Beam Warm Up

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What do your gymnasts do for a beam warm up for levels 5 and 6? Do they do the same thing every practice? How long does it take? What drills can we include on other events to help on beam?

We are trying to develope a warm up for our girls. However, we are a rec. gym. We have level 5 and 6 girls, they just don't compete. The main difference between rec. and competitive is the amount of time spent in the gym. Our girls are in the gym about 4 hours per week. This means they are only on beam for about 30-45 min. per week.

We need a great 10-15 min. warm up so we can move onto new skills quickly.
 
Beam warmups

Our girls use the same warmup most of the time. My Level 4 gymnasts practice walking (forward, sideward, backward) high on toe, pivot turns, what I call snowflake turns, kicks (f,s,b) high on toe, lock hops, long jumps,
chasses, hammer handstands both forward and back on both legs. Sometimes we take something out if we have less time, and sometimes we add leaps, needle kicks and running. You can tailor it for the amount of time that you have. I try to focus on presentation during warm ups and also just staying on the beam. I always have the girls do some conditioning (ie 10 shotguns) if they fall off during warmups to help them learn to fight to stay on.
Hope this helps,
Angela:) :)
 
Great feedback...anyone else have a warmup to post?
 
Well, we don't warm up that much any more, but usually just different walks and kicks and such. W/ our old coach, we ran back and forth across the high beams and walked on our hands(forward and side handstands). To qwork on the dreaded level six dismount, we had partners help us w/handstand holds with pirouttes;also just holding a vertical handstand on beam as long as we can.
 
My girls Do tip toe walks frontward and backward. Kicks (frontward only) or tip toe and flat foot then they ocassianally do forward and side ways sashe. They we do a few turns half (sometimes whole) and snap turns. then we move onto leaps (five but no less) then english handstands (five but no less). Then we start them on routines ( or skills depending on time of year) But since you are rec you can move on to skills.
 
Thanks for the warm up Perfect10n_ineverything.

Then we start them on routines ( or skills depending on time of year) But since you are rec you can move on to skills.

We still do the regular routines for levels 2 and up. We do this because we have mock meets 3 or 4 times per year. We have 2 gyms so we alternate gyms (the gyms are about 25 minutes apart). All the gymnasts get a trophy or medal and there are no judges. Between our 2 gyms we usually have 60 - 100 gymnasts, so they are pretty popular. It also gives the coaches something to look forward to, since most of us were competitive gymnasts.
 
We start with step locks fwd side bk, step lock 1/2 turns (two people on beam at a time) chasse's, straight jumps across the beam, duck walks ( teaching them low skills), step kicks, sm leaps , md leaps, lg leaps.​
 
Quick Question

I have a question for Angela (or anyone else who knows) -- what are "hammer handstands" and what are "needle kicks"? Could you give me a little description? Thanks! Angela.
 
2 passes Walks forward in high relevé

1 pass Side walks to middle 3 pivots to right, ½ turn side walks 3 points to left.

2 passes High kicks on toe, close on toe.

1 pass Brush leg to 45 degrees (turn out), relevé 3 times, other side.

1 pass step left leg to 90 degrees - lift higher 2 times - step, repeat on other side.

2 passes Passé - develope leg forward turned out. do flat pass ½ way - do relevé the rest.

1 pass Step, step forward pivot - step, step backwards pivot.

2 passes Long run - arms soft.

1 pass Middle of beam.
Right foot front relevé - pile through whole foot to place heels down - do 3 times. Then do 2 jumps coming all the way through the feet. Repeat on other side.

2 passes High toe jumps, traveling jumps.

1 pass A turn to balance - 2 choices. Step straight leg or step pile turn. Must be continuous.

1 pass Sissone hold arabesque 1 second. Repeat.
 
Mock meets are so fun. I love doing them because they are like a competition without all the pressure. It is so much fun to do with friends as well!!! Our warm-ups that we do on beam sometimes are inch worms walks and jumps and fun little excercises. Sometimes even weird jumps that are actually really fun even though we look weird doing them!! MOOSE JUMPS!!! You put your hands to your head like you have antlers and then jump and bend your legs kind of like a frog and make whatever noise you think a moose makes!! hehe
 
Our L5/6 warm-up is very easy and quick. We have five beams; four high, and one low beam that we use for our warm-ups. On the first beam (the low beam) we walk forwards, then we go to the first high beam, and to side walks to whichever side we want (I usually go half way down one way, and the other direction the rest of the way). On the second high beam we walk backwards. On third high beam we do kicks forwards on each side. On the last high beam, we do stretch jumps. It takes two-three minutes, and is a good, simple warm-up. Hope this helps
 
I have only just revised the warm-up for my girls so I'm not sure how long it will take. We only have about 20-30 minutes on beam twice a week as well so I'm hoping it won't take more than 15 minutes!

