Pullovers

[gymmom-n-coach]

One of my 7-y/o, L3 gymnasts has all of her bar skills....except for her pullover! She has never had this skill, even though she worked it for a year on training team, and I've had almost four months of working with her at L3. She isn't getting her legs over fast enough. We've done tons with a spot, and I've had her hold the bar, climb up a panel mat and throw her legs on her own. Plus, a good amount of conditioning - pull-ups on bar, and lying down, holding bar support (vertical), then making toes touch the support.

Any other ideas?

 

[gymmomntc2e6]

When the girls I have worked with struggled with this skill I found that they usually had one or more of the following problems:
- after pulling their chin up to the bar and start to bring their legs over tbd straighten their arms.
- dropping their head back instead of keeping it in
- lack of abdominal strength

Can she do it kicking one leg over at a time? A deduction but I think less of one than a spot

 

[nevertooold]

Here are some things we do with the ones that are slow getting their pullover:

-- Practice pulling chin over bar and then lift legs to L and hold, as a side station.

-- Try having her bend her knees and jump if she is just pulling with arms and trying to lift legs slowly.

-- Let them take a double bounce and punch off the floor to get some momentum for the legs.

-- Jump and pull knees over the bar in a tuck pullover until they are strong enough to straighten legs.

-- Lots of abdominal and core conditioning. I would guess this is the issue with your student.

Occasionally we will have one get stuck b/c they are keeping chin up over the bar tooo long as they lift legs and they need to be taught to lean back as the legs go over the bar.

 

[gymdog]

One of my 7-y/o, L3 gymnasts has all of her bar skills....except for her pullover! She has never had this skill, even though she worked it for a year on training team, and I've had almost four months of working with her at L3. She isn't getting her legs over fast enough. We've done tons with a spot, and I've had her hold the bar, climb up a panel mat and throw her legs on her own. Plus, a good amount of conditioning - pull-ups on bar, and lying down, holding bar support (vertical), then making toes touch the support.

Any other ideas?

This is such a common problem, when they seem to have the arm strength but lack the strength to do any kind of lever action, but sometimes they can still do it. I tell girls to get their thighs on as quickly as possibly (even if they have to tuck) and then fight their way up. They can use their legs for leverage. It's not always pretty, but when they have the arm strength to chin hold close enough that they can hook their thighs on but not pull over smoothly (requires some lever strength) it can work. The more they do it, even not that great, the more they catch on and the stronger they get. With this particular skill, once they have the strength and timing, I don't find it too hard to improve the form. This is one of the few skills, when I start teaching it, that I want to see the kid get over any way possible.

The problem is in a lot of classes there's not a lot of time for non-skill core conditioning. But I do about three exercises: tuck hang with chin over bar (they should keep tucked as much as possible), assisted lever hold (inverted hollow hang), and (don't have a name for this) with the gymnast in front support, pull their legs forward until the shoulders shrug up and they have to push down and hold.

 

[nevertooold]

This is one of the few skills, when I start teaching it, that I want to see the kid get over any way possible.

I completely agree with this. With my developmental kids and level 3's they don't "get" to do anything else until they can do a pullover. We want it perfect by competition time but at first, esp. with the struggling ones, any way that they get up and over the bar makes them stronger and at least gives them something to work on at the side station.

We will let them jump, tuck, separate legs, walk up a block, etc. at the side station and then back to correct technique at the spotted bar.

Honestly I think it provides a tremendous incentive to not let them do other skills first b/c at that age they really want to be doing the bhc, leg cuts, mill circles, etc. that their teammates are working on. We just tell them, if you want to do it you have to be able to get up on the bar!

 

[CoachGoofy]

Is she letting herself get upside down? I've had a few who'll chin up, legs up, and counterrotate. You've gotta want to go upside down. And you've gotta get your belly button over the bar (no idea why belly button is the magic body part. It seems to be though).

We've had kids lay on a spotting block on their backs & hold onto the bar and do aggressive candles over the bar to get the abs-and-upsidedown thing going. That has an added bonus of training the wrist action, but the over the bar thing is the main goal.

 

[BlairBob]

Another drill I've been using lately for the lower levels is support, tuck forward roll to flex arm hang. They can also pike. This is the negative action of a pullover.

I'm just trying to allow them another way to build the upper body and core strength besides doing flex arm hangs and flex arm travels across the bar or flex arm hang body swings to V.

 

[gymmom-n-coach]

These are all great ideas, and I can't until Monday to work with her!

(I love this site!!!)

 

[elilla]

At Region 4 Congress this year Tom Forster gave some great drills for pullovers. One thing he talked about was having kids "race" into pullovers. Set up 2 girls in front of a low bar. Let the kids run into their pullover and see who can get to a nice hollow body shape on the bar first. Worked like a charm for my kids who couldn't seem to get their rumps over the bar