Athletico Health Resources

A feeling of popping or snapping in the hip with certain movements is a very common complaint, especially among young athletes. Consistent snapping or popping with pain is a clinical sign of snapping hip syndrome, otherwise known as “dancer’s,” hip. This condition is often seen in athletes who play high-mobility sports but is more prevalent among gymnasts, cheerleaders, and dancers, specifically ballet dancers. Three types of hip snapping that occur include external, internal, and intra-articular. Below are tips to lessen the severity of pain and strategies to prevent the occurrence altogether.

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The Olympic Games have a special way of bringing increased interest, awareness, and excitement to the sport of artistic gymnastics. With Simone Biles’ recorded floor tumbling pass height at the summer 2024 Paris Olympic Games achieving over 12 feet, it is imperative that she and gymnasts of all levels land safely. There are approximately 4.57 million artistic gymnasts in the United States¹. As gymnasts progress through the sport, the difficulty of the skills increases, and the skills become more dangerous. Gymnastics has one of the highest rates of injury in any girl’s adolescent sport². One recent study reported that 91.4% of elite gymnasts sustained at least one injury per season³. Another study reported that approximately 70% of gymnastics injuries occur during landing tasks⁴.

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Gymnasts require a lot of hip mobility to perform their amazing skills. These advanced and dynamic skills can lead to pain in the hip joint that is more than just muscle soreness. Both male and female gymnasts can suffer from hip pain. One common hip condition is hip impingement, and we will discuss what that is as well as important details for gymnasts with hip pain.

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Tumbling activities put a lot of force through the spine and can put more stress on the lower back in certain circumstances. Tumbling athletes occasionally have an injury and report a “broken back.” What does this really mean? For the purpose of this blog, we will focus on the lower back or lumbar region only. We’ll dive into what a broken back is, and how recovery may look with a goal of returning to tumbling sports such as cheerleading or gymnastics.

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The summer Olympics are fast approaching. Gymnastics for the Olympics includes artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and trampoline events. If you plan to tune in to any Gymnastics coverage from Paris, here is some information on how gymnastics is scored and who to look for on Team USA.

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Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which gymnasts perform on a floor with an apparatus: either a hoop, ball, rope, ribbon, or club. The sport combines dance and gymnastics and requires strong, flexible, coordinated athletes. Due to the nature of the sport and the repetition during practice and performing, the most common area of injury for rhythmic gymnasts is the foot.

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Dance and gymnastics are two sports that require an extreme amount of mobility and flexibility, as well as strength, power, and endurance to be successful. Mobility is different from flexibility and flexibility is not an indicator of good mobility. Flexibility is defined as the muscles’ ability to stretch temporarily. An example of flexibility would be a rubber band; it can temporarily lengthen but returns to a normal resting rate. Mobility is a joint’s ability to actively move through a specific range of motion. To simplify this explanation of flexibility versus mobility, flexibility is related to muscle length and mobility is related to a joint’s ability to move.

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Gymnasts have a very long season- they usually practice year-round with the main bulk of the competition season occurring during the winter and spring for many levels. Due to this type of training schedule, gymnasts need to make sure they are taking care of themselves during and after practice. Here are some tips for self-care for gymnasts to keep them healthy and on track for a great season.

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