Drills for a more powerful punch

[kgymn]

I am working on front tucks right now, and I am sooooo close to having it on the rod floor. I know, though, that I have a little ways to go before I have it on the spring floor... I'm pretty antsy to get this skill (making some progress every week thankfully!) and I only can be in the gym one night a week. What are some drills or some conditioning I can do at home to make my punch more powerful?

~Katy

 

[BlairBob]

Hmm, besides trying to visualize and pop your hip open from a bent position and pushing through your toes and stretching with your body...just focus on doing more lower body and back conditioning.

If you are already doing enough, then you need to make the conditioning harder per each repetition. Use ankle weights or a weight belt or something.

If you are doing too many reps, it's far too easy. Strength and power reps is very few reps because it should take it out of you easily.

Box jumps.

Practice jumping off panel mats or beams or even higher surfaces and "sticking it".

Weighted lunges and preferably jumping switch lunges.

Single Leg squats with the focus on doing them for height and length eventually. Check out Coach Sommer's articles on these.

 

[kgymn]

So my antics on the playground really are helping my gymnastics I always go and work on sticking my landing jumping off the swings. (I also swing entirely with my legs, together, with pointed toes. I only use my arms when inverting.)

You'd never guess I'm one of the adult gymnasts here from that LOL but hey, why not?

I have some ideas now- thank you!! I do so little conditioning, ugh, I can't work out for the sake of working out I have to trick myself into it. But to get my front tuck, I can make an exception.

~Katy

 

[eeyoretumbles]

Try practicing jumping through your toes only, keeping straight legs [even on the punch because that way you learn how to push through your toes], on matts, and keep stacking them higher and higher. This will help with your punch. After that, try doing your front tuck onto matts, making you punch higher.

 

[LittleLady]

Hi kgymn,
I've been thinking about your front tucks and all the advice given has been great. There is one thing on my mind though. Even if you have a powerful punch, if you dump your chest to try to get rotation using only your arms on take off, you will rotate fast but still land low. My coach got very frustrated with me for that bad habit. He always drilled it into my mind time and time again, on the take off you must concentrate on lifting your hips over your head fast to land the front tuck upright in a safe landing position. This is especially important when you start learning front tuck step outs into more tumbling. So, work on a strong punch, yes, but don't forget to lift the hips fast over your head. You'll notice the difference!

 

[kgymn]

Thanks! I will have to pay attention to if I am doing that when I go next week. I'm generally good about riding the punch up before I rotate, but I could certainly use to pay better attention to how I am rotating!

~Katy