Looking for good round-off drills

[Linsul]

Look, I need fhs drills as much as the next coach (for real!) but I want to see Gymdogs poll just as badly!

 

[gymdog]

Well, it's going down. Keep your eyes peeled...well okay that doesn't make sense, it's all the same site. So just...be here.

 

[KAQuinlan]

One drill that I like (that I didn't see), is doing a standing roundoff up and off a wedge. The hands go at the top of the wedge and the feet land on the floor. It forces the gymnast to give a good push off that bottom leg and drive the back leg over. Because their hands are already waist high, they tend to pull them up more easily. I haven't seen a gymnast pike this drill down. We also do RO from one knee for some of the same reasons, but they usually pike it down.

Also, someone said that they aren't sure about doing the RO over a cheese or barrel. We do them over small cheese mats on their side. It is very safe and forces the gymnast to stand up rather than pull feet down. Also, it forces the arms to be up when landing or the mat will get knocked over. Kids are a little nervous about it at first, but the first time they fall on the cheese mat, they find out that they don't get hurt. The problem with an octogon is that it rolls and could push the gymnast back on his head.

I don't like the cartwheel landing with the arms down. It doesn't make sense to me -- especially not for a connection. Arms go by the ears except when they are snapping back for the BHS. As someone pointed out, we don't connect skills with an arm swing.

 

[Bafann]

These are all great ideas!

I have had success with standing a cheese mat against a wall and having the gymnasts do a round off towards the mat and land leaning back onto it. This helps them learn to pull up tall at the end to prepare for the rebound and later the back handspring because I find that piking down/landing with the tush sticking out is a common problem.

To help work on the kick, I have them lunge facing a wall (can also face a spotting block or a vault...any sort of hart surface) and practice kicking a tight leg fast into the air. Then, I have them work on following the kick with a push off the front leg.

One other drill idea is to have the gymnasts start in a lunge at the top of a cheese mat and do a standing round off down the mat. This gives them a headstart on the kick so that they can focus on the push with their front leg as well as landing tall. The drill can also be done into a foam pit or resi pit to where the gymnasts land on their backs in a tight hollow (back handspring timer).