Coaches Open Shoulder Trainer

[kez]

Hi - I'm looking for some independent reviews on open shoulder trainers. Are they effective? Any cautions regarding their use?

Thanks,

Kez

 

[BlairBob]

Dunno, but I'd like about a half dozen. I have seen them in person but was bucks down.

 

[gymdog]

Just use elastic bands, can make them yourself. Just a loop, slide it around the arms then behind the head. Clearly this has to be used carefully, any skills done with it should be well within the ability of the group or spotted. And not for too often or too much continuous training, because this could likely lead to overuse injury.

I think this has a place but because of the nature requires close supervision. One of the selling points I've seen advertised is "they'll do the position with no spotting." Hmm, okay, maybe the most advanced and slightly older athletes, but these ones could probably make the correction through other drills and prompts anyway. The rest would probably need supervision to use the thing correctly and complete the drills anyway. If shoulder flexibility and strength is an issue this needs to be addressed through appropriate exercises.

That said I have done a couple bar drills with swings using elastic to keep them from putting their head back. Heavily spotted, one at a time. I did find it effective to teach the position and it allows me to spot more heavily for other things without having to hold their head in or something. But again I use it sparingly because we need to build the strength, flex, awareness, etc anyway and whatever it is I feel I have to supervise pretty heavily with younger groups so not much point.

Here is a good exercise for open shoulders:
Technique Tuesday: Vault Pre-Flight Positioning Drill | Technique Tuesday on Gymnastike

This drill can be modified and introduced to gymnasts who are nowhere near ready to perform a yurchenko on the vault table, obviously. When done in a series as a couple of a sets, for the lower level competitive gymnasts, it is also a pretty good exercise.
http://www.gymnastike.org/videos/co...que-tuesday/238572-teaching-a-back-handspring
Another example of spotting for open shoulders:
http://www.gymnastike.org/videos/co...que-tuesday/238572-teaching-a-back-handspring