Hi All,
My daughter is a floor and vault gymnast in the UK - she trains bars, beams mainly for conditioning purposes, and also tumble and will do a couple of 4 piece competitions a year and a couple of tumbling comps a year, but her mainstay are floor and vault comps.
On bars she is at a very basic level. She's always danced so has strong legs and good balance and flexibility, but her upper body strength is very much a work in progress. She's doing pullups (not there yet) leg lifts where she pikes her feet up to the bar (can do about 8 without swinging up now), straddle rolls up to the bar(has no problems with these), cast back hip circles, squat ons, and is learning chinup back circles (pullovers??), 3/4 giants, and straddle shoot dismount. We were told to buy palm guards for bar work, but she has nothing but trouble with them. She slips off the bar frequently despite using chalk and a water spray, to the point that she is trying to do bars without the guards but then has very sore hands on her non-gym days.
I'm not a gymnast and know nothing about guards, but basically I wonder if she has the right kind, and also if there's anything that we should be doing to the suede surface of the palmguards to roughen them up or something, to improve the amount of grip. I kindof wonder whether she should have different guards, but maybe the club are trying to make things less expensive for us. My daughter is getting frustrated because she feels the slipping is stopping her from getting the most out of her bars time, I don't know whether it is her technique/lack of experience.
Any thoughts much appreciated!
Karen x
My daughter is a floor and vault gymnast in the UK - she trains bars, beams mainly for conditioning purposes, and also tumble and will do a couple of 4 piece competitions a year and a couple of tumbling comps a year, but her mainstay are floor and vault comps.
On bars she is at a very basic level. She's always danced so has strong legs and good balance and flexibility, but her upper body strength is very much a work in progress. She's doing pullups (not there yet) leg lifts where she pikes her feet up to the bar (can do about 8 without swinging up now), straddle rolls up to the bar(has no problems with these), cast back hip circles, squat ons, and is learning chinup back circles (pullovers??), 3/4 giants, and straddle shoot dismount. We were told to buy palm guards for bar work, but she has nothing but trouble with them. She slips off the bar frequently despite using chalk and a water spray, to the point that she is trying to do bars without the guards but then has very sore hands on her non-gym days.
I'm not a gymnast and know nothing about guards, but basically I wonder if she has the right kind, and also if there's anything that we should be doing to the suede surface of the palmguards to roughen them up or something, to improve the amount of grip. I kindof wonder whether she should have different guards, but maybe the club are trying to make things less expensive for us. My daughter is getting frustrated because she feels the slipping is stopping her from getting the most out of her bars time, I don't know whether it is her technique/lack of experience.
Any thoughts much appreciated!
Karen x