The first part will be done standing on the floor holding the beam or as described:
Warm- up
- Kicks forward x 10, hold x 10 seconds
- Kicks backwards x 10, hold x 10 seconds
- Kneeling scale and kick, x 10, hold x 10 seconds
- Straddle walk along beam
- Pike sit stretch (sit on floor, feet against low beam and hold on to beam)

this next part will be done on high and low beams (we only have 2 high beams and 1 low beam) and the 7 girls will be divided in to 2s or 3s and each activity will be done up and back along the beam

Complex
- Walk on toes
- Step kicks

- Step kicks backwards
- Runs
- ½ / ½ turns on two feet
- ½ / ½ turns on one foot
- Continuous straight jumps
- Long jumps
- Chasses
- Straight jumps
- Assemble, straight jump
- Split jumps
- Lunge walks
- Handstands

This covers most of the skills in their routines or parts of skills so once that is done they will move on to working on mounts (straddle hold, swing legs to pike stand), dismounts (punch jump), handstands, cartwheels, tic-tocs and split jumps

we shall see how it goes! i'm sure after seeing it in action I will have to tweak it a little :)
 
at my gym we do:

~15 rows of running
~2 rows of kicks to the front
~2 rows kicks to the back
~2 rows kicks to the sides (alternating legs)
~2 rows straight jumps
~2 rows tuck jumps
~10 split jumps
~10 full/half turns
~10 leaps
~10 mounts
~10 of the main skill in your routine (cartwheel, backwalkover etc.)
~10 dismounts

then we start full routines. i hope this helps!! :)
 
one thing i used to do when i did competitive training was doing a full warm up with a rope. we had to have our hands in presentation while holding the rope, then we used the rope to pull back to make us stand straight and look up(helps with shoulder flexibility too)

pointe walk:
2 pointe steps (toe pointed to the beam
releve (up high on toes, then land as if you land a skill)
2 leg lifts, w/pointed toes
2 small jumps, then practise landing again
2 reverse kicks
2 big jumps, practise landing
1/2 turn

you can change the skills between the jumps.

pick out certain skills of their routines and do a length of them.

- 1 length of walking on toes (f,b,sw)
- 1 length of high kicks
- 1 length of leg lifts
- 1 length of reverse kicks
- 1 length of straight jumps
- 1 length of leap progressions
- 1 length of leaps
- 1 length of chasse
- 1 length of grapevine (with this one if they are good at it, try it different ways but get them to have straight hips)
- a few lengths of different animal walks (get them to choose them. bear, caterpillar, scorpian, cat, seal etc)
then get them working on a few skills (prefection etc)
then routines, new skills and so on.
 
Needle scale:
Step on R foot; lever kicking L foot backward and upward; arrive with hands on beam (cross handstand style) and L leg completely vertical; R foot stays on beam.

Basically looks like a split with hands on beam, one foot on beam and one foot in air.

Raley%20Miscellaneous%20030.jpg
 
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Tee hee they dont look quite like splits when my 7 year olds do them! I think hammer handstands are similar but let the supporting leg lift slightly off the beam each time. They look abit like those hammer head pumps when you do a line of them. We concentrate on both legs being straight at first.

What is an english handstand someone mentioned? I wasn't aware that we had one that was different.
 
:beam: We usually do forward walking on toes, then backward walking on toes, sideways walking on toes, the kicks (front, back, side) one footed hops down the beam, then straight jumps, tuck jumps, bear walk, inchworm, and ten stuck full turns. It usually takes about 7 minutes. Hope that helps.:)
 
we do front kick, front kick, side kick, side kick, back kick, back kick, neadle kick twice . then split jump, sisone, then split leap twice. then back walkovers twice(for level 5s skip it) and then we do 2 full turns(for level 5s do half turns). but i am an optinal so idk if u want to use it.
 

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