Coaches How would you plan it...

[catou]

So I really need your help to help me plan my trainings... There have been some changes last week, and for now, I can't imagine a way to be efficient with the time I have. So, since friday, I have 11 girls in my group instead of 6. We are 2 coaches. We are training 9 hours/a week. These girls are between 8 and 10 years old and are CR3 gymnasts (about old level 4 I'd say). 4 of them were with me last year, so they know the routines. 1 is from défi, and the 6 others are from rec or advanced rec classes.

9 hours is already not a lot. And we cannot train more hours. We are very lucky to have dance classes for an hour every week, but then I only have 8 hours left to train the 4 apparatus, trampoline and do conditioning.

The apparatus schedule is already set, and no changes can be made. The gym is full.

• We have floor, bars and trampoline 2x/week for 30 minutes each time. We only have two sets of bars and on trampoline. Is it better for each girl to pass less time on the trampoline twice a week or have more time but train on it only once?
• We have vault 3x/week, for 30 minutes, but one of these times we barely have place to do drills beside the runway...
• We have beam 3x/week for 30 minutes... (that's great, but I don't like coaching beam )
• We don't have time specifically allowed for conditioning. Up until now, we were doing it during trampoline while they were waiting for their turn or as a warm-up.

As many girls come from rec classes, we really, really need to spend some time on the basics (I hate it when they ask me, will we do some roundoff back handspring? When they can't even do a back walkover with straight legs and a good roundoff). They also don't really have the seriousness needed yet, but this should come.

How would you include conditioning in the middle of all this? How can I get these girls ready for competition with the time and equipment I have? To me it feels a bit like an impossible task right now.

I think I need to get them more responsible toward their own training, for conditioning for example.

Competition season starts in december.

Oh, and I have to find 8 floor musics... and probably choreograph some of them...

 

[Aussie_coach]

I think it would be better to do trampoline twice a week for a shorter time, rather than once a week for longer. At this level trampoline training is very important until they get their four tumbling basics down - front handspring. Back handspring, front tuck and back tuck. Once the kids bodies understand these moves you can really develop their tumbling from there.

I would only focus on competition vault twice out of the three vault sessions, the third vault session perhaps use the vault strip and set up a single crash mat and work front tucks, front layouts, fly springs (I work back tucks and back handsprings here too), dive rolls etc. this will help you develop their power and skills for future vaults.

They do need to spend time on basics, but it needs balance. They should be doing back walkovers and just round offs, handstand and so on every day. But they also need to be learning the more difficult skills. Start your apparatus with a warm up of basics and then move onto your more advanced skills.

I think you can easily prepare them for comp, you only have 4-5 gymnasts per coach, and 9 hours is plenty. Get out your calendar and work out when they need to know routines by and when you need to start teaching them. I would also suggest you don't teach floor routines in your normal practice time but have the kids in for a private lesson to teach, them their individual routines if you have every kid doing a different routine with different music.

It's all about being creative, I can get more done in three hours with limited apparatus than fellow coaches get done in 14 hours because you keep the kids active. Make sure they are ready all the time, as soon as one dismounts off the bars the next should mount within seconds.

 

[catou]

Thanks Aussie_coach! Privates here aren't popular at all. I was already planning to teach them their choreography outside normal training hours.

Do you have floor drills you can do for bars? we only have one small bar that we can put on the floor, so if you have any ideas for this... It would really help to keep the girls busy, cause once we start routines on bars, there's inevitably a line-up. (Last year we had 10 girls)

 

[Aussie_coach]

Yes, there are lots of drills you can do for bars to keep them learning while waiting for a turn.

Lots of surfaces are great for training the squat on. Use boxes and have them just put their hands on the box, squat on and jump off. A lot of these repetitions will help them feel comfortable with the squat on action.

The kip drills - is a stick or a pool noodle or something and have them lie on their back and and hold it like a bar, snap their feet to the bar and pull it up their legs like a kip action.

Conditioning like V snaps and so on.

If you have any fitness balls, holding front and rear support with their feet on the balls and hands on the floor requires a lot body tension to keep the shape strong.

For cast shapes have them hold a tight front support on the floor and take turns lifting their partners feet off the floor to check the chest and stomach don't sag.

If you have something bouncy like a bunny of the end of a double mini type trampoline, or the inner tube of a tractor tyre or a fitness wheel, they can do bounces to handstand to simulate the cast to handstand position.

You can do seal walks to increase their should extension and flexion strength. You need a slider, or a fitti true slider, or a laminated piece of paper or something and they put their feet on it and walk in a front support shape across the floor on their hands. If that becomes easy they do it backwards.

If there are parallel bars around, swings to handstand on parallel bars are a great drill for helping them get over the fear of cast handstand. A lot of time gyms have boys equipment that only gets used some of the time while the girls fight to get on equipment.