Need advice

Carmansunshine · 06-13-2007, 09:51 PM

Hi,
I'm am a mom of 2 gymnasts a 5 vr old and an almost 9 year old. My oldest was on a training team at one gym and we had issues with the coach (not a good atmosphere for her to learn lots of yelling and degrading

) She quit for 6 months then we found a new place and she wanted to give it another try. The only thing is, turns out she picked up lots of bad habits at the first place and the new caoch dropped her back down to level 1 to relearn everything. She has since moved back to level 3 (it took 4 months) but the coach says she can't move back to team until she has all the level 4 skills at competion quality. (She been working hard to get to that point) The problem she is having is getting a good rebound on her ro and bhs the coach says she needs more pop. Where does the pop come from? Do you bend your arms slightly to push off? My daughter is very much a physicall learner and its hard for her to feel this. Any advice would be great.

Mac · 06-13-2007, 10:12 PM

I'll let the coach's here give advice on rebounds, but kudos to the new coach on having the courage to help her unlearn bad habits. You're so much better off than having a coach who would be afraid of bruising your/her ego and keeping her where the bad habits could interfere with future progress. Four months wasn't long in the scheme of things.

Just to guess ahead on what the coaches might say, I'd think that bending arms would not create pop. Bending anything usually absorbs energy rather than releasing it (think of how to stop bouncing on a trampoline--bend knees). To get pop off the hands, block the shoulders (such as for a front handspring). Rebound from feet (bhs/fhs) is straighter knees and extending the ankles. With a ro, there's something about the snap down of the feet, but I don't know how to explain it. Not sure I got the wording right, so we'll defer to a coach.

**Geoffrey Taucer** · 06-14-2007, 06:21 AM


Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac I'll let the coach's here give advice on rebounds, but kudos to the new coach on having the courage to help her unlearn bad habits. You're so much better off than having a coach who would be afraid of bruising your/her ego and keeping her where the bad habits could interfere with future progress. Four months wasn't long in the scheme of things. Just to guess ahead on what the coaches might say, I'd think that bending arms would not create pop. Bending anything usually absorbs energy rather than releasing it (think of how to stop bouncing on a trampoline--bend knees). To get pop off the hands, block the shoulders (such as for a front handspring). Rebound from feet (bhs/fhs) is straighter knees and extending the ankles. With a ro, there's something about the snap down of the feet, but I don't know how to explain it. Not sure I got the wording right, so we'll defer to a coach.

Absolutely right on all counts. Bending the arms does not create pop, it absorbs it by preventing the gymnast from getting a proper block. The arms and shoulders should be extended for the entire skill. The rebound should come from the calves; that is, the gymnast lands on the ball of the foot, not the heel.

One very common problem I see with roundoffs that results in not getting enough power is not hitting a big enough lunge between the hurdle and the roundoff. The hurdle should land in a long, deep lunge with the front knee bent as much as possible. This helps the gymnast to drive her back heel more and push harder off the front leg.

Carmansunshine · 06-14-2007, 06:38 AM

Thanks! She had class today and the coach changed her hurdel and she got a little more rebound. You say the rebound comes from the calf

do you mean it is a jump at the end??? And what about the rebound from the BHS?

**audra** · 06-14-2007, 07:04 AM

You don't want to think of a rebound as a jump because it because a separate action, and when kids think of jumping they usually bend their knees to attain the action. A rebound is something that comes from being tight and in the correct position when hitting the floor. As GT said the rebound from the RO starts with hurdle, the BHS has to pass through correct positions to have a rebound. Gymnasts who bend their arms, or come down in piked position will have a tough time getting a rebound. Tight body jumps going up and down on blocks is a great way to work correct body position. Make sure the gymnasts stays on her toes, arms tight by the ears with a hollow body both in the air and when they hit the ground. You do not want to see them sink into the floor and try to jump, there should be very little effort involved.

**JBS** · 06-14-2007, 10:44 PM

Bouncing a pencil off of its eraser is like a rebound. If you sit a pencil on its eraser it will not rebound. If you throw a pencil onto its eraser, it will rebound. Rebounding is something that happens automatically if the gymnasts performs the skill tightly with lots of power. In other words, rebounding is not really a skill, its a product of doing things correctly.

The deep lunge from GT is very good advice.

littlegymchampsmom · 06-15-2007, 10:04 AM

welcome carman

I am not a coach, just a proud parent... but thought I would ask...

Is it just ro bhs rebound she has a problem with? I just wondered if your dd's coach had said anything about her just round off, rebounds, and if they did handstand, snap down, rebounds (sorry don't know the exact correct term for that) & whether or not those were ok?

Carmansunshine · 06-16-2007, 06:39 AM

Sorry, I'm not sure I know what a handstand snap down is????? She is doing BHS and she gets more rebound on them, but still has a spotter and is still using an incline mat, so its hard to tell how much is her and how much is the spotter. As I said she used to go to another gym and never learned proper tech for doing RO she has had to fix almost everything about it. The hurdle, the hand placement(she was using the cartwheel hand placement), the blocking (she wasn't putting her arms back far enough) her head placement(she didn't keep her head in neutral), and not keeping her arms up when she finisned(she would drop them them then put them up to finish). So with each change her RO gets a little better, but she still isn't getting enough rebound.

ACoach78 · 06-16-2007, 01:14 PM

I'm a little bit confused by the question being asked. Is the problem in regards to the rebound off of her hands or the rebound from the feet into the back handspring?

Secondly, I'm confused about why she is being told that the cartwheel hand placement is incorrect? The entry into the round-off should only consist of a quarter turn of the arms/shoulders. The other quarter will occur as the gymnast comes off of their hands, thus producing a complete 1/2 turn such that they are facing the opposite direction. What is she being taught?

Quite honestly, there is probably not a quick fix, magical answer to your questions. In gymnastics there is never a quick fix, magical answer in most instances. It's truly a matter of training and development. In essence, gymnastics training is really a process. Unfortunately, most parents, newer gymnasts, and even most coaches don't quite understand that.

I could probably offer you 20 different things that could be of potential use to alleviate the problem. However, those 20 different things would have to be developed over time. They won't magically make your daughter get more rebound. Ultimately, if your daughter has a really strong round-off and a great standing back handspring, then achieving enough rebound should be a non-issue.

From what has been posted, my guess is that neither is particularly strong and as we all know, "one must first walk before he/she can run." Hence, you must make make each of the pieces correct (RO & BHS) before you try to put them together.

**Geoffrey Taucer** · 06-16-2007, 04:32 PM

ACoach87:
I've always found that the best roundoffs have as much of the twist as possible before the hands contact the floor (within reason, of course; the gymnast should not dive and do a half turn in order to get the hands turned before contacting the floor, or anything like that). This allows the gymnast to snap down almost directly backwards using the abs, as opposed to snapping down sideways while twisting as you would if your hands were placed like a cartwheel.