StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Gymnastics: Leap, Bounce & Balance

Episode Date: October 5, 2017

Chuck Nice and Garry O’Reilly vault into the world of competitive gymnastics with the help of two former Olympic gymnasts: Dr. Phil Cheetham, Senior Sport Technologist for the US Olympic Committee, and 2008 Silver Medalist Samantha Peszek.Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on:TuneIn: tunein.com/playingwithscienceApple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjqSoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-scienceStitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-scienceNOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/gymnastics-leap-bounce-and-balance/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Knight. And this is Playing With Science. Today we leap, we fly, we bounce, we balance, we spin, somersault and twist. And all with the breathtaking grace and elegance in the pursuit of a perfect ten. Oh, yeah. And who better to guide us through the beam bars, floor, and vault than Samantha Pesek of the 2008 U.S. Women's Olympic team, which, by the way, took home the silver that year.

Yeah. Yeah. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad at all. And dropping the science on us is none other than our good friend, Dr. Phil Cheetham from the US Olympic Centre in Chula Vista, California, and himself a two-time Olympic gymnast,

member of the Australian Olympic team in 76 and 1980. That's right. Three times, not once, not twice, three times National Australian All-Round Gymnastics Championship, champion rather, and 20 national titles in individual events alone. Yeah, he's the right guy to talk to. I think he might just be. Yeah.

Dr. Phil Cheetham, how are you, sir? Good morning. I'm very well, thank you. Awesome, awesome. So, gymnastics, first of all, you were a gymnast, right? Is that the case? That is true, yes. And what was your event? What was your specialty?

I know a lot of gymnasts compete in many different events, but they all have a specialty. What was your specialty? Well, that's true. I wasn't all-arounder, and to compete at the Olympic level back when I was a gymnast, you had to do all-around, and I competed for 20 years. So in that time, to be honest with you, I liked all different types of apparatus, all the different equipment, but my best was definitely vaulting. Oh.

Out of the six times I competed at the Australian Championships, I won vaulting five out of the six times. So I was very fast twitch. I could tumble and I could vault really well. Oh, so it was naturally gifted. Yeah. Doctor, answer this, because when I've watched Olympics and the gymnastics,

particularly the floor exercises, I will see a gymnast tumble, land, and then pop. I mean, almost vertically into a somersault or whatever it is and think where did that power come from where did that transfer of energy happen could you explain that from a gymnast and a scientific point of view for me yeah that's become very popular lately we call it rebound tumbling and uh it's been honestly it's been facilitated by the increase in the springiness of the floor. I mean, the floor is not just a mat. It's actually got springs underneath it.

So that really makes a humongous difference. Is that floor doping? They're doping the floor. Yeah, it's definitely lifted the tumbling skills and, you know, we're doing doubles with twists and triples and incredible stuff and then just bouncing straight into another somersault so what sort of forces are in play in say a tumbling routine or a vaulting routine where you've got that build-up of momentum and speed and then the explosion and the twists and the

rotations well you're in contact with the ground when you're tumbling that fast for less than about a tenth of a second maybe a point one five of a second and in that time you're going to experience about 10 times your own body weight so it's incredible forces now it is mitigated by the fact that you've got a mat and you've got a sprung floor but nevertheless it's explosive and and that's why it bangs when it goes, because it literally is explosive. The forces are huge. You yourself were an Olympic gymnast, and you yourself now, in your capacity with the U.S. Olympic Center in Chula Vista, California,

work with world-class gymnasts and athletes. What would you say the one single thing that would make a world-class gymnast? I think it's tenacity. Wow. It's the ability to hang in there through all the injuries, through all the training, through all the depression, the difficulties, and just keep coming out. Every time you get knocked down, you get back up and you just keep on going. Gary just mentioned the fact that you are the senior sport technologist at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. What are you responsible for in the development of these

athletes? What is it that you do? Well, that's an interesting question. My job is to help our athletes improve their performance more rapidly so that we can win more medals at the Olympic Games. My job, since I'm called a technologist, is to find the best and most current technology that can help us feedback information to them about the skills they're doing and how to improve those skills. How are you going about analyzing their technique?

