Optional vault practice-how often?

[zona]

How often do you have your gymnasts train vault? My daughter is trying to learn a level 8 vault. Floor, beam and bars seem to be worked on almost every practice, but they seem to often not do vault. It seems to me the way to learn a new skill is to work on it often, at least some at every practice. Do most optional teams practice all 4 events each practice? Is it normal to skip vault? Are there any exercises a gymnast could do at home to help in learning tsuk or yerchenko? Thanks

 

[bookworm]

They need to practice it every practice...it is not something that can be done at home AT ALL. We had this issue in our previous gym where they practiced vault very infrequently and didn't see that as an issue...it is an issue...it's 25% of their score...and if they refuse to train vault on a regular basis, switch gyms to one that does.

 

[Ingwe]

How often do you have your gymnasts train vault? My daughter is trying to learn a level 8 vault. Floor, beam and bars seem to be worked on almost every practice, but they seem to often not do vault. It seems to me the way to learn a new skill is to work on it often, at least some at every practice. Do most optional teams practice all 4 events each practice? Is it normal to skip vault? Are there any exercises a gymnast could do at home to help in learning tsuk or yerchenko? Thanks

We have the same issue at our gym. They practice bars and beam every day and then they alternate vault and floor. They do tumble daily though.

This really gets me as well. My dd is trying to get her yuerchenko as well and it doesn't help that she has only been working it since the begining of summer and she only gets to do it at a maximum 3 times a week.

 

[gymdog]

When I was doing gymnastics, drills every practice. Into the pit most days (running on spring floor) but not always. More days than we didn't. If we had dance maybe we'd skip vault. On hard runway onto hard mats? Pretty infrequently. We did bars more for sure. But pretty much every girl I did L8 with had a tsuk in the first year, and we had several state and regional bar champions. My coach was very good at teaching the skills necessarily. I came to her in L7 unable to do a tap swing and had free hip handstand giants in a few months.

Most girls need more bars than anything in my opinion. We used to go to bars 2 times a practice when my coach decided we weren't where we needed to be. I'm not saying skip the other events, but I allocate more time to bars. Beam is mostly confidence management with some technique (hand placement, punching, alignment), but for the most part we're teaching those skills on the floor. At the lower levels I allocate the least time to beam, and it doesn't seem to hurt much. Vaulting, not every day, because I integrate drills into the floor rotation.

Vault is a lot of pounding. I personally don't think that "most" optionals (just following a standard track) need to do vault every day. The best way to teach them the L8 vaults is to start very early. Kids by about L6 skill level should be flipping off wedge mat/double board into pit or soft mat. If the front handspring is strong, working the 1/4 on action, and doing yurchenko board drills. They need to do many many yurchenko board drills before they're ready to do a full yurchenko. They don't need to practice it every day. I didn't even work out every day, and competed a pike tsuk in my first level 8 meets.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

the best for the body is alternating tumbling and vaulting every other day. it is how it is done even with the elites. there are other 'things' that they do on those 2 events every other day in regards to drills, etc;

 

[zona]

Thanks for respones.I realize pounding on runway too much can be hard on their bodies. If she were doing non vault runway drills I would still consider that working on vault.When I say they're skipping vault, they are not doing vault drills on the floor either. In past they might go a week or more with no vault. Gym is under new ownership and I think they are now vaulting more often and may be now it is closer to every other practice. Luckily, she has always done well on bars-what she needs most now is a level 8 vault (tsuk) and unfortunately they weren't trained much when she was at lower levels.

Dunno and gymdog, when you have someone trying to get new vault would you have them do drills at each practice of still stick with alternate practices? Is there anything she can do on her own to help in terms of conditioning or drills? I am trying to get her a private to work on it. Bookworm, I wouldn't change gyms and nearest other gym is two hours away.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

not vaulting for a week at a time is not good. i don't think an explanation is needed.

drills should be ongoing on the every other days.

 

[gymdog]

Thanks for respones.I realize pounding on runway too much can be hard on their bodies. If she were doing non vault runway drills I would still consider that working on vault.When I say they're skipping vault, they are not doing vault drills on the floor either. In past they might go a week or more with no vault. Gym is under new ownership and I think they are now vaulting more often and may be now it is closer to every other practice. Luckily, she has always done well on bars-what she needs most now is a level 8 vault (tsuk) and unfortunately they weren't trained much when she was at lower levels.

