clear hip handstand help!

[slgc12]

I am a gymnast as well as a coach and i have found this skill to be very hard to teach and very hard to do correctly. i was wondering if any one had good drills to help with this skill

thanks

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yep. 3 clear hips in a row.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Here's the progression I use:

1) Clearhip with no cast (assuming the kid is small enough for it). You want to be able to stand straddling the bar, either on a block or using a trench bar. Have the gymnast push to a hollow front support with the bar on the thighs. Reach down in front of the bar to grab the gymnast's legs and pull them through the freehip motion to clear support.

2) Same thing, but to handstand

3) Introduce the cast entry. This is the most crucial phase, and the one that most coaches, in my opinion, get wrong. The thing that makes a freehip a freehip isn't the push out at the end -- it's the entry. The gymnast must aggressively drop the chest and shoulders back, such that the freehip doesn't come in from above the bar, but rather from behind it.

A good supplementary drill for this is to have them jump to a clearhip from a box. Put a box in front of the bar such that when the gymnast is standing on the box, the bar is at about chest height to her. From here, she should hold the bar, and attempt to hop up and perform a freehip from here. The box should deliberately be short enough that she cannot get her shoulders over the bar before doing the freehip -- this forces a correct entry (assuming the gymnast keeps her arms straight)

4) Assuming the gymnast has a good entry, it should be pretty easy to then spot her up to handstand. If she's struggling to get enough power, go back and look at the entry -- that's always always always the most crucial part.

 

[CoachTodd]

I'm guessing the gymnasts you are referring to can already do a regular clear hip.
A clear hip to handstand is basically a back extension roll on bars. Work back extension rolls as a station.
The clear hip is all about timing and angle. I ask one coach that had quite a few kids with nice clear hip to hand and his method helped the kids I was working with quite well.
Back hip circle = bar at hips
Clear hip = bar at mid to upper thigh
Clear hip hand = bar at mid to lower thigh

If they get the angle and the drop correct, they will shoot to clear hip very quickly. Spot a lot of these. You should only have to guide their momentum a little once the get used to it.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yep. 3 clear hips in a row.

i'd like to explain this simple drill. in all our years we have never done much work to get a free hip. and we have never spotted one. the key in all this is that both boys and girls need to learn how to swing first. then they must be strong enough to handle the rotary forces the free hip generates. 3 in a row accomplishes both over time. slowly and efficiently.

so then. the coach is standing to the right side of the gymnast looking at their right shoulder. you instruct the gymnast that you want to see their body at 10:00 on the first. 11:00 on the second. and 1 minute before 12 on the third.

and do this over and over and over again. there is no instant gratification to this method. but over time you will see the athlete begin to open at those angles just as prescribed. this will occur when they 'figure it out' how to swing. and the more they swing and hit those angles the stronger they become.

all the other ideas and suggestions are great. it isn't necessary for coaches to reinvent the wheel on this one. i learned this the exact same way in the 60's from my mentors. it's a tried and true drill. it gets results. but as i said, no instant gratification.