Because in the end, the execution of the routine is what's going to get them the extra points. Am I correct? Correct. And when you learn a skill, obviously you're pretty shaky at it. And so you repeat that skill over and over again and you use video feedback. It's primary. The gym at the training center in Colorado Springs has cameras on each apparatus, and they have a delayed feedback, so they can get off the apparatus, go look at the video, and then confer with the coach about what skill and what aspects of that skill were good or were lacking. And then you've got to be able to basically get that skill nine out of 10 times before you can even think about putting it in your routine. Because doing a skill

on its own is one thing, but putting it after seven or eight other skills is entirely another thing. You've got to be very, very well. So you're building a routine, one kind of skill, one kind of movement at a time. Is that how it goes? It's almost like writing a song. It's like, you know, you're laying down the tracks, you know what I mean? So if a routine has like 16 moves, it's like, you know, 16 different tracks that you're laying down one on top of the other. on top of the other. Yeah, that's a really good analogy. And the idea is to combine those skills in a nice manner that flows very aesthetically. And so you might have one specific skill that you just learned, and then you have to confer with your coach and say, well, where can I put this? Should I put it at the beginning, the middle, or the end? How does it connect with the other skills? And what skills should I drop out in order to include this skill? Oh my god, why would anybody want to be a gymnast? I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking. Doctor, it's okay, he got the old-fashioned

look from me. He knows better now. So are you using 3D analysis as you did with your golfers and your throwers? Yeah. Well, yes and no. In 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics, that's going back a long while, but we were commissioned by the IOC to do 3D analysis of the rings and the high bar. And we set cameras, six cameras up in the stadium stands all around. And we looked at the high bar, and we set cameras, six cameras up in the stadium stand all around, and we looked at the high bar. Before the athletes would actually come in the gym, we set up a calibration frame.

We filmed it, and then as long as we didn't move the cameras, we were able to do 3D analysis on every move that the gymnast did. However, we would literally have to sit up all night digitizing each skill. That's putting the mouse cursor on the shoulder, the elbow. Nowadays, we can do that more efficiently, but we're not quite there yet. We're progressing to what we call markerless motion capture, where we can just point the camera, magic camera, point the camera at the athlete and get the data.

That's coming. And when that comes, then we'll be able to really do 3D analysis in a very efficient way. Wow. So let me ask you, since you're a vaulter, can you break down for us from a biomechanics or physical scientific point of view or physical, scientific point of view, the action of vaulting. Because you're, and exactly what makes the vaulter so good? So the big thing in vaulting is these days you've got to be a sprinter.

I mean, that's one thing the gymnasts could really improve on is how well they sprint. They need to take sprinting lessons because they've got to get to that board as fast as they can to produce the kinetic energy yes they can turn into uh the height of the vault but then again if you get too if you get too much power and you get a gymnast to to accelerate without control you're going to lose everything in the vault are you not yeah and that's the risk you got to take i mean that's the problem these days is they're going to lose everything in the vault, are you not? Yeah, and that's the risk you got to take. I mean, that's the problem these days is they're going for everything now. So, yeah, you've got to be controlled. But say you've got 100% of your speed and then you back off to 90 or 80%. I mean, the trick is to not back off very much because you need to convert that horizontal velocity into height and spin. You've got to hit that board and then just fly past the horse, barely touching the horse.

Honestly, people think that you actually post really hard and push with your arms. You don't really push with your arms much at all. Most of that velocity comes from the board and flies straight into the air. In fact, my master's thesis, I did analysis of vaulting for my master's thesis. I got six of the athletes at the gymnasts at Arizona State University, and we analyzed them, and we found that the center of gravity never actually comes down onto the horse. It just keeps going up.

