Gymnastic Classes

However, before launching into the practice of take offs, it is vital that the landing technique is worked upon. So many gymnasts land heavily and so risk damage their knees, feet and even their spine that the coach must ensure before all else that the gymnast can land safely and well without jarring either legs or back. The landing should be very resilient, toes touching the floor first, and then the rest of the foot, the ankle, knee and hip giving into the floor to cushion the landing. The following are some exercises for practicing landing: 1. Perform small jumps on the spot, feet together, stretching the feet and pointing the toes in the air, and bending the knees on landing. These small jumps when performed with the feet turned out slightly are called saut s. 2. Jump from both feet from a low height, bench or box top, to land on the floor, feet together, landing with control and resilience. 3. Run and spring from one foot, landing on two feet with resilience. 4. Run and leap, tak …

If you did not get enough sleep, rest and take a nap before class or practice. Make sure your body has enough energy from nutrition to last through your class or practice. Build Your Strength to Increase Your Safety Margin The stronger and more flexible you are, the less likely you are to get hurt and the more likely you are to learn gymnastics skills quickly and safely. Flexibility not only makes many skills more beautiful to watch (like back walkovers), but also can make you less prone to injury. So prepare for your gymnastics career first by working to make yourself strong and flexible. Make Sure You Understand What to Do Tell your coach if you don’t completely understand instructions on what to do. You should know and understand exactly what skill your teacher expects you to do and how they want you to do it. If you are not sure, ask! Understanding will also help you learn more quickly and do skills more safely. Follow Proper Skill Progressions and Master Skills It is extremely i …

The landing of the dismount is a little wobbly but you keep it under control. “No!” you scream (inside your head) as you pull off your grip and stare at a flap of skin the size of a dime that is bleeding in the palm of your hand. You’ve ripped! Great, just what you needed, especially the night before a competition. Why did it have to happen now? How are you going to concentrate on doing your best in the routine tomorrow with the pain of a rip constantly making itself felt? You know that you are capable of doing the routine with your hand taped, but that edge of pain can be just enough to take your mind off doing the best routine you can. Chances are this situation has happened to many gymnasts at some point in their competitive careers. Most gymnast’s have suffered rips during workouts and been told by the coach to clean it up and get back to work on routines. That is not as mean as it sounds. As clearly illustrated above, a rip could occur before a big meet and you need to learn how …

However, since there are strict stipulations about the inclusion of skipping in the exercise, It is vital to ensure that sufficient is included, and seen to be included. Competition judges are looking specifically for the major characteristic of each of the pieces of the apparatus, and penalties occur if they are not present. Two particular rules, concerned with passing through the rope, refer to the normal skipping action of hops and skips, and to larger skipping action involving leaps or jumps. 1. Skips and hops. The exercise must contain three different series of skips or hops into the rope, two of which must be done whilst traveling. A series normally contains a minimum of three skips or steps. 2. Jumps and leaps. One series of a minimum of three successive jumps or leaps into the rope is required in addition to the skips and hops mentioned above. The clever coach or gymnast will ensure that there are more than the required numbers of elements present in the sequence as choreograp …

Days and hours of practice week in and week out will eventually pay off and they will take their place in the spot light. Behind the spotlight, somewhere in the shadows of every gymnast great, there is a coach who has spent hours and hours developing and honing the skills they need to excel. One of the most important aspects of coaching is to give each member of the team value. The fact that each girl or boy has made it this far, and are now a contributing member of a Gymnastic team, speaks volumes for their ability and dedication. As a coach it’s essential that you keep this high moral by employing the following tactics as you interact with you’re team members. Embrace Mistakes At this point in the game, the ability of your team members is not in question. They are clearly ready and able to dedicate a portion of their life to excelling as gymnasts. It’s also at this point when gymnasts become very critical of themselves. What may be small mistakes or tribulations to you, can be cripp …

What is different with his journal is that he has taken pictures from around a club gym and put those pictures into the background of the journal pages. These pictures range from gymnastic moves, to a coach at work, and even someone chalking their grips. The pictures themselves can be a thought starter and any gymnast would enjoy this journal, but this might be best for the recreational gymnast. The Gymnastics Journal & Meet Survival Guide takes the journal one step further. All the pages from The Gymnastics Journal are included and then there is another section for the competitive gymnast who is attending meets. This additional information includes a “My Favorites Page”, monthly scheduling calendars, general meet information, meet scoring sheets and meet review pages, Word Searches, autograph pages, and address pages. I really liked the Meet Review Pages as they allowed the gymnast to review how they performed, what they were proud of, and what they wanted to improve. The autograph s …

” Did you know that it is a proven scientific fact that when you lie like that your tongue grows two millimeters longer? Keep this up and eventually you may have to wrap your tongue around your neck like a scarf to keep from stepping on it. The world seems a much better place an hour or so later when you are at the gym working on your double twist. After giving it your best you are rewarded for the effort by standing up three double fulls in a row. The coach claps you on the back and says, “Well, I guess it’s time we moved you up into the advanced optional group. Will you be able to make workout on the additional days the advanced optional group works out?” Of course you answer, “Yes!” At the end of the workout you can’t wait to tell your mom all about it. As you are changing into your clothes you notice the coach has already gone over to talk to your mom about the extra workout days and for some reason he does not look happy. Your mother is showing the coach a note from your school te …

