Muscle Fitness Muscle & Fitness UK - April 2018 | Page 112

S P O RT S
PERFORMANCE
A
T JUST 16 YEARS OF
age an unknown schoolgirl
Gymnast from the North-East of
England headed 6,000 miles West
to participate in the 2016 Olympic
Games in Rio. Amy Tinkler shocked
many people in her own quiet and
unassuming way to come back
home with a bronze medal and
numerous records to her name...the
same name that once nobody knew
but now they will never forget.
It is not uncommon for elite athletes
to start participating in their chosen
sport at a young age, usually around
8-12 years old. But to be winning
Olympic medals at aged 16 you would
probably need to start a bit earlier
than usual. Amy Tinkler was just
two years old when she first
participated in gymnastics. Initially
her participation was for fun, but at
just eight years old Amy competed
nationally for the first time. “I came
second in that event and that was
probably the first time I realised
that I’m not too bad at gymnastics”
she says with little regard for the
huge understatement that has just
been made.
Having finished second in a national
event at such a young age, we would
all be forgiven for getting a bit carried
away and excited about the future.
But Amy didn’t do this at all, “I’ve
never really put pressure on myself
or expected myself to finish in certain
110
MUSCLE & FITNESS / APRIL 2018
M&F’s Sports & Performance
Editor Mark Laws speaks
with Amy Tinkler ahead of the
upcoming Commonwealth Games.
positions or to even qualify for certain
competitions”. Her rationale behind
this modest approach is that it allows
her to never be disappointed if those
goals aren’t achieved, which means
that “every success is an unexpected
bonus”.
But these successes don’t just
happen. There is a huge amount
of hard work and sacrifice that is
required in order to be among the
best in the world at your chosen sport.
Amy’s training week sees her spend
over 50 hours within the gym each
week, training either 11am-6pm or
12pm-7pm six days a week, with only
Sunday as a day off.
One of the benefits of this schedule
is the ability to have a good lay in and
what teenage girl would turn down
the opportunity to stay in bed until
10am every day? “I do like my sleep”
Amy boasts proudly, “so I usually wake
up just an hour before training, have
some breakfast, get ready and head to
the gym. I am there for 6-7 hours each
day and then head home and have
some dinner. In the evenings I just
chill out and then back to bed haha”.
One of the key physical traits for
a gymnast, aside from their ability
to sleep so well, is their incredible
strength. One thing that I was curious
to find out was how much gym based
conditioning these elite gymnasts
performed, and how much of their
strength was a result of the repetition
of sport-specific skills and techniques.
It turns out that the first hour
and the last 45-minutes of each
training day is reserved for ‘Strength
& Conditioning’ which includes all
manor of strength based exercises
such as the Leg Press and Squats, plus
some machine based aerobic work like
cross-training and rowing.
If you ever wonder how much
strength and power these tiny little
teenage gymnasts have, Amy is
currently loading up the Leg Press
with three times her own bodyweight.
“We do a lot of tumbling, and when we
land there can be up to five times our
bodyweight that has to be absorbed by
our legs. If we cannot withstand that
amount of force there is a high risk
of injury and it is also easy to lose our
balance which will affect our scoring”.
Not only does a gymnasts body
need to be able to absorb such high