So you just kind of tap the horse on the way through. So the horse is there for cosmetics. The horse is really there for cosmetics. It's just like, you know. You want to design it now, don't you? You know what I'm doing right now. Yeah, I do, yeah. I'm coming up with a new sport, okay?

And it's called Death Vault, all right? And instead of the horse, it's like, let's do the opposite. Since you barely touched the horse, like, let's do it so that if you touch it at a certain time or a certain pressure, if you touch it with more than a certain pressure, you get electrocuted. You know, that's funny. That's called double mini tramp. And that's in another aspect of gymnastics called tumbling and trampoline, TNT. Oh.

So they have that event. Have you been watching Mad Max again? Yeah, it's crazy. Okay, yeah, so that does beg the question then, Doc. Why have the horse there at all if you're barely touching it? Because it's called vaulting not mini tramp i got you there you go okay you mentioned center of gravity now and then i'm kind of combining that with the sprinting aspect we touched on just a minute ago the the greatest sprinter of all time usain bolt

coming in at about six foot six guess he's never really going to be the ultimate gymnast but you've got long rangy athletes sprinting but gymnasts aren't that tall without me being rude um why are gymnasts so compact yes thank you not as tall as usain bolt is there is there a scientific reason why we are we are getting our gymnasts like that rather than tall and rangy. Oh, God. Yeah, you'd scrape your feet on the floor on the high bar. As long as it's a practical reason. And the rings, too.

Yeah, exactly. That's funny. Now I've come up with a new sport. Oh, dear. Oversized gymnastics. All right, where you get guys, everybody is like as tall as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

And you just watch them flopping around and dragging their knees on the ground. Don't be rude to big guys, Chuck. You know you're going to lose on that one. Yeah, but think about that. Then it's the levers that they have to control. It's the length of the muscle and the length of the lever. That becomes very disadvantageous very quickly.

Yeah, it does. So the fact that they're not long and rangy means they have a great deal more natural control over the rotations and the spins, etc. Yeah, and think about the rings. Think about the cross on the rings and think about the levers that you do on the rings those would be very very hard to hold yeah talking about the rings and uh what is it is it the maltese cross yes yeah uh where they go into that sort of crucifix position yeah and uh how do you with gymnastics because it's all for me i'm looking at it in a very layman's terms obviously it's a great deal if not everything to do with flexibility but then you've got exercises like the rings where if you do not have power and strength you are getting nowhere near executing any kind of routine so how do you how do you balance the two of strength power and

flexibility in training and for your gymnast well that's why back in the old days when we had to do all around you were in fact an all-around gymnast. You had to have strength, flexibility, power, endurance. Now they are becoming more and more specialized and you have specialists on the rings. You have specialists on the high bar. And so you can see the differences in those athletes. I mean, the ring guys are just, you know, buff.

They're really built really, really strong. The tumblers tend to be a little bit lighter and a little bit smaller, perhaps. How about the guys who do the pommel horse? Pommel horse? Well, Alex Nador is the king there. He's actually the son of a friend of mine, Mike Nador, from we were teammates at Arizona State.

And you've got to be extremely strong in the shoulders at the same time being very, very flexible. And then now with the Thomas Flair, where you see them doing the circles with the straddle splits, you've got to be flexible as well. And you have to have a huge amount of endurance because those routines last for a long time now. So how do you build a gymnast to be able to do a pommel horse routine for that length of time

but incorporating all of those different aspects? Is it quite simply you just wait for the naturally gifted athlete, gymnast rather, to turn up or do you work to achieve that? No, no, it's just work and i it's funny you should mention pommel horse because that is one of the most frustrating events in all of gymnastics i remember when i was learning i could barely do a double leg circle and you just work and work and work and you've just got to have faith you just keep working and then eventually something clicks and all of a sudden now you can start to circle, and as you start to circle, you can do more and more, but it's definitely

a strength and endurance. It was interesting for me because when I finished gymnastics, and I think, you know, I'm telling you how old I am now, but it was like 81, 82 when I quit competing, and I was working at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs at the time. This is my second time with the USOC. I was able to get in the gym and work out, and I remember after six months of finishing gymnastics, I got on the pommel horse, and all of a sudden, I could do all the skills I couldn't do when I was a gymnast. It was amazing.

