under-es:mate the amount of training stress an athlete’s injury can withstand. The days of relying on medical interventions without coaching input are gone, along with coaches assuming the role of physician and therapist. Each has an important role and should contribute to the rapid return of the athlete. Rich communication should be required between medical personnel, coach, athlete, and parent.
Why can’t the gymnast simply take a complete rest from training and allow the injury to heal fully? Of course, complete rest is an op:on, but such an act can be devastating to the athlete’s gymnastics. Gymnatics-specific physical fitness is sensitive to continued training. Unfortunately, a gymnast’s fitness can decline rapidly, especially when compared to the progress observed in teammates. Experience has shown that the inevitable comparisons between the rehabilitating athlete and her teammates can raise the injury to a “career-ender” because the gymnast feels she has fallen behind and cannot catch up. She is physically weaker than she remembers, and her teammates have probably learned a few new skills.
Thus, both physically and psychologically, continued training is important to the injured gymnast. Gymnastics is not alone with these problems; many sports report the same problems with losses of specific fitness and feelings of helplessness and abandonment.
If an athlete in other sports sprains an ankle, sports training and competitions usually cease until the injury heals. A sprained ankle in basketball, football, baseball, track and field, and so forth is a rather devastating injury. However, a sprained ankle does not always sideline a gymnast. Gymnasts can continue to train and sometimes compete with a sprained ankle. Of course, the gymnast can perform non-weight-bearing conditioning exercises like other sports, but she can also work on uneven bars over a foam pit with the ankle firmly braced and/or taped. When the gymnast exits or dismounts from the uneven bars, she can land on her seat or back in a soO foam pit area. Skilled athletic trainers may also apply appropriate taping strategies to protect the athlete while weight-bearing. The ubiquitous sprained ankle in most sports involves taping and bracing that may be invisible due to socks and pants while fully visible among gymnasts because they usually train and compete barefoot.
Unlike many sports, gymnasts must learn hundreds of skills that may or may not threaten an existing injury or even hurt when performed. Thus, intelligent skill selection and choreography can allow a gymnast to perform successfully without jeopardizing the injury by simply avoiding or substituting a painful skill with a non-painful skill.
The idea that a gymnast can train and compete with injuries does not avert the question of should the gymnast train and compete with injuries. For those who have never dedicated their lives to achieving a goal, such a passionate commitment may seem silly. However, many athletes in many sports whose lives are defined by their performance at a competitive event speak to the universal nobility of such commitment.
As the ancient Greeks understood, great athletes not only accept the ordeal of competition and the trial of strength inherent in it but also show us a connection between what we do each day and something that is larger than we are and lasts longer than we do. Bill Bradley p 107, (1)
References
Cousineau P. The Olympic Odyssey. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2003.
Last week I had a very engaging conversation with Dr. Bill Sands. We were talking about the future of gymnastics in the USA. How did we get here and how do we move forward. (What Happened to Gymnastics) Toward the end of the conversation he mentioned the 1985 study by Benjamin Bloom on Developing talent in young people. I have always believe that to be a good coach you need to give the information in a way the child understands it. It doesn’t matter if you are speaking to a 10 year old Level 10 or a 10 year old level 5. What is important is that you remember you are speaking to a 10 year old. There are different stages of learning and development that every child and athlete go through. If we know and understand these stages it makes our job easier. We can deliver the information in a way that it is best received at that time.
Since our conversation I have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole searching out more information.
The book was, in part, inspired by a famous study by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues in 1985, which retrospectively examined the trajectories of world-class athletes, artists, scholars and professionals. That work, the authors write, “remains a valid and elegant reporting of the developmental stages of instruction experienced by his study participants. What was missing … is an explicit description of psychosocial dimensions of eminent achievement.”
The study of expertise has expanded in recent years to examine similarities and differences across multiple domains (see the Journal of Expertise), and this edited volume brings together scholars across various disciplines. Rena, Paula, and Frank kindly responded to three questions regarding their new book.
What have we learned since Bloom’s original contribution on the psychology of high performance?
