Two-sport regimen is balancing act
Take a second look at Ryan Wurz.
At first glance, the sophomore goalkeeper for Central Valley High School is a slight 6-footer who might get blown off his line by a stout gust of wind.
“People think that I’m kind of small,” Wurz laughed.
“They figure they can muscle me around and that I can’t hold my own against bigger players. And when I tell them that I can bench-press 200 pounds, they don’t believe me and they laugh.”
What you can’t tell by looking is that Wurz can not only lift more than his own body weight, he can make his body do things no other player in the Greater Spokane League could.
Wurz is a Level 8 gymnast who qualified for the regional tournament twice.
“He may be the best male gymnast I’ve worked with,” said John Stump, who runs Spokane Elite Gymnastics, which sponsors Wurz’s team.
“In the past year, Ryan jumped from being a Level 6 gymnast all the way up to Level 8. To put that in layman’s terms, it would be like making the jump from high school gymnastics to the college level.”
The jump was a practical one, Wurz said.
“I was at Level 6 for three straight years,” he explained.
“Level 6 is a compulsory level where you have a set routine that you have to perform. Level 7 is the same, only the required elements are harder. When you get to Level 8, you have optional routines, so you can kind of play to your own strengths a little bit.”
Male gymnasts compete in six exercises: floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar.
“Usually the pommel horse is not one of my best events, but for some reason it was my best event at regionals,” Wurz said. “The horse really requires a lot of upper body strength, especially in the shoulders, and I don’t have that. It takes a lot of work and a lot of strength to make it look easy.
“Floor exercise and vault tend to be my best events.”
The plan is for Wurz to compete at Level 9 next year. Level 10 is considered elite and is the level of international competition and the Olympic Games.
At the same time, Wurz is a goalkeeper on the U-19 River City Steelers premier soccer team in addition to dividing time in goal for the Bears.
Sharing time in goal with junior Nick Piger, the duo has helped a young Central Valley squad qualify for the playoffs.
“We’ve come a long way this year,” Wurz said.
“We are really young this year; we only have two guys back from last year’s team. It helps that a lot of this team plays together on River City. We’re young, but we have been playing together for quite a while.”
It helps to be indefatigable.
“At least three nights a week I end up going right from soccer practice to the gym for another workout,” he said.
Wurz takes his two-sport status seriously.
“Both gymnastics and soccer are year-around sports,” he said with a laugh. “I have some time off from soccer over the winter, but then I play indoor soccer.”
And, he said, he’s thinking about keeping it up.
Soccer is Wurz’s No. 1 sport, and he’s serious about playing as long as possible.
“I do want to play college soccer,” he said.
“But if I could find a college that offered a gymnastics team as well, I would have to really think about doing both.”
The two sports are complementary, Wurz said.
Soccer emphasized the lower body through lots and lots of running.
Men’s gymnastics, much more so than women’s, demands a powerful upper body. Exercises like rings, parallel bars and pommel horse all rely on strength as well as agility.
“The two sports go well together,” Wurz said.
“Soccer really helps keep my cardiovascular system in great shape for gymnastics – I never have to worry about doing extra cardio. And my strength from gymnastics really comes in handy in soccer, especially playing in goal.”
Central Valley takes advantage of Wurz’s gymnastics experience.
“I help out as the manager for the girls gymnastics team, even though they’re talking about cutting the program,” he said.
“I enjoy helping out. I spent a lot of time helping out on the floor exercise and I help out as a spotter on other equipment.”