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Wednesday, January 30, 1985
Emerald Sports Supplement
Are gymnastic routines safe?
Student granted Fulbright for research
Anyone who has seen women's Olym
pic gymnastics has to be impressed with
both the young ages of the competitors
and the incredible difficulty of the
moves.
However, it is not without cost, says
Victoria Panzer, a doctoral student in the
University’s Biomechanics/Sports
Medicine Laboratory. Panzer recently
received an International Telephone and
Telegraph corporation-sponsored
Fulbright Scholarship to study injuries
in elite gymnasts in Australia.
Panzer, who has earned two masters’
degrees from Columbia University in
educational administration and motor
mechanics, has been at the University as
a Graduate Teaching Fellow for the past
year and a half working in the
Biomechanics/Sports Medicine lab,
which is known for its research in runn
ing injuries and other related sports.
Biomechanics is essentially the study
of optimizing technique for preventing
injuries related to physical activity,
Panzer says.
It was the research of Dr. Kenneth
University doctoral student Victoria Panzer’s research of injuries in elite gym
nasts has landed her a spot,at, the University of Western Australia in Perth.
Singer, an orthopedic surgeon at the
Eugene Orthopedic and Fracture Clinic,
that interested Panzer in biomechanics.
Singer became concerned about the
unusual number of elbow disorders gym
nasts were treated for at the clinic and
began studying the cases for an explana
tion. He found there was a correlation
between a technique gymnasts used to
execute a particular vault exercise and
the elbow injuries he was treating.
A former gymnast and coach herself,
Panzer feels that she was naturally led
into this field as a result of her interest in
both sports medicine and gymnastics.
The issue of performance and safety is
becoming increasingly important in
gymnstics. Panzer feels that when Olga
Korbut arrived on the scene, the Soviet
three-time gold medal winner in the
1972 Olympic Games presented some
new issues for both gymnasts and
coaches.
Korbut’s introduction of difficult and
potentially dangerous moves resulted in
an increase in the number of risky moves
required during gymnastic routines,
Panzer says. She further notes that the
young girl from Russia also added a new
dimension to the sport — competitors
were becoming increasingly younger.
Panzer says that many of the difficult
moves now popular in gymnastics re
quire great strength which puts lots of
stress on the underdeveloped systems of
the young gymnasts.
“The research I’ll be doing is especial
ly important because the average age of
gymnasts is going down. We have the
chance to protect a lot of young peo
ple,” Panzer says.
“There is always going to be some in
herent risk,” she adds,“but the question
is when does this risk become a
danger?”
It is this question that Panzer hopes to
help answer in Australia this September
when she begins her Fulbright studies.
Her research will begin at the Univer
sity of Western
Australia in Perth,
where she will
program research
data into com
puters. She will
then go to the Na
tional Institute of Sport in
Canberra to actually do the
research.
Panzer will research under
Dr. Bruce Mason, head of
biomechanics at NIS. Mason is a
former doctoral student of Dr.
Barry Bates, one of the key resear
chers in the University’s biomechanics
lab.
Mason came to the Olympic Scientific
Congress, hosted in Eugene last summer, (
and presented the preventative research
being done at the institute and what they (
hope to accomplish in the future. Panzer j
attended the presentation and decided to ^
apply for a Fulbright scholorship to j
study in Australia.
It would seem that some research
would have been done in gymnastics
prior to this, but this is not the case, ]
Panzer says. 1
“There are studies done on football
players and such, but not on gymnasts.
There is lots of difference between an
18-year-old guy and a 13-year-old girl.”
Panzer says gymnastics is becoming a
strength sport, which it wasn’t in there
cent past. Girls are working out with
weights, but are they ready for it?
“Even though the muscles are strong,
that doesn’t mean that the underlying
structures are,” she adds.
Recent interest in gymnastics research
tias been inspired in part by a new
awareness in coaches of the potential in
iuries involved without proper techni
que and training.
Dick Mulvihill, director of the Oregon
Academy of Artistic Gymnastics in
Eugene, says that new skills are being
developed so fast that the coaches don’t
have have a chance to research the
damage these moves can do.
“You just don’t know,” he says. “We
are working in a physiological vacuum,
rhere is scanty information on
gymnastics.”
Unlike Panzer though, Mulvihill does
not blame the increased risk factor on
Korbut; he blames it, in part, on the 1964
Olympic Games in Tokyo.
“That was really a revolution in risk,”
he says. “The apparatus became better,
and the sport became more popular.”
Panzer has worked with the Oregon
academy and is impressed with their at
titude. They test each new move as it
comes up, and have an orthopedic doc
tor look at it to evaluate its safety and
potential danger.
Coaches are beginning to look more
closely at their athletes and injuries,
Panzer says. The investment of training a
gymnast for six years makes a bit of
prevention worth the cost if it keeps her
lealthy for competition.
“The national directors in Australia
aw this,” Panzer says. “They saw that
,rou can invest lots of time in an athlete
md then blow it with an injury.”
Panzer says she was overwhelmed
vhen she learned of that her Fulbright
vas accepted. “It was a big shock.”
Bates, under whom she studies at the
Jniversity, is excited for Panzer and en
hused about her research.
“Getting this
award is a prime
example of intense
initiative and
r motivation,” he
says. That’s what
it takes to get a
Fulbright he adds, along with a lit
tle bit of luck.
“There are a lot of people with
good proposals that don’t make it. It
takes being in the right place at the
right time,” he says.
Bates is hopeful that such work
with top level athletes will trickle
lown to the novice and intermediate
gymnasts.
Ordinarily, Bates would have reserva
ions about sending a student abroad to
vork under someone else. He says that if
he work the student does under the
■ulbright is not a success, ultimately the
ailure is his responsibility. But he says
le is not worried about Panzer’s success
mder Mason’s supervision.
“He’s probably the best student I ever
lad. I have no problems releasing Vic
oria into his care.”
Story by Ken Armstrong
Photo by Michael Clapp
AS