A mobile toepoint, why is it important?

Hi coaches, Its alot of toepointing in GB elements. I know a strong and mobile toepoint is esteticly good in gymnastics. But my question is, why is it important athleticly, in sports and/or in our daily life? What benefit can it bring? A better step on the run? Does it help us Plyometricly to say jump higher? 

Thanks for your time

Jonas

I would guess that it shows you have control of those muscles. Which is the aim of gymnastics really......to demonstrate control of all muscles through a range of complex movements and holds.

To complement Christ, you need to be strong in every positions from head to toes, literally.  Imagine having everything tight, except your feet, flip flopping around.  There's no complete control there.

Outside of the gym, again, it's control over your full ROM that will help in everything you do, even jumping! 

pointing your toes helps keep keep your legs completely straight, it sort of completes your full control over your legs. 

I guess one could also do the opposite to pointing the toes and strongly pulling them in towards the shinbone, I have seen some handbalancers play with this. What you do not want is that the foot is loose and floppy, it prevents control over the foot.

I am not 100% sure but I do believe that I have heard Coach mention in a podcast that nothing in gymnastics is done purely for aesthetic reasons. Everything is done to gain more speed, power and control so that they can jump higher, twist more and win more medals.

I must say that I do personally believe that a part of why gymnasts point their toes is because it looks good too.

Thanks for your inputs guys. I am aware we need to be as balanced out in strength and mobility, left/right, head/toe as we can possible be.

Let me reshape my question, what does specificly a strong and mobile toepoint bring to the table in terms of walking, running, jumping, playing sports? 

Or... What would a perfectly balanced upperbody and legs miss out on if the toepoint was just average?

54 minutes ago, Jonas Berglund said:

Thanks for your inputs guys. I am aware we need to be as balanced out in strength and mobility, left/right, head/toe as we can possible be.

Let me reshape my question, what does specificly a strong and mobile toepoint bring to the table in terms of walking, running, jumping, playing sports? 

Or... What would a perfectly balanced upperbody and legs miss out on if the toepoint was just average?

Hi Jonas, I understand what you mean. For example you need shoulder flexion for handstand, you need shoulder extension for dips, hamstring flexibility for manna and press to handstand, hip flexors flexibility for hollow body and ppt, ankle dorsiflexion for squats and when you come to ankle extension the purpose is not as clear (apart from pointed toes). My point here is that maybe in order of importance is definetely not the first on the list, but we should take the tension out of the body and to loosen it to don t get injured. So if we strecht our achilles tendon and calves, we should also strecht our tibialis. If not that would be stretching shoulder flexion but not extension or stretching your hammies but not your hip flexors. Of course these example are more important. What I think then is that if you make your ankle mobile 360° around it will certainly at least maintain you safe and pain free when walking, running and jumping and very probably will improved somehow your athletic performance.

3 minutes ago, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

Hi Jonas, I understand what you mean. For example you need shoulder flexion for handstand, you need shoulder extension for dips, hamstring flexibility for manna and press to handstand, hip flexors flexibility for hollow body and ppt, ankle dorsiflexion for squats and when you come to ankle extension the purpose is not as clear (apart from pointed toes). My point here is that maybe in order of importance is definetely not the first on the list, but we should take the tension out of the body and to loosen it to don t get injured. So if we strecht our achilles tendon and calves, we should also strecht our tibialis. If not that would be stretching shoulder flexion but not extension or stretching your hammies but not your hip flexors. Of course these example are more important. What I think then is that if you make your ankle mobile 360° around it will certainly at least maintain you safe and pain free when walking, running and jumping and very probably will improved somehow your athletic performance.

I second this one.  

Who, in everyday life, needs full mobility of their joint? I mean full (hyperflexions, hyperextensions, splits...)!  If we have what we need to live normally, while being able to control our ROM, the risk of injuries is still low and our movement capacity is still functional.  So, the best that can an excellent toes point do, in this case, is what Antonio said :

9 minutes ago, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

What I think then is that if you make your ankle mobile 360° around it will certainly at least maintain you safe and pain free when walking, running and jumping and very probably will improved somehow your athletic performance.

Plus, it's a way to impress your friends and get a really cool aesthetism in your movements

23 hours ago, Jonas Berglund said:

Hi coaches, Its alot of toepointing in GB elements. I know a strong and mobile toepoint is esteticly good in gymnastics. But my question is, why is it important athleticly, in sports and/or in our daily life? What benefit can it bring? A better step on the run? Does it help us Plyometricly to say jump higher? 

Thanks for your time

Jonas

You've cited "jump higher", well if you jump, your calves are squeezed, how much they can be squeezed depends on how much you can stretch them first and then contract. Stretch depends on ankle flexion , while contraction depends on ankle extension. If you have tight tibialis the extension will be limited by the passive tension of the tibialis. and there is NO full power exertion with tissue passive limitation.

17 hours ago, Alessandro Mainente said:

You've cited "jump higher", well if you jump, your calves are squeezed, how much they can be squeezed depends on how much you can stretch them first and then contract. Stretch depends on ankle flexion , while contraction depends on ankle extension. If you have tight tibialis the extension will be limited by the passive tension of the tibialis. and there is NO full power exertion with tissue passive limitation.

@Alessandro Mainente

this is exactly what i was looking for, and what i initially thought. Thank you for explaining it so good. 

I was not looking for an excuse to skip the toepoint, if coach sommer have put then in almost all the GB elements, thats enough motivation for me to keep pointing those toes. And the balance part about achiles/ankle is also very logic. 

When our tibialis flexibility improves, we can enter a deeper endrange strength in our calf raises, would this be correct Alessandro? 

definitely!

Aesthetic considerations aside, joint health requires balanced mobility on both of the joint.

For example, a great deal of ankle and plantar fasciitis discomfort can be mitigated by working ankle and toe extension mobility.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer