Coaches One Event Dragging Us Down

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BeamQueen

Coach
Proud Parent
Hello all,

Looking for advice on how to approach this situation. We have one event (vault) that is killing both our kids' AA scores as well as our team score - in both compulsory and optionals.

In every single meet that we've been to this year we rank in the very top on bars and beam, top 5 on floor, and then very low on vault. We went to a very big meet this past weekend and took our levels 3-7. Here were the breakdowns:

L3
Vault - 9th
Bars - 2nd
Beam - 1st
Floor - 3rd
Overall - 4th

L4
Vault - 7th
Bars - 1st
Beam - 1st
Floor - 3rd
Overall - 3rd

L5
Vault - 9th
Bars - 2nd
Beam - 1st
Floor - 5th
Overall - 5th

L7
Vault - 8th
Bars - 1st
Beam - 1st
Floor - 2nd
Overall - 3rd

As you can see, vault is completely killing our team score in every single level. And a few of our kids missed 1st AA by less than a tenth. They hit mid 9's on beam bars, low 9 on floor, and then 8s on vault. Even our 3s - where in our state, you see anything from 9.6-9.8 winning vault.

I just don't know how to bring this up to our vault coach. I am not the HC, so maybe it's not my place at all. We have coaches meetings weekly, and it always feels like theres an elephant in the room. Many parents approached this specific coach at the meet about our vault scores and he tells every parent the same thing, "Once ___ learns how to run better, she'll do great." Our kids are extremely well conditioned and know how to hit shapes better than our competition.

Should I bring it up as, "What can we do on the other events to help vault?"?

It just sucks to put so much work into everything else, and then our kids miss it by one event. And it's the same event at every meet - including last year.
 
It's not like all our kids are slow twitch. They do fine on floor. I'll admit, we are known in our area as a bars/beam gym...we do have some fast kids. One of our top level 7s (first year) averages a 9.5 on every event, and then only hit 9.075 on vault. And she's been competing a handspring since L4! Don't get it.
 
Have you observed the vault coach coaching? How is he teaching the vault? Do they practice the run? Do the drills? This is a tough situation. Do the other coaches ever coach vault? Could it be possible to change roles with someone else who would have some fresh ideas? Could he coach for example floor for a few weeks and have someone else do his job on vault?
 
How much time is devoted to Vault? A lot of gyms give Vault significantly less time as it is a single skill as opposed to a routine full of skills, it makes sense to devote a little less time but it is a 1/4 of their AA score so it needs enough time in the program.

Vault training should comprise many parts
1. Training the run, specifically run technique
2. Plyometrics to improve speed
3. Rebound work off both the feet and the hands
4. Handstand strength and conditioning
5. Trampoline work to develop aerial awareness, vault shapes and technique
6. Table work
7. Beat board work, lots of layouts, twists etc
8. Drills for weak vault areas and to develop future vault difficulty
 
Have you observed the vault coach coaching? How is he teaching the vault? Do they practice the run? Do the drills? This is a tough situation. Do the other coaches ever coach vault? Could it be possible to change roles with someone else who would have some fresh ideas? Could he coach for example floor for a few weeks and have someone else do his job on vault?

He's a great coach in other areas....he helps coach bars as well and he's fantastic. I think the problem is that they're doing the same things over and over on vault and the kids are making no change....I think they need to do something different, but don't really know how to say anything without sounding rude or offensive.
 
How much time is devoted to Vault? A lot of gyms give Vault significantly less time as it is a single skill as opposed to a routine full of skills, it makes sense to devote a little less time but it is a 1/4 of their AA score so it needs enough time in the program.

Vault training should comprise many parts
1. Training the run, specifically run technique
2. Plyometrics to improve speed
3. Rebound work off both the feet and the hands
4. Handstand strength and conditioning
5. Trampoline work to develop aerial awareness, vault shapes and technique
6. Table work
7. Beat board work, lots of layouts, twists etc
8. Drills for weak vault areas and to develop future vault difficulty

That's a really good point....vault, by far, gets the least about of time during practice. They get 1 hr bar rotations and sometimes only 30 min vault rotations. That is a really great point to bring up....maybe I can just ask if they need more time over on vault, and that I'd be willing to give up a little time on my events every once in a while until things get figured out.

