Kip Problems

[kipper]

Hello Everyone! My daughter is having problems with her kip. She is able to complete the skill, but when she pulls down on the bar she strong arms it ono one side making her body turn and her legs cross like scissors - has anyone ever encountered this and if so any suggestions on how to fix it?

[JBS]

This is a normal problem when gymnasts are first learning kips.

Most likely, she is dropping her legs away from the bar too quickly. When you do a kip, your ankles come the bar. After the gymnast brings the ankles to the bar, the bar follows the legs up to the hips. If the bar ever drops away from the body, the kip will end up short.

At this point, I have always had the best results just spotting the gymnast over and over. Of course, more strength can never hurt.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

A kip is one of those moves that's difficult to coach because there are so many minor details that are so important to the skill. A lot of it just has to be developed subconsciously; you randomly do one correctly, and your body remembers what you did right and repeats it.

What this means is that the only way to get a good kip is to do them over and over and over.

[blantonnick]

Definately agree with just doing lots and lots of them to get the hang of it...people go into all kinds of drills to do them, and they all are beneficial in some way or another. Probably the best way to learn them is just to do hundreds on the strap bar. You can do multiple repetitions without worrying about hands being hot, drop kips are easy to train and the technique can be trained 10-15 times (or more) without rest....goodluck

[Geoffrey Taucer]

The only thing I don't like about kips on a strap bar is that being able to rotate your hands is a HUGE part of kipping, and is one of the things that gives most people trouble. Strap bar completely takes this out of the equation, which means that if the hand rotation is part of the problem (which it almost always is), strap bar won't help a bit.

[JBS]

Doing them over and over is the best way. However, if the gymnast is always doing them incorrectly, it will take much longer to get the correct kip. Spotting them throught the correct motion is very benificial. I make my girls try 3 or 4 by themselves for every one that I spot.

I don't agree with kips in the strap bar, either. The rolling action of the hands is very important.

[9bob8]

Quote:
Originally Posted by |||JBS||| Doing them over and over is the best way. However, if the gymnast is always doing them incorrectly, it will take much longer to get the correct kip. Spotting them throught the correct motion is very benificial. I make my girls try 3 or 4 by themselves for every one that I spot.

i like that idea.

[gym law mom]

My daughter learned them in much the way JBS talks about. The girls would all practice on bars trying the kip by themselves then rotate to the coach. He would hold them and literally move them through the kip over and over(I think he zoned out after awhile!). Then they would be sent back to do them on their own. Once he saw that a girl was really starting to "get it", he would increase the amount of the kip she did on her own and lessen the amount he would help with.

Of course, then they do it and tell you to come watch and can't do it again for a week!

[hammy]

Try having the gymnast use ankle weights when doing the kip--with spot and with out; to help make them even stronger. I never really thought about doing this until one of my co-workers had the girls doing it.

Also, try doing what I like to call "jump ups". Have the girls use a lower beam or bar (the bar should be no lower than waist height for them) and have them jump up to front support (with straight arms). Make sure they're jumping so that their shoulders are over the bar. This will help them figure out the final action of the kip (pulling themselves up).

I also did a lot of basket drop kips (drop kips)--start in front support rock under the bar then back up (basically doing the 2nd half of the kip).

Another great drill is to use a "kip machine." When I learned a kip all we used was a rope that was tied to the bar in a U shape (hanging down from the bar) and a carpet square hanging on the bottom of the U. Start in support, rock under the bar and back up.

Kip Machine - Hang on the bar placing the feet in a tube or rope that is tied or hooked to the bar. Execute sets of straight arm kips standing up in the rope/tube to assist with the action. This drill can also be done while sitting on the rope/tube to increase the difficulty and more closely resemble the kip.

(the only thing with this picture that i did differently is that my feet stayed on the rope the whole time--not my body. http://www.usa-gymnastics.org/public...nningbars.html)