Issues with yurchenkos

bionickoolaid · 01-07-2008, 07:52 PM

I have a girl working on yurchenkos and lately the have been having decent height but havent been getting enough distance. I realize its hard to make any conclusions with out seeing it but if any body could list some common causes that make yurchenkos end up to close to the table i would appreciate it.

**hammy** · 01-08-2008, 09:51 AM

How is her hand placement on the table (is in at the front/back/middle of the table), also how is her body position when her hands hit?

bionickoolaid · 01-08-2008, 01:37 PM

Hand placement is about directly in the middle of the table, as far as body position I would say her feet are a little lower then i would like but not low enough to make it a huge issue.

**hammy** · 01-09-2008, 02:20 PM

Her hand placement sounds great! I would say, and i'm not 100% sure without actually watching the vault, that it seems like her body position is a slight bit off. Try working on getting her feet a little higher, that might be the only problem, but it's hard to say without seeing a video of it. I'll looking online for some help either tonight or tomorrow (depending on when I get home from work--which is where i'm heading right now). Good luck, hopefully fixing her body position will help.

ACoach78 · 01-10-2008, 12:23 AM

Actually, what you will notice is that with the better Yurchenkos, the gymnast's hands will be closer towards the front "dip" or "curve" of the table. Typically, they're right on the "curve" or at the top of the curve.

If your gymnast's hands are in the middle of the table, then it sounds as though she's coming on too high. Now, the question arises as to why she's coming on too high? In most cases, this can be related back to the hurdle and the round-off. Something relative to those two skills is breaking down such that gymnast has an insufficient turnover and is not in optimal position while in contact with the board and just prior to take-off.

With a less ideal board position following the RO, typically the gymnast will sort of be performing a "gainer" onto the table. This results because the center of mass will end up either directly above the feet or possibly in front of the feet slightly (if the chest is down a good amount) due to the insufficient turnover. This affects the amount of rotation (torque) that can be generated from the board and causes more of a "gainer" effect because the gymnast must "throw backwards" in order to get to the table as opposed to just reaching backwards.

As far as the angle once upon the table, I typically observe that the better Yurchenko vaults will create an angle of between 45-55 degrees from the hands to the feet relative to the left or right horizontal (depending on which side you're viewing on). Of course, the gymnast is in a stretched (hip and chest extension...possibly slightly hyper) position during the support phase...or at least they should be for the most part.

Another issue that may be occurring is that due to the possible gainer effect as I am hypothesizing, the head may actually be leading backwards. If this occurs, the arms will never catch up. As a result, the gymnast will be "planching" in the support phase. Obviously, this does not make for a strong blocking position. As a result, the gymnast will usually start to tuck/pike (layout...which usually ends up being a semi-pike position) early. This will also cause them to end up closer to the table.

So, take a look at the front side of the vault. Shoot some video and compare it to some of the better vaulters in the world...in particular, I really like Cheng Fei's technique. I bet that you'll find some of the things that I'm saying to be true when you start looking at the film.

**hammy** · 01-10-2008, 08:50 PM

I didn't even think about coming on high--duh Hammy--especially seeing that I competed a yurchenko. Excellent points ACoach! Sorry, i'm not very good at fixing things without actually seeing them--i'm a very visual person.

bionickoolaid · 01-14-2008, 11:12 PM

Thanks guys everything was really helpful and its starting to look a little better.

bionickoolaid · 06:13 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1IQAZSEqxo
Finally got a video of a timer for you guys to pick at, dont pull any punches

ACoach78 · 01-19-2008, 10:07 PM

It's the RO. It's definitely not turned over enough and creating the "gainer" effect. I wish that you would've gotten the hurdle on there, too. There's an awful lot that can go wrong with that hurdle that directly affects the RO, obviously.

I would spend more time doing drills such as a RO up to a panel mat and strive for the gymnast to turn completely over to a vertical position.

Secondly, although I don't support it in floor tumbling, I actually don't like for the arms to drop to shoulder level at the completion of the RO for the Yurchenko. My feeling is that there simply isn't enough time for the arms to recover and catch back up such that they are leading as opposed to the head. Therefore, if it were me, I'd go back to performing RO BHS to a mat stack with the focus being on RO technique as well as keeping the ears covered (head neutral) from pre-flight through the contact phase.

At a camp a couple of years ago, I asked Neil Resnick the following question..."How do you know when it's time to move on? How do you know if you're moving a little too quickly?" He responded something to the effect of...(paraphrasing)..."It's really experience...and, if it (skill/progression) starts to break down right away, then you know that you have probably moved a little too quickly."

Moral of the story...I'd back up a step and spend more time doing some of the prep work. Good Luck!

CoachL · 01-19-2008, 11:02 PM

she is also pretty spongey in the shoulders, and has alot of shoulder angle and her toes aren't snapping up enough. We do tons of double layouts into the pit, also using a double mini we do hs snap down onto a porta table w/ and w/o the salto.

I've made a yurchenko DVD that I sold at region 1 congress a few times. I'll try and upload some drills to youtube.