SCIENCE OF GYMNASTICS JOURNAL
Vol. 9 Issue 3 2017
EDITORIAL
Dear friends,
In Montreal, the World Championships in artistic gymnastics have just ended. We saw some excellent gymnastics and, unfortunately, also some injuries of most decorated gymnasts (Uchimura, Japan, and Iordache, Romania). We are still looking forward to an upgrade in the quality of gymnastics and improvements in the health status of our athletes. Hence, dear fellow researchers, please do further research projects to improve our gymnastics!
With your creative work we have published 153 original articles so far and hope that they have improved our practice.
On our Editorial Board we have a new member, Thomas Heinen, Ph.D., from Germany. In the last years he has regularly collaborated with the Journal by contributing many articles, mostly related to motor learning and motor control. Welcome aboard, Thomas!
The first article in the current issue is about Aljaž Pegan, a high bar specialist and a gymnastics senior. Andrej Kunčič and Jože Mešl (Aljaž Pegan's coach) prepared an analysis of variations in Pegan's long-lasting career. The article is partly a historical overview and partly an overview of the training theory. It answers the question how to stay on top despite changes in the Code of Points.
The second article comes from authors from three countries: Almir Atikovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sunčica Delaš Kalinski of Croatia and Ivan Čuk of Slovenia. We explored the age trends in artistic gymnastics from 2003 up to 2016. Dr Bruno Grandi, former FIG President, can be proud of his work as gymnasts' age is on the increase.
The third article is from Linda Hennig from Germany with focus on mental representations in the evaluation of gymnastics skills in students of physical education. It brings an interesting perspective on motor learning.
The fourth article is from Iranian researchers Ramin Beyranvand, Rahim Mirnasouri, Saeid Mollahoseini and Sadegh Mostofi who looked into the functional stability of rounded shoulder in gymnasts and non-gymnasts. It provides another proof that we need to plan training loads carefully.
The fifth article comes from Greece; authors George Dallas Alexandras Mavidis, Costas Dallas, Sotris Papouliakos compare postural stability and effects of ankle sprain injuries between male and female gymnasts. Perhaps it would be a good idea that male gymnasts do some conditioning on the beam as well as females?
The last article comes from Germany. Katja Ferger and Michel Hackbarth developed a new system to evaluate the time and place of take-off/touch-down on the trampoline. It is something new and requires knowledge of technology, acrobatics, judging and science to fulfil the competition evaluation requests. Their device could make judging much better in the sense of validity, reliability, objectivity and discrimination.
Anton Gajdoš prepared a new contribution to the history of gymnastics, refreshing our memory on Juriv Titov, former FIG President.
Just to remind you, if you quote the Journal: its abbreviation on the Web of Knowledge is SCI GYMN J. I wish you pleasant reading and a lot of inspiration for new research projects and articles,
Ivan Čuk Editor-in-Chief
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