Building strength also makes you safer in potentially dangerous fall situations. Pay Attention You need to be aware of what is going on around you in the gym if there are other gymnasts, especially bigger ones, around. You need to be aware and pay attention to everything and everyone around you who might crash into you or land on you. You also need to pay careful attention to your coach so you understand exactly what they expect of you to learn efficiently and keep yourself safe. Check Equipment First Make sure all equipment is set and sturdy before you begin to perform any skills on it. Handles and cables need to be tight enough so the equipment is safe for you to be on. Don t assume the equipment is correctly set and tight. Check it an make sure first. Know Fall Zones Don t sit or stand in potential landing or fall zones. Too often gymnasts waiting for their turn do not stay enough out of the way of other gymnasts who need adequate room to dismount or a place to fall. Don t Do Gymna …

However, the rope is also used when folded three or four times, either to jump over, to hook up the foot into a balance, to hold momentarily around the waist or shoulders or in any position. Again, possibilities are wide and varied, and there is opportunity for the gymnast and coach to create their own original movements. One other rope action which should be added to your vocabulary is the release. This means that one end of the rope is thrown away whilst a grip is maintained on the other end. This is developed from an open rope swing. Probably the easiest to try first is from the side swing in the door plane. As the weight is transferred across to the right side, swing the left arm down towards the floor and at the same time let go of the end of the rope. Because you are swinging across to the right, the rope will brush the floor and swing out to the right side. As the end rises up from the floor, you can either catch it in your right hand which is already holding the other end, or …

Having discussed briefly the fundamentals of the apparatus techniques and body elements, we turn now to the aspect of music, a very important part of rhythmic gymnastics. All the exercises are performed to music and all the work in performance should be a direct reflection of the music, be it classical, jazz, rock ‘n roll or whatever. It is not imperative to be a musician to be a rhythmic gymnast or coach, but it most certainly helps if you have a sense of rhythm and you appreciate and understand music, if only a little. Simply to know the difference between beats, and be able to count or tap out a basic 2/4 or 3/4 rhythm helps i.e. to recognize whether there are two beats or three beats in the bar. This is important in understanding and feeling the type of movement which suits the two or three beat type of music, because they are very different. Three beat music is essentially a waltz time, and whether played quickly or slowly it suggest a lilting or swaying movement, whereas the two …

This article points them out to you. #1 Fully Support Your Own Gym It seems apparent that many parents do not fully realize the implications of not fully supporting their own gym s summer program. To put it in perspective, for the price paid for every two gymnasts attending a commercial gymnastics summer camp, your gym could purchase a piece of training equipment that your gymnasts could be using year round. It is also highly unlikely that gymnasts will find a coach at any summer camp more committed to their progress and success than they will find in their own gym. Money spent on a summer camp might be better spent on private lessons from your own coach. We seriously recommend that no parent or gymnast pay to attend any summer camp without fully supporting (and paying for) their own gym s summer program. #2 - Why Build Your Competitor s Program? We have to wonder sometimes about the wisdom of choosing to attend (and financially support) a summer camp run by a team you may face in t …

As a gymnast, you have to be aware that gymnastics is one of the most demanding and strenuous sports around. Right along with its tough and exacting nature come the injuries. Do you know that gymnasts incur injuries as often as football players do? While injuries are part and parcel of gymnastics and it will be difficult to steer clear of them completely, there are some ways that you can avert the worse of them. These safety measures take the form of body and mental alertness, adequate muscle strength and resiliency, and above all, clear communication with between the gymnast, coach and child. Most important of all, it is importnat that the gymnast knows what he is doing. The gymnast shouldn t attempt to try moves that he hasn t practiced yet, just because they look awesome, or because some of the other gymnasts can do it, or even just to impress his coach. Speak to the coach about your apprehensions and make sure he shares your concern. Make sure the coach is cognizant of the risks t …

In gymnastics, the lack of qualified coaches is perhaps the biggest problem. The sport is growing at a rapid rate and there were not enough coaches (of any experience level) before. No Place for Coaches to Learn There are many reasons for this and a number of deficiencies in the coaching pool. The largest problems is that there is no place for anyone who is interested to go to learn how to coach correctly. There is no college, University, trade school or even central source of information where you can go to learn how to coach and the higher the level you aspire to coach, the less information and resources there are. Bad Coaching Habits and Practicesare Passed On Coaches in this country learned how to coach either from how they were coached themselves or by mimicking another coach in the gym. A once annual coaches congress realistically does little to improve the situation. Add in the lack of useful informational resources and coaches are basically on their own. This is the problem …

This is a loaded question for several reasons… First of all, ANY sporting activity lead by a quality-based coach is wonderful for kids. That being said, the true crux and efficacy of that statement is based largely on the ‘quality-based coach’ comment. It is only when poorly educated and over zealous parents and coaches (i.e. adults) get involved too heavily in youth sports that the experience can become sour. Parents often push too hard and seek success at a young age; coaches often are limited in their understanding of developmental science and routinely ‘drill’ kids with ’sport specific’ (I hate that phrase) exercises that are too narrow in scope (not to mention that many youth sport coaches don’t know how to TEACH specific aspects of movement or speed and yet get annoyed when their athletes don’t perform a given drill to a high enough standard). One the most prominent and problematic realities of the above comments is that there don’t seem to be many (any?) outlets for kids just …

If a parent or coach learns how the advantages of these types of trampolines outweigh the disadvantages, then they may let the budding gymnast definitely use one. Many coaches and parents are concerned with trampoline safety, and therefore do not want a student of gymnastics using one, especially with so much information telling parents not to ever let their child near one . The American Academy of Pediatrics is one group that warns against any use of one for any reason. They claim that most children will be hurt by doing trampoline jumping and trampoline tricks that they are not trained to do, and this can cause serious harm to a person. While this is true, if a gymnast is properly trained on how to use one to enhance their skills, then tumbling on a jumping tarp can prove to be safer than not. Learning some moves on a gymnastics trampoline can help a budding gymnast be more positive, according to some coaches and parents. By being able to practice the motion over and over on a tramp …