Gymnastics is a very high risk sport and it can be very scary for the athlete.  The athlete has to balance both mental and physical challenges in order to succeed to their full potential. Many athletes can have great physical abilities, but many experience mental health issues that hold them back from winning the gold.. 

At any age you can begin to see the toll the sport of gymnastics takes on an athletes entire body. For example, you may see a gymnast get stuck or plateau on a specific skill, not quite being able to obtain it perfectly. Furthermore, you can see athletes gain a bunch of skills, but then lose them when they don't keep up with the regime of practicing said skills. Lastly, and usually the most common in this sport, an athlete will obtain a skill and then somehow, whether it be from fear or from an incident of falling/bailing out of the skill, they no longer perform the skill and develop what we call a mental block. Mental blocks can be very dangerous and cause a gymnast to get injured performing a skill that they otherwise would be perfectly safe for them to perform.

Mental blocks are some of the hardest set backs a gymnast will have in their career. Believe it or not, it may be easier to overcome an injury than overcome a mental block, because that is how important mentality plays into this sport. When you add a mental block to all the other aspects of the sport like pressure, perfection, and judgement, then athletes begin to have depletion in mental health and may not be able to even attempt a skill on training equipment. 

One of the prime examples of this is currently occurring in the 2021 Tokyo olympics. Simone Biles, literally known as the greatest gymnast of all time, is suffering from some of the worst mental health issues in her career. Simone Biles at the team competition portion of the women’s gymnastics olympics, had been under performing in her routines at all events.  Simone ended up opting out from the women's gymnastics team finals in the Olympics because of how badly her mental health had gotten, which could have caused her to fall and injure herself. 

Gymnastics has much more to mentally overcome than other sports. In many sports your attempt is only risking missing the shot and losing the game.  However with gymnastics, your attempt could risk a severe head or neck injury that could affect your health for the rest of your life.   With this high of a risk, it is important to know your body’s capabilities mentally and physically.  This is why your coach's role in challenging you can make all the difference. 

At Challenge Athletics we know how important it is to have a coach there to help guide you mentally and physically.   When you are performing on the floor and you are not up to your mental capabilities, we have a foam pit, mats, airtracks, trampolines, trampolines with harnesses, all to help athletes to continue to train in a safer way.  This equipment helps to learn new skills and assist with mental blocks, while not giving up.  We don't want our athletes to feel stuck and out of options like Simone Biles did at the 2021 olympics, instead we want them to have that safety net to overcome their fears and not give up on their dreams and talents.