#ICYMI - Gymnastics: Leap, Bounce & Balance

Chuck Nice and Garry O’Reilly vault into the world of competitive gymnastics with the help of two former Olympic gymnasts: Dr. Phil Cheetham, Senior Sport Technologist for the US Olympic Committee, and 2008 Silver Medalist Samantha Peszek. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on: TuneIn: tunein.com/playingwithscience Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360 GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/gymnastics-leap-bounce-and-balance/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Knights.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  And this is Playing With Science. Today we leap, we fly, we bounce, we balance, we spin, somersault and twist. And all with the breathtaking grace and elegance in the pursuit of a perfect ten.

• 0:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh yeah, and who better to guide us through the beam, bars, floor and vault than Samantha Peszek of the 2008 US Women's Olympic Team, which by the way, took home the silver that year. Yeah, yeah, not bad, not bad.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  Not bad at all. And dropping the science on us is none other than our good friend Dr Phil Cheetham from the US Olympic Centre in Chula Vista, California and himself a two-time Olympic gymnast, member of the Australian Olympic Team in 76 and 1980.

• 1:00Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  Three times, not once, not twice, three times National Australian All Round Gymnastics Championship, Champion rather, and 20 national titles in individual events alone.

• 1:12Chuck Nice?

  Wow, yeah, he's the right guy to talk to.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  I think he might just be.

• 1:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Dr Phil Cheetham, how are you sir?

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Good morning, I'm very well, thank you.

• 1:20Chuck Nice?

  Awesome, awesome. So gymnastics, first of all, you were a gymnast, right? Is that the case?

• 1:26Speaker 02

  That is true, yes.

• 1:28Chuck Nice?

  And what was your event? What did you, what was your specialty? I know a lot of gymnasts compete in many different events, but they all have a specialty. What was your specialty?

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Well, that's true. I was an all-rounder and to compete at the Olympic level back when I was a gymnast, you had to do all-around and I competed for 20 years. So in that time, to be honest with you, I liked all different types of apparatus, all the different equipment, but my best was definitely vaulting.

• 1:56Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Out of the six times I competed at the Australian Championships, I won vaulting five out of the six times. So it's very fast twitch, I could tumble and I could vault really well.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  Oh, so it's naturally gifted? Yeah. Doctor, answer this, because when I've watched Olympics and the gymnastics, particularly the floor exercises, I will see a gymnast tumble, land and then pop. I mean, almost vertically into a somersault or whatever it is and think, where did that power come from? Where did that transfer of energy happen? Could you explain that from a gymnast and a scientific point of view for me?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's become very popular lately, we call it rebound tumbling. And it's been, honestly, it's been facilitated by the increase in the springiness of the floor.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  The floor is not just a mat, it's actually got springs underneath it.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  So that really makes a difference.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Floor doping? Is that floor doping, Doctor?

• 2:58Speaker 00

  They're doping the floor.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's definitely lifted the tumbling skills and, you know, we're doing doubles with twists and triples and incredible stuff and then just bouncing straight into another somersault.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  So what sort of forces are in play in, say, a tumbling routine or a vaulting routine where you've got that build up of momentum and speed and then the explosion and the twists and the rotations?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Well, you're in contact with the ground when you're tumbling that fast for less than it's about a tenth of a second, maybe a point one five of a second. And in that time, you're going to experience about 10 times your own body weight. So it's incredible forces. Now, it is mitigated by the fact that you've got a mat and you've got a sprung floor, but nevertheless, it's explosive and that's why it bangs when it goes, because it literally is explosive, the forces are huge.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  All right, you yourself were an Olympic gymnast and you yourself now, in your capacity with the US Olympic Centre in Tule Vista, California, work with world-class gymnasts and athletes. What would you say the one single thing that would make a world-class gymnast?

• 4:08Speaker 02

  I think it's tenacity.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  It's the ability to hang in there through all the injuries, through all the training. Through all the depression, the difficulties, and just keep coming out. Every time you get knocked down, you get back up and you just keep on going.

