Coaches How to Teach Kids to Run and Jump Properly?

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How do you teach your gymnast to run and jump using their toes/pushing through their ankles and toes? I have one particularly bad case, but a handful of team girls, that for the life of them, cannot run on their toes or jump pushing through their toes. This obviously causes major problems with vault and tumbling. We are constantly telling them to use their toes while running. Punching is also part of our vault warm-up and occasionally, when we have room, we'll do bounding, but the same thing happens: constantly telling to push through their toes, but nothing changes. I am kind of at a loss. I would really appreciate any help.
 
For the jumping, we do a drill with rising on relieve. You stand, arms swing down, instead of jumping you rise to relieve, arms swing up, proper landing position.

For running, we do a lot with a ladder type thing. As quickly as possible stepping in or out of it, stepping forward, backward, sideward etc. There are a lot of variations to this.

Good luck!
 
Besides all the usual running drills - slow motion runs, high knees etc one of the best ways to get kids to understand the concept of running is to race. Just like swinging kids need to get a feel for it naturally, and then we can coach them through the finer details.

Fill your warm ups with fun races and relays. Have the kids sprint down the vault strip and try to beat their own personal best time or set a record for the class or for the day. Have them chase each other, tell the first gymnast to go and give them a little head start then have the next try to catch up to them.

For jumping we do a lot of rebound work. Rows of bean bags rebound jumps up the rows and front tuck onto a mat at the end, focusing on bouncing off the balls of their feet and tight legs. Rebound skipping, like normal skipping but the gymnasts don’t bend their legs, instead they try to rebound over the rope. Rebound jumps in beam complex, across the low and high beams. Put skipping ropes on the floor (or just use lines but things are always more fun with objects) and work lots of rebounds in different directions zig zagging over the ropes. And lots and lots and lots of courbuettes.
 
For the jumping, we do a drill with rising on relieve. You stand, arms swing down, instead of jumping you rise to relieve, arms swing up, proper landing position.

For running, we do a lot with a ladder type thing. As quickly as possible stepping in or out of it, stepping forward, backward, sideward etc. There are a lot of variations to this.

Good luck!

When I said jumping, I didn't really mean for straight,tuck, split jumps ect. I meant more jumping as in running and jumping (punching) the board and punching the floor to do skills out of. Although we do the jump timers that you mentioned. I like that drill more for tightness. We occasionally use the ladder as well. It's pretty new, we got it this past summer, so we haven't really had much time spent with it. Thank you for your feedback!
 
Besides all the usual running drills - slow motion runs, high knees etc one of the best ways to get kids to understand the concept of running is to race. Just like swinging kids need to get a feel for it naturally, and then we can coach them through the finer details.

Fill your warm ups with fun races and relays. Have the kids sprint down the vault strip and try to beat their own personal best time or set a record for the class or for the day. Have them chase each other, tell the first gymnast to go and give them a little head start then have the next try to catch up to them.

For jumping we do a lot of rebound work. Rows of bean bags rebound jumps up the rows and front tuck onto a mat at the end, focusing on bouncing off the balls of their feet and tight legs. Rebound skipping, like normal skipping but the gymnasts don’t bend their legs, instead they try to rebound over the rope. Rebound jumps in beam complex, across the low and high beams. Put skipping ropes on the floor (or just use lines but things are always more fun with objects) and work lots of rebounds in different directions zig zagging over the ropes. And lots and lots and lots of courbuettes.

I had a private about a week ago and I did the timing thing. That seemed to have helped her speed, but still running pretty flat footed as well as jumping on the board flat footed. We do do a decent amount of bounding type exercises. I will probably just have to add more and really work a lot on calf strengthening. I do like the jumping rope idea. I use to do that a lot as a gymnast myself, but I have not really incorporated it into the practices, space being the main issue. But I am definitely going to be adding that in. Thanks for the reminder about the jump rope!
 

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