Coaches Need advice

[Carmansunshine]

Hi,
I'm am a mom of 2 gymnasts a 5 vr old and an almost 9 year old. My oldest was on a training team at one gym and we had issues with the coach (not a good atmosphere for her to learn lots of yelling and degrading ) She quit for 6 months then we found a new place and she wanted to give it another try. The only thing is, turns out she picked up lots of bad habits at the first place and the new caoch dropped her back down to level 1 to relearn everything. She has since moved back to level 3 (it took 4 months) but the coach says she can't move back to team until she has all the level 4 skills at competion quality. (She been working hard to get to that point) The problem she is having is getting a good rebound on her ro and bhs the coach says she needs more pop. Where does the pop come from? Do you bend your arms slightly to push off? My daughter is very much a physicall learner and its hard for her to feel this. Any advice would be great.

 

[Mac]

I'll let the coach's here give advice on rebounds, but kudos to the new coach on having the courage to help her unlearn bad habits. You're so much better off than having a coach who would be afraid of bruising your/her ego and keeping her where the bad habits could interfere with future progress. Four months wasn't long in the scheme of things.

Just to guess ahead on what the coaches might say, I'd think that bending arms would not create pop. Bending anything usually absorbs energy rather than releasing it (think of how to stop bouncing on a trampoline--bend knees). To get pop off the hands, block the shoulders (such as for a front handspring). Rebound from feet (bhs/fhs) is straighter knees and extending the ankles. With a ro, there's something about the snap down of the feet, but I don't know how to explain it. Not sure I got the wording right, so we'll defer to a coach.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I'll let the coach's here give advice on rebounds, but kudos to the new coach on having the courage to help her unlearn bad habits. You're so much better off than having a coach who would be afraid of bruising your/her ego and keeping her where the bad habits could interfere with future progress. Four months wasn't long in the scheme of things.

Just to guess ahead on what the coaches might say, I'd think that bending arms would not create pop. Bending anything usually absorbs energy rather than releasing it (think of how to stop bouncing on a trampoline--bend knees). To get pop off the hands, block the shoulders (such as for a front handspring). Rebound from feet (bhs/fhs) is straighter knees and extending the ankles. With a ro, there's something about the snap down of the feet, but I don't know how to explain it. Not sure I got the wording right, so we'll defer to a coach.

Absolutely right on all counts. Bending the arms does not create pop, it absorbs it by preventing the gymnast from getting a proper block. The arms and shoulders should be extended for the entire skill. The rebound should come from the calves; that is, the gymnast lands on the ball of the foot, not the heel.

One very common problem I see with roundoffs that results in not getting enough power is not hitting a big enough lunge between the hurdle and the roundoff. The hurdle should land in a long, deep lunge with the front knee bent as much as possible. This helps the gymnast to drive her back heel more and push harder off the front leg.

 

[Carmansunshine]

Thanks! She had class today and the coach changed her hurdel and she got a little more rebound. You say the rebound comes from the calf do you mean it is a jump at the end??? And what about the rebound from the BHS?

 

[ahs]

You don't want to think of a rebound as a jump because it because a separate action, and when kids think of jumping they usually bend their knees to attain the action. A rebound is something that comes from being tight and in the correct position when hitting the floor. As GT said the rebound from the RO starts with hurdle, the BHS has to pass through correct positions to have a rebound. Gymnasts who bend their arms, or come down in piked position will have a tough time getting a rebound. Tight body jumps going up and down on blocks is a great way to work correct body position. Make sure the gymnasts stays on her toes, arms tight by the ears with a hollow body both in the air and when they hit the ground. You do not want to see them sink into the floor and try to jump, there should be very little effort involved.

 

[JBS]

Bouncing a pencil off of its eraser is like a rebound. If you sit a pencil on its eraser it will not rebound. If you throw a pencil onto its eraser, it will rebound. Rebounding is something that happens automatically if the gymnasts performs the skill tightly with lots of power. In other words, rebounding is not really a skill, its a product of doing things correctly.

The deep lunge from GT is very good advice.

 

[littlegymchampsmom]

welcome carman I am not a coach, just a proud parent... but thought I would ask...

Is it just ro bhs rebound she has a problem with? I just wondered if your dd's coach had said anything about her just round off, rebounds, and if they did handstand, snap down, rebounds (sorry don't know the exact correct term for that) & whether or not those were ok?

 

[Carmansunshine]

Sorry, I'm not sure I know what a handstand snap down is????? She is doing BHS and she gets more rebound on them, but still has a spotter and is still using an incline mat, so its hard to tell how much is her and how much is the spotter. As I said she used to go to another gym and never learned proper tech for doing RO she has had to fix almost everything about it. The hurdle, the hand placement(she was using the cartwheel hand placement), the blocking (she wasn't putting her arms back far enough) her head placement(she didn't keep her head in neutral), and not keeping her arms up when she finisned(she would drop them them then put them up to finish). So with each change her RO gets a little better, but she still isn't getting enough rebound.

