- Dec 9, 2008
- 414
- 227
Background: I currently coach a 10 (almost 11)-year-old gymnast, xcel silver (but really a bronze skill set--does anyone else hate the extreme crossover of skills for the xcel divisions???). She did a year of preteam, then two years of bronze, and now silver, mostly because she's the oldest in the group and the new xcel rules allow for it. This girl works very hard, takes corrections well, never cheats conditioning, and never misses practice. We practice 2 days a week, 3 hour practices. She's just under 5 feet tall and stocky (not overweight, but just solid). With her work ethic, I feel like she should be making lots of progress, but is not. She finally got her pullover (actually a kick over) the middle of last year, and over this past summer finally got a clean back hip circle with a decent wrist shift. Those are the only bar skills she has (she does currently climb to high bar and does low tap swings, but with good form). Her casts are very low, but hollow. She recently learned her back walkover, but struggles with consistency. No backhandspring despite many drills and reps. She is the only one on the team not close, the other two who don't have it alone yet just need a mental spot. Her jumps and leaps are improving finally. On beam she barely makes 90* split jump and her handstand is MAYBE at 3/4 and piked. Her vault is slow, piked, and sometimes nearly a roll.
The rest of her team has made great progress across the board. Several girls (ages 7-9) have recently--past 6 months to a year--learned kips, front hips, squat ons, backhandsprings (round off and standing), vaulting over the table, cartwheels and backwalkovers on beam and front handsprings off the end.
We do lots of drills--I'm definitely a break-skills-down-to-nth-degree--type of coach. Warmup and conditioning is an hour of every practice, and I use skill-specific conditioning during event rotations.
If you made it this far, do you have any suggestions to help build power, speed, and confidence with a gymnast like this? She is beautiful artistically. She scored over a 9 at her last meet on floor. I would just love to see her skills progress! Fwiw, It is difficult to physically manipulate her for spotting because she is nearly the same size as me and I'm struggling with tendonitis in my shoulder.
Thank you to anyone who has made it to the end of this and for any support you can give. I'll take any suggestions, drills, conditioning exercises, etc!!!
The rest of her team has made great progress across the board. Several girls (ages 7-9) have recently--past 6 months to a year--learned kips, front hips, squat ons, backhandsprings (round off and standing), vaulting over the table, cartwheels and backwalkovers on beam and front handsprings off the end.
We do lots of drills--I'm definitely a break-skills-down-to-nth-degree--type of coach. Warmup and conditioning is an hour of every practice, and I use skill-specific conditioning during event rotations.
If you made it this far, do you have any suggestions to help build power, speed, and confidence with a gymnast like this? She is beautiful artistically. She scored over a 9 at her last meet on floor. I would just love to see her skills progress! Fwiw, It is difficult to physically manipulate her for spotting because she is nearly the same size as me and I'm struggling with tendonitis in my shoulder.
Thank you to anyone who has made it to the end of this and for any support you can give. I'll take any suggestions, drills, conditioning exercises, etc!!!
