How do you prepare to land on a competition surface?

[aerialriver]

I do t&t and for double mini we have mats over a resi pit for landing. I know a lot of gyms do this for double mini and vault to save gymnasts joints. Last year I sprained both my ankles at different times. Now I am preparing to compete level 10 which means doubles dismounting and a lot more hight. My first meet in on a competition surface (basically a hard mat over concrete) and I don't know how I should go about preparing my body for the shock. I have tried jumping off the DM onto the runway with a mat over and it was horrible. I do not want to bust my ankles.

My question is since this is obviously a problem for a lot of people what do you do or have your gymnasts do to prepare and prevent injuries?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

don't you mean an 8 inch skill cushion over concrete?

 

[aerialriver]

Yes Dunno, so how do you prepare your gymnasts to land on their 8 inch skill cushions over concrete?

 

[coachmolly]

I'm not really sure I can be of that much help, but I can totally feel your pain and understand your concerns! When I was coaching at a T&T gym the kids balanced their regular training between regular competition landing mats and landing onto a resi to balance impact- but these were typically younger kids who didn't have any nagging injuries and could pull out doubles onto hard surfaces like it was nothing. I assume you have the repetitions in on a softer surface, so the skill itself is not much of a problem. I think my instinct would be to work up to landings on hard surface with easier-lower impact skills just to see how your body handles it, maybe starting with sting mat on top. If that goes well work your way up to full skills- but only doing enough to ensure your body can handle the landings and so you feel comfortable with no excessive pounding.
I'm sure someone with more experience working with athletes with nagging injuries will have more information, I've been really fortunate to work with really young, resilient kids so this hasn't been too much of a problem. I'm working with an older group now though, so I would be interested in hearing some more opinions on this as well.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Yes Dunno, so how do you prepare your gymnasts to land on their 8 inch skill cushions over concrete?

3 weeks out they begin landing on hard surface. example: 1st week full bar/high bar routines with lay out fly away. 2nd week same with double fly aways. 3rd week same or more difficult dismounts.

3 weeks out is plenty of time to get 'landing legs' for the harder surfaces.

 

[gymdog]

I thought double mini mats were different than what we have for AG? I have never seen a DM competition but I have heard people argue we should have those mats for vaulting...

 

[aerialriver]

The mats might be different as I have not been super aware of other gyms vault mats. They seem thicker than an 8 inch maybe 10 inches? And they are much harder, which makes sense as it would be hard to stick on a super squishy mat. I do what our gymnasts vault onto the same exact mat from level 5-10. And when we have meets that is where everyone vaults.


I also forgot to add something important. The area where we vault/do double mini over the resi pit with the mat is the only place we can do so. So as far as actually doing my passes on the hard surface before the comp won't work. The best I can do is put panel mats down to make the landing harder or put on 8 inch mat on the runway and jump onto it to get my legs used to it. I might try jumping off the beams. I developed this bad habit of not bending my knees when I land that needs to stop.

 

[gymdog]

Hmm, okay, I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out exactly what it is you land on. Even if you can just do straight jump and stick onto a similar surface it will help. You could wear tennis shoes at first and then progress to bare feet. I would increase overall conditioning as well, especially leg, ankle and core conditioning. Landing on a resi can lead to bad landing habits like bouncing or rebounding off the surface (i.e. straighter body and legs). Not that landing on a resi is bad, just that it has to be counteracted.

Anyway, usually at gyms where there is a pit they put plywood over it and then the mats. Of course if you don't have a sheet of plywood that's tough to do, but maybe you can suggest it to the gym.

Anyway, I just looked at a video (kiara nowlin 2009 double mini pass VISA - YouTube) and it doesn't look quite like the mats we have to me, so I'm not sure how hard you'd have to make it to be similar. It looks like she has an additional skill cushion/sting mat on top, and that is generally a good idea.

 

[CoachGoofy]

Double mini mats are way more than 8". Oh goodness. That would HURT (and be easy to miss if it was like the 8"ers laying around the gym).

Can you put an 8"er or similar down to land on in the pit? It isn't superfirm but it's a landing.

 

[aerialriver]

Oh goodness, sorry my post is so confusing. We have a resi pit that is not blocks but rather one big solid piece of foam. Over that we have 1 long and wide 4" mat and also the mat you see in the video which is thicker than 8 inches probably more like 10" So all in all over the pit we have 14" of mats. The pit is recessed so it makes the correct height for double mini and vault as well. We do not have plywood although I may suggest that. The mats we use for the landing area are harder than your 8 inches you have around the gym. The rebound thing is a big issue as I almost always hop and do not bend my knees much to land which is bad. The mat you see in the video is standard and the yellow thing you see on top is a landing zone not an extra mat.

When the problem comes in is I usually land on the surface described above which has a lot of give and slight bounce and the mats we compete on do not have a resi pit under them so it is just the one mat over concrete which makes the landing so much harder.

Thanks for the suggestions. I can turn the DM around to fact the runway area and put some 8 inchers and try some simple skills to learn to properly bend my knees again.

I just wanted to clarify so any one readind would have a better understanding

 

[gymdog]

Are you allowed to put a sting mat on top of those landing mats? In gymnastics we have some harder mats (not like the ones in the video) that go over the concrete (base surface) and then usually a 4 inch or 8 inch or sting mat is put on top of those harder mats to land, this is okay for competition.