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| Picture From Nike |
So I may be a few years out of the loop seeing as its been years since I've been involved in competitive gymnastics, and watching it on television often caused me to deeply miss the sport. I stumbled upon an article though about the Nike show, the Pidima (greek for leap) , designed specifically for gymnasts and apparently used in the olympics. This is the smallest shoe which Nike makes and is specifically designed to meet the need of world-class gymnasts, specifically while vaulting. I had never heard of such a thing as a "vaulting shoe" as we always vaulted bare foot, so I was quite intrigued.
So what is the advantage to any vaulting shoe?
This article from notcot.com helped my understanding of the shoes the most. Since vault is an event in which the athlete must run as fast as they can in a limited distance then jump with a high force off the vault, this shoe was designed to improve the speed of the run and control during both the approach to the vault and the landing. These shoes are suppose to be able to help the gymnast achieve the maximum velocity during the run so they can achieve maximum height during the trick, allowing for maximum rotations, both flipping and twisting. The shoe was designed with a rubber traction system on the bottom, which is what is suppose to improve speed and control. There is what was described as a slightness of material, making it so the foot would feel as bare as possible.
So, from what I can tell, the gymnast increases their speed on the vault runway, therefore increasing the forced which they hit the springboard with. Since the force which they are hitting the springboard with is greater, the height which the gymnast reaches after leaving the vault is increased, giving them both a higher velocity to perform tricks and a greater air time in which to perform them.
The video shown above shows some amazing vaults from way back when to 2009; many of performed barefoot from what I can tell though some had vaulting shoes. So I'm not sure if these shoes really work to improve vaults, or if maybe more men use them than women. I've been out of the sport so long to know the whole story behind them, but there were olympic athletes using them so they are legal in the sport.
2 comments:
This is interesting. What do you think about this, ethically? It seems like gymnastics is one of those "stripped-down" sports, where the emphasis is on the gymnasts' bodies. It's almost a "pure" sport in this way. Involving worn equipment like this seems to violate this. Or am I wrong in my assumption?
I've gone back and forth on how I feel about this, my initital reaction was the same as yours. I feel like gymnastics is very much so about the gymnasts body and what they can do with it. However I started thinking and realized that for both mens and womens bars the majority of the athletes wear grips. Then the number of springs in the springboard for vault can also be manipulated to how many the gymnast prefers or will allow for the maximum height. So I haven't quite decide how I feel about the shoes.
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