Junior finds new pursuits following devastating injuries from gymnastics

While most students in middle school were in a classroom reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” or creating astronomy posters, chances were that now-junior Maya Srinivasan was in the midst of intensive gymnastics training. 

Just a few years ago, Srinivasan was on the track to becoming an Olympic gymnast, until a series of severe injuries ended her gymnastics career.

For Srinivasan, gymnastics has been an important part of her life since age 4. 

“My mom just put me in it because she wanted to try it out,” Srinivasan said.

At 6, she caught the eye of coaches at Pacific West Gymnastics, who suggested that she enroll in private lessons. From this point on, Srinivasan moved quickly up the ladder of levels in gymnastics, skipping a level along the way and reaching level 7 by fifth grade.

Instead of starting middle school the next year, Srinivasan began an online homeschooling program.

“I was homeschooled for gymnastics [because] I was practicing for nine hours every day,” Srinivasan said.

But it was worth it, for Srinivasan said she was on a highly competitive route, one that could have even taken her to the Olympics.

She participated in national training camps for three years and attended an elite training camp in Texas called Hopes when she was 12. But in March 2008, when she was in seventh grade, disaster struck.

Srinivasan was practicing a difficult skill, called a front giant, on the uneven bars, one that often gave her trouble.  

Looking back, Srinivasan said, “I was always afraid of that skill. My hands would peel off the bar and I would land on my back.“

This time, it was much worse.  Srinivasan fell off the bars and onto the ground, landing on the corner of the pit and the concrete.

“I was supposed to go into pit, [but] l let go too early,” Srinivasan said.  “I don’t really know why I let go, I just did. It was completely at the wrong time and I knew it too. I don’t know what happened.”

 

The Recovery

After a trip to the emergency room, Srinivasan was put in a cast.

“I broke both sides of my ankle bone, and a piece of my tibia came off,” Srinivasan said.  “Later, one of my friends said she heard a huge cracking sound when I landed.”

 After being in the cast for three months, Srinivasan had surgery on her ankle.  Even at this point, Srinivasan said she was confident she would make a full recovery.

“It was frustrating, no doubt, but I was sure I would come back,’” Srinivasan said. 

Yet another month and a half passed, and her injury still was not healed.  Srinivasan was wearing a boot to help her walk and at this point, even she was starting to become worried.

“I didn’t think it would take so long to heal and I was anxious to start training again,” Srinivasan said.

Still, Srinivasan worked to keep in shape, finding other ways to train.

“Everybody around me was getting all their new skills for the new season … but I couldn’t do any of that,” Srinivasan said.  “I had to go to practice every day and sit there for four hours just doing conditioning and keeping my body in shape so that when I would come back I would be able to get right back into it.” 

Meanwhile, it seemed that the doctors were just as puzzled by the injury as Srinivasan.

“I went to four different specialists and they all said something different,” Srinivasan said. “We had no idea what to do.” 

  After visiting a doctor at Stanford, Srinivasan finally received an explanation that didn’t require an invasive procedure.  The doctor told her that it was a “nonunion,” meaning that her ankle would never heal and that there would always be “a piece of bone that’s not connected.”

To this day, Srinivasan said this injury can still be painful.

“It hurts sometimes, [like] when I run for a long time [or] sometimes in the cold,” Srinivasan said.

Even with this setback, Srinivasan continued gymnastics.

“I went back to gymnastics because [the doctors] said I could continue if my ankle didn’t bother me too much,” Srinivasan said. “It didn’t hurt that bad, even though it was still broken.”

Despite literally having a piece of bone separated from her foot, Srinivasan returned, and for three months she trained rigorously. “I almost had my skills back,” she said.

Srinivasan said that she tried to be optimistic about returning to gymnastics, maintaining “a positive attitude.” 

“I guess I didn’t have a choice but to just forget that it was broken.  If I kept thinking about it, then it would have just been worse,” Srinivasan said.  “I would tape my ankle to make sure that it didn’t roll in or anything  and then I would just go.”

But then, Srinivasan fell again, this time on floor exercise, only months after her last injury.

“It wasn’t even on that difficult of a skill; it was just because I was getting back, so I wasn't as strong as before,” she said.

In the middle of executing a series of flips, she rolled her ankle but had to follow through with the skill. After jumping off her ankle, she landed on it and crashed to the floor.

 On her way to the emergency room, she suspected that gymnastics was over for her.

