WAG Tumbling Control

[txgal]

My DD is a L4 (old L5) gymnast who has amazing speed and power in just about everything she does, but she has a BIG problem controlling everything. For example, she is the smallest kid on her team (she's 9, not the youngest, but the shortest) but she vaults over the table at 3 and scores well into the 9s. Her coaches are frustrated with her because they know if she would only control her landings she would be amazing. I've talked with her about this and she gets very frustrated and says she doesn't know specifically what she needs to do to prevent herself from going all kinds of crazy on the landings (she doesn't fall, but her rebounds are crazy). Her coach says her problem is that she has the speed, power, and strength of a L8/L9 gymnast, which is a good thing, but makes it a little difficult to control at L4. Does anyone have any tips or strategies that can help her figure out how to not fly off into outer space with these landings? (I'm specifically looking at vault and floor).

 

[Redford]

Well, if the problem isn't falling over or launching fowards, she probably simply never learned how to stick. Which is very important not only for the score but as well for preventing to put an enormous pressure on the joints.
Thus..landing drills, landing drills and more landing drills.
Starting off with simple straight jumps off various hights to show how a stuck landing should look and feel like.

 

[iwannacoach]

The best advice I can give is to let her enjoy what she does and trust that the little things will evolve when she's able to absorb the concepts needed to make that happen. That evolution will happen more quickly if you support her by being happy with what she does and leave the fix'n up to the coach.

The point is that she'll make the best use of her energy and learn more in the long term if she feels that the energy is hers to invest and enjoy....... and gymnastics, I'll assure you, is a long term proposition.

 

[gymgal]

If the coaches aren't concerned, I wouldn't try to fix it. She will grow into her power. Sometimes coaches choose to"ignore"the very things that irritate us parents the most because they know it is all about the long term. Dd's coaches have commented several times that her excess power makes it hard for her to control but they would prefer that to not enough power. It has definitely gotten better with age.

 

[iwannacoach]

If the coaches aren't concerned, I wouldn't try to fix it.

The opposite can also be applied....

If you try to fix 'it' the coaches should be concerned, and if they aren't..... then you should be.

There are things parents can do to support their child, but instruction to get rid of a specific skill issue is usually not one of them.

Save your collective energy, you both may need that reserve some day down the road.

 

[txgal]

The thing is, the coaches ARE concerned. She's getting deductions for her inability to control her power. They fuss at her all the time, but do nothing to try to fix it (other than tell her she needs to 'control her gymnastics'). She is frustrated because no one has bothered to offer instruction on how she can achieve this control. She's the best on her team and they get frustrated with her because her low to mid 9s could (and, in their eyes, should be high 9s) and they are putting some pressure on her to achieve the scores they know she can get (which only frustrates her all the more because she really is trying to control her power, she just can't seem to do it)...it really is a vicious cycle for her and I'm afraid she may grow to hate the sport she now loves because she knows she's not living up to her coaches' expectations.

(I don't know if it matters or not, but her coaches are from China so perhaps there is a language/cultural barrier at work here as well?)

 

[gymdog]

I don't know that there's much you can do besides support her.

I have a very tiny 5 year old with so much power in her body, like this, it's crazy. It's just the way she is. She goes flying every which way on running skills because of how fast and bouncy she is. But in time she'll moderate it. We do a lot of power hurdle work.

Her body may be moving so fast for her brain that she cannot process what the change needed to "stick" is. Unfortunately some of that is developmental and while it can be helped with practice to some extent, you can't necessarily speed up the development of her brain and vestibular system. Right now it's a "good" problem to have assuming she isn't being unsafe. Sure, it might be a few tenths off her vault. but soon enough she won't be doing that vault anymore and will need significantly more height and rotation.

I guess, unless she literally doesn't know what a stick position is, I'm not sure how much they can offer to "fix" this beyond teaching proper technique and positions for skills. I'm sure she could work on things like jumping off a high block or beam onto a mat and sticking, but that might not help since it sounds like a speed problem. Or other drills like you might do with a preteam for body tightness and awareness might help. But this is difficult to set up for one kid in a level 4 practice. Maybe she could have a private and see if there is a coach who can break it down for her - maybe a lower level coach even. Depends on how privates work at your gym.

 

[Kiwi]

what she needs to do to prevent herself from going all kinds of crazy on the landings (she doesn't fall, but her rebounds are crazy).

Does she understand the difference between a landing and a rebound?

 

[iwannacoach]

So here's the deal......