• 4:23Chuck Nice?

  Gary just mentioned the fact that you are the senior sport technologist at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. What are you responsible for in the development of these athletes? What is it that you do?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Well, that's an interesting question. My job is to help our athletes improve their performance more rapidly so that we can win more medals at the Olympic Games. My job, since I'm called a technologist, is to find the best and most current technology that can help us feed back information to them about the skills they're doing and how to improve those skills.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  How are you going about analyzing their technique? Because in the end, the execution of the routine is what's going to get them the extra points. Am I correct?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Correct, and when you learn a skill, obviously you're pretty shaky at it. And so you repeat that skill over and over again, and you use video feedback. It's primary. The gym at the Training Center in Colorado Springs has cameras on each apparatus, and they have a delayed feedback, so they can get off the apparatus, go look at the video, and then confer with the coach about what skill and what aspects of that skill were good or were lacking. And then you've got to be able to basically get that skill nine out of 10 times before you can even think about putting it in your routine. Because doing a skill on its own is one thing, but putting it after seven or eight other skills is entirely another thing. You've got to be very, very well.

• 5:58Chuck Nice?

  So you're building a routine, one kind of skill, one kind of movement at a time? Is that how it goes? It's almost like.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 6:08Chuck Nice?

  It's almost like writing a song. It's like, you know, you're laying down the tracks, you know what I mean? So if a routine has like 16 moves, it's like, you know, 16 different tracks that you're laying down, one on top of the other.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a, that's a really good analogy and the, the idea is to combine those skills in a nice manner that flows um very aesthetically. And so you might have one specific, specific skill that you just learned and then you have to confer with your coach and say, well, where can I put this? Should I put it at the beginning, the middle or the end? How does it connect with the other skills?

• 6:44Chuck Nice?

  God.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  And what skills should I drop out in order to include this skill?

• 6:48Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God, why would anybody want to be a gymnast?

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Oh, it's fun.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking. I'm joking.

• 6:55Speaker 00

  Doctor, it's okay, he got the old fashioned look from me. He knows, he knows better now.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  So are you using, are you using 3D analysis as you did with your golfers and your throwers?

• 7:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Well, yes and no.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  In uh, in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics, it's going back a long while, but we were commissioned by the IOC to do 3D analysis of the rings and the high bar. And we set cameras, six cameras up in the stadium stand uh all around and we looked at the high bar. Before the athletes would actually come in the gym, we set up a calibration frame, we filled it, filmed it. And then as long as we didn't move uh the cameras, we were able to do 3D analysis on every move that the gymnast did. However, we would literally have to sit up all night digitizing each skill. That's putting the mouse cursor on the shoulder, the elbow. Nowadays, we can do that um more efficiently, but we're, we're not quite there yet.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  We're progressing to what we call markless motion capture, where we can just put, point the camera, magic camera, point the camera at the athlete and get the data. That's coming. And when that comes, then we'll be able to really do 3D analysis in a very efficient way.

• 8:09Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So let me ask you, when you talk, since you're a vaulter, um uh can you break down for us um from, you know, a biomechanics or physical uh scientific point of view, um the, the action of vaulting? Cause you're, you're, and, and exactly what makes the vaulter uh so good?

• 8:33Speaker 02

  So the big thing in vaulting is these days, you've got to be a sprinter. I mean, that's one thing the gymnasts could really improve on is how well they sprint. They need to take sprinting lessons because they've got to get to that board as fast as they can. To produce the kinetic energy.

• 8:49Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  That they can turn into uh the height of the vault.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  But then again, if you if you get too if you get too much power and you get a gymnast to to accelerate without control, you're gonna lose everything in the vault, are you not?

