Cast handstands?

[gymnellie]

My daughter has a hard time casting to handstand. Her coaches have given her alot of useful info on how to get to vertical and she can almost get there. Does anyone have any ideas that would maybe help her get to handstand?

Trish

[hammy]

Lots of drills and even spot. I think spotting a gymnast when learning how to do a cast handstand helps them realize the timing and technique of the skill. There are also many strength drills that can be done--for instance, kick to handstand on a floor bar then lower down to planch (hollow body and feet off the floor) then raise back up to handstand (with a helper of course).

If she is doing it on her own, have her try thinking about driving her heals so hard that she goes over the bar, or to planch more. One drill I like to do is: set up a big resi mat on one side of the low bar, then have the girls planch (big time planch) and just fling themselves over the bar onto the resi mat--I find this to be a fun drill that helps the girls get used to planching.

[CoachL]

straight body or straddle?

[gymnellie]

She's kinda weird, in that on low bar she does straddle but on high bar she does straight body! Her coach tells her, that if she would just cast higher on highbar she would be at handstand. DD says that straight body on high bar is scary. They already do the drills mentioned in the previous post. She also does press handstand drills at gym and at home.

[hammy]

Do you know what makes the straight body casting on the high bar scary for her? Perhaps she has a fear of casting over and the long drop to the mat--if that's the case I suggest just getting up and learning how to cast over (with correct technique) either with a spot or by herself.

[gym law mom]

Has your dd hit any kind of growth spurt lately? My daughter could do cast-handstands as a shorter L5 then she had to deal with the growth monster as she started L6 and they disappeared. She just kept doing reps---some with a spot to actually hold her in the handstand position and some without. I think all the reps and just getting used to slightly longer legs and a different center finally all came together and now they are not a problem. She casts to handstand on low bar and usually to straddle on high to set up the giants.

[gymnellie]

Well I asked her what made it scary and she basically said what you said about casting over! She hurt her knee on flyaways on Wed. and really did nothing today! But when we got home she was jumping on the tramp like it didn't even hurt, so I guess on Monday she will tumble in her routines!Anyway, I think I got off topic. Sorry.

She hasn't really grown in a while, but she never had her cast handstand. I wish that was the issue. she said that driving her heels sounds like it would work cause she can get her backside vertical, it's just pulling her feet up and together..