Coaches Kip rehab?

[sun]

I have a gymnast who transferred from Xcel Gold at another gym - she got her two 36+ AA's as a Lv.4 and is now training for Lv.6 for the spring 2027 season.

She's fine on L6 vault, beam and floor- but she is barely kipping on bars at the moment... In her Lv.4 season I helped get her kip cast to horizontal by basically spotting a thousand of them- but I don't want to put myself through that again... I am trying to spot less this season, save my back and build some independence in the gymnasts.

I would describe the current state of her kip as sort of symmetrically weak.. It is not that extended in the glide, not that snappy on the leg lift, legs aren't that close to the bar on the situp, then the arms aren't that straight and so she doesn't get that much cast.

This makes me think that simply doing more kips (and maybe some specific strength training) is the path forward because she has already made all these adjustments in her Lv.4 season- it's not like there is a gap in knowledge- but she can only do so many kips before her hands get sore- so then I'm filling that time with kips in the strap bar at the moment.

What would you do? Her flyaway and clear hips are fine- but she doesn't have the means to get into a clear hip at the moment on the unevens. She can do them in straps decently.

 

[Dahlialover]

it sounds like a strength issue and the solution to that is more conditioning.

 

[ginnastix]

100% recommend strength training as the solution. Strap bar kips are nice for drilling the timing of a kip (and resting the hands), but if you don’t have the requisite strength, then it will be almost impossible to put all the pieces together without major form breaks.

The good news is that a lot of kip strength exercises can be done without swinging and spotting. I recommend FAST leg lifts (from hang and from incline), inverted hang holds (“candlestick”), hanging pike compression, and stem rises.

If the hands aren’t sore, my favorite (non-spotted) kip drills are (1) glide swing to hanging pike compression and (2) front support, drop to hanging pike compression. If you have a kip swing, those are great for practicing straight arms and wrist shift.

When these exercises and drills look clean, that’s when I start spotting kips. I start with drop kips and then work my way up to full kips.