• 9:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's the risk you gotta take. I mean, that's the problem these days is they're going for uh everything now. So, yeah, you've gotta be controlled. But say you've got a hundred percent of your speed and then you back off to ninety or eighty percent. I mean, the trick is to not back off um very much because you need to convert that horizontal velocity into height and spin.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  You've gotta hit that uh that board and then just fly past the horse. They're barely touching the horse. Honestly, people think that you actually post um really hard and push with your arms. You don't really push with your arms much at all. Most of that velocity comes from the board and flies straight into the air. In fact, my master's thesis, I did analysis of vaulting for my master's thesis. I got uh six of the athletes, the gymnasts at Arizona State University, and we analyzed them and we found that the center of gravity never actually comes down onto the horse. It just keeps going up.

• 10:02Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 10:03Speaker 02

  So you just kinda tap the horse on the way through.

• 10:05Chuck Nice?

  So the horse is there for cosmetics. The the horse is really there for cosmetics. It's just like, you know.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  You want it de- designed it now, don't you? You want you you want to let someone.

• 10:14Chuck Nice?

  You know what I'm doing right now.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do, yeah.

• 10:16Chuck Nice?

  I'm coming up with a new sport, okay? And it's called Death Vault. All right? And instead of the horse, it's like, let's do the opposite. Since you barely touch the horse, like, let's do it so that if you touch it uh at at a certain time or a certain pressure, if you touch it with more than a certain pressure, you get electrocuted.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  You know, that's funny. That's called double mini tramp. And that's in another aspect of gymnastics called uh tumbling and trampling, T and T.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  So they have that event.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  Have you been watching Mad Max again?

• 10:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay, yeah, so that does beg the question then, Doc, why have the horse there at all? If you're barely touching it?

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Because it's called vaulting, not mini-tramp.

• 11:06Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I got you.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 11:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  You mentioned centre of gravity now, and then I'm kind of combining that with the sprinting aspect we touched on just a minute ago. The greatest sprinter of all time, Usain Bolt, coming in at about six foot six, guess he's never really going to be the ultimate gymnast, but you've got long, rangy athletes sprinting, but gymnasts aren't that tall, without me being rude.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Why are gymnasts not as tall? So compact. Yes, thank you, not as tall as Usain Bolt. Is there a scientific reason why we are getting off gymnasts like that, rather than tall and rangy?

• 11:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, you scrape your feet on the floor on the high bar.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  As long as it's a practical reason.

• 11:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  And the rings, too.

• 11:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 11:58Chuck Nice?

  That's funny, now I've come up with a new sport.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Oh, dear.

• 12:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, oversized gymnastics, all right, where you get guys, everybody is like as tall as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and you just watch them flopping around and dragging their knees on the ground.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Don't be rude to big guys, Chuck, you know you're gonna lose on that one.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, but think about that, then, it's the levers that they have to control, it's the length of the muscle and the length of the lever, that becomes very disadvantageous very quickly.

• 12:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it does.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  So, the fact that they're not long and rangy means they have a great deal more natural control over the rotations and the spins, etc.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and think about the rings, think about the cross on the rings, and think about the levers that you do on the rings, those would be very, very hard to hold.

• 12:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Talking about the rings, and what is it, is it the Maltese cross?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, where they go into that sort of crucifix position.

• 12:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  And how do you, with gymnastics, because it's all, for me, I'm looking at it in a very layman's terms, obviously, it's a great deal, if not everything, to do with flexibility, but then, you've got exercises like the rings, where if you do not have power and strength, you are getting nowhere near.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Executing any kind of routine. So how do you, how do you balance the two of strength, power and flexibility in training and for your gymnast?

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Well, that's why back in the old days when we had to do all around, you were in fact an all around gymnast. You had to have strength, flexibility, power, endurance. Now they are coming, becoming more and more specialised and you have specialists on the rings, you have specialists on the high bar. And so you can see the differences in those athletes. I mean, the ring guys are just, you know, buff. They're, they're really built really, really strong. The tumblers tend to be a little bit lighter and a little bit, uh, smaller perhaps.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Hmm. How about the guys who do the pommel horse?