Sooner or later this will take care of itself in the normal course of her training. Each child matures mentally and physically at rates that differ from one child to the next. There are some things kids can't do because they don't have the proper neural structure for that particular thing. In that very narrow context, your dear daughter may have a neural development delay that will resolve itself once her brain slows down the process of assigning territory used for creating energy. There is a limit to the magnitude and number of changes that can take place in the brain over a given period of time,so it will just have to wait until one of those changes is complete.

Look at it this way.......

Her brain can't send the proper signals to help her body absorb landing energy because the area (of her brain) that is supposed to do that, is busy creating the network that's narrowly focused on creating energy. So it is true, at least for the moment, that you can't have it all.

Tell her that you're sure she'll grow out of this and that her coaches are supposed to want to fix everything because that's what coaches do, and to relax while enjoying the gift she has.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

[Bajanswife]

Big picture: she's doing well. So she's not perfect - every gymnast has their issues that cause them to get deductions in competition. My DD has lack of tightness, for example. Your DD has uncontrolled power. Right now it seems like a real negative, but when she moves up a couple of levels that power will be a blessing! Yes she needs to learn to control it, but I would think that would come with time and practice.

I understand how you feel though - you see that her coaches are frustrated because they know how much better she could be with control - DD's coaches are the same with DD's lack of tightness. I guess it comes down to whether it is my job to try to fix this or not, and it isn't. She is doing well - don't lose sight of that! Give her some time.

 

[drjosh]

My DD is a L4 (old L5) gymnast who has amazing speed and power in just about everything she does, but she has a BIG problem controlling everything. For example, she is the smallest kid on her team (she's 9, not the youngest, but the shortest) but she vaults over the table at 3 and scores well into the 9s. Her coaches are frustrated with her because they know if she would only control her landings she would be amazing. I've talked with her about this and she gets very frustrated and says she doesn't know specifically what she needs to do to prevent herself from going all kinds of crazy on the landings (she doesn't fall, but her rebounds are crazy). Her coach says her problem is that she has the speed, power, and strength of a L8/L9 gymnast, which is a good thing, but makes it a little difficult to control at L4. Does anyone have any tips or strategies that can help her figure out how to not fly off into outer space with these landings? (I'm specifically looking at vault and floor).

This is a great question and it goes to the heart of what protects female athletes from injury.

In gymnastics, sometimes we think that young female athletes are not subject to the same laws of physics that other athletes are subject to. Other sports, at your daughters level (most likely 4 hours a night and 4-5 days a week), are training plyometrics, strength, proper body control, and landing positions, because they know, this has been proven in orthopedic literature to protect young athletes. The great side affect of controlling your body, is increased performance, and in your daughters case, controlling her landings.

Dr. Bill Sands says that gymnasts have the potential to land with up to 14 times their bodyweight. If your daughter is small, at 60-70 pounds, she still lands with up to 840 pounds of pressure going through her body. At what point do we think that she'll just figure this out, or grow into controlling this type of force? It never will happen and it's one of the reasons there is such a high drop out rate in gymnastics because athletes are doing activities their bodies cannot handle....and we expect them to "just stick it." That's not what studies have shown to be true.

This philosophy is the reason females are 400-700% more likely to have a non-contact ACL injury than their male counterparts.

Control of the body for females is the number 1 way in which they can increase performance and decrease the chance for injury.

Your daughter needs to start a program that addresses body control first through core control (by core, I do not mean v-ups and crunches, but rather having her brain control her body muscles and spinal joints so her extremities can do more work) then begin to add landing technique so she can adequately protect herself during landings.

When our females put landing technique and control first, then add strength to their technique, they have the ability to decrease the chance for injury by 78-88%, putting them back on par with their male counterparts...which is where they should be!

Let me know if you have any questions or if you need some resources of where to get started.