Ironically, one of the major things that we have learned since Bloom’s (1985) study is how much he got correct. The importance of looking at talent within domains; providing the right resources both within and outside of school; the importance of the family, especially in the earliest years; the right teachers and mentors at particular stages on the developmental trajectory in a domain; and a community of learners are still key factors in the advancement of high performance.
Since 1985, we have since learned that psychosocial skills and insider knowledge interact with the ability to enhance the likelihood of progression to the next level of talent development, and we do have some ideas about which psychosocial skills matter broadly across domains.
We still need to identify psychosocial skills unique to domains and who is best placed to convey these skills and knowledge. Also, we have little to go on regarding developmental benchmarks for talent development, largely because we assume that present performance is the best predictor of future performance—but it may be that present performance is not the sole predictor. A better predictor may be the capacity to develop and maintain critical psychosocial skills. For example, what happens to a talented individual who loses passion for the domain, stops practicing intensely, or is unable to focus?
What are the commonalities for talent development when considering multiple domains?
All domains change over time in response to societal demands. For example, medicine has needed to increase sub-specialization and pay more attention to training protocols for interacting and communicating with patients. Aesthetics within fields of performance also change and as a result, preparation changes (witness that in the education of artists, the basic skill of drawing has become optional in the curriculum and preference is given to learning what you need to know to do the art you want to do).
Commonalities across talent development domains can be divided into several categories. The first is the personal category. In addition to domain-specific ability and creativity, passion, persistence in the face of failure or setbacks, and engaging in the work of the discipline or field over time are useful across domains.
The second category is environmental. Social, emotional, and financial support are critical. Even in domains where the tools or equipment that is required is relatively inexpensive, the resource of time is key, and time is dependent on a certain amount of fiscal resources.
The third factor is chance, which involves both the personal and environmental. The individual developing talent needs to be on the lookout for opportunities and ready and willing to take up opportunities as they arise. There are a lot of talented individuals aiming for the top and typically there are more talented individuals than there are opportunities.
It is important to note that domains differ in important ways as well. For example, talent trajectories begin, peak, and end at different times. And within domains, there are early and late specialization fields, those that focus more on teamwork and others that are more individual, those that expect large commitments to education and those that do not, and those that require a great deal of disciplined or deliberate practice and those that require less.
The next steps for the field will be to categorize these similarities and differences based on research and the best practices presented in this book and translate this information into a testable model.
What can we learn from talent selection and development from sports that has the potential to be applied in academic settings?
Sports provides several key lessons.
First, the domain of sport relies more on sport-specific criteria than do academic fields. They use actual performance as a selection tool. Individuals are asked to play the sport, often with other equally talented athletes who are trying out, and those who perform best are selected. Teachers (coaches) do the selection with pretty good accuracy.
Second is the importance of ongoing disciplined practice. We use the term disciplined rather than deliberate practice because the nature of the “practice” that one needs to engage in to succeed in physics or acting may be very different than the deliberate practice required in sport, but it is still practice in the discipline.
Sport has long recognized the importance of psychosocial skills like coping with performance anxiety—particularly at the elite levels of competition. Sports take place in front of audiences where one has supporters and individuals who are not rooting for you and you have got to learn to be able to “shut out” distractions and get the job done. Similarly, games are played almost weekly or even more frequently, and athletes have got to put their best selves on the field or court on every occasion.
Thus, an athlete is trained to “pick oneself up” after losses, understand the lessons the loss provides, and move forward to try to win the next game. Sports psychologists are integrated into this important component of training. We leave the development of these skills to chance for academically talented individuals, but we could place more of a focus on developing them.
Sport also seems to have many different avenues for gaining experience in the early years—through school teams, park district activities, club sports, and so on. These opportunities are open to all children and get more selective as they progress. In other words, “on ramps” are readily available. Parents know and accept the idea of starting young children with exposure and progressing to increasingly more selective and competitive opportunities. We do not have such “on ramps” in academics and parents do not have the same knowledge or acceptance of the idea.
However, we argue that many of the advantages of sport come with it being a performance domain, and other performance domains such as elite music performance also offer useful lessons for academic domains. As in sport, in developing elite musical talent, there are explicit criteria for selection based on performance, and diminished reliance on abstract tests.