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Pommel horse? Well, Alex Nador is the, is the king there. He's actually the son of a, a friend of mine, Mike Nador, from, uh, we were teammates at Arizona State.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  And you've got to be extremely strong in the shoulders.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  At the same time being very, very flexible. And then now with the Thomas Blair, where you see them doing the circles with the, the straddle split.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  You've got to be flexible as well. And you have to have a huge amount of endurance because those routines last for a long time now.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  So how do you, how do you build a gymnast to, to be able to do a pommel horse routine for that length of time, but incorporating all of those different aspects? Do, is it, is it quite simply you just wait for the naturally gifted athlete gymnast rather to turn up? Or do you work to achieve that?

• 14:43Speaker 02

  No, no, it's just work. And I, it's funny you should mention pommel horse because that is one of the most frustrating events in all of gymnastics. I remember when I was learning, I could barely do a, a double leg circle and you just work and work and work. And you've just got to have faith. You just keep working and then eventually something clicks and all of a sudden now you can start to circle. And as you start to circle, you can, uh, you can do more and more. But it's, it's definitely a strength and endurance. It, it was interesting for me because when I finished gymnastics, um,

• 15:17Speaker 02

  In I think, you know, I'm telling you how old I am now, but it was like eighty-one, eighty-two when I quit competing. And I was working at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs at the time. This is my second time with the U.S. O.C. Um, I was able to get in the gym and work out. And I remember after six months of, uh, finishing gymnastics, I got on the pommel horse and all of a sudden I could do all the skills I couldn't do when I was a gymnast. It was amazing.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  How do you account for that?

• 15:43Speaker 02

  My body was learning. You know, kind of, it was almost like it seeped in and my body got stronger and it's all, all the neurons just finally connected and I just got up there and I'm like, wow, why couldn't I do this when I was a competitor? It was amazing.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Are you glad the men don't do the beam?

• 15:58Speaker 02

  I've done that. I remember doing a cartwheel one time and putting one, one leg either side. Yeah, you, you do that once and you don't do it again.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, wince.

• 16:09Chuck Nice?

  I've done the beam once and my voice ended up sounding like this. Um, yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  I have to, I mean, I have total respect for the ladies on the beam. They are just awesome. When you, when you think that, that, you know, they're, they're mid-air sometimes and landing on basically a plank of wood, what is it, four inches across?

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, they tumble like they're tumbling on the floor. It's totally amazing.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  Now, is it true that women are able to do that because they have a, a naturally lower center of gravity and that's why the women are able to do the beam and men are not?

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Well, it all helps, but there's some tall girls out there. Anastasia Lukin was pretty tall and, uh, so I don't know that that would, that, that's never, you can't ever really point to one thing. It's always a combination of things. Um, yeah, I think if I was a female and had to do beam, I would never have been a gymnast. That would have, uh, put me out. But uneven bars and tumbling and vaulting, yeah, they're fantastic.

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  Cool, man.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  As are you, Dr. Phil. Thank you to Dr. Phil Cheetham. Fabulous, fabulous, as always with the good doctor. We are going to take our break. When we come back, a real treat, an Olympic silver medalist and a world champion from U.S. A Team Gymnastics. Yes, Samantha Peszek will be with us. We are thrilled, hope you are, stick around, she'll be with us very shortly.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 17:36Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  And this, of course, is Playing with Science. And today, we are exploring the science of gymnastics. And I am thrilled to say our next guest is a gymnast of some repute. Samantha Peszek, silver medalist and world champion. And that silver medal, Chuck, came in the Olympics.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  That's correct.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Welcome to Playing with Science.

• 17:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Right, you were an all-round gymnast. What was your favourite discipline?

• 18:05Speaker 03

  Well, like you mentioned, I did all four events. I did gymnastics for 21 years, which is quite a long time. And when I was younger, it kind of just depended on whatever event I had the best day on, that was my favourite. But as I got older, the beam definitely became my favourite event and my best event.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. See, the beam is something that scares men. You know that, don't you?

