Conqu'ring Heroes: Plocki's Team Culture Prepares U-M for Competitive 2023 Season
12/8/2022 10:30:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics
By Mishal Charania
Gymnastics often is viewed as an individual sport within a team setting, but University of Michigan women's gymnastics head coach Bev Plocki and her squad have adopted a culture that is all about the team. In this week's Conqu'ring Heroes podcast Plocki explained how they make gymnastics a team sport as well as preparing both physically and mentally for the season ahead.
"We compete as a team and it makes a huge difference," said Plocki. "Until you participate in it, you don't understand the value of how much of a team sport it really is, how uplifting and supporting your teammates are."
On Saturday (Dec. 10), the women's gymnastics team will be participating in an exhibition alongside Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan at Crisler Center. This will be fans' first look at the 2023 Wolverines, and they have been deep in preparation to show off their best routines.
"Especially if they've competed at the highest level, it's more individual pressure," Plocki said. "We're always striving for that perfect 10, so we put ourselves in these obsessive-compulsive 'unless it's perfect, it's not good enough' kind of mentality. As coaches we want to try to get them to relax and just feel confident about their preparedness, to go out there and compete and enjoy competing with their sisters and in an atmosphere like Crisler, everybody that's going to be there is going to be supportive of them."
Plocki advocates for affording adequate rest to her athletes. The team gets 10 days off during the holiday break, an amount of time significantly higher compared to many other teams and sports.
"I believe in being able to take a break and allow our body to rest and relax, but at the same time you can't sit around and do nothing," she said. "I don't expect them to go home and train routine, but I expect them to go home and do the routine on a line on the floor, I expect them to do handstands and other things on bars and keep their arms, hands and forearms in shape for uneven bars."
Gymnastics is the only sport that is weight-bearing to both the upper and lower body, making it extremely taxing and sometimes dangerous if not performed correctly. For that reason, the coaching staff will not let anyone compete if they believe the routine is not completely safe.
"As a coach, you're not expecting that a team is going to perform better than you see every day, but you want them to perform as well as we see them practice every day," said Plocki. "Being safe is also largely dependent on being properly prepared and I do think our team is properly prepared."
Plocki regards the training time in the fall to be 90 percent physically bearing and 10 percent mental leading up to and during competition time.
"We've done all the hard work, the preparation, the learning of new skills and combinations, putting together routines, developing the endurance and going through the hard part," she said. "It's the mental aspect, being mentally prepared for competition, being mentally tight and ready to go out and compete in pressure situations and not let that affect you."
Saturday's exhibition meet at Crisler Center is set to begin at 4 p.m. and will be streamed live on B1G+.
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