Dunno and gymdog, when you have someone trying to get new vault would you have them do drills at each practice of still stick with alternate practices? Is there anything she can do on her own to help in terms of conditioning or drills? I am trying to get her a private to work on it. Bookworm, I wouldn't change gyms and nearest other gym is two hours away.

Ah. Okay that's definitely not what I'm talking about with just skipping it completely. There are plenty of fairly low impact drills you can do. We always did roundoff double backs (roundoff on the board) during tumbling and double fronts if competing front vault. This was later on. when we were learning the vault we always did roundoff scoop through off a springboard on the floor. Everyone had to be able to miss their feet to mats at least level to the board. We also did barani pull to back on mat stacks during tumbling. Lots of standing tucks up to a mat, and standing fronts. Flipping off a cheese mat or double boards into the pit (tuck, pike, layout, twist - even if you weren't close to having those on competition vault). Like I said most L6 should be able to do that drill (in a tuck). And of course yurchenko entry drills which should (and can) be started early and often.

 

[bookworm]

Thanks for respones.I realize pounding on runway too much can be hard on their bodies. If she were doing non vault runway drills I would still consider that working on vault.When I say they're skipping vault, they are not doing vault drills on the floor either. In past they might go a week or more with no vault. Gym is under new ownership and I think they are now vaulting more often and may be now it is closer to every other practice. Luckily, she has always done well on bars-what she needs most now is a level 8 vault (tsuk) and unfortunately they weren't trained much when she was at lower levels.

not vaulting for a week at a time is not good. i don't think an explanation is needed.

drills should be ongoing on the every other days.

This is EXACTLY what happened to us...no vaulting for days and even weeks at a time and the explanantion I was given was that it "wasn't necessary" (and it was necessary because the whole gym was terrible at vault at the time) . They would vault once or twice the week of a meet but not much more than that so you can imagine the results.

 

[B Gymnast]

we do vault every practice. for the same amount of time as any othere event..but we still don't get as much done since we have 1 vault and 11 girls in the ggroup..

 

[gymnastgirlz10]

at my gym, we will do vault just about every practice. if we don't we atleast do running drills and vault drills that suites the vault we are doing. some days our coach will ask us if we are up to vaulting like if we are in the gym for the 4,5,6 day in a row etc. and so its almost up to us on how our bodies are feeling etc. and if during the practice our bodies start to hurt to where it is effecting ourselves our coaches will have us stop and either ice if needed or go to drills or go to a different event etc.

 

[Optionals United]

We do vault 3 times a week. Usally 2 days is timering onto a porta pit behind the vault. And flipping if you are advanced enough. And the other day is flipping usally, we do about 10 vaults each time we go.

 

[fishchimes]

We have the same problem we only have 1 vault and often the recreational classes will claim it. Which is silly, since most of them can't do anything but jump onto it and we have another "porta-vault" they could use that's safer anyway.

 

[gym law mom]

We've had issues with lack of vault practice(I'm including drills) also. Another problem is that is seems only 1 coach until recently is able to work with those flipping yerchenkos, fhs/tuck etc. I'm sick of the excuse that this gym has always been weak on vault. The girls and those of us writing the checks deserve more than excuses.

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

Our optionals vault at least 3 out of 4 days per week. However, they have a schedule over several months - many weeks they'll vault into the pit or onto mats in the pit and also do drills, some weeks are recovery weeks during which they'll do mostly drills, including "vaulting" over a trainer from a long trampoline, and leading up to a competition they do vaults on the competition matting.

As a level 6/7 I do handsprings 3x a week. Usually once a week onto a resi, once a week with a mini tramp into the pit, and once a week with a competition set up. The 4th day we work on mostly Yurchenko drills but also some Tsuk drills sometimes. After the L6 competition season starts to wind down, we'll probably do fewer handsprings and more work towards a flipping vault. Our gym doesn't like to see girls do twisting vaults unless they've got a big deterrent from flipping or they're getting their flipping vault up to competition level and it's just temporary.

 

[cathiann]

Parent answering here--but they have vault every day--actually all events every day.