• 18:31Speaker 03

  I've heard that, yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  I can see how it would be very scary. And it was one of those events where I would go to bed at night praying that I would wake up and there would only be three events in gymnastics because I was so afraid of beam. So it's kind of ironic that it ended up becoming my best event and my favourite a little bit later down the line.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Okay, so if I go through, and Chuck, for you, as far as you're concerned, I will be speaking in tongues. So back tuck, back pipe, aerial cartwheel, round off double pike dismount, does that make any sense to you, Samantha?

• 19:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  You see?

• 19:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. So why don't you go ahead?

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Can you do all those things?

• 19:10Speaker 00

  I am privileged enough to say that I can say them barely. That's it.

• 19:15Chuck Nice?

  So let me ask you this. When you start out on the beam, how early do you have to start training to be proficient the way you are?

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Well, I started gymnastics when I was two.

• 19:30Chuck Nice?

  Whoa, what took you so long?

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. My dad was a wrestler and a hockey player in college and my mom was a gymnast in college. And, um, I mean, I, I did a bunch of sports when I was younger. I played soccer and I danced. But I think gymnastics is actually the, the sport that you can start the earliest.

• 19:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  So, um, it's actually good for foundation, no matter what sport you end up, um, pursuing later in life.

• 19:55Chuck Nice?

  And so if you start that early, when, when does, when does competition start? Or is there any competition for, for younger, like, you know, I know, I know, once you get into, you know, um, once you get into like, uh, the Olympics and world champions and stuff like that, um, the, the, the, the participants are pretty young. But is there a circuit before that?

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's called the, the JO program, the Junior Olympic Program. And there's levels. So there's levels one through 10, uh, 10 being the best. And just to give you an idea, level 10s get college scholarships. Um, and then you have to qualify to the next level, which is the elite level, which puts you on track to compete for the national team and for the Olympics and things like that. So I actually started competing at level four when I was, um, six years old. Cause that was how old you had to be to, uh, start competing that level.

• 20:48Chuck Nice?

  Cool. So now I gotta, I gotta bring this up, okay? And Gary, take a look at this, okay? And for those of you who are listening to us or watching us on All Access, I'll make sure that I give this picture to our producer, uh, Johnny Bo, so that he can put it, uh, as a part of the podcast. And remember, you can always find everything that we do as StarTalk related on StarTalkAllAccess.com. But, uh, Sam, I gotta ask you about this picture because there is a picture of you. You're doing the uneven parallel bars, okay? And it is an awesome picture because you are fully released from the bar because you're going from one bar to the next. And you are just suspended in midair.

• 21:33Chuck Nice?

  And it is super, super cool. Like, I mean, it is, it's just a great picture. The intensity of concentration on your face actually hurts my head.

• 21:48Chuck Nice?

  Like that's how like you are so focused. If that was me, that would be fear. Exactly.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm sure it was a little of that too, like catch the bar, catch the bar, catch the bar. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? And that's like panic in my face and I'm only, um, I can only guess what, what picture it is. And I'm sure my face looks, uh, the most unattractive.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I'm just gonna say you look, you look really.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Phrased it as intense because that was, uh, definitely the most intense time of my life is competing, especially for the Olympics and bigger competitions. But it was funny because when I was, um, at my very first big competition, I was 12 years old and, um, we competed on podium, which is, uh, big surface. There was a big audience. It was where my idols were competing. So it was a big moment for me and they took a lot of pictures. And I remember it's probably the exact picture you guys are talking about. My body position was really good. My shape was good. It was an awesome picture. It looked like I was flying, but my face was just so atrocious looking because I wasn't thinking about my face. I was thinking about catching the bar, obviously.

