Coaches Arm position in hurdle

[Geoffrey Taucer]

It seems to me that hurdle styles can be roughly split into three catgeories:

1) Arms reaching upward, as close to vertical as reasonably possible (seems to be the most standard approach)

2) Arms reaching forward (I believe this style is favored by Tony Retrosi, among others)

3) Arms off-set, with the dominant arm up and the alternate arm forward (I first heard about this from this video, and have since seen it work wonders for crooked tumblers)

Thoughts/preferences?

In general, I'd say I've bounced between #2 and #3 as being the preferred method (lately I've tended to default to #2, but use #3 as go-to for crooked tumblers). My gut instinct is that #1 would provide superior angular momentum, but not as much linear momentum (though I don't have the necessary expertise in biomechanics to calculate that specifically); I think as a general rule, linear momentum is more important than angular momentum in an accelerator skill such as a backhandspring, so I've tended to shy away from #1.

Anyway, what think y'all?

 

[CoachTodd]

#2 for speed and power, #3 for lopsided tumblers . I want to say #1 fits the Russian hurdle more than what I coach.

 

[coachmolly]

#2 is my go to, though after seeing the video for #3 I can see how it would be greatly helpful for crooked tumblers. The girls I coach have a tendency to hurdle straight up (arms and whole body at vertical) which makes for about a million problems while tumbling, so I just worry that #1 would be too easily confused with what they know now.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

all 3 depending on the athlete.

 

[JBS]

^^^Yes...we do all three.

We start all of our lower level gymnasts closer to #1 and then transition them.

 

[CoachGoofy]

I am rather in love with 3. I had a bunch of kids who had learned an exaggerated straight up & down hurdle & transitioning them to 3 built so. much. power. and it made me happy.

In practice it doesn't necessarily look that offset but yeah. They go so much straighter & it makes twisting too early into the roundoff impossible.

 

[twisting007bigflip]

We ALWAYS teach #1 no matter what. I don't always agree, but, this is just the way we do it - the way gym owner wants it taught. Reasoning? It's where your arms go on everything. Handstands, handsprings, when you swing on bars, when you set for a back tuck or layout or whatever...our kids put their arms pretty much on their head for the hurdle and don't move them away from their head until they land the pass

 

[BlairBob]

In rec and lower levels it seems to open shoulder is very common.

When I was at Berkeley, Oleg (I think he's at PacWest now) taught me/us to go to forward. I've played with the offset approach and it's interesting but complicated. I wouldn't teach it till later levels.

Same thing for Round Off Entry vaulting. Point forward. Quick turnover forward instead of upward.

I kind of liked doing arms more vertical for something like RoundOff->Arabian to focus on vertical rather than horizontal amplitude. So it kind depends on what you are tumbling.

Arm set can be different for something like Double Back vs connected tumbling and twisting series. Dave Adlard went into this a bit at National Congress in 07 I think.