Question for coaches: conditioning for muscle balance?

[Kiwi]

I am just wondering about how coaches develop their conditioning programs - do you consider muscle balance when planning your programs? And if so, how do you put your programs together to achieve balance? What exercises do you include for the various muscle groups?

I am asking because my DD has struggled all year after having her hamstring pulled in a stretch by a coach and trying to get it 100% recovered. Eventually we consulted a neuromuscular therapist and discovered she had a pelvic rotation that was putting her hamstrings under constant strain, making them more susceptible to injury, as well as more difficult to stretch. It also turns out that her hamstrings and glutes are very weak (she can hardly do any of those leg raises that you do on your elbow and knees). At gym her class does quite a lot of conditioning but from what I've seen it seems to be mostly abs, hip flexors and quads. They do loads of leg lifts on the wall ladder, v snaps, box jumps. Stretching also comes into the muscle balance equation - they do lots of splits but hardly any quad stretching. They never do any calf stretching. The NMT gives her exercises as homework, but it seems we will be forever trying to balance at home what she's been doing at gym.

Would like to hear from the experienced coaches here.

 

[mumoftwogymnasts]

Not a coach, but just wanted to chime in and say had a similiar experience with DS.

He was constantly complaining of groin and hip pain. After eliminating every possible non gymnastics cause we eventually ended up at a sports medicine specialist for ultrasound and MRI. Can't remember the correct names of all the muscles but as he explained it there are three muscles controlling the hip joint, two of DS's were flexible, the other not so much.
This creates what he described as an "uneven tripod" the tight muscle is always fighting against the other two muscles that are more flexible and able to stretch further resulting in pain. Specific exercises at home fixed the problem after several months.

Have you spoken to her coaches? DS's coach was very supportive and incorporated the exercises into his training whenever possible, things like he didn't need to improve his shoulder flexibility so he would do groin stretches instead. Coach also spoke to DS and made sure he understood that if he was in any pain/discomfort that the coach needed to know about it ASAP - again he would stop what he was doing and perform stretches needed.

 

[MaryA]

Our HC's daughter was injured last year. The doctor said something about strength and her mom was like "Look at her! How can you say she's not strong?" (she was level 9). So the doctor did the exact same thing yours did... have her get on her hands and knees and try to do those "kick backs" or whatever they're called, and she couldn't do them. Her mom couldn't believe it! That's why, when she started her own gym this year, she brought in someone to do strength who is not a gymnastics coach but is an atheletic trainer and kinesiology instructor... someone who is focused on total and balanced strength and not just gymnastics strength. When you see what these girls can do, it seems inconcievable that every single muscle in their body isn't strong as heck, but I guess there are gaps, and apparently these gaps can cause injuries. Lucky for me I am very well-balanced... every muscle in my body is equally out of shape!

 

[Faith]

Bring it up with the coaches.

I thought it was common knowledge- it certainly is here even in weights gyms and keep fit classes- that you never condition, or stretch one muscle without also training the opposing muscle. So you do biceps, you do triceps, you do quads, you do hamstrings. It's like only doing your left leg splits or only lifting weight with your right arm! If one side is stronger it will put uneven pressure on the skeleton and cause injury.

How old is your DD? Would she understand the above and be able to add her own conditioning? I do think the coach will need to change their routines though or they'll get more injuries.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

too much to delve in to on this topic. this should be left to the neuro doc and the coach working together.

 

[Kiwi]

Aw, come on Dunno, you were one of the experienced coaches I wanted to hear from! And I am also a coach, if only a very beginner one. I'm not trying to diss our coaches, but I really expected them to know more about this stuff. They are ex-competitive gymnasts who seem to know a lot about gymnastics skills, but I'm really not sure how much they know about muscle balance. It seems to me that even though these days we have developed a lot of great sports science knowledge, in the gymnastics world they are still doing things the same way they were taught years ago and it keeps getting kind of handed down the generations.

The same goes with stretching. DD got injured with brute force pushing in stretches. She's been training at gym that way for about two years and her flexibility has improved a little over that time. Using the gentle technique taught to us by our NMT, in two days she went from 13cm off the ground in right split to 6cm, and from 6cm in left split to 0.5cm. So it is hard for me to understand why they persist in the brute force pushing when it seems to be risky and not very effective. But this is just my experience with my DD, maybe she's the odd one out and it works great for other girls, I wouldn't know.

I was kind of hoping someone like Dunno or the other experienced coaches here would say - to balance out leg lifts we do such-and-such exercise, and so on.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

okay then. it's lengthy and it's late here. i'll try tomorrow. and to balance out leg lifts, you do lunge walks with 5 pound weights in each hand.

 

[Galadriel]

i think balancing the conditioning has a big effect on my dd
she always had tight hamstrings and pain and when she changed gyms they must do something different because i asked her how her hamstrings were one day and she said they hadnt hurt for ages!

 

[Kiwi]

okay then. it's lengthy and it's late here. i'll try tomorrow. and to balance out leg lifts, you do lunge walks with 5 pound weights in each hand.

I can understand that to learn it properly, for all the different muscles, it would be a big topic! I just wondered if you guys had seen the strong abs/hip flexors/quads-weak hamstrings/glutes situation much before in gymnastics (or is my DD the only one)? And what kind of gym conditioning exercises would be used to balance that. It would be great it you could point me to some good resources for furthering my education on the topic, e.g. textbooks, websites and so on. I have a science degree and have studied some basic human biology (anatomy and physiology) at university. How do coaches learn this stuff anyway?

 

[BlairBob]

Some coaches have Exercise Science degrees. Very few go through any personal training certifications, or even NSCA.

Many coaches don't really know enough about Strength development to even bothering with words like muscle balancing. Too often they do a lot of silly baloney.

Gymnastics can be very quad dominant but many people don't focus a lot on glute or hamstring strength development. All gymnasts, especially male gymnasts should be working a lot of external rotation exercises regarding their shoulders (5 muscles internally rotate the shoulder while 2 externally rotate and the internal rotators are much bigger than the small muscles that externally rotate the shoulder).

So most coaches bring to the table what they know. Either what they did in gymnastics or what they do at your local 24hour fitness. Yes, I have seen coaches have the girls do squats on the wall with a swiss ball. I've seen "Insanity" done by college gymnastics team as well (WAG). It can get that bad.

At least here in the states it's like. In Canada, you have to go through a coaching program run by the state which is pretty similar to what it may be like in the Big Gymnastic countries besides the U.S.

Weak Hamstrings and Glutes can be targeted by using a Glute Ham Developer machine. Good Mornings, and Deadlift (variations) will target these areas as well. Without a GHD, look up an exercise called a Floor Glute ham though you can work GHD off a spotting block with a spotter holding your ankles as you lay over the block bending at the waist so your head is upside. Then do a back extension and hamstring curl to vertical while the spotter holds or sits on your ankles.

Most female gymnasts also need to focus on more lower back strength since their events do not develop it as much as parallel bars and still rings.

 

[kecks]

i would recommend doing walking lunges (perhaps holding some weights overhead) and bulgarian split squats (without weight at the beginning, hands stretched to the ceiling, adding weight later on) for getting functional (running, jumping power) strength in the gluteus and hammies. works very well for sprinters and jumpers, even for little kids. why not for gymnasts? this should also work to avoid or get better with hip flexor imbalances.

 

[bribri514]

Great thread! my goal is to be a gymnastics coach (i know I'm crazy huh!) And right now I am double majoring in Physical Education K-12 Teaching and Physical Education Personal Training with a minor in Athletic Coaching. (The Personal Training program is more fitness training and health and is the equivilant of the Health Education major I was working on at my last school).

I have a background in gymnastics obviously and know how to do lots of skills. But I wanted to learn more to be a good coach. I'm hoping my PE K-12 degree will help me with ways to teach kids successfully... and give me an option of being a teacher if I cannot support myself just coaching for awhile! See mom I thought this through lol. I am learning ways that kids learn and how to teach in all those different ways and spot them out in kids, since you cannot just ask kids how do you learn?? I'm taking classes on psychosocial aspects of PE and sports safety/ Then obviously my Personal Training program I am learning all sorts of health education from good nutrition to basic athletic training and then importantly general kinesthetics and strength training. This is important for the reasons you mentioned. Then the athletic coaching minor is letting me take classes to tie it all together in a youth sports environment.

I had a lot of coaches as a kid who used to be amazing gymnasts. A lot of former L 10 girls came back to coach lower levels at our gym, at high school our coach was a DI gymnast. Most had the worlds best intentions but that didn't make them good coaches. They had a hard time explaining skills and breaking down them into the fundamentals you need to know to learn them. They didn't know any conditioning except for what they used to do and that meant a lot of the same sorts of sit ups for awhile and not incorporating anything new that we sometimes saw other teams doing. Our HC was a lot better at this and I really admire him for trying to be a really well rounded coach.

It is really important to make sure strength training is balanced or it leads to injuries, minor and severe. It's so easy to get caught up in the thought, "We're gymnasts, we're the athletes who are the strong ones who work every part of our bodies unlike other sports, what we do everyday is enough." But sometimes its not. One of my favorite classes so far is the scientific foundations of athletics class where we really break the most basic things like running and jumping into biology and physics and chemistry, the way we move and what happens at the molecular level when we do. It's really cool and makes you realize how amazing the simplest athletic actions really are. It also makes you realize how complicated it is and how you have to address every aspect, from psychological to kinesthetic to biological/chemical through nutrition and pre- and post- workout prep (icing, taping, etc.) and other sports medicine.

Specifically about your post I think BlairBob is right. Gymnastics is quad dominant and if you don't do a lot of hamstring and glute strength you can get really hurt. I'm not an experienced coach or anything but some things I've seen work with the sports teams we've worked with for class and learned from other coaches are basic things that the focus isn't on massive strength gains but just building strength in vulnerable and/or underused areas to protect your body. Simple things like glute sets where you lie on your back with your knees bent about 15 degrees then squeeze your butt for 15 seconds and relax then repeat. Do a couple sets of 10-15 in the morning and at night for example and it really helps your hip joints. A similar exercise for the hamstrings with an exercise ball is pretty easy. You lie on your back and have your calfs on the ball so your knees are at at 90 degree angle. You then push your butt up and pull the ball towards you and then push out, keeping your butt up, back and forth in sets. This was something our trainer at my last school had all the athletes do. Doing simple things like these for other important joints like ankles and knees will help stabilize them and be able to hold strength.

I think the hardest thing is a lot of these exercises that other athletes use are hard to do in a gym (like having a giant med ball for everyone) and gymnasts don't go to to the weight room like other athletes where certain muscle groups are targeted each week. But that doesn't mean coaches can't have gymnasts do it. It's just something they have to be aware of, which is the most important part IMO!

 

[sportyspice]

My DD has had ongoing patella femoral instability on one side and weak glutes on that side too, I believe that doing split jumps and other skills on only one side has made this more pronounced. DDs coach is now incorporating walking lunges with light weights and DD also does "clam shells".