Coaches Posture/Weak Core Fixes

[emacmommy]

I have a young lady (still only 11) that has several physiological (body build) issues we desperately want to fix. While the body is quite flexible, it isn't perfect, but she really has the drive to take gymnastics decently far. I would like to come up with a personalized strengthening, and maybe some overlooked flexibility, program to help equal out some of her inequalities. In a nut shell she is very banana backed. I've linked to some still photos of her in a natural stance and some hurdling actions. Captions are below the photos. You can just scroll through these pics too, instead of hopping all the links below.

CANDID STANCE
MUG SHOT
MUG SHOT ARMS UP
NATURAL HS (she does know how to properly hold a ribcage in HS)
Front HS Hurdle on Trak
RO Hurdle on Trak
Lazy RO Landing (didn't know I was taking pics)
RO landing into BHS on Trak (obvious bent knee prob)
BH out of RO on Trak
RO Hurdle on Floor (we were rebounding onto resi)



You notice the elbow braces to keep from hyperextension (new as of two weeks ago) while we strengthen and reteach proper arm placements. She struggled with this issue all last season with a chronic forearm (almost shin-splintish) pain.

Here are some specific issues she has. My fellow coach notices first this young lady's inability to work through her feet while running, hurdling, jumping and landing. I hate it too, but I feel this horrific flat foot, lack of foot coordination will not improve until her natural pelvic angle and the "banana back" caused by weak core improves.

My analysis of her issue comes from attending a Gina Pongetti lecture about core strength and hip flexor flexibility & strength about 6 years ago at Congress in Santa Ana, CA. For the life of me I can't find those notes... couldn't be from moving two times, and can't remember many of her more specific strength and flexibility for the hip flexor. There were some good ones, but they were pretty specific and some were not ones I put into our more general strength program. Now, I wish I could remember them.

Anybody who would like to offer advice on a personalized program for this young lady would be greatly appreciated.

 

[gymdog]

It looks like she lacks shoulder flexibility as well. Is this true or just a body awareness issue? There is a significant shoulder angle even accounting for the core strength (like when standing...can she extend her shoulders more than in the picture? They are not in line with the chest). It seems to me that a lot of people who have tight hip flexors have tight shoulders as well (probably that they just aren't naturally as flexible as others and these get less training in the early years). I have tight hip flexors and shoulders (but I can extend my shoulders) but I have good splits from years of training. It might look like I'm fairly flexible from my oversplits but I'm really not.

The shoulders should be stretched frequently since this issue could put more weight on the elbows and wrists, causing lower arm problems. I know people who have had what is basically shin splints but in their forearm.

Would her parents be able to put her in a ballet class? Some of the exercises there might help her posture and foot work. They may not find a really good one, but it is a thought.

As far as exercises I might be able to recommend some, but I'd be interested in your thoughts about her shoulder strength/flexibility as well, first.

 

[emacmommy]

At first thought I'd like to say her shoulder flexibility is okay, but definitely has lack of arm pit stretch awareness while in motion. She can find good upper body posture but can't hold it for long or reach it while in motion. I mentioned on the photo description while in HS she does know how to push out a good HS against the wall with good shoulder and rib cage alignment, but I was trying to capture her natural motion, rather than the good one we are trying to drill into her.

Yes, I agree the shoulder angle in backhandsprings, had a lot to do with her forearm issues, but the physical therapists really felt that her natural pliability in the tendons and actually locking her elbows into the hyper range were the cause. To them she has amazing wrist flexibility and were unable to manually manipulate the wrist to produce a forearm stretch, leading to the conclusion that she is very elastic and does not have the muscle stability to support tendons while pounding. We hope that while she grows into her slack tendons (more illustrative language than actuallity) we can "firm" up all her arm muscles to support the pounding, and of course fix the shoulder angle while tumbling.

I should have taken a picture while in bridge but didn't, will do that. At first recollection I would say that without the braces she can lock her arms and push her arm pits past verticle of her palms/fingers. However I also recollect she does this with a significant bottom sag, so she is using A LOT of her lower back for the flexibility. Something we discuss with her often because it can/will lead to low back issues someday. I haven't done the shoulder range of motion test used in TOPS testing lately, measuring how high you can lift the dowel with forehead on the floor. We last did that a summer ago, and I just can't remember her results.

She has taken ballet for the past year, which has improved her grace and use of arms, but it hasn't touched the posture and working through her feet. Part of that is the ballet program, but in a small town we don't have much to choose from.

Thanks gymdog for your input.

 

[coachmolly]

I have a few girls in the 6-10 age group with similar posture problems, so I'm also interested in hearing what other coaches have to say to help remedy this issue. Unfortunately, I don't have too many additional tips to offer.
One thing the HC at my gym is CONSTANTLY working with the little ones is a hollow body shape making sure the lower back is pushed to the floor and just having them lie flat on their back and push their lower back flat to the ground. It takes a lot of one on one attention for each girl to make sure the correct body position is hit and doesn't pop back out. Also just lots of shaping in everything they do- handstands, hollow shapes, all stuff I'm sure you are already doing.
You could try to implement some pilates type exercises into your general stretching and conditioning program. A gym I attended as a gymnast had a dance teacher who really stressed pilates for good posture and body alignment. It wasn't the most fun part of practice, but it really did help me become more aware of my body positions. This also needs to be monitored carefully so probably wouldn't be ideal in a very large group (unless you have lots of coaches to fix shapes), but could help in a group of 5 or so.