“I was thinking, ‘OK this is probably the end,’ and I was crying because I had spent literally my whole life doing gymnastics and I didn’t want to stop,” Srinivasan said.

The doctors told her she had broken the fifth metatarsal in her foot, and at that point, gymnastics was no longer a realistic option.

“I didn’t want to stop, but it just wasn’t worth it,” she said. “It was almost like a shock. I didn’t realize how much I had to give up for it until it was time to stop.”

 

Life Without Gymnastics

Srinivasan said the loss of gymnastics really made her realize how much of her life it occupied.

“I never really got the whole elementary school feeling of free time after school. I have spent literally my entire life doing this,” Srinivasan said. “I didn’t want it to go to waste and I loved doing it.”

Srinivasan’s mother, Saradha Srinivasan, echoed her daughter’s sentiments.

“She worked [so] hard and sacrificed a lot of her childhood fun and happiness for gymnastics. Having constant injuries was very discouraging, but she never gave up until the end, and we were encouraged by her perseverance,” her mother said.

Mrs. Srinivasan said that finding out that her daughter would have to quit gymnastics was difficult for the entire family.

“Our family was very upset. We had high hopes for her,” Mrs. Srinivasan said. “We were afraid of her reactions more than ours because we wanted her to be happy most of all and we knew that gymnastics was what she wanted most.”

Srinivasan said it was hard to overcome the loss of something she loved.

“It took about a month to stop crying every day about it,” she said.  

However, Srinivasan said these were not the only medical problems she endured while participating in gymnastics. She also broke fingers, tore a muscle in her foot and bruised her back. According to Srinivasan, this was an unusually high number of injuries, even for a high-risk sport like gymnastics.

“It’s kind of normal in the sense in that people do get injured, but you’re not supposed to get injured every season,” Srinivasan said.  “I was getting injured over and over.”

Undoubtedly, Srinivasan feels it was a tough decision to make.

“I do [miss gymnastics] a lot. Just because it was such a big part of my life since I was 4, stopping it all of a sudden [was] not easy,” Srinivasan said.  “I know a lot of my friends who stopped it because they didn't like it any more, but that wasn't my case. I loved it, but I couldn't continue because of injuries.”

 

New Beginnings

“Every day I would come out of the gym with six ice packs on me: two on my back, two on my knees, and two on my ankles. Every step I took after gymnastics would be in pain,” Srinivasan said.

Srinivasan did not give up hope on continuing athletics, but deciding to pursue a sport that would not cause so many injuries.

“I knew a lot of older gymnastics who stopped for whatever reason and started diving so I thought that I could probably do that as well,” Srinivasan said.

Four months after ending gymnastics, Srinivasan began diving.

“I thought that the skills would be really easy and it would just come to me easier, which is true,” Srinivasan said.

In terms of long term injuries, Srinivasan said that diving is also much safer. 

“I almost developed arthritis in my hands because of gymnastics,” Srinivasan said. “With diving, there really isn't anything that you can develop like that.”

She said her parents didn’t like that she was constantly getting injured in gymnastics, so they were glad when she was able to find a sport that was easier on her body.  In addition, Srinivasan believes that this easier time commitment also makes her academic life easier.

“It would have been really hard to manage school and gymnastics. I probably wouldn’t have taken the courses that I'm taking,” Srinivasan said.

Still, Srinivasan said she missed the sport that had been a part of her life for so long.

“[Diving] was kind of a fallback sport compared to gymnastics,” Srinivasan said. “I do love [diving] because I love doing those kinds of sports, but I miss gymnastics for sure.”

Without gymnastics, Srinivasan returned to public school for eighth grade, another challenging transition, but Srinivasan said she was glad to have a chance to focus more on school. 

“I always knew that I wasn't going to be a gymnast or a diver for the rest of my life. I had to focus on education too,” Srinivasan said. “[Leaving gymnastics] gave me the opportunity to do that.” 

In retrospect, Srinivasan believes she gained a lot from participating in gymnastics. 

“[Gymnastics] helped me deal with criticism because our coaches were really mean,” she said. “You have to be able to take it in a positive way rather than get crushed every single time they tell you, ‘You’re bad, you’re not good, you’ll never be good.’” 

“You have to learn to take that in a way where you can grow from it rather than be upset and never do well,” she said.

In an even broader sense, Srinivasan is grateful for the opportunities both gymnastics and diving have given her.

“People have always told me that things happen, and you can’t control things like this,” she said. “I’ve learned to move on and make the best out of the bad things that happen.”