WARNING: Rant ahead.
Ok, so my gym literally has the WORST floor I have ever tumbled on. It's normal blue gym carpet on top but the foam is worn out to the point that the edges are starting to flake off and look like pit dust, the wood is cracked in multiple places because we have some good tumblers, and the springs SUCK. It's legitimately like tumbling on slightly sprung grass. It hurts so bad to tumble on and they won't even look into buying a new floor. I know new floor systems are really expensive but when athletes are getting injured and consistently complaining, you should look into buying a new one. I'm a pretty powerful floor worker but even when I do a RO-BHS- Back tuck, the wood makes a nasty bending/crackling noise. The amount of dead spots there are is beyond normal and just incase you've never punched off of a dead spot, your knees and ankles literally die (maybe that's why it's called a dead spot
). We have a rod floor but it's only around 30 feet long. We got a new 40 foot tumble track but the position it's in would make any gymnast cringe. It's placed right along a brick wall and to the left of the landing mat is a GIANT window. Our pit bar is cringe-worthy as well. We can only doing giants facing one way though because not even five feet away from the bar is solid ground. We throw an eight incher there now because my teammate peeled through the bottom in a front giant and landed on his neck in a scorpion on one of those blue base mats that you use to cover the ground. We had to call an ambulance because neck landings are nothing to mess around with and his lower back muscles completely tightened up. He's doing fine now and he's back in the gym but our gym's setup was not thought out well at all. I feel like this rant is all over the place but I just really needed to let this out. Sorry for the rant!
Ok, so my gym literally has the WORST floor I have ever tumbled on. It's normal blue gym carpet on top but the foam is worn out to the point that the edges are starting to flake off and look like pit dust, the wood is cracked in multiple places because we have some good tumblers, and the springs SUCK. It's legitimately like tumbling on slightly sprung grass. It hurts so bad to tumble on and they won't even look into buying a new floor. I know new floor systems are really expensive but when athletes are getting injured and consistently complaining, you should look into buying a new one. I'm a pretty powerful floor worker but even when I do a RO-BHS- Back tuck, the wood makes a nasty bending/crackling noise. The amount of dead spots there are is beyond normal and just incase you've never punched off of a dead spot, your knees and ankles literally die (maybe that's why it's called a dead spot
). We have a rod floor but it's only around 30 feet long. We got a new 40 foot tumble track but the position it's in would make any gymnast cringe. It's placed right along a brick wall and to the left of the landing mat is a GIANT window. Our pit bar is cringe-worthy as well. We can only doing giants facing one way though because not even five feet away from the bar is solid ground. We throw an eight incher there now because my teammate peeled through the bottom in a front giant and landed on his neck in a scorpion on one of those blue base mats that you use to cover the ground. We had to call an ambulance because neck landings are nothing to mess around with and his lower back muscles completely tightened up. He's doing fine now and he's back in the gym but our gym's setup was not thought out well at all. I feel like this rant is all over the place but I just really needed to let this out. Sorry for the rant!
