We just tie cinder blocks around each ankle.
I enjoyed that so much I'm going to cooperate, and go along with your request to "Pull my finger" and will beg the question....... Are you weighing in on the side of some is good, more is better, and too much is enough? I can't tell, because it could also be a drip of sarcasm on the thinning hairline of coaches that advocate for unbridled use of them.
I gotta tell you that I spent a very uncomfortable month in a gym owned and run on the floor by a person who was, politely worded, challenged with respect to technique, use of progressions, technical knowledge, and anything else you want to chip in with. Worse still, this person had two solutions to help solve this problem.
The first one is the coach would blame the kids for not making progress even though the coach knew had little more than a clue how to teach the skills they were having trouble with. The worst of this is the coach either totally believed he/she knew how to coach, or was purposefully deflecting the shame he/she should have felt.... onto these kids. Please don't think for a moment that I have no patince or respect for coaches trying to learn how to teach skills, but I have nothing but disdain for coaches who spend energy being critical of their kids work habits, ability, and commitment, while (the coach) spending no energy to get him/herself up to the standards expected of the kids they coach.
The second thing compensation was train the living snott out of the kids in hopes that they'd somehow magically use their strength gains to convert his/her ignorance into skills. Hey, I love the idea of a strong, well conditioned and prepared gymnast. It's a pleasure to work with kids who are equal to a skill's demands for strength, but kinda frustrating in this case as just about half the optional group had low back pain that kept them from working in meaningful numbers...... like five reps and hit the ice bag.
The conditioning was done with the kids wearing ankle weight, as were their their warm-up drills and simple skills. If this coach had a pet goldfish..... it would have been outfitted with ankle weights.
My suspicion is that these kids with low back problems were heading in the direction of spondylolysis from their back muscles and lumbar system being subjected to the forces created by these weights..... especially those with rapid movements and turns..... like round offs, front handsprings, back handsprings, split leaps, switch leaps, cast handstands, and glide kips. The worst of it is these skills were done incorrectly, causing even more stress forces.
I'm a big fan of resistance and 'free weight' training, and credit my prior participation in weight lifting to my success as a gymnast. I think strength exercises done correctly with an awareness of range of motion can do more for a gymmnast than anything else, other than a coach who knows what they're doing. Ankle weights just don't fit that model because the idea in weigth training is to concentrate on how to move the weight, as if that was the skill, and I don't think that's a gymnast's focus when working with ankle weights.
I can't really think of any use for these weights, but I'll agree that some coaches can find a proper use for them, but doubt that even 10% of all coaches could devise, put into place, and monitor for safety and effectiveness a beneficial use of them. I doubt that 10% is even close.