How do you account for that? My body was learning. It's almost like it seeped in and my body got stronger and all the neurons just finally connected. And I just got up there and I'm like, wow, why couldn't I do this when I was a competitor? It was amazing. Are you glad the men don't do the beam? I've done that.

I remember doing a cartwheel one time and putting one leg either side. Yeah, you do that once and you don't do it again. Yeah, wince. I've done the beam once and my voice ended up sounding like this. Yeah. I mean, I have total respect for the ladies on the beam. They are just awesome.

When you think that they're mid-air sometimes and landing on basically a plank of wood, what is it, four inches across? Yeah, they tumble like they're tumbling on the floor. It's totally amazing. Now, is it true that women are able to do that because they have a naturally lower center of gravity, and that's why women are able to do the beam and men are not? Well, it all helps, but there's some tall girls out there. Nastia Lukin was pretty tall.

So I don't know that that would... You can't ever really point to one thing. It's always a combination of things. Yeah, I think if I was a female and had to do beam, I would never have been a gymnast. That would have put me out. But uneven bars and tumbling and vaulting, yeah, they're fantastic. Cool, man. As are you dr phil thank you to dr phil cheatham fabulous fabulous as always with the good doctor we are going to

take our break when we come back a real treat an olympic silver medalist and a world champion from USA Team Gymnastics. Yes, Samantha Pesek will be with us. We are thrilled. Hope you all stick around. She'll be with us very shortly. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Knight. And this, of course, is Playing With Science.

And today we are exploring the science of gymnastics. And I am thrilled to say our next guest is a gymnast of some repute, Samantha Pesek, silver medalist and world champion. And that silver medal chart came in the Olympics. That's correct. Welcome to Playing With Science. You were an all-round gymnast. What was your favorite uh discipline well like you mentioned i did all four events i did gymnastics for 21 years which is quite a long time but um and when i was younger

it kind of just depended on whatever event i had the best day on that was my favorite but as i got older uh the beam definitely became my favorite event and my best event see the beam is something that scares men you know that yeah yeah absolutely that would be very scary and um it was one of those events where I would go to bed at night praying that I would wake up and there would only be three events in gymnastics because I was so afraid of beam. So it's kind of ironic that it ended up becoming my best event and my favorite a little bit later down the line. Okay. So if I go through and Chuck, for you, as far as you're concerned, I will be speaking in tongues. So back tuck, back pipe, aerial cartwheel, round off, double pike dismount. Does that make any sense to you samantha yes you see yeah

so uh why don't you uh go ahead can you do all those things i i am privileged enough to say that i can say them barely that's it so uh let me ask you this when when when you start out on the beam how how early how early do you have to start training to be proficient the way you are? Well, I started gymnastics when I was two. Whoa, what took you so long? Yeah, exactly. My dad was a wrestler and a hockey player in college, and my mom was a gymnast in college. And, I mean, I did a bunch of sports when I was younger.

I played soccer and I danced. But I think gymnastics is actually the sport that you can start the earliest. So it's actually good for foundation no matter what sport you end up pursuing later in life. And so if you start that early, when does competition start? Or is there any competition for younger? Is there any competition for for younger? Like, you know, I know I know once you get into, you know, once you get into like the Olympics and world champions and stuff like that, the participants are pretty young. But is there a circuit before that? Yeah. So it's called the J.O. program, the Junior Olympic program.

And there's levels. So there's levels one through 10, 10 being the best. And just to give you an idea, level 10s get college scholarships. And then you have to qualify to the next level, which is the elite level, which puts you on track to compete for the national team and for the Olympics and things like that. So I actually started competing at level four when I was six years old, because that was how old you had to be to start competing that level. Cool. So now I got it. I got to bring this up. OK. And Gary, take a look at this. OK. And for those of you who are listening to us or watching us on all access, I'll make sure that I give this picture to our producer, Johnny Bo, so that he can put it as a part of the podcast.