As far asa what they work on, I think that is the other problem. All they really drill are board approaches. They don't do much for running except maybe a few sprints in the beginning off the runway and into the pit. Not much trampoline work that I can see, maybe occasionally. And then some vaulting onto a stack of mats. But really the majority of vault practice is spent doing board drills. Which I get is important, but they've been doing the same stuff for months - even years, and no change in competition. I've also noticed our board is MUCH closer to the table (or resi - level 3) than other teams. Our board is only a few inches from the table, while some other teams that are hitting huge scores pull theres much further back. When I asked our coach about this, he just said "Our kids need to learn to get their feet in front of them on the board. The other teams are landing with their feet behind them, which isn't good technique. It'll catch up with them later."

Except several of our kids will 'pike up' because of this. It's frustrating. :(
 
As far as what they work on, I think that is the other problem. All they really drill are board approaches.

Except several of our kids will 'pike up' because of this. It's frustrating. :(

Piking in my experience is a board entry issue, they will usually pike if they step to close to the board. I love doing a variety of different 'vaulting' stuff they don't even really think is vault. So they are working the same skill (run and board contact) with varies activities to keep it fresh and plenty of activities to get them used to running fast toward large objects to remove fear and build confidence. I probably give more coaching corrections to the run and hurdle than the actual vaults. I also like lots of trampoline work. I guess you need to speak with the HC about sacrificing time on other apps to get them to see the big picture with the vaulting.
 
My girls struggle with vault as well, so I understand your frustration. Like others have suggested, I would look at spicing up your vault workouts a bit. It could be a different coach for a bit just to get a new perspective or maybe just some new drills and ideas. Though I know it's hard to spend too much time on drills during the season when you have limited practice time.
There are some things you could implement during conditioning time so they don't cut into the actual vault rotation at all- plyos, running/punching activities, block pushes, and other leg strengthening stuff. I've been working to build in more of this to see if that helps with our vault issues. This would also make it more of a team effort rather than the vault coach being solely responsible for their performance on vault.
 
I agree with everything mentioned above; lots of good information on incorporating new things into the vault rotation, as well as organizing practices to allocate more time to vault. However, to address your problem on how to bring it up to the vault coach, I don't think you should. Have a quick talk with the head coach and let him or her know your thoughts. Also mention how you don't want to bring it up directly to the vault coach because you don't think it's your place, and that you don't want to be rude. This takes the problem out of your hands, and allows the person with more authority to enact the change. Hopefully, it works out! Honestly, it sounds like this coach is good at what he does, but may need a bit of a push to realize things can be done better. This happens to me, and I usually get a wake up call in one way or another, and it helps me get my butt in gear!
 
If floor is your second lowest and you only spend 30 min on vault I don't think it's just this coach's problem to be honest.
 
If floor is your second lowest and you only spend 30 min on vault I don't think it's just this coach's problem to be honest.

Floor is our 3rd highest (or 3rd lowest....however you want to look at it) scoring event, but not by much. A few tenths. Scores seem to be really tight on that event, with 0.2 separating 1st and 8th on the podium. We have several kids from each level winning 1st on floor, whereas our top vaulter only ranks in the top 5 if lucky. Many of our kids don't even place at all because they start the placing with a 9.3 (for example), and our kids are hitting anywhere from 8.5-9.0.

Again, this was not meant to be putting down the coach. In fact, that is exactly what I'm trying NOT to do (hence creating this post). As I said earlier, this coach is fantastic, especially on bars. Our kids dominate every meet on that event. He really knows his stuff. I think our problem on vault is that we're just not getting creative with new ideas. We're doing the same stuff that our kids are failing at time and time again. My post was simply, "How do I suggest we do something different, while still being respectful?"

I am not a vault expert, nor do I pretend to be. I haven't coached vault in years. But, I do think we are lacking on vault because we aren't trying new things (specifically for runnings - our kids are tight but sooooo slow) and also because it's our lowest spent time on an event. There's many factors going into this. It's not all the coach, or even partially his fault either. It just is what it is. Just trying to do something different because it's always the event that drags us down.
 
Do you have a video of some examples? I am a little bit of a nut when it comes to vault. I look for the kind of power this girl had:
I was a bit spoiled for the front handspring vaulters. My Daughter was our 4th score with the 9.3 range.

Note: the vault in the video is a warm up for a harder vault later.
 
has anyone thought of letting the coach do bars and floor instead of bars and vault. Maybe he hates coaching vault and it doesn't inspire him.

Perhaps someone else could take it on. Or maybe someone could go and help him with some new ideas. Like let him continue with his ideas but help pad them out with some new ones.

At the coaches meeting it might be helpful to ask each coach to list the event they would like to coach as their main event and the secondary event they would prefer to help out on. You might find out that someone else would like to take it on. And if no one does then it needs to be a team effort.
 

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