Injury Possible cure for twisties

[bucket]

Just 1-min exposure to a pure tone at 100 Hz with daily exposable sound pressure levels may improve motion sickness

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[Geoffrey Taucer]

I'm skeptical that this would help with the twisties.

I know that when Simone dropped out of the '21 Olympics, there was an article that made the rounds describing the twisties as a vestibular issue in the inner ear, and if that were the case then this might have some applicability to it.

However, I was and still am extremely skeptical that the twisties are a vestibular issue. (Let me make the up-front admission that I have no formal expertise in the anatomy or neurology, my only experience is as an athlete and coach)

If it were any sort of concrete physiological issue, I'd expect it to EITHER be an acute issue affecting one specific performance of one specific skill, or a universal issue affecting all skills through inversion. But that's almost never how the twisties manifest; they usually start with one skill, then sometimes generalize to other similar skills over time. This makes no sense if it's a concrete physiological issue, but makes perfect sense if it is a primarily-psychological issue that gets worse as the athlete's self-confidence is shaken.

Again, no formal expertise except coaching, but everything I've ever seen in coaching leads me to believe the twisties are mostly- or entirely-psychological, rather than physiological. There may be an initial physiological trigger, but I firmly believe that the twisties are primarily an issue of the athlete's self-confidence collapsing (which can have any number of causes).

 

[estamey21]

My pet theory is that the onset of the twisties is physiological, but the twisties, itself, psychological. There are a lot of plausible biological explanations for why a gymnast would suddenly feel lost in outer space (hormones, growth spurt, illness, etc). But because the feeling of losing control is so scary, it triggers a psychological reaction that is very challenging to overcome. Our brains are (correctly) programmed to avoid scenarios that would cause us to fall uncontrollably at high speeds. Even after a gymnast recovers from the initial incident of feeling lost, it takes a lot of cognitive effort to regain control over the distress signals that the brain is pumping out.