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  So I went into the gym and I decided that I was gonna practice smiling in the middle of my, what is called a release move. Um, because I thought, how cool would it be to be the only person to be able to smile in their release moves? So I went into it and that was the only thing that I was thinking about and I ended up almost like hitting my face on the bar, like eating the bar. Because I wasn't thinking about catching it. I was just thinking about smiling and, um, let me just tell you, my coach was not happy with me. He asked me what I was doing and, um, we had a good relationship. So I told him I was trying to smile and, um, he's this like very nice, respectful Chinese man.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  And he was just like freaked out. He was like, why would you do that? And, um, so lo and behold, I, I never tried to smile in any of my.

• 23:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh, what a shame. Wow, that's pretty, uh, uh, speaking of spatial awareness and the fact that you're like, uh, in a release move like that. So, you know, what is it that's going through your mind in terms of, or is there anything going through your mind? Because when I look at these pictures of you, it's amazing. Like, your toes are perfectly pointed. It's like your, like your foot is almost in a straight line. I mean, every muscle in your body is in a tense, flexed, um, contraction.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  They would, they need to be. All, all of this elegance that has to be transmitted comes through this and, and Samantha will be gaining points for having such elegant display of her technique.

• 24:36Chuck Nice?

  And it's, I mean, it's, it's actually beautiful. I mean, seriously, you're, you're, you're, you're actually beautiful in this, in these shots. But what's, what's happening mentally, man? What, what's going through your mind mentally when you're executing these moves?

• 24:49Speaker 03

  So it's crazy because a lot of people don't see the behind the scenes and we train between, you know, four and six hours a day, or that's what I did. Um, and, eh, you know, you train so many hours so often, it's, it's not, there's not an off season in our sport and you get this one opportunity in competition to do the best thing, the best job you can. And so you can really rely on your mental, we always say it's like eighty to eighty-five percent a mental sport and then the rest is physical. And for people watching, it just looks like a very physical sport. So you can imagine how mentally demanding it is to make sure that you're in the right mindset before you go up. Um, I always felt like I did better under pressure.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Um, so when I was younger, I used to tell myself, like, people are watching you, people are watching you. And I would be like on the top of my game because I always loved showing off my, all my hard work that I put in in the gym and the new skills that I had. Um, but the older that I got, the more I focused on each individual skill. You know, you almost have a mental routine, um, as well as a physical routine. So you say the exact same things in your head, um, in the competition as you do in practice. So you have to train your mind to be that tough, no matter what setting you're in, or no matter how loud the crowd is cheering or booing or what, what have you.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  Well, what Samantha, I'm, I'm interested with different. Sort of skills and techniques and I'm looking at Yurchenko down here and I'm gonna at one point ask you to explain that. How long would it take you to master that particular skill and or other skills that you would use on the floor, on the beam, on the uneven bars, etc.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  Well, that's a that's a little bit of a loaded question because like I mentioned before, there's, you know, levels. So each level is kind of building a foundation of gymnastics. So when you go to start learning these higher skills, you already have the really basic foundations. So really, when you're starting to learn a Yurchenko or a higher level skill, you've already put in years of, you know, the groundwork, so to speak. And you start training, you know, into the soft foam pit or maybe with a spa and then you have to do a lot of repetitions to build what is called, you know, muscle memory.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  Chuck's eyes have lit up because you've said soft cone pit.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  The foam pit.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  Foam pit, right. So he's just thinking he's just gonna dive face first.

• 27:14Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, that's a I

• 27:16Speaker 00

  He's in a child has just become very interested.

• 27:18Chuck Nice?

  That's where I'm a Viking, the soft foam pit, okay?

• 27:20Speaker 03

  Oh, man, we used to have to do conditioning on it and you did not wanna go in the soft foam pit.

• 27:25Chuck Nice?

  Really? It sounds like so much fun.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Was there one particular skill?

• 27:30Speaker 03

  I think there were fifteen competitive gymnasts, I feel like, and people that came in and did rec because everyone wanted to go in the pit and we would actively try to do anything but go in the pit because it took so much energy to get out.

• 27:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah, that that that I could see that being a problem because you're walking on big giant pieces of foam.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  What a what a really clever way of getting conditioning into any athlete to say, right, now get out of there.

• 27:54Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  What was the most difficult skill you found for you to master? Bearing in mind the level that you did achieve, you've probably got a handle on all of it.

• 28:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty clear that you have a handle on all of them. I mean, you're a silver medalist in the Olympics. I mean, that's that's incredible.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. Um, well, the most difficult skill that I ever did, and at the time, there was only a few girls in the entire world that were performing this skill, and it was called a double double. Um, it's two flips and two twists in the air uh before you hit the ground. And it was extremely scary. It was one of those where I was like, you know, let's go. Don't freak out. You know, you can get really, really hurt if you kind of freak out in the middle of it, or you don't commit fully. And so, um, that was definitely the scariest skill, the most difficult skill that I ever competed.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  Are you aware of the, the science that's involved in a double double, a twist, a turn, and all the rest of it? Or do you just say, look, I'm fearless, I'm doing this no matter what?

• 28:57Speaker 03

  Um, I probably would have been better off if I did know the science, because I like to know how things work, and I probably wouldn't have been as, as afraid. But to me, it just seemed like, whenever I would think about it, so impossible that you could do two flips and two twists in the air without hitting the ground. So I think the less I thought about it, the better.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Wow. It is a wow, by the way.

• 29:19Chuck Nice?

  Is there, is there any science that brings, that comes to your training that helps you? I mean, when you are, when you were training?

• 29:26Speaker 03

  Definitely. I mean, things, not that we thought about, oh, this is the science of the skill, but, um, you know, the angle that you have to hit to, you know, take off a certain direction, you know, if you're, if you're doing a twisting skill, if you're doing a triple full, your angle to the floor has to be deeper, as opposed to a flipping skill where you have to stand up straighter so you can go higher instead of distance. So things like that, that you learn in the gym, that you're, you don't necessarily classify like, oh, this is the science of the skill. But yeah, we, we definitely learn, you know, you want to run fast on vault, but you don't want to run out of control. So what's the eighty percent of your speed to, you know, stay in control, but also be the fastest

• 30:10Speaker 03

  you can go while being in control? So different things like that. And, you know, when you're doing those release moves, like we were talking about earlier, of like, what angle do you have to let go? How high? How long are you going to be in the air? When should you reach to catch the bar? And it's definitely building the muscle memory of the science of the skill.

• 30:27Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that, man, I gotta tell you, it's, it is just a phenomenal accomplishment to perform at the level at which you have, uh, when you look at the amount of training and the dedication necessary to get to, to where you are. I mean, uh, just, just, just congratulations, kudos to you. And the fact that you did it, the fact that you did it representing, sorry, Gary, sorry, Gary.

• 30:52Speaker 00

  Don't be, no, no, no.

• 30:53Chuck Nice?

  Representing the USA, baby.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Thank you, thanks. It was, it's actually, uh, you know, I still think that it's surreal because when I was five, it was the first time that I decided I want to go to the Olympics. I saw the ninety-six team win gold, um, in Atlanta and as a five-year-old, I just told my parents I was gonna go to the Olympics. And I'm pretty stubborn and my parents always told me I could do whatever I set my mind to, but I don't think anyone really understood how serious I was about this dream. And, you know, teachers in school would ask me what I wanted to do when I grow up and all I wanted to do was go to the Olympics. And so I didn't really understand how much work and how difficult it was gonna be down the line, but it started at a, as a young age and, um, I, you know, it was always in the back of my mind during training and during the hard days.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  See, this is what I, this is what I love about talking to elite athletes like Samantha. They will start with a dream, just like any, any young person.

