Coaching Frusturations...

[CoachAl]

I coach at a tiny tiny tiny gym. We have one floor stip, one tumbling strip. one single bar. one set of duals. 2 high beams, 1 low fat beam, 1 low beam. We have to set up our vault in another gym, and we only get to use it once a week, this is also wher we set up our full floor (no springs-i don't let my girls tumble on it).

I am a level 5 coach, and because of limited space my girls only get 5.5 hours in the gym a week. Lately they've all been struggling on the same things:

Vault
-they are arching off of the vault table, and not blocking enough
-many of them have a slow run
- a few pike on

Bars
-they all have kips, but very few have them with straight arms
-connections are weak
-casts are low
-they have good swings but not when they add the dismount

Beam
-many are afraid of hitting verticle on the handstand
-holding the dismount without arching
-staying tight.

Floor
-slow ro 2 bhs
-fhs need ALOT of work. no block, bad shoulder angles, not arching enough.
-sloppy dive rolls

Overall
TIGHTNESS.

if you have drills or ideas for any of these let me know, this is only my 2nd year coaching level 5. In the past I was a level 4 assistant coach, and I coached preschool-preteam

 

[nevertooold]

Make a comprehensive conditioning plan that the girls can do at home, an hour a day 3-5 days a week. Make sure they understand the proper way to do each of the exercises, the proper shapes, and the purpose/goal of each. Make a little chart where the girls or parents initial each time they do their conditioning.You can be tight if you aren't conditioned, and it would be pretty difficult IMO to condition and train 4 events level 5 in 5.5 hrs per week.

 

[JBS]

^^^yes...I like the the above post twice.

If you were only to do conditioning during any extra hours...would you be allowed to increase there hours? Conditioning takes very little space. Our L5's do 12 hours per week...only about 6 of those hours are working actual skills on the events.

 

[CoachAl]

well they have all improved a TON. but i they still have a long ways to go. I wrote up a list of conditioning activities to be doing at home- and i can tell you exactly which kids are doing them and which kids aren't. Part of the problem is I coach at a YMCA where attitudes of parents and gymnasts are not as competitive as the attitudes that i grew up with coming from club. But there are not any clubs in the area...I'm hoping that after our 1st meet on saturday that some of the girls will begin to understand why i want them to tighten up.

 

[Faith]

Well done for the improvement, and good luck for the meet!

If there isn't room at your gym for conditioning, could they meet in a park once a week? Meet up in pairs and condition together, at school lunch break, or stay back half an hour after practice and use a spare corner? I know it can be really difficult to motivate yourself on your own at home.

 

[SuperGirlmlm]

At my gym, we get 20 to 25 hours in the gym a week (That is for level 9s and 10s), we condition for four hours a week. All the girls at my gym (including me) has perfect routines. It possibly could be that you guys don't condition a lot.