 

[ACoach78]

I'm a little bit confused by the question being asked. Is the problem in regards to the rebound off of her hands or the rebound from the feet into the back handspring?

Secondly, I'm confused about why she is being told that the cartwheel hand placement is incorrect? The entry into the round-off should only consist of a quarter turn of the arms/shoulders. The other quarter will occur as the gymnast comes off of their hands, thus producing a complete 1/2 turn such that they are facing the opposite direction. What is she being taught?

Quite honestly, there is probably not a quick fix, magical answer to your questions. In gymnastics there is never a quick fix, magical answer in most instances. It's truly a matter of training and development. In essence, gymnastics training is really a process. Unfortunately, most parents, newer gymnasts, and even most coaches don't quite understand that.

I could probably offer you 20 different things that could be of potential use to alleviate the problem. However, those 20 different things would have to be developed over time. They won't magically make your daughter get more rebound. Ultimately, if your daughter has a really strong round-off and a great standing back handspring, then achieving enough rebound should be a non-issue.

From what has been posted, my guess is that neither is particularly strong and as we all know, "one must first walk before he/she can run." Hence, you must make make each of the pieces correct (RO & BHS) before you try to put them together.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

ACoach87:
I've always found that the best roundoffs have as much of the twist as possible before the hands contact the floor (within reason, of course; the gymnast should not dive and do a half turn in order to get the hands turned before contacting the floor, or anything like that). This allows the gymnast to snap down almost directly backwards using the abs, as opposed to snapping down sideways while twisting as you would if your hands were placed like a cartwheel.

 

[Carmansunshine]

The coach is placing a self stick velcro beam thing on the floor and telling her to put her left hand on the right side of the line and her right hand on the left side of the line. She is now doing this and its working for her. She seems to have more power with this move. I think she is missing the arm pop. She is trying so many different things and is getting better but if it was me I think my head would explode, so I'm trying to break them down at home to have her do the changes 1 at a time so she commits them to memory. But I don't completely understand what the snap down is, or where the pop happens. I can see something is missing in the RO but can't nail down what. She gets some spring at the end but not as much as the other girls. She is staying tight at the end and seems to have tight sholders and goes right over her head now but she doesn't bounce like an eraser off her sholders is she suposed to have a bounce there too? And can someone tell me what a handstand snap is? If this will help her we'll give it a try. She really wants to make the team at the new gym but the coach says she wont unless she can fix this skill up to competition quality( understandably ). The coach explains the changes she is trying to have my dd change and we do them except the pop because I can't eplain them to my dd if I don't understand. I liked the eraser thing it made it really easy to understand, now I just need to know where it goes and how to get it .

 

[ACoach78]

ACoach87:
I've always found that the best roundoffs have as much of the twist as possible before the hands contact the floor (within reason, of course; the gymnast should not dive and do a half turn in order to get the hands turned before contacting the floor, or anything like that). This allows the gymnast to snap down almost directly backwards using the abs, as opposed to snapping down sideways while twisting as you would if your hands were placed like a cartwheel.

Do me a favor, find me a video of a round-off done well as you are indicating. Creating as much twist as possible before hand placement will cause the kicking leg to go around the side.

In the better round-offs, the hands will be almost in a straight line with the second hand turned in with the fingers pointing towards the first hand forming an upside-down "T" when looking from the perspective of the gymnast. There might be a slight deviation with the second hand depending on the gymnast. Sometimes, that hand will be a few degrees off of the line. Additionally, the second hand may only be turned part of the way towards the first hand. I'd say at maybe 45 degrees as opposed to a complete 90 degrees (perpendicular) relative to the first hand.

 

[ACoach78]

The coach is placing a self stick velcro beam thing on the floor and telling her to put her left hand on the right side of the line and her right hand on the left side of the line. She is now ding this and its working for her. She seems to have more power with this move. I think she is missing the arm pop. She is trying so many different things and is getting better but if it was me I think my head would explode, so I'm trying to break them down at home to have her do the changes 1 at a time so she commits them to memory. But I don't completely understand what the snap down is, or where the pop happens. I can see something is missing in the RO but can't nail down what. She gets some spring at the end but not as much as the other girls. She is staying tight at the end and seems to have tight sholders and goes right over her head now but she doesn't bounce like an eraser off her sholders is she suposed to have a bounce there too? And can someone tell me what a handstand snap is? If this will help her we'll give it a try. She really wants to make the team at the new gym but the coach says she wont unless she can fix this skill up to competition quality( understandably ). The coach explains the changes she is trying to have my dd change and we do them except the pop because I can't eplain them to my dd if I don't understand. I liked the eraser thing it made it really easy to understand, now I just need to know where it goes and how to get it .