 

[Chalky]

I am guessing she has a combination of tight hip flexors (causing the pelvis to tilt foward), low back flexibility without the abdominal strength to support it and tight shoulders. Basically an imbalance of strength and flexibility.

 

[gymdog]

I am guessing she has a combination of tight hip flexors (causing the pelvis to tilt foward), low back flexibility without the abdominal strength to support it and tight shoulders. Basically an imbalance of strength and flexibility.

This sounds about what I was thinking. As I said, I have tight shoulders and hip flexors as well, but not so tight.

Definitely I would stretch her shoulders at every practice. Even if you do shoulder stretches you should stretch her shoulders overhead (so she lays on her stomach with arms up and stretch one arm back, then the other, then both. Then hands on head, elbows out, and gently stretch the elbows toward each other). This way you can make sure she's getting the full stretch and monitor her shoulder tightness and progress.

Hip flexors...lots of exercises for this. I would recommend looking on youtube, there are some good tutorials from decent sources. Technique magazine had an article in the past that I can't find. I had a list on my computer but I can't find it to copy. One of the issues with hip flexors is that when sitting they get shortened and then after an extended period of time don't always stretch back at fast...so sitting all day at school at school could magnify the problem, though she probably has some standing time in between. Anyway, obviously a proper warm up is a given. Tightness can cause low back pain and pelvic tilt.

Some stretches: lay on back, head down, and pull knees into tight tuck to stretch lower back; laying on back, pull one bent leg across the body toward chest and floor; lunge stretch like for splits butuse a wall to prop the back toe up (both legs are bent) in order to stretch the front of back leg; also do splits with back leg bent against the wall (use a mat so the leg stays pointing straight up and doesn't fall sideways); bridges from knee stand; also from knee stand reach back to grab the ankles and push hips fowards.

Some strength exercises: sit in pike, hands by knees, leg lifts and flutter kicks - also do straddle; from knee stand with arms out, extend one leg out in front and do forward leg lifts; also do sideward leg lifts from knee stand; needle kicks pushing the head toward the standing knee as the back leg kicks; stalder rocks on floor bars or small block (sit in stalder push and "rock" by lifting the bottom); rope climb in straddle and pike sit positions.

For the shoulders also do bridge rocks with the shoulders rocking over the hands. I wouldn't worry about being able to straighten the legs completely at the expense of shoulders not going over hands. You can also do back bend wall walks (back to wall, reach back, walk hands down, walk hands up to stand) and back bend wall pushes (reach back to wall in tight arch and "rebound" hands to finish in a tight releve) to improve flexibility and drill the proper head position relative to shoulder for the handsprings.

Feet - I have found this one to be more difficult, personally, in the kids I have encountered it in. I just work on the pretty standard toe raises, releve walks, and some stretching the toes (extension, foot extension with toes back - like a releve on floor but sitting, flex). jumping through toes (no leg bend), etc.

 

[emacmommy]

Chalky hit it on the nose. Definitely flexible through the lower back without the strength to support it. I wouldn't say her shoulders are unflexible, however she isn't as flexible through the shoulders as I was expecting, and definitely not very coordinated/strong to lift the broom handle up very high. She got past her ears, but not much further than that, so her active shoulder flexibility is lacking.

As an entire team we are seriously lacking in the dynamic moving from shape to shape. My girls understand proper hollow, are getting the difference between just an arch and a tight arch, but are HORRIBLE at moving dynamically between the two. We have regressed to slow shaping on bars, between the tight arch and the hard rib cage in hollow. I have taken away the "tap-hollows" for now since we are getting very lazy at hitting the correct positions.

We were drilling for the snap up, or turn over, in our ROs yesterday and discovered I only have one or two (my optionals) who can even pull themselves from a leaning tight arch HS against the wall and snap quickly to the tight hollow HS eventually falling into a prone hollow hold on the floor. If they can't do that... how can I expect them to turn over proper on their RO.

Ahhhh, steps backwards we go and fix our root problem. Dynamics. Static shapes are not enough. My girls never learned how to get from one shape to the other with dynamics. I guess this revelation technically should warrant another post with a different topic.

 

[Chalky]

Some good exercises I have used for arch-hollow shaping are:

1) Hollow Hold
2) Hollow-ups (from flat lying on back, to tight hollow *arms by ears* and rpt.)
3) Hollow-Rockers
4) Hollow hold flutter kicks

5) Arch Hold
6) Arch-ups
7) Arch Rockers
8) Alternating Arch lifts (opposite leg and arm lift, then alternate)
9) Arch flutter kicks

10) Arch to hollow lifts.
You can set up 2 springboards fat-end to fat-end, and have the gymmie lay on their back with their bottom/low back across the join in the boards. Have them lift to a hollow hold (arms by ears), lower to arch lying and repeat (10-20 times). To make it more challenging, raises the fat-ends of the boards, so that there is a greater incline. You may have to stuff some foam etc. b/w the top of the boards to fill the resulting gap, and maybe cover the whole thing with a thin mat (cartwheel mats work well).

You can also have them do #10 lying across a panel mat or a narrow piece of trapezoid (with hands and feet hanging down over the edge to begin). In Europe they sell curved "stretching frames" that are used for these types of exercises, but I haven't seen them here in the USA. I like the curved surface, as it reinforces the tight arch