Coaches Tumbling Technique on Sprung Floor vs Un-Sprung Mats

[katvernay]

I'm a first-year head coach getting ready to start the high school season. I assistant coached last year, and the girls seemed very receptive to my comments and made some amazing progress in a very short period of time (the head coach was pretty useless in terms of technique). In general, I'm feeling pretty confident in my abilities.

The one thing I'm concerned about though, is the floor. I have no idea how to tumble or coach tumbling on an unsprung floor. My main concern is jumping vs punching - which, or which combination is correct/best, and what is the best way to explain it?

 

[CoachTodd]

Do change the technique. Old school gymnastics was on mats and, for the most part, they used the same technique to tumble. The timing is just a little different and some skills won't have as much power. It's also harder on the joints to have that much repetition on a hard surface. I hate it when my cheer tumblers try to jump between connected skills instead of bounce. It kills their tumbling.

 

[katvernay]

Awesome! Thank you so much! I was worried all my punching plyo drills would go to waste on mats.
Also, thanks for the reminder about harder surface/joints/reps. I think I'll need to tone down my first week of practice in that respect, especially considering most of the girls are coming to be with dubious fitness and form. And....less time tumbling means more time for drills, BARS, and conditioning! I am 100% ok with that trade-off.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I disagree.

Dr. Gerald George has a really great breakdown of why this is in his book, Championship Gymnastics; the short version is: the stiffer the surface, the more the arms and legs should band apon impact between skills. The reason is simple -- the body's center of mass should be significantly behind the base of support on takeoff between a roundoff and a backhandspring (and between multiple backhandsprings); in most cases, this means a slight hesitation must occur between landing each skilla nd taking off for the next. The more give the tumbling surface has, the less give the gymnast's joints must provide in order to accomplish this. So if you're tumbling on a tumbletrak, there should be nearly zero bend, but on any other surface this bend is necessary, and the stiffer the surface the more bend must occur.

This is visible in most upper-level tumbling -- watch any top gymnast's roundoff-backhandspring on floor in slo-mo, and this bend will be very visible -- since the spring floor itself has a certain amount of give, the delay between skills comes partially from the tumbling surface and partially from the athlete's own body.

That said, there is another thing that will decrease the amount of bend necessary -- the athlete's ability to turn the roundoff over. However, I don't think there are many if any athletes who can get such a strong turnover as to be able to do a roundoff backhandspring on a stiffer surface than a tumbletrak without bending the knees.

This is true with saltos as well, though to a lesser extend -- if you look very closely, there is in most cases a very slight bend in the knees upon impact right before taking off on a salto, though it's much less pronounced in the case of saltos. However, just like in backhandspring series, this bend will need to be more pronounced on a harder surface.

That said, I wouldn't really worry about teaching it differently -- the gymnast will tend to make these adjustments on their own; they'll just need a few warm-up tumbling passes to get accustomed to any new tumbling surface, and most kids will make the adjustments on their own without even realizing it.

EDIT: Examples:

1) Kohei Uchimura on tumbletrak (almost zero knee bend between roundoff and backhandspring):
[youtube]4dv78x20_sM[/youtube]

2) Kohei Uchimura on floor (Much more visible bend and "jump" between roundoff and backhandspring):
[youtube]AwVzdD-07MM[/youtube]

(Skip to 1:30 if you want to see it in slow-mo)


This trend would, no doubt, continue if he were to tumble on an even harder surface, ie a non-sprung floor. He would have to bend his knees more between the roundoff and the backhandspring, making the transition more of a jump and less of a punch.

 

[CoachTodd]

^^^ That's an awfully long way to say the timing is different but the technique is pretty much the same

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

^^^ That's an awfully long way to say the timing is different but the technique is pretty much the same

My point is the technique is not the same. The transition between a roundoff and a backhandspring, while it may be a bounce on a surface with a lot of give (such as a tumbletrak), it is very much a bend-and-jump on a stiffer surface. The stiffer the surface, the more of a bend-and-jump it is.

 

[CoachTodd]

My point is the technique is not the same. The transition between a roundoff and a backhandspring, while it may be a bounce on a surface with a lot of give (such as a tumbletrak), it is very much a bend-and-jump on a stiffer surface. The stiffer the surface, the more of a bend-and-jump it is.

It's interesting that you say the knees bend no matter what surface. What you are referring to as a technique difference I see as a timing difference. The harder the surface, the quicker it responds to being hit. This means you may have to absorb more of the force on the harder surface than the bouncier one. This is pretty much the same as bending a little more depending on the timing.
This is exactly why I would teach the skills with form in mind and let the timing of the technique dictate itself. I've seen far too many slow, frog-legged tumbling passes on a cheer floor because they want to stop and jump between each skill instead of time the bounce. On the hard surface, the knees and ankles become the springs more so and that is where the timing has to be adjusted.
I'm pretty sure the post you made says the same thing just in a different way.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

all i'll add to this is that the knees only bend once on a hard surface. because of the wave that the spring floor creates, the knees bend twice. this is what makes the tuning of the spring floor so problematic for the athletes.

 

[tumblerK]

When I was still competing my gym had a foam floor, and I think that made some of our tumbling technique just a teeny bit better than our competitors. My gym would host a meet every year and I remember watching level 6 after another do a punch front to their bottoms because they were so used to the spring floor giving them a little more height. Then when we went to meets all the girls at my gym had higher and better tumbling than usual because the spring floor would give us a little bump. Just my observations!