WAG Height versus Form on Cast Handstand

[Jabba]

I did the "just get it up and over for now" way this year. Most of my kids have straightened out, nice cast hands. I have two, however, with huge arm bends/casting off their stomachs. They can both go over and sometimes even control it to come back into the bar from handstand, but it's archy and with bent arms. With straight arms they only get to about horizontal, if that. One also leans excessively far foward. We are currently working both getting over still with the bent arms and doing casts in a row (however low) with straight arms. Will this be effective in changing the bad habit, or should I cut out every form of a bent arm cast entirely? I fear if we do that, we'll lose any form of a cast above horizontal, though, and comp season is right around the corner for us. Thoughts/advice from other coaches? Drills? They're both very strong kids, it's more the case of breaking a bad habit, getting comfortable with something different. One also has longer arms and a naturally bigger arch in her back), which i think makes this more difficult for her.

 

[iwannacoach]

Lots of work on strength from their wrists up to and beyond their trapezius muscles. Use 5 pound weights and have them move through a straight arm cast motion with.......

As much range of motion possible.

With correct cast posture and a quiet body.

Accelerate on the way up and control the entire way down.

Work in at least two positions. One laying on an incline of about 45 degrees, and one while standing.

Slightly increase the weight when they can do more than 10 repetitions.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

I did the "just get it up and over for now" way this year. Most of my kids have straightened out, nice cast hands. I have two, however, with huge arm bends/casting off their stomachs. They can both go over and sometimes even control it to come back into the bar from handstand, but it's archy and with bent arms. With straight arms they only get to about horizontal, if that. One also leans excessively far foward. We are currently working both getting over still with the bent arms and doing casts in a row (however low) with straight arms. Will this be effective in changing the bad habit, or should I cut out every form of a bent arm cast entirely? I fear if we do that, we'll lose any form of a cast above horizontal, though, and comp season is right around the corner for us. Thoughts/advice from other coaches? Drills? They're both very strong kids, it's more the case of breaking a bad habit, getting comfortable with something different. One also has longer arms and a naturally bigger arch in her back), which i think makes this more difficult for her.

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And here is the flaw in ugly casts. Two kids who will probably have bent arm belly casts forever if not corrected now. And if you don't go back and fix the kip then trying to teach them a straddle cast at this point will only result in a bent arm belly archy straddle cast, leading to horrible pirouettes, leading to problems with a Pirouette to pak or bail.
Advice, Get them kipping and casting to horizontal with locked arms (no belly). Then teach them to kip cast to pike, then to pike/straddle. don't worry about the season, worry about what they will look like for the future. And frankly a straddle cast to handstand is pretty easy to teach if you follow progressions. Again, i have dozens of straight casts but we compete the straddle, why BECAUSE IT SCORES HIGHER... Also, how much of an arm bend does the rest of your team have?

 

[LizzieLac]

This is facinating to me. My DD's team is working on this right now. For some reason coach is really pushing them to get straddle cast handstand, but my DD just has not bee able to get up. She can, however, straight body cast to handstand - she is archy though.

Any thoughts on how to get the straddle cast handstand? She's been workin on for weeks and it really doesn't look any closer. Maybe coach will just let her do straight body when the season starts... Thoughts?

 

[cbifoja]

My DD was definitely a height over form kid when learning her cast to straight leg handstand. Child looked like a sway back mule! But now she had a very confident, very straight, nice vertical hit.

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[gymmutti]

I know that for straddle casts the coaches broke it down and had them working a lot of pike-ons (like a squat on, but keeping in a pike) and they did lots of press to handstands on the floor from a standing straddle and pike with their hands on a floor bar. Then it was a matter of putting it together and a lot of spotting from the coaches. As they have worked that, I have seen my dd's straight body casts get higher and higher (not sure if there is a correlation).

 

[Jabba]

That's why I'm fixing this now. They are doing lots of straight arm kips to lower, hollow casts. It'll be a slow road but I've already seen a lot of improvement. My other kids all have straight and hollow cast hands or near cast hand. We have yet to use the straddle. I'm not against it, however, knowing the way my kids think, right now this would further complicate it for them. Maybe in the future.

I'm not entirely opposed to either way: form first or height first. I myself needed the height first, but some kids don't correct it as easily once can get up there (like my two). If you do teach the up and over method, I think the key is making sure you correct form problems fast enough that they don't become set habits.

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[Muddlethru]

orientation. old school. they first must learn "ugly ups" and "ugly ups and over" to understand "handstand". THEN the form will come.

they can't get up cause they're not strong enough. good form is great...but if the child does not understand what they have to do, where they have to go and the end result for a handstand then all the good form in the world won't get them there.

you can't predict the how long part since all of this is a process. but once they can get up and over then you work technique and form in conjunction with getting up there.

Interesting and great to hear. My daughter had that ugly arch for at least a year. She had to learn the cast to handstand very quickly for TOPS. It bothered me a lot and it made me question her coaches at the time for not correcting it or letting it happen. She always got to the vertical though. Glad to hear it was not such a horrible thing. Her cast to HS are really good now but she is straddling up instead of straight legs. But when she was an L7 and L8 she did straight legs with archy cast to HS and was getting mid 9s at meets. She had a straight body up until she got to about 20 degrees vertical. It was that last push to go to vertical that she arched. But she hallowed out at the top. Don't know what kind of deductions she was getting.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

The problem with putting such a strong early emphasis on straight arms is that it limits the gymnasts' ability to load the cast. (By "loading" I mean piking to get both the feet and shoulders in front of the bar in preparation for the cast). Especially if you have a gymnast with long arms, she simply will not be able to load the cast without a bit of a bend between the kip and the cast.

For many kids, a kip cast handstand without any bend in the arms is geometrically impossible.

That said, the bend should be minimal, and should only occur while loading the cast. The instant the cast leaves the bar, the arms should straighten, and that's a correction that I absolutely would not allow to wait for later.