Floor in high school

[superflipgirl]

Okay in case anyone doesn't know, I'm going to do high school gymnastics next year, but it keeps making me less excited when I think about the fact that I won't be competing on a spring floor. It's just so annoying to think that I'll be doing everything on a mat. Can anyone tell me how hard it is to compete on a high school floor? What does it feel like, for instance? Can I pretty much do anything on the high school floor that I can on the spring floor? I know I can't do double backs on a high school floor but if I can do a back tuck on a spring floor can I do it just as well on the high school floor? And does anyone know WHY high schools don't have spring floors anyway? I know they're expensive but it isn't that much of an effort to build one. Thanks!

 

[CoachTodd]

It all depends on what state you are in. In NC, we hold meets at local gyms so we have normal equipment.
As far as tumbling on the mats, if you have proper technique, you can do all of the same skills. If you muscle your tumbling, it will be different. I know a few folks that competed double layouts on 2" mats back in the day.

 

[gymdog]

There's no give, so if you have wrist problems or shin splints you'd have to be careful about that.

But it's not that bad. I didn't train on it. Just threw stuff at meets. I don't think I can do all my tumbling on it. For example when I was in high school I could double back on a spring floor, but I can't do that on cheer mats. Twisting stuff was about the same. I found front tumbling to be the biggest difference. I have a pretty easy FLO punch on spring floor but I can't imagine doing that on a hard mat. People were impressed with my front bounder pike.

I'm sure there are some people who can do anything on hard mat but I don't think that's realistic for most people. You will just have to take some time to get used to it and do what is comfortable for you safety wise. It will depend on the coaching because HS programs vary widely and some coaches are not very experienced at spotting. In this case you will have to use your own judgement.

The reason is mostly cost and space, many high school programs set up their equipment each day. Spring floors are also very expensive and while I'm sure very crafty gymnastics knowledgable people have built them before, I'm not sure that's very realistic for most high school programs. In my area high school gymnastics and JO clubs might as well be sworn enemies, so there's not really much "sharing".

 

[gymnastbeth]

Most of my highschool meets were in local gyms that the teams rented out, my team practiced and had home meets in a JO club. Only once I had to compete on a non-spring floor actually, and the big difference I found was that it was so much more TIRING!

 

[coachmolly]

I only competed 1 year of high school gym, but all teh girls on my team trained at their respective clubs and we just competed together at schools who actually had equipment. We did 1 meet a year at a club gym with a spring floor, but the rest were on wrestling mats. I had chronic problems with my legs so I did tumbling that was easy for me anyway. I didn't have problems getting decent height as my tumbling technique was generally good- I didn't just muscle through the skills, but girls who did had a much harder time making the transition. I heard about girls who threw double fulls and double backs on wrestling mats, but I'm pretty sure I never saw it happen. But I'm pretty sure high school gymnastics in Pennsylvania is much less competitive than it is in some states.
However, it was tough on my legs, so if you do have problems with shin splints or similar injuries to the legs or wrists, I would say plan to take it easy, especially if you will be practicing on the wrestling mats between competitions.

 

[superflipgirl]

any other advice about high school floors?

 

[CoachGoofy]

And does anyone know WHY high schools don't have spring floors anyway? I know they're expensive but it isn't that much of an effort to build one. Thanks!

Actually...it is.

And even if you have a lot of people who will build one initially, have you ever set up & taken down a spring floor? It's a big job (a word which here means "took our entire gym staff something like 2 hours to do").It's not something you want to do every week, much less every day.

Time & space & funding constraints, in other words.

I've seen lots of high school gymnastics teams work out at their local clubs. Then they got to use the good stuff.

 

[Tumblequeensmom]

Just to further agree with Coach Goofy... the girls usually have 2 meets per week, and in addition, they share the gym with boys/girls varsity and JV basketball games. Soooooo, it's just not possible to set up and breakdown an actual spring floor.

