Coaches Sprung Floor V's Non Sprung Floor

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K

kez

I work in a gym that doesn't have a sprung floor and was just wondering if the techniques for achieving a skill remain the same whether using a sprung or non sprung floor.

I'm thinking that techniques to achieve good take offs and arm repulstions etc. should be the same whether the floor is sprung or non sprung. The main differences being increased impact forces on a non sprung floor as opposed to sprung floors leading to increased risk of injuries and also loss of power because a non sprung floor has less 'elasticity' or less of an ability to develop potential energy (for want of a better word) than a sprung floor. So this would mean that good technique becomes more important on a non sprung floor to maximise the resulting power for the skill. Does this sound right?

At the end of the day are there any other differences that should be considered to achieve the best result for a particular skill?

Cheers,
 
We don't have a spring floor either... (well, we have one line of it, kind of like a tumble track). SO we work on both. Most competitions don't use spring floors though.

From my experience technique should be the same, mostly, but the the feeling of jumping off the floor is very different. Seems like you can get away with baaaad mistakes on a spring floor (e.g. I get away with my ****ty technique on handspring which just kills me on a nonspring floor, which is why I only ever tumble out of round offs on there...)
 
I found (as an athlete, not as a coach) that there's more pushing on nonspring vs popping on a spring floor. I could get away with just jumping really hard and doing the "I surrender" set on a back tuck on dead mats...doesn't work on a spring/rod floor.

When I was teaching power tumbling the feedback I got was that one had to be stronger on the dead mats, and had to be tighter on the rod floor.
 
wow! it's 2009. i naively thought everyone has a spring floor. except cheer.
 
We don't have a spring floor at our gym and i do see a difference in the technique formed for tumbling on each type of floor.

Backhandsprings for example, are "normal" on the non-sprung floor in terms of the height of the handspring compared to the distance traveled. When this translates over to a sprung floor after practicing with no springs, there is a difference. The technique used on the non sprung floor does not cut it on the spring floor. With the extra bounce, the gymnast needs to learn to use their power to make the handspring longer instead of higher. With this as the case, when a second backhanspring, a backtuck, or harder skills are connected to the first backhandspring all of the power will be used up in the height of the first backhandspring, reducing the power available for the following skills.
I hope this makes sense...

I wouldn't say the technique is wrong on non-sprung floors or wrong on sprung floors, they are just different given the different environments the athlete has to work with. These differences can make it difficult to go from training on one type of floor to competing on another.
 
Backhandsprings for example, are "normal" on the non-sprung floor in terms of the height of the handspring compared to the distance traveled. When this translates over to a sprung floor after practicing with no springs, there is a difference. The technique used on the non sprung floor does not cut it on the spring floor. With the extra bounce, the gymnast needs to learn to use their power to make the handspring longer instead of higher. With this as the case, when a second backhanspring, a backtuck, or harder skills are connected to the first backhandspring all of the power will be used up in the height of the first backhandspring, reducing the power available for the following skills.
I hope this makes sense...

I wouldn't say the technique is wrong on non-sprung floors or wrong on sprung floors, they are just different given the different environments the athlete has to work with. These differences can make it difficult to go from training on one type of floor to competing on another.

This is the type of thing I was wondering about. My kids will be travelling (from this year) to some gyms that do have a sprung floor. I need to be able to help them make adjustments for both environments.

Thanks for your insights everyone.
 
hey kez, you really can't make the adjustment and it can be unsafe. there is no tuning a foam block or plain foam floor. spring floors are tuned AND create a double bounce/knee bend on the punch. this phenomena varies from athlete to athlete and varies in extremes depending on the weight, muscle twitch, and both in the athlete.

if your kids are low level, like flip flops and basic floor fundamentals like cartwheels, round offs and back extension rolls etc; then you'll be all right.

if they somi, multi somi, twist, and multi twist they will be at great risk AND they will be pinged from the floor. the translation from foam to spring also puts them at risk for knee hyperextension as the timing issues are so drastic. muscles cannot memorize one to the other in a competition warm-up.

i can tell you from last year in the USA at championships and olympic trials where a JF foam block floor was used. we weren't told...as if the coaches were stupid. the same floor was used in bejing. as coaches we were able to work the kids thru adjusments. but these were done with highly skilled and experienced elite gymnasts. it still was not their best tumbling but was adequate.

if you have any other question about this feel free to pm me. i'll be around.
 
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Our club doesn't have a sprung floor, but we are hoping to get a strip of this within the next year.

We were thinking of getting the foam block rather than the sprung floor because it would need to be packed away. We thought the sprung floor would be really heavy to move?

Would the sprung floor be better for tumbling? Which one lasts longer?

When we go away to comp we quite often compete on sprung floors. Kids seem to really like it, although I think it would be harder to make the transition for higher level gymnasts.
 
spring floor is the best and best for long term investment.
 
Our club doesn't have a sprung floor, but we are hoping to get a strip of this within the next year.

We were thinking of getting the foam block rather than the sprung floor because it would need to be packed away. We thought the sprung floor would be really heavy to move?

Would the sprung floor be better for tumbling? Which one lasts longer?

When we go away to comp we quite often compete on sprung floors. Kids seem to really like it, although I think it would be harder to make the transition for higher level gymnasts.

the club I train at was in the same position. We are a set up/pack away gym also. about 7 years ago we got a sprung strip and we got the acromat foam blocks. We have 14 pieces that we piece together to make the length about the same as a diagonal on a full floor. I LOVE it! it is fantastic to tumble on (I reckon it is better than some floors we compete on!) Quite a few clubs have full sprung floors with foam blocks though now. It is easy to set up and pack away also. With 10 girls in the group and 2 coaches we are able to set it up in about 10 minutes. It is nice and light and easily carried by 2 people (although we have some dads who occasionally help and they can carry a piece by themselves).
The only problem we have had with it is foam blocks coming off on the sides. I would say this is only due to the fact it is handled so much and occaisionally they get bumped and we also used to have scatter mats pushed up against the end (before we got extra pieces) so the mats pushed the blocks as well. However we have some heavy duty glue and we just glue them straight back on with no problems.

If you have any questions just ask! :)
 
the foam blocks in the foam floor don't last, imo.

the AAI sprung floors will set you back a lot, like 20-25k when new. Maybe 1/2 to 2/3rds of that if used.

palmer sprung floors can be 5-10k

aerofloors are pretty interesting.
 
I recall seeing the foam blocks that you can buy in bulk in the catelogue. I am assuming when they wear out, then you buy new foam blocks and glue them on? Does anyone know how long the foam blocks last, before they need replacing. Do they compress after a while so there is less spring?
 
When we had just a tumble strip of foam blocks they did come off as we moved it 4 times a week, we were able to buy and replace the blocks from the manufacturer Speith Anderson. Now the owner has bought a building and bought a SA block floor we don't have those issues.

I imagine how long blocks will last depends on the amount of use the floor getsand I imagine along the diagonals will get more wear than the rest.

SPring floors are wonderful, but they are far out of reach for many clubs, foam blocks are way better than just mats.
 

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