I assume that she's a lefty cartwheel? (first hand down is left? left lunge?)

As I mentioned in the previous post, I indicated the better hand position. Furthermore, the more in line the hands can be, the easier it will be to develop a RO on beam since they have to be in a straight line with one another.

The biggest thing with developing the RO is to put the gymnast into situations where they can successfully perform the skill and achieve the right shapes/positions. During the beginning stages of development, it is best to have them working downhill in some capacity - down an incline mat, off the floor into a loose foam/resi pit, etc. This allows them to build the motor coordination of the skill properly. As they become stronger, the skill can gradually be moved to a level surface and even working uphill (onto panel mats, etc.) for development of the Yurchenko vault.

The RO is probably the hardest skill to teach properly. There are very few good RO in the entire world in my opinion. And, it's so critical to back tumbling. While I'm on my soapbox, one of the worst things that coaches can do is to teach kids with a mediocre RO to perform RO Back Tucks with no back handspring in the middle. Since they have a mediocre RO, doing this will cause more harm than good when they decide to put the BHS in there, their block angle from the RO will not be consistent.

Back to the point at hand, without seeing the RO, I cannot offer much advice. As stated previously, there could be numerous things going on. However, most of the RO issues that I've encountered occur because of problems with the entry - head sticking out, turning too much and/or too early, not enough of a lunge, too much leaning/piking at the hips as the gymnast reaches for the floor while the back leg is not kicking over fast enough, bringing the legs together too early, etc. That's a common misnomer - when is she being told to bring the legs together?

Quite honestly, the best thing that she can probably do is to not do round-offs as much - spend time on performing cartwheel step-ins, side cartwheels, etc. and make sure that the alignment is proper as well as develop the appropriate strength to be able to generate the necessary velocity of the kicking leg. Also, developing a good front handspring will have a huge impact on the strength of the RO itself.

So, if you can get a video, that would be a big help. Also, keep in mind that there's no magical fix. It is a process!!!! Furthermore, the RO, BHS, and RO BHS can ALWAYS be improved upon. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I once read an article about how Liukin spent a minimum of a total of at least a couple hours per week trying to improve his RO BHS even after he had already competed the triple back.

 

[gym law mom]

Carman---I think you are trying to do too much at this point. No coach should expect a parent(unless you're a gymnast) to correct skills like a RO at home. I know you want to help your dd and support her since it sounds like she's had a rough time with poor coaching to start and then going back and relearning everything. Believe me I know how badly she wants to move to team and how much you want that for her and there is nothing at all wrong with that. I think right now, it may be getting to the point of "too many cooks" type scenario.

I'm not a huge advocate of private lessons just to do them. Here it sounds like maybe 1 or 2 sessions with your dd and the coach together might benefit everyone. They'll have time to really break down the RO without distraction and put it together correctly. ACoach has a good point that it is a process and one that shouldn't be rushed. This time when she gets the RO, you want to know it is the way it should be done.

 

[Mac]

I think she is missing the arm pop. She is trying so many different things and is getting better but if it was me I think my head would explode, so I'm trying to break them down at home to have her do the changes 1 at a time so she commits them to memory. But I don't completely understand what the snap down is, or where the pop happens.

Gym Law Mom has it right, you could be doing too much. If you don't understand the components, then chances are greater that you'll contradict the coaches than help her. Even if you knew all the components of a roundoff, a back handspring, etc, chances are still good that you'll be doing something the coach would rather not be done. A good coach has the training and experience to know how to teach the skills to the kids. If we have concerns, we should speak to the coach. But if we put too much pressure on them, or our child, or ourselves to learn something on a timetable we think would be convenient, it's likely to not work out as we planned. You either trust the coach or you don't. If you do, then let them coach. If you don't, then find one you do.

If your daughter desires to do something at home, she should stick to basics--push ups, chin-ups, stretching, handstands--not learning new skills that need the involvement of a trained coach.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Do me a favor, find me a video of a round-off done well as you are indicating.

Ask and ye shall recieve.

[youtube]ojNVN4FUQnc[/youtube]

Watch his roundoffs. It is certainly not 90 degrees before contact and 90 degrees after as you are suggesting; he's turning a good 120 to 135 degrees before his hands contact the floor on every roundoff he does.

Did I mention he was the 2005 world champion on floor?