No... you don't see any of the double backs on floor. The best I saw this past season was a full layout. It's that tumbling series that gain the points in a floor routine!

 

[gymdog]

Some people 1.5 or double in the postseason meets here, but most club coaches don't allow that, and in our state because of the way things are structured, most of the opportunities for training of that level is through the clubs. If you want to stay at that level you are going to do something at a club even if you don't compete JO because we just don't have the equipment, consistent coaching, offseason training, etc.

 

[slkbeambabe07]

Just to further agree with Coach Goofy... the girls usually have 2 meets per week, and in addition, they share the gym with boys/girls varsity and JV basketball games. Soooooo, it's just not possible to set up and breakdown an actual spring floor.

No... you don't see any of the double backs on floor. The best I saw this past season was a full layout. It's that tumbling series that gain the points in a floor routine!

Actually, we did this. Our high school was fortunate enough to have a good funding program and for each meet we moved our floor down to the gym below and set it up and took it down (all equipment, bars, beam, vault, floor) the same night and had to set it back up the next practice. As a team we worked together efficiently but all in all it sucked.

As for if a wrestling mat/non spring floor sucks? In my honest opinion, YES. It would hurt my knees and wrists just trying to tumble on it. It sucks in your energy in my opinion, and I had to take out my full and do a layout instead, and muscle my front pass (Front tuck, roff bhs back tuck).

High School gymnasty to me was also very cliquey, one thing I did not get back at my old gym. Sometimes I wish I would have only done one year of high school to get the experience compared to 2 years, and stuck with my beloved gymnastics program where everyone got along.

 

[gymdog]

Actually, we did this. Our high school was fortunate enough to have a good funding program and for each meet we moved our floor down to the gym below and set it up and took it down (all equipment, bars, beam, vault, floor) the same night and had to set it back up the next practice. As a team we worked together efficiently but all in all it sucked.

I'm not sure if you were able to leave it up other time, but in our area not only does the equipment have to be taken out for meets (which everyone participating at the meet helps with), it has to be set up for practice each day. And then removed. I can think of only maybe two schools that have a room where the equipment can be left up. As many practices are less than two hours, when there is a half hour of equipment set up and take down, it cuts in. You end up having maybe one hour so most of the time we had a choice, do we set up beam or bars today (bars takes awhile)? So it's tough. Usually we would just unroll a couple strips of floor which was easier than setting up a spring floor. Maybe once in awhile they could set up a tumbling strip but since the program already got cut I don't foresee that. I know one team has an air mat they use. Many cheer programs have been working with all star gyms in order to use equipment like tumble track, spring floor, etc as this is a very good source of business for smaller all star gyms but gymnastics has not been nearly as open. Which is a shame because it could be a great source of business and participation which would be win-win if we could just get over ourselves. But I'll save that soapbox for another time.

 

[bogwoppit]

Putting up spring floors is a ton of work and they are very expensive to buy. Even to rent for a weekend is a huge financial commitment and highschool gym just doesn't have the budget.

My girls gym put up and took down a whole gym three times a week, and we just had a tumbling strip not a full floor, it took ages and it is very hard work requiring commitment from parents, coaches, gymnasts and even the janitor!

 

[Stretchsportguy]

There used to be TV commercials back in the late 60's that showed how much spring you would get if you owned a pair of Keds Tennis Shoes. The commercial had a cartoon showing a kid bouncing all over town with springs attached to the bottom of his new Keds. That's when spring floors became a twinkle in someone's eye before they were produced in the late 70's.

In 1971 I saw a guy come to our high school where the pride of life was the special gym floors built for basketball that were easy on the knees. The wood floors were not as hard as older floors. They pulled out the panel mats and this guy spent a half an hour taping his ankles. For the pep rally he put on a tumbling exhibition and at the end he threw a double back punch front. Both tape jobs ripped like phone books. But the ankles survived and we had a great pep rally.

