vault board settings

[kacoach]

I was taught with the new vaulting table to have the board placed at 1.5-2 ft for front handsprings. Another coach today told me they thought that was too close and makes the gymnast unable to get a full stretch before their vault. What settings does anyone recommend?? help

 

[gymluvr33]

I think, but I'm not sure, but I think that we have our board at 3 ft for front hand springs. Again, I'm not sure, but I think that is where we have them.

 

[gymdog]

2-3's pretty standard for optionals. You want to turn over fast anyway and they have a fair amount of table to stretch. 1.5-2 I would think is okay for most compulsories, but for most of the ones who aren't super tiny I'd probably have it more on 2. 2 is still pretty close.

 

[gymkat]

That sounds fine for compulsories. I vault on 2'3", but I'm 5'1" and a former L9.

One way that I measure if I'm not sure of a girl's setting is to have her stand on the board where her feet hit and then stretch forward against the table as far as she can go. If her hands end up between the middle to back 1/3 of the table, that setting should work pretty well. I asked the other girls on my college club team to try this, and it seemed pretty reliable.

 

[rachmeal03]

while i was in college most of the girls who did front handspring entry vaults had the BACK of the board between 5'10 and 6'6. again this is the BACK of the board. the heights for those gymnast was from 4'10 to 5'4. a lot depends on speed and power as well.

 

[gymdog]

while i was in college most of the girls who did front handspring entry vaults had the BACK of the board between 5'10 and 6'6. again this is the BACK of the board. the heights for those gymnast was from 4'10 to 5'4. a lot depends on speed and power as well.

Was this on the old vault or the table? I haven't see anyone vault with the board that far back with the table.

 

[gymkat]

I think having the back of the board between 5'10"-6'6" would correspond roughly to the front of the board being somewhere between 2'-3'. I don't know exactly how long the board is, but that seems about right. On the old vault, I'm pretty sure the front of my board was at 4', but that was 7 years ago (wow, I'm old), so that might be totally wrong.

 

[gymdog]

Haha, I guess I'm not good at subtracting and eyeballing measurements but that's probably right. I was thinking the board was like 2 feet but I guess it's more like 3 or 3.5.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Well, there's too ways of looking at this.

If you want the easiest route to the best front handspring, put the board fairly far away, say between 2.5 and 3.5 feet out from the table. This forces the gymnast to stretch out during preflight and prevents them from piking.

HOWEVER, I DO NOT USE OR RECCOMEND THIS METHOD, and here's why: while a handspring from 3.5 feet out will likely be beautiful, a handspring front (or tsuk, or whatever else you want to throw) will be nearly impossible.

Putting the board that far out severely cuts their potential postflight power. If you want the highest and most powerful postflight, teach your gymnasts to vault with the board as close as reasonably possible. While this makes the preflight much more difficult and requires the gymnast to have a much faster heel drive, they'll find that once they get the hang of the faster entry, they'll have a lot more flight time after hitting the table. This gives them the time necessary for the more difficult upper-level vaults.

I'll use myself as an example; I am an elite floor/vault specialist, and I am, modesty aside, an extremely powerful vaulter. I am the first (and to date only) person EVER to do a tsuk arabian double front on vault. I'm about 5'6. I vault with the board at 2 ft; Any further and I can't get the height needed for the arabian double.

So, while learning a good-looking handspring is indeed easier with the board further away, I reccomend teaching it with the board close anyway.

I generally put the board between 1.25 and 2 ft for my students, depending on how tall they are, how fast they run, and how powerfully they can punch the board.

 

[BlairBob]

the distance of 3 of their feet from the front of the table. play with it from there. elite vaulting turns into fast turnover of the postflight

 

[gymdog]

the distance of 3 of their feet from the front of the table.

This is for real my setting. Someone told me that like 5 years ago, but I didn't know it was a legit thing.

 

[gymluvr33]

Ok, so I checked and I was wrong. Sorry. So our board is only at 2 feet, and the smaller girls have it at 1.6 feet