Also: It's less pronounced in Dragalescu's tumbling, but he definitely turns way past 90 degrees before his hands contact on his roundoff as well.
[youtube]AJT2IrkeLI[/youtube]

As does Kyle Shewfelt:
[youtube]kNkAv5mNa2M[/youtube]

And it's not guys who tumble like that. Carly Patterson does it too. You can especially see it in her second tumbling pass in this video:
[youtube]2SvQJhCM1yw[/youtube]

 

[ahs]

I have to agree w/ Mac & GLM doing more at home may be what is overwhelming your daughter even more. It sounds as if the coaches are really breaking it down for her and as she fixes the little things the "pop" will come. Gymnastics is a "Cause and Effect" sport, if her positions are not correct the rebound will not happen. Be patient - tight body work at home will be the most beneficial. Have her work hollow positions and hollow push up (where she can feel her shoulders being pushed up). If you allowed to video tape practice sometime I would tape your daughter's round offs as well as some of the other girls, visual images help children learn.

 

[littlegymchampsmom]

But I don't completely understand what the snap down is, or where the pop happens.

ok, i will do my best attempt at this, I hope the coaches will clarify where I goof ... a snap down is where the gymnast would perform a handstand on the floor or on a block (the latter would create more power from what I have previously understood), it is impt to bring the body immediately over the hands then using her arms (i think this is the pop you are referrring to) pop up onto her feet and immediately rebound... this seems to me like it emulates the pop of the ro... one way to try them at home is to have her do handstands about 12-18" away from the wall, legs rounded touching the wall (sort of like a bhs shape) then pull her body away from the wall using her back and shoulder muscles... carman, I applaud you for asking your ? here, I think this brings up a basic skill that really does need to get broken down and that not everybody can just immediately put it together, all gymnasts learn differently, and from the coaches opinions here that I have read, I guess even coaches teach it differently/view it differently as well.. the key will be to find the best way your dd absorbs and learns... I think its great that parents stay involved with their kids' training

ok so I may have really confused you - heck I confused meeee, but hopefully a coach can clarify it a little better than I did ....

 

[ACoach78]

Ask and ye shall recieve.

Watch his roundoffs. It is certainly not 90 degrees before contact and 90 degrees after as you are suggesting; he's turning a good 120 to 135 degrees before his hands contact the floor on every roundoff he does.

Did I mention he was the 2005 world champion on floor?

Also: It's less pronounced in Dragalescu's tumbling, but he definitely turns way past 90 degrees before his hands contact on his roundoff as well.

As does Kyle Shewfelt:

And it's not guys who tumble like that. Carly Patterson does it too. You can especially see it in her second tumbling pass in this video:

You are correct in your observations. However, your interpretation of what you are seeing is not as I perceive it. Essentially, the gymnasts do not "have as much twist as possible" before hand contact. Upon the initial hand contact, their bodies are in a position of that of a sideways-facing cartwheel for the most part. It might be difficult to see because of the video capabilities of a regular speed camera. High-speed video would illustrate this much better.

As I noted in a previous post, the second arm might turn a little farther such that it is a little off the line relative to the first hand. My opinion on this is that it's really going to be dictated by the ability of the gymnast. The stronger, faster gymnasts can perform this technique and will tend to perform this technique because they are able to generate a great deal more back leg ("kicking") velocity so as not to allow that leg to deviate around the side. Furthermore, that extra little "reach" with the second hand occurs well after the initial hand contact.

Therefore, your suggestion of teaching a gymnast to "have as much twist as possible" prior to hand contact is not a good idea in my opinion.

Here is a good video to better illustrate my thoughts. It is a video of Cheng Fei's vault from 2005 Worlds - Yurchenko 2 1/2 twist. It's an almost textbook vault and her round-off mechanics are very good. The beauty of this video is there are three different slo-mo replays at the end with one of them being from up above the gymnast and it clearly shows her in about a 95%+ sideways position during the hand support. The second hand is only slightly out of line with the first hand. (I'm unsure as to how to embed the video - so, I'll just post the link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSrwh7QTYKU

Lastly, I think that some of the "reach around" of the second arm is reflective of of the fact that these gymnasts are medially rotating the humerus to create the effect of turning the second hand in. In contrast, they could just as easily medially rotate the forearm instead and it would keep their hands more in alignment.

Regardless, I would strongly imagine that it's not something that they were taught to do per se. They adapted these idiosyncrasies on their own.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

To be sure, there is a lot of variation in how high-level gymnasts do roundoffs. Every gymnast is different, and there will always be minor variations in what exact techniques will be most effective with each gymnast. However, it is my experience that most (by which I mean almost all) gymnasts can get far more power out of their roundoffs if they turn their hands as far as they can reasonably manage before contacting the floor. If the hands are placed like a cartwheel as you suggested, this significantly complicates and slows down the second half of the roundoff.

Note that when I say "as far as reasonably possible", I mean as far as possible without unnecessary air time between the takeoff of the feet and the nads contacting the floor, or any other lapses in technique. I will not allow my kids to sacrifice form in order to turn their hands further. But I have seen very very very few cases where that even becomes an issue.