And remember, you can always find everything that we do as StarTalk related on StarTalkAllAccess.com. But, Sam, I got to ask you about this picture because there is a picture of you. You're doing the uneven parallel bars, okay? bars. Okay. And it is an awesome picture because you are fully released from the bar because you're going from one bar to the next and you are just suspended in midair. And it is super, super cool. Like, I mean, it's just a great picture. The intensity of concentration on your face actually hurts my head. Like that's how like you are so focused. If that was me, that would be fear. Exactly.

Yeah, I'm sure it was a little of that to like catch the bar, catch the bar, catch the bar. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? And that's like panic in my face. And I'm only um I can only guess what what picture it is and I'm sure my face looks uh the most unattractive I'm not gonna say that I'm not gonna say that I'm just gonna say you look you look really praised it as intense because that was uh definitely the most intense time of my life is competing, especially for the Olympics and bigger competitions. But it was funny because when I was at my very first big competition, I was 12 years old and

we competed on podium, which is a big surface. There was a big audience. It was where my idols were competing. So it was a big moment for me. And they took a lot of pictures. And I remember it's probably the exact picture you guys are talking about my body position was really good my shape was good it was an awesome picture it looked like I was flying but my face was just so atrocious looking because I wasn't thinking about my face I was thinking about catching the bar obviously yeah so I went into the gym and I decided that I was gonna practice smiling in the middle of my, what is called a release move. Um, because I thought how cool would it be to be the only person to be able to smile in their release moves. So I went to quit and that was the only thing that I was thinking about.

And I ended up almost like hitting my face on the bar, like eating the bar because I wasn't thinking about catching it. I was just thinking about smiling. And, um, let me just tell you, my coach was not happy with me. He asked me what I was doing and, um, we had a good relationship. So I told him I was trying to smile. And, um, he's this like very nice, respectful Chinese man. And he was just like, freaked out. He was like, why would you do that and um so lo and behold i never tried to smile in any of my oh what a shame wow that's pretty is it speaking of spatial awareness and the fact that you're like uh in a release move like that so you know what is it that's going through your mind in terms of or is there anything going through your mind?

Because when I look at these pictures of you, it's amazing. Like, your toes are perfectly pointed. It's like your foot is almost in a straight line. I mean, every muscle in your body is in a tense, flexed contraction. They need to be. All of this elegance that has to be transmitted comes through this, and Samantha will be gaining points

for having such elegant display of her technique. Yeah, and it's actually beautiful. I mean, seriously, you're actually beautiful in these shots. But what's happening mentally, man? What's going through your mind mentally when you're executing these moves? So it's crazy because a lot of people don't see the behind the scenes. And we train between four and six hours a day, or that's what I did. And you train so many hours so often.

There's not an off season in our sport and you get this one opportunity in competition to do the best thing the best job you can and so you can really rely on your mental we always say it's like 80 to 85 percent a mental sport and then the rest is physical and for people watching it just looks like a very physical sport so you can imagine how mentally demanding it is to make sure that you're in the right mindset before you go up. Um, I always felt like I did better under pressure. Um, so when I was younger, I used to tell myself like, people are watching you, people are watching you. And I would be like on the top of my game because I always loved showing off my, all my

hard work that I put in, in the gym and the new skills that I had. Um, but the older that I got, the more I focused on each individual skill, you know, you almost have a mental routine, um, as well as a physical routine. So you say the exact same things in your head, um, in the competition as you do in practice. So you have to train your mind to be that tough, no matter what setting you're in or no matter how loud the crowd is cheering or booing or what what have you well what samantha i'm interested with different sort of skills and techniques and i'm looking at a yachenko down here and i'm gonna at one point ask you to explain that how long would it take you to master that particular skill and or other skills that you would use on the floor on the beam on the uneven bars etc well that's a

that's a little bit of a loaded question because um like i mentioned before there's you know levels so each level is kind of building a foundation of gymnastics so when you go to start learning these higher skills you already have the really basic foundation so really when you're starting to learn out your chinko or a higher level skill um you've already put in years of you know the groundwork so to speak um and you start training you know into the soft bone pit or maybe with a spot and then you have to do a lot of repetitions to build what is called muscle memory. Chuck's eyes have lit up because you've said soft cone pit. The foam pit.

