Interesting comment...

[Granny Smith]

My dd comes out of gym on Saturday and we were talking on our way home. She proceeds to tell me that bar coach told her that she is good at bars because she has long arms!

She goes on to say that bars coach told her, naming names, who are really strong bars (level 9s & 10s) people because they all have long arms.

It was an interesting correlation that I never heard before....

Anyone ever hear this, I just thought it was odd! I never thought of my dd having long arms!!

 

[profmom]

Interesting indeed! Ah, if only correlation were causation in this case -- my daughter is literally just about all arms and legs, but she has never been a great bars worker (think cooked spaghetti). But her coach recently started working with her to adjust the spread of her arms going into the kip because he thinks it will help her get higher casts and more power down the road. And he made the same comment about the arms being an asset eventually.

I do think, though, that girls/women with long limbs can look both pretty and powerful on bars, if they don't swing around like cooked spaghetti!

My son, who's built the same way as my daughter, was told by a coach that the long arms and legs are an asset for pommel on the men's side. Thus far, it just seems like he's gotta generate a heck of a lot more momentum to get everything going. But we have plenty of time, as long as he doesn't manage to tie himself into a pretzel on the mushroom before he figures it out.

Does your daughter also have a proportionally short torso, or is she just kind of long all over?

 

[Chocoholic]

That's funny because my level 5 daughter has been commenting lately that her coach wants her to do something differently on bars (can't remember what) and she says that she is unable to because she has such long arms. Now I can tell her that her long arms will come in handy down the road!

 

[Clover]

Actually, I had a coach make the same comment about my DD. I assumed at the time it had more to do with the fact that some bar moves may look prettier with long arms, but perhaps there was more to it.

 

[Granny Smith]

Does your daughter also have a proportionally short torso, or is she just kind of long all over?

I would say yes. She is petite all over, so I classify her torso as short or average. Here I am talking about her like she is a specimen!!! Ha-ha!

 

[CoachTodd]

Just an observation. I saw a guy at national qualifiers that had to be 6 feet tall and he did his entire bar routine with his eyes closed. Length does make swinging easier once they get the angles down but girls do have to deal with that low bar.

 

[coachmolly]

I've seen girls with long arms/legs really struggle on bars as little ones because they just don't have the muscle needed to control their lengthy appendages. However, I can see it being an asset once they get strength and body control worked out. I have long arms as well and it was more of a nuisance for my coaches than anything else because my toes scraped the floor on the strap bar and on the regular set if mats were pushed in too close (I was around 5'4 with long arms, so it's not like I was some kind of giant). I did get told that my hyperextending knees made for pretty bars work, though.