 

[txgal]

Thanks so much to everyone who has responded! I try not to coach her as I have never been a gymnast and would not know what to tell her. I do listen to her coaches and try to take what they say and put it into words I know she'll understand (again, her coaches are Chinese so there is a definite language barrier at work her). I don't know that she'll ever 'just figure it out,' though.. I suspect what is more likely to happen is that she will eventually advance to a level at which the required skills will offset the excess power (someone mentioned needing extra height and rotation--she has amazing height and rotation speed, which I think is part of the problem. At her meet this past weekend, she scored 9.40 in vault with a gigantic forward hop (but she was straight and tight on the hop!); the next highest score in her age bracket was an 8.95) and her coach fussed at her because it was a 9.7/9.8 vault. Of course, this upset her (sometimes I have issues with her coaches' inability to comprehend they are dealing with a 9 year old, but that is an entirely different post)

I think what I'm looking for here is closer to what drjosh mentioned above...since she is afraid of hitting the ground hard because she has a lot of speed and power, 2 things that increase the force of impact, she's afraid she's going to hurt herself. She gets tons of straight jump from different heights practice every day in the gym and her tightness and body position aren't much of an issue...it is, I'm sure, mostly psychological. I don't want to see her get hurt (though I don't wrap her in bubble wrap every time we head to the gym), but at the same time I don't want her frustration level to keep her from enjoying the sport. Her head coach puts an arbitrary number on promotion ability (the girls have to have 2 AA scores of 36 or better to advance to the next level and right now she's hit one of them, but her recent meet score was a 35.65 and she was told it wasn't a 36 and thus she wouldn't be moving to L5 next year without that second 36 (and yes, I do feel it is arbitrary as she already has most of her L5 skills).

I would definitely be interested in the resources you mentioned, drjosh. Even if it doesn't help her right now, it will become part of her mental makeup, and if that prevents serious injury in the future, she'll be so much better off.

 

[drjosh]

Here is my Phase 1 core book that I work with our gymnasts on. I think you'll like it and it's my gift to everyone here!
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Here's the deal we have to remember....it's about the brain and central nervous system communicating with the body and extremities better. This is called Neuromuscular control.

The other important point is this: Adding strength to dysfunction always leads to injury. So for example, adding a double back landing to an athlete that can't do a straight jump landing properly, will lead to injury. This goes for your daughter @txgal, if she can't land a simple jump, she really has no business whatsoever doing a more difficult jump...not because we want to restrict her, but because we want to keep her safe!

Once she's safe, we want her to FLY!!!!

Let me know if you have any questions and thanks for the conversation....this is what we discussed this year at USAG National Congress at my presentations! You can also check out my landing presentation I gave at national congress at this link: Link Removed

The other great resource on landing is Darin Padua, PhD and the Landing Error Scoring System from the University of North Carolina...this gets deep but here's the link:
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Another great article on strength is Bill Sands, "Should Female Gymnasts Lift Weights?" article found here:
http://www.sportsci.org/jour/0003/was.html

Let me know if you have any questions on these resources!
Dr. Josh

 

[Fliptwisttumble]

I don't know that she'll ever 'just figure it out,' though.. I suspect what is more likely to happen is that she will eventually advance to a level at which the required skills will offset the excess power

Yur daughter sounds similar to mine. DD just turned nine, and until this summer her power has been relatively uncontrolled. She is what I will call a traveller on the floor.... Couldn't change that power into height or stuck landings. Last year they taught her a layout 1/2 to compete and adding that twist took some of the typical residual power that had her not sticking her landings away.

This summer though she started training with a new group and new coaches, and they have been able to teach her to get extra height, more control (don't get me wrong, she has a ways to go still but they are certainly in the right track), more twist, better landings, etc. It has been the different perspective, combined with more desire/focus, and more maturity that is helping. Good luck with your daughter - I know I offer no help, but just wanted yu to know it isn't unusual and you aren't alone.

 

[LizzieLac]

Please sticky Dr. Josh's reply above with all of those great resources he links to!!

 

[alsmom]

Dr. Josh- I have a 6 year old who is similar to the original poster's dd...at what age do you feel that gymnasts can understand and apply this?

 

[drjosh]

alsmom ...great question!

I start them as early as possible. They won't apply the concepts until they get around 7-8, but we want it in their brains early about protecting themselves.

The second component is we have to keep at this over the years. It's a long term strategy rather than a quick concept. This is something to keep getting better at until they reach the pentacle of their athleticism.

Also, their core strength and landing ability need to match their output. As txgal said, her young daughter is putting out power associated with upper levels and she's having difficulty with her landings. If she is to have great landings and protect herself, even though she's young, she'll have to have the control of a higher level athlete, because her power output is higher.

I've picked up some tricks too about getting the younger ones to understand how to tighten their core. Utilizing coughing or laughing helps increase the speed at which they understand how to tighten their core muscles without having to move their hips or round their shoulders.

I have some raw videos of the basic exercises in the booklet. I'll get them finished this week and get them published to the site.

Just let me know if you have specific questions on the different positions and concepts.