Foam pit, right. So he's just thinking he's just going to dive face first. Let me tell you something. He's in a child has just become very interested. That's where I'm a Viking, the soft foam pit. Oh, man. We used to have to do conditioning on it. You did not want to go in the soft foam pit.

Really? It sounds like so much fun. Was there one particular skill? I feel like it was between competitive gymnasts, I feel like, and people that came in and did rec. Because everyone wanted to go in the pit. And we would actively try to do anything but go in the pit. Because it took so much energy to get out. Oh, yeah.

I could see that being a problem. Because you're walking on big, giant pieces of foam. What a really clever way of getting conditioning into any athlete to say, right, now get out of there. Exactly. What was the most difficult skill you found for you to master? Bearing in mind the level that you did achieve, you probably got a handle on all of it. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty clear you probably got a handle on all of it yeah i mean it's it's pretty clear that uh you have a handle on all of them i mean you're a

silver medalist in the olympics i mean that's that's incredible thank you so much um well the most difficult skill that i ever did and at the time there was only a few girls in the entire world that were performing this skill and it was called a double double um it's two flips and two twists in the air uh before you hit the ground and it was extremely scary it was one of those where i was like you know let's go don't freak out you know you can get really really hurt if you kind of freak out in the middle of it or you don't commit fully and so um that was definitely the scariest skill and the most difficult skill that i ever competed are you aware of the the science that's involved in a double double a twist a turn

and all the rest of it or do you just say look i'm fearless i'm doing this no matter what um i probably would have been better off if i didn't know the science because i like to know how things work and i probably wouldn't have been as, as afraid. But to me, it just seemed like whenever I would think about it, so impossible that you could do two flips and two twists in the air without hitting the ground. So I think the less I thought about it, the better. Wow. It is a wow, by the way. Is there, is there any science that brings, that comes to your training that helps you? I mean, when you were training? Definitely. I mean, not that we thought about, oh, this is the science of the skill.

But, you know, the angle that you have to hit to, you know, take off a certain direction. You know, if you're doing a twisting skill, if you're doing a triple full, your angle to the floor has to be deeper as opposed to a flipping skill where you have to stand up straighter so you can go higher instead of distance. So things like that, that you learn in the gym that you're, you don't necessarily classify like, Oh, this is the science of the skill. But yeah, we, we definitely learn, you know, you want to run fast on vault, but you don't want to run out of control. So what's the 80% of your speed to, you know, stay in control, but also be the fastest you can go while being in control. So different things like that. And, you know, when you're doing those release moves, like we were talking about earlier of like, what angle do you have to let go? How

high, how long are you going to be in the air? When should you reach to catch the bar? And it's definitely building the muscle memory of the science of the skill. Wow. Man, I got to tell you, it is just a phenomenal accomplishment to perform at the level at which you have when you look at the amount of training and the dedication necessary to get to where you are. I mean, just congratulations. Kudos to you. And the fact that you did it, the fact that you did it representing, sorry, Gary, sorry, Gary.

No, no, no. Representing the USA, baby. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. It's actually, you know, I still think that it's surreal because when I was five, it was the first time that I decided I wanted to go to the Olympics. I saw the 96 team win gold in Atlanta.

And as a five-year-old, I just told my parents I was going to go to the Olympics. And I'm pretty stubborn. My parents always told me I could do whatever I set my mind to. But I don't think anyone really understood how serious I was about this dream. And, you know, teachers in school would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And all I wanted to do was go to the Olympics. And so I didn't really understand how much work and how difficult it was going to be down the line. But it started as a young age. And I, you know, it was always in the back of my mind during training

and during the hard days. See, this is what I love about talking to elite athletes like Samantha. They will start with a dream, just like any young person. Yes. But something makes them see it through. Something makes it done. And not just a wish, what if. All of those questions don't exist in Samantha's life. She knows.