 

[All Chalked Up]

For years I was at a gym without a spring. Everything is harder, but I find handstands easier on them

 

[superflipgirl]

Okay thanks for the advice! But I think that in my county there is a gym in the high school just for gymnastics. I think they should at least install one in the schools in my county but thanks anyway! I am upset about this because high school gymnastics is a sport for girls who want to have a fun and slight competitive experience with gymnastics but not train intensely, and I think many club gymnasts would rather just do high school but they have to work out at their club anyway because it has more proper training equipment. If all that equipment was in high school gyms then those gymnasts would not have to spend so much time in their club gym. Doesn't anyone agree?

 

[gymnastbeth]

Okay thanks for the advice! But I think that in my county there is a gym in the high school just for gymnastics. I think they should at least install one in the schools in my county but thanks anyway! I am upset about this because high school gymnastics is a sport for girls who want to have a fun and slight competitive experience with gymnastics but not train intensely, and I think many club gymnasts would rather just do high school but they have to work out at their club anyway because it has more proper training equipment. If all that equipment was in high school gyms then those gymnasts would not have to spend so much time in their club gym. Doesn't anyone agree?

It's too much money for a not very popular sport. At least in my school it's not very popular... Every season the team has a lot of trouble just getting enough girls on the team.

In my highschool season I miss a ton of club practice anyways because there's a rule that you can't go to a private practice and miss a highschool practice. (which really annoys my regular coaches )

 

[slkbeambabe07]

I'm not sure if you were able to leave it up other time, but in our area not only does the equipment have to be taken out for meets (which everyone participating at the meet helps with), it has to be set up for practice each day. And then removed. I can think of only maybe two schools that have a room where the equipment can be left up. As many practices are less than two hours, when there is a half hour of equipment set up and take down, it cuts in. You end up having maybe one hour so most of the time we had a choice, do we set up beam or bars today (bars takes awhile)? So it's tough. Usually we would just unroll a couple strips of floor which was easier than setting up a spring floor. Maybe once in awhile they could set up a tumbling strip but since the program already got cut I don't foresee that. I know one team has an air mat they use. Many cheer programs have been working with all star gyms in order to use equipment like tumble track, spring floor, etc as this is a very good source of business for smaller all star gyms but gymnastics has not been nearly as open. Which is a shame because it could be a great source of business and participation which would be win-win if we could just get over ourselves. But I'll save that soapbox for another time.

Fortunately, we were lucky enough and had a stable program (a JO program leading up to the team funded it) to have our own place to practice at the high school where we could leave equipment up 24/7. A lot of high schools in our conference, however, had to do the take down/set up game.

 

[superflipgirl]

Okay I am wondering something else. Some people say that "club gyms don't allow double fulls on floor in high school." What do they mean when they say that? Why wouldn't a club gym allow high school gymnasts to do certain skills? It's not the same team, so why do they care?

 

[gymnastbeth]

Okay I am wondering something else. Some people say that "club gyms don't allow double fulls on floor in high school." What do they mean when they say that? Why wouldn't a club gym allow high school gymnasts to do certain skills? It's not the same team, so why do they care?

Because they don't want them to get hurt, or, more likely, form bad habits. It is generally not possible to do a double full the same way on a non-spring floor as a spring floor. Club gyms just don't want their gymnasts to muscle through them and develop bad form and get hurt.

 

[gymdog]

Okay I am wondering something else. Some people say that "club gyms don't allow double fulls on floor in high school." What do they mean when they say that? Why wouldn't a club gym allow high school gymnasts to do certain skills? It's not the same team, so why do they care?

Some gyms don't allow gymnasts of a certain level to do high school gymnastics at all. It's just a rule for participating on their club team. Most of the gyms that do allow L8-10s to participate, put difficulty restrictions on the girls as the equipment in my state is generally substandard (i.e. you're not going to see AAI super wide bars - they have the old M, L, XL settings which don't go as far. Safe enough, but if you're doing a release to handstand which relies on timing you do on another setting, you probably shouldn't be messing around with it).