Teachers are often practicing professionals and provide individualized instruction – much of the talent development work is conducted one-on-one. Teacher selection is also key and sometimes more important than the reputation of the music institution. And beyond one-on-one lessons, there are master classes sharing instruction with all the students of one teacher. Additionally, for a student to progress, he or she needs to pass muster every year in front of the whole department.
Finally, there are “Reality 101” classes requiring students to learn how to behave in professional environments, how to handle stress, how to get an agent, and other practical skills required to facilitate success. These skills would also be useful in academic domains and universities are now beginning to have classes on succeeding in academia or translating your doctoral degree into success outside the academy.
The Summer Solstice is upon us. Traditional celebrations include greeting the sunrise and partying until sunset (OK, I may have mede that up) outdoor parties and bonfires. As we welcome summer, it is a good time to revisit our goals for the year and check our progress.
For most gymnasts and coaches in the USA, summer is a time for recovery from a long competitive season and then laying the base for upgrades needed for next competitive season. We tend to only make resolutions on New Year but we could do so all year! Resolutions are just projects and goals that we set to reach an ideal. Summer resolutions… why not?
We sometimes find it difficult to keep our resolutions but at least they make us contemplate what we would like to undertake and what we would like to change in our lives. We must think of our resolutions as a way to improve ourselves. To be a become a better gymnast or coach. To become a better team-mate or leader.
Resolutions allow us to… Evolve Change Improve Develop Move on Follow our dreams
How to succeed in seeing your resolutions through
From resolution to action This technique allows you to be more precise and to be in action. You are interested in becoming a better beam coach? Upgrade the gymnasts vaults? Good! Now is the time! There are many educational opportunities out there. From NGA Summit to USAG Congress to clinics and camps. GO LEARN!! Find a mentor, have a coach come into your gym or go to their gym. NOW IS THE TIME!
Set your resolution in time Keep track of the progress and adjust the timeline and goals as needed. Have the gymnasts do this as well. Just a few minutes a week so that they can see their progress. Why not set a simple resolution every week or every month during summer? This is a good way to achieve many of the necessary skills/drills needed for upgrading.
Share the news There is no reason this needs to be a boring task. Take photos and share videos. Isn’t that what Instagram is for?! The more we talk about our goals and objectives the less inclined we are to give up on them.
Less is more! Your gymnasts are probably not going to add a D and E skill on each event. It is useless to start 6 big upgrades . Focus on an objective that is truly necessary. When they accomplish that goal, yo can go after another one.
Congratulate yourselfand the gymnasts! That way you encourage yourself and them to keep it going! And there’s no need to wait until the whole goal is achieved to pat yourself on the back. Just being on the right track is already an achievement in itself.
Freezer Pops when 90% of the gymnasts reach a certain marker
a day off conditioning when 90% reach a certain marker
Spa day for YOU when they reach that marker!
Lastly, hold yourself and the gymnasts accountable BUT be failure tolerant. Not everything is going to workout. One of the best things I did was give each gymnast (and myself) a calendar that starts and ends at the end of the competitive season. On the calendar have all the competitions you MUST go to. (State, Regional and National Championships). Then have your “marker” competitions. For example, December 1 verification of all new routines. Landings can be soft (rest pit) or spotted but not both. Working WITH the gymnasts come up with a timeline for new skills and put it in the calendar.
Create a Positive Coaching Environment in Your Gym- No Matter What Levels You Coach. NGA Summit Lecture. June 10, 2022 8:00AM
Lecture Slide:
Regardless of what level you are working with it is necessary to have a positive environment for the gymnasts (and coaches) to flourish. Some will tell you it is NOT possible at the highest level of our sport. I am living proof to tell you it is! I have coached from pre-school through World Championships and I have done my best to create a positive environment. I have learned from my mistakes and my success.
There are AT LEAST 6 important parts of the Vault.
Now that a gymnast can flip a their first Yurchenko- you need to improve on each of these parts in order to add the power needed to improve body shape (layout) and add twist.