She's done it. She's been there. Okay, Samantha, before we let you go, I have this wonderful question. It's wonderful in my mind. Probably the only place it's wonderful. At high school back in England, I was blessed to have a sports master who was very, very involved in British gymnastics. So I kind of had a feel and we had sort of world champions and international gymnasts around me in school and i wasn't one of them um but having got that kind of feeling for gymnastics i would always watch the olympics and it intrigues me do you get

to choose your own music for the floor routine or does someone just dump it on you? Um, I think it depends on who your individual coaches and then at the higher level, you have to have it approved by the national staff. Um, understandable. To that goes in to think about it. Like, yeah, you want it to match your personality.

That's like the number one thing I would never have like a graceful, beautiful, uh, ballet floor floor music if you will because I was more of a powerful gymnast so I needed a little extra oomph from the music so there was a lot that went into picking um music and your style and I was definitely I like to be a little bit more smiley and show off and have a little bit more fun I wasn't really the serious girl so I had to pick music that kind of fit my personality, but also was serious enough for the elite world. So it was a difficult balance sometimes, but yeah, I always had a say in what, um, floor music I had.

Good. Cause I always felt at some point that that suited the gymnast perfectly. And another time I'd be watching and thinking, there's no way you chose that yeah I can't say the same for everybody because I definitely know some gymnasts that they was out of their control completely um but again my coach and I had a really good relationship and I felt like we were always on a team and he respected my opinion which I really appreciate um and so that was definitely something where I I felt like I needed to uh interject and give my opinion which I really appreciate um and so that was definitely something where I I felt like I needed to uh interject and give my opinion in wow fabulous Samantha before you let we let you go what are you doing with yourself at this moment in time in terms of career wise so I'm actually

doing sports broadcasting um and that starts up again in January with the NCAA gymnastics but I was fortunate enough to go to Rio and cover the games for NBC and it was my first time back at an Olympic Games since I was competing so it was a really really neat opportunity for me to just be surrounded in that atmosphere again but on a completely different level. Yeah how did that feel having to stand on the outside looking in? It was it was cool because you know when you go as an athlete, you have tunnel vision, you have your job and you know what you're supposed to do. So you don't really think about anything else. So it was really cool for me to see, um, how everything else works on the other side of other side of the fence. Um, it was a lot less stressful, let me tell you.

other side of the fence. Um, it was a lot less stressful. Let me tell you. And it was nice that, uh, you know, my, my USA girls had such a good, um, you know, week. Didn't they just, yeah. So it was, it was a fun, I had, I shed some tears. I was so proud. Um, just because I know what it's like to be in their shoes and to finally have your dream come true. And, um, that's kind of what I see, not just from the USA girls, but there was a few other girls that had such a fantastic Olympic Games that I feel like that I can really understand what that was like because it put years and years and years. You know, gymnastics is one of those sports that people tune into once every four years at the Olympics. And then they kind of forget that those girls are training four years before the next one and so it's really cool um to know that firsthand and to really appreciate all the girls that are training that hard around the world well we really appreciate you seriously and hopefully our listeners will now appreciate that

it's not just every four years and that's in a year-round thing so Samantha Pesek thank you so much for being our guest today it's been wonderful wonderful to talk to you and quite enlightening. Thank you very much for having me. You're welcome. Well, Chuck, that's it. Another Playing With Science. Are you thinking about taking up gymnastics now? Absolutely.

The first thing I'm going to do is actually learn to touch my toes. And I hope I get scored a 10. And I'll leave you with that thought. That's it from Playing With Science. That has been the science behind gymnastics. If you can touch your toes, you're a better man than Chuck and I. Or lady, for that matter.

Look forward to your company soon. Bye-bye.