Coaches Bar work at home

[littlekateskate]

I posted this on the parent forum and didnt realize I could ask questions to the coaches.

Quick background. Dd figure skates has for years and competes. Took gymnastics at age 3 for about nine months. Is almost five and back again!

She BEGS to go to gymnastics I think its going to take over her skating

Her class teacher suggested getting a pull up bar to put in a closet at home for her to play and practice on to build upper body strength.

Is this a good idea? Would you like your younger students doing this and practicing at home or would you hate it.

She cant really do much right now she is pretty weak. So I know it would be great for building strength but as well I am worried about her practicing "bad technique" as well.

Just curious opinions on a coaches level. As well if you would do this. How would you determine the height? I can only put it at one lever so which would be more beneficial.

(i have one in my closet for my husband to do pull ups so she can do pullups in there if needed).

 

[jes.the.gymnast]

i think it's a great idea, if she is serious about doing gym.
my only problem would if she was going to try to do skills she had not learnt or if she practiced them wrong and got in to bad habbits.
i would set ground rules if you got one, saying what she can and cant do. maybe get her to talk to her coach and get him/her to suggest something she can do at home
hone that helped.

 

[KBT]

I don't see a problem with a pull-up bar. It's hard for her to do anything "wrong" on it that would adversely affect her gymnastics technique, and it will increase her strength. You can't really practice gymnastics moves on a pull-up bar, and I'd make sure to mount it high enough to ensure she can't try.

 

[gymdog]

It's okay if she wants to try pull ups on it, but I wouldn't worry too much about training them. Many kids that young don't have the strength yet and she just started. At this age she will be gaining strength while playing, trying to reach the end of the monkey bars, etc. Not yet 5 is still quite young and they haven't really had a lot of years to engage in those kinds of skills so it makes sense they would not have developed the upper body strength even for their size.

I would not hate it, but personally I would not care. I don't think there is any reason for a child that young to practice outside their class, unless they want to, and even then with a pre-schooler I would suggest some exercises they can do on the floor as I wouldn't want their parents to go out and buy a pull up bar, install it, and then find out that it never gets used I am a little surprised it would be suggested for a preschooler...I really wouldn't think to recommend any course of action at that age and level because usually it seems there are more things that need to be "passed" at that point anyway and the upper body strength will probably come as the rest of the gymnastics progresses.

If they want to work on anything, we usually recommend straddle position exercises because of the legs straight cartwheel issues we usually see but really nothing should be necessary in my opinion to train a preschooler or kindergartener at home. I wouldn't recommend doing anything other than pull ups on a pull up bar because they aren't meant for it. I wouldn't really like it if a child was doing skills at home because there are certain ways we introduce them and a process we follow and interrupting it can cause problems in the progression of the skill.

 

[BlairBob]

I'd reccomend setting the bar high enough that she can do a jumping pullup. She'll probably be doing these for quite some time and she can just switch to holding her legs slightly off the ground when she can do a deadhang. Somewhere between just above her head and the upmost reach of her hands. This way, it would also give her enough room to do leg lifts.

If you opt not to install one, just have her start doing horizontal pullups/body rows. Put a broomstick on the top of two chairs and just do them. It's kind of an upside down pushup in a way.

I wouldn't allow her to do any work in support, period. Maybe one day later on, when she is older (7-8) and can pullover. Until she can, she is probably too weak to be doing anything in support. She can stick to pushups for upper body strength till then.