THE RUN
2. THE HURDLE
3. BOARD CONTACT
4. TABLE CONTACT/ REPULSION
5. POST FLIGHT BODY POSITION
6. LANDING
Each one of these parts can be a lecture in itself. I am going to concentrate on Board contact, Table contact and repulsion and post flight body position.
As coaches, one of our responsibilities is to safely lead gymnasts out of their comfort zones. It is there that learning takes place. When we ask a gymnast to make a correction, we are asking them to be uncomfortable.
The only way they can grow is to get out of their comfort zone. Feel uncomfortable then adapt to the situation until they feel comfortable. Then do it again.
When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone as a coach?
With out getting out of your comfort zone how do you expect to improve?
I recently have taken a BIG step to get out of my comfort zone. I have accepted the position as Interim Head Coach for the Swiss Sr National Team. I, along with Wendy Bruce, are preparing the team for World Championships and a couple “Home meets” The Arthur Grander Memorial and Swiss Cup. We will be here for at least 3 months as they search for permanent replacements. Reality is probably closer to 6 months or more.
Rounding out our coaching team (serving as team mentor and our translator!)is Giulia Steingruber. Switzerland’s 3 time Olympian.
You certainly do not need to move to a different continent to get out of your comfort zone. Maybe it is going to a clinic and then coming back to the gym and trying drills that you learned. Maybe it is reading a book on child development and implementing some of the tactics you read about. As humans we are creatures of habit. We do not enjoy being uncomfortable. We tend to do the same thing over and over.
Are you teaching a hurdle (for round off or front handspring) today the same way you taught it 20 years ago? Has a better technique come along? Has the equipment evolved?
Do you shy away from teaching front twisting because as a gymnast you “didn’t get it”? Have you actually tried to fill in this void?
Do you not teach twisting yurchenkos because you do not have a loose foam pit? Having a pit makes it a bit easier and safer, but there are ways. Have you looked into it? Have you called the gym down the road to see if you can go there and vault one day a month?
Suisse world Championships Team 2021
Change is just change. Not good or bad. Embrace it. Get out of your comfort zone and learn.
As Gymnastics Clubs around the country are beginning to open up I am getting requests to post for some Job openings. Currently these are all in Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Maine.
Rec/ School Age Program Manager. Responsibilities include developmental team.
PreSchool Program Manager
Developmental Team – Level 6 Coach.
All Jobs are FULL TIME.
Contact me and I will get you in touch with the gym.
As the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to spread around the world, there’s more and more talk of closing schools. For example, China has kept many of its schools closed with Hong Kong schools remaining shut down until April. The answer is- IT DEPENDS. But probably not.
If an outbreak starts at a school and you are trying to keep it from spreading beyond the school, shutting down the school may be the way to go. But things are quite different when there is already an epidemic or a pandemic occurring. If a virus is already running around outside of schools, can closing schools in some way reduce the size or duration of an epidemic? As detailed in a publication in theJournal of Public Health Management and Practice, the simulation experiments showed that in order to significantly reduce the size or duration of an epidemic, you have to keep schools closed long enough until the virus is no longer actively circulating.
Closing a school could prevent a number of kids from getting infected early during the epidemic. This in turn may maintain a group of kids that are susceptible to future infection. Thus, re-opening the schools later while the virus is still circulating could as a result re-fuel and extend an epidemic. Also, children are social and are going to congregate. If not at school, someplace else.
The problem is that children have fewer and less severe symptoms of Covid-19. They may not even know they are ill and there by spread the illness to parents and grandparents.
What can we do? Make sure your children wash up AS SOON AS THEY GET HOME. Before they have contact with you or other adults. Make sure they wash up after gymnastics class BEFORE you put them in the car. YOU may want to spend more time in your car than in the lobby. My gym offers a very generous makeup policy, if you or your children do not feel well, stay home, we can make up those classes later.
What is Covid-19 – the illness that started in Wuhan, China?
At Atlantic Gymnastics we take the health and safety of all of our clients and staff very seriously. Here are the FACTS and what we all can do to stay healthy!
Covid- 19 is caused by a member of the coronavirus family. The current strain has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. Many of those initially infected either worked or frequently shopped in the Huanan seafood wholesale market in the center of the Chinese city.
