Iowa State Gymnastics Holds First Retreat

AMES, Iowa- Early Sunday morning the members of the Iowa State gymnastics team woke up in tents in Boone, Iowa. The Cyclones held a retreat this past weekend to help bond the team and create goals for the upcoming season. Now, a week of practice has gone by and the goals set this past weekend have made their way into the daily routines of the Iowa State gymnastics team.

The inspiration for this retreat came from the gymnastics coaching staff. They were looking for a way to bring together a young team and help the members get to know each other early in the year. The retreat was an answer to this, as well as a way to get the team accustomed to working together to reach common goals.

“I think that this year is really a new year since we have a lot of underclassmen on our team,” explained assistant coach Katie Minasola. “We just really wanted to start off the year strong, we wanted to get that team chemistry outright with some team building and bonding. It is such a young team, we wanted to build upon the great team chemistry they already had and keep it going. It's only going to help our team succeed this year.”

After deciding to hold the retreat, head coach Jay Ronayne and the assistant coaches worked to develop team building and goal setting activities for the gymnasts to complete. They brought in a nutritionist to help the student-athletes build a meal plan and learn healthy new recipes. The team went shopping on Saturday morning to select fresh ingredients and was split into groups to help prepare a home-cooked meal. They participated in a game using trivia about each teammate and completed an obstacle course linked together. The activities ranged from silly to competitive to allow the team to get comfortable and start learning to work together with both old and new members.

Meaghan Sievers explained what it was like being a freshman at the retreat, “I was a little nervous, just because everyone has known each other for so long. We were the new people coming in, but we have a great team here and they just made us feel so comfortable. We're like family already. Even just sleeping in the tents or whatever it was, we were all included. It wasn't even like we were new, we were just a part of the team already.”

Team bonding wasn't the only objective of the weekend. Head coach Jay Ronayne also led an exercise to help the gymnasts establish mental cues for their routines. Each gymnast spoke through all of her routines describing what she should focus on and how the finished product should look. The team then separated from the coaches and held a group discussion on the goals they have for the season and how they plan to accomplish them.

“We talked about things we noticed as a team last year and things we wanted to improve on,” senior Kristen DeCosta said. “We focused more on team chemistry in meets more than what we wanted our skills to be like. Things like having higher energy in meets, having fun, making sure everyone feels like they're contributing to the team no matter what they're doing. So it was a little different than just gymnastics goals, it was more about how we wanted to act and feel as a team at meets.”

Towards the end of the night, the team was again split into groups to complete a scavenger hunt. Each group followed clues to find pieces to a puzzle. The puzzle was then put together to reveal a final clue leading to this season's team motto, INVESTED.

INVESTED is an acronym describing all the things the team must do in order to reach their final goal. It stands for: Imagine, No Regrets, Vision, Effort, Standout, Tenacity, Endurance, and Destination Fort Worth, where the NCAA Gymnastics Championships will be held.

According to sophomore Hilary Green, “INVESTED simply means giving 110% all the time. When you walk into the gym, you may be in a bad mood or whatever, but knowing that when you step over that line you're going to give it your all to reach our goals.”

Using this motto and the goals set during the retreat, the Iowa State gymnastics team is working hard to prepare for the 2016 season. Team chemistry and focus are crucial parts of determining team success, and the work put in by the gymnasts every day in practice gets them closer to their goal. With the potential this team has already shown so early in the season, 2016 will definitely be one to remember for Iowa State gymnastics.