• 31:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  But something makes them see it through. Something makes it dumb and not just, I wish, what if? All of those questions don't exist in Samantha's life. She knows, she's done it, she's been there. Okay, Samantha, before we let you go, I have this wonderful question. It's wonderful in my mind, probably the only place it's wonderful. Um, I, I, I, at high school back in England, I, I was blessed to have a, a sports master who was very, very involved in British gymnastics. So I kinda had a feel and we had sort of world champions and international gymnasts around me in school and I wasn't one of them. Um, but having got that kind of feeling for gymnastics, I would always watch the Olympics and it intrigues

• 32:34Speaker 00

  me. Do you get to choose your own music for the floor routine or does someone just dump it on you?

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Um.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  Um.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  I think it depends on who your individual coach is.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  And then, you know, at the higher level, you have to have it approved by the national staff.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Um. Understandable.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  To, that goes in to think about it like, yeah, you want it to match your personality. That's like the number one thing. I would never have like a graceful, beautiful ballet floor music.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  If you will, because I was more of a powerful gymnast. So I needed a little extra oomph from the music. So there was a lot that went into picking, um, music and your style. And I was definitely, I like to be a little bit more smiley and show off and have a little bit more fun. I wasn't really the serious girl, so I had to pick music that kind of fit my personality, but also was serious enough for the elite world. So it was a difficult balance sometimes, but yeah, I, I always had a say in what, um, floor music I had.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Good, because I always felt at some point that that suited the gymnast perfectly. And another time I'd be watching and thinking, there's no way you chose that.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I can't say the same for everybody.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  No.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  Because I definitely know some gymnasts that they, they was out of their control completely. Um, but again, my coach and I had a really good relationship and I felt like we were always on a team and he respected my opinion, which I really appreciate. Um, and so that was definitely something where I, I felt like I needed to, uh, interject and give my opinion in.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  Wow, fabulous. Samantha, before you let, we let you go, what are you doing with yourself at this moment in time in terms of career wise?

• 34:18Speaker 03

  So I'm actually doing sports broadcasting, um, and that starts up again in January with the NCAA gymnastics. But I was fortunate enough to go to Rio and cover the games for NBC. Um, and it was my first time back at an Olympic Games, um, since I was competing. So it was a really, really neat opportunity for me to just be surrounded in that atmosphere again, but on a completely different level.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, how did that feel having to stand on the outside looking in?

• 34:45Speaker 03

  It was, it was cool because you know, when you go as an athlete, you have tunnel vision, you have your job and you know what you're supposed to do. So you don't really think about anything else. So it was really cool for me to see um how everything else works on the other side of, other side of the fence. Um, it was a lot less stressful, let me tell you.

• 35:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 03

  And it was nice that uh, you know, my, my USA girls had such a good um, you know, week.

• 35:11Chuck Nice?

  Didn't they just?

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it was, it was a fun, I had, I shed some tears. I was so proud. Um, just because I know what it's like to be in their shoes and to finally have your dream come true. And um, that's kind of what I see, not just from the USA girls, but there was a few other girls that had such a fantastic Olympic games that I feel like that I can really understand what that was like because it put years and years and years. You know, gymnastics is one of those sports that people tune into once every four years at the Olympics. Um, and then they kind of forget that those girls are training four years before the next one. And so it's really cool um, to know that firsthand and to really appreciate all the girls that are training that hard around the world.

• 35:51Chuck Nice?

  Well, we really appreciate you, seriously.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  We do. And hopefully our listeners will now appreciate that it's not just every four years and it's in a year round thing. So Samantha Peszek, thank you so much for being our guest today. It's been wonderful to talk to you and uh, quite enlightening.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  Thank you very much for having me.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  You're welcome. Well Chuck, that's it. Another Playing with Science. Are you, are you thinking about taking up gymnastics now?

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. Uh, the first thing I'm gonna do is actually learn to touch my toes and I hope I could scored a 10.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  And I'll leave you with that thought. That's it from Playing with Science. That has been the science behind gymnastics. If you can touch your toes, you're a better man than Chuck and I. Um, or lady for that matter. Look forward to your company soon. Bye bye.