What are the symptoms this coronavirus causes?
The virus can cause pneumonia. Those who have fallen ill are reported to suffer coughs, fever and breathing difficulties. In severe cases there can be organ failure. As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system. Most of those who have died were already in poor health.
Is the virus being transmitted from one person to another?
China’s national health commission has confirmed human-to-human transmission, and there have been such transmissions elsewhere.
How many people have been affected?
As of 25 February, the outbreak has affected 80,000 people globally. In mainland China there have been 2,663 deaths among 77,658 cases, mostly in the central province of Hubei. More than 12,000 people affected in China have already recovered.
The coronavirus has spread to at least 30 other countries. The most badly affected include Japan, with 850 cases, including 691 from a cruise ship docked in Yokohama, and four deaths. Italy has recorded 229 cases and seven deaths, while South Korea has recorded 893 cases and eight deaths. There have also been deaths in Hong Kong, Taiwan, France, Iran and the Philippines.
Including the cruise evacuees, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is now 60, including the 18 from the Diamond Princess.
Why is this worse than normal influenza, and how worried are the experts?
We don’t yet know how dangerous the new coronavirus is, and we won’t know until more data comes in. The mortality rate is around 2% in the epicenter of the outbreak, Hubei province, and less than that elsewhere. For comparison, seasonal flu typically has a mortality rate below 1% and is thought to cause about 400,000 deaths each year globally. Sars had a death rate of more than 10%. Scientists believe that the mortality rate of Covid-19 is likely LESS than 2% in that some people may have contracted Covid-19 and have such mild symptoms (and recover reasonably fast) that they do not seek medical treatment and therefore are not part of the statistics.
A crucial difference is that unlike flu, there is no vaccine yet for the new coronavirus, which means it is more difficult for vulnerable members of the population – elderly people or those with existing respiratory or immune problems – to protect themselves. Hand-washing and avoiding other people if you feel unwell are important. One sensible step is to get the flu vaccine, which will reduce the burden on health services if the outbreak turns into a wider epidemic.
Is the outbreak a pandemic and should we panic?
No. A pandemic, in WHO terms, is “the worldwide spread of a disease”. The spread of the virus outside China is worrying but not an unexpected development. The WHO has declared the outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern. The key issues are how transmissible this new coronavirus is between people, and what proportion become severely ill and end up in hospital. Often viruses that spread easily tend to have a milder impact. Generally, the coronavirus appears to be hitting older people hardest.
What can we do to prevent the spread of Covid-19 (or any other Virus)?
According to the Center for Disease Control There are steps you can take to reduce your risk of getting sick from viral respiratory infections, and help prevent transmitting infections to others, including:
Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Do this Before and After Gymnastics Class.
Do not touch your eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.
If you are sick- STAY HOME. Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, then throw the tissue in the trash and wash your hands.
Clean and disinfect objects and surfaces.
What is Atlantic doing to keep everyone healthy?
Instructors wash their hands before and after each class.
Common areas are cleaned and disinfected regularly (including handles, doors, counters, etc)
Equipment in the gym is cleaned and disinfected regularly
They are instructed to STAY HOME if they (or someone in their family) is ill
How the media is contributing to the over reaction
Remember that the media (print, TV, Social media, online) is a Business. They earn revenue through selling commercials and ads. Prices which are based on the viewership and he amount of clicks and shares. If they keep you on edge and nervous- you will keep them tuned in.
This virus is a SERIOUS SITUATION. As Anthony Fauci said yesterday, “We can’t be doing the kinds of things we were doing a few months ago”. We will need to make some lifestyle changes.
I spoke to my cousin in Italy yesterday. She was worried about US? Their news is just as filled with exaggerations. She asked if all the shelves were empty in the stores. She asked if toilet paper was selling for more than $100 and if tampons were more than $300. She asked if the Army was on the street.
Ummmmm- NO.
What are MY plans?
I plan to go on vacation in April to the Caribbean like I always do. I plan on visiting my brother at the end of April for his birthday. I plan to go to Italy in the end of May for a little vacation with family followed by work. I will continue to take all necessary precautions as I have always done.
