The Shakti Gymnast

The title of this blog post may be surprising to you, as most of us athletes are told since the beginning of our athletic career that protein is the most important part of our diet. I'm not disagreeing that protein is important; it is, but it's not everything. We, as humans, don't need protein in every meal. And in my opinion, protein should be consumed wisely, as it is can affect energy levels and performance.  Disclaimer: These are all of my thoughts and opinions from past experience and what has worked for me. What Happens When You Consume Protein Protein is for recovery. After we exercise, our muscles are damaged and in order for muscle synthesis to occur in order to heal them, we need protein. When we consume protein, we are telling our body to rest and repair.  When Should We Consume Protein? The best time to consume protein is right after a workout, specifically 30 minutes after exercising, so we can let our body know that it is time to recover and repair our damage

About a year and a half ago I started taking personal training classes to improve my strength and help reduce gymnastics injuries due to muscle weakness in my body. Now I weight train because I love these types of workouts and I have seen dramatic improvements in my athletic abilities. Skills and exercises I have not been strong enough to do in the past come easy to me now. I also notice that I know how to engage different muscle groups to help me do certain skills. I feel stronger, more aware of my body, and healthier.  In The Beginning When I first started taking personal training sessions, I wasn't really familiar with weight training. All I knew was that body builders do weight training to build muscle mass. Before taking these classes, I had back pain. It wasn't from an acute injury and I thought it was due to over-training. I had a muscle-related back injury in the past and it took me nearly four months to recover. I started personal training sessions as a way to improve

Fears and metal blocks are very common in gymnastics. Every gymnast gets scared to do something at some point in time, but it's the way that the gymnast handles her fears that determines whether or not she will overcome the mental challenge. There are a few things that I have come up with that had helped me with my fears in the past.  1. The People You Surround Yourself With Take a look at your surroundings. Do you feel that everyone around you is fearful or anxious? Do many of your teammates have fears or mental blocks? This may be a factor that is contributing to your fears or mental blocks.  In my gymnastics career, I have been at five different gyms, and I have noticed that the number of gymnasts who have fears or mental blocks varies. For example, at my previous gym, there was only one gymnast who had fear problems in my group. In the gym I go to now, ninety-percent of the gymnasts in my group has a fear problem. It makes me wonder if fears and mental blocks come not because o

What Does Quality Over Quantity Mean?  I have heard this saying a million times. I'm sure most people have heard this saying at least one time in their life. It's a pretty straight-forward saying and it means what it implies: the quality of work that you do is more important than the quantity of the work that you do.  For example, I can make ten bar routines at practice with sloppy form that score a 8.0-8.5, go to the meet and hope that I can get a 9.0 on it. Or I can make one or two clean bar routines that score 9.0-9.5, go to a meet and know that I can get at least a 9.0 on it. What you practice is what you will perform . Practicing quality over quantity is what you will get at a meet, and vise-versa. The beauty of this practice is that the mind and body will start getting used to doing quality routines, so at some point I will be able to do 10 routines that score a 9.0-9.5 easily. Then maybe I want to raise my bar and start saying that a "quality" routine scores hi