Parents Springboard spring settings for 7-9 year old level 6/7’s

[JillMA]

Question regarding the number of springs your gym uses for your smaller/younger girls. My daughter (7) and a couple of her level 6/7 teammates are told to use the same vault height and spring settings as the older girls in the same level. My daughter is 48” tall and weighs 53 pounds while her older teammates are over 5 feet and 100 pounds. They are using 6 springs on their board and a vault height (don’t know the exact setting) that is chin height on my daughter. The smaller ones are struggling to get the bounce off the board to get the height to practice the correct shaping for the Tsuk Timer vault. Just curious how other gyms handle the massive size differences within levels.

 

[sun]

It's tricky because unless your gym has multiple runways and tables to accommodate different vault settings - you can waste a lot of training time changing settings. I have made the call to have gymnasts vault on a sub-optimal springboard or table setting because I prioritized getting the repetitions in over each kid having optimal settings.

Other times when it's more critical, like groups with a mix of shorties and teenagers I will split the group and their time in half, so one group does their vaults and the other does conditioning or some other need we have - then we just have two setting options.

My rule is - after technique has been accounted for and they have tried many times, but still can't get a "ka-ching" sound out of the springboard, they ought to be accommodated.

For those more powerful gymnasts - if they bottom the board, they ought to be accommodated.

I'm willing to move the table up and down and I've gotten quite quick at it from years of accommodating EVERYONE (Ok guys, line up in order: 95cm, 100, 110, 115, 120, then 130s!) - but for springboard settings I have learned that often the repetitions gained from keeping the settings standardized are too important to justify more than 2 setting changes.

 

[raenndrops]

We practice vault in size order, so the table can be moved quickly between gymnasts needing the different heights.
We usually do 5 springs standard ... but add another spring for those that need it (and they vault last, so it goes in for the first one that needs it and comes out after the last one).

 

[That_Gymnast]

the level 6/7 in my gym all go at 115 4 springs (our board is really tight so doesn’t need many springs). That being said they are all the same size. In my group of level 8/9s out of the 11 of us every single person has a different setting change. We group by common table height, normally we all use 5 springs but the safety zone and board setting has to be moved in and out after every gymnast because half tsuk, half Yurchenko and the distance of hand at, board and stuff all vary. While not vaulting sometimes will warm up routine basics on floor and do some bar drills to prepare for our other events because we frequently start on vault because it does take a really long time. We each do 5-7 vaults and that takes 45-50 minutes to get through but it’s worth it because all of us got at least a 9 on our vaults at our first meet of the season with personalized settings. In level 6/7 in my opinion it should be personalized because the entry they are practicing is generally the entry you do going forward for flipping. Practicing on something just because it’s convenient for the coach doesn’t mean it’s helping the gymnast and I would suggest you ask the coach and keep it generic to what you noticed on vault. I started flipping vaults at L6 at table height and personalized setting for me as a 9yo flipping vs. the other 11-13 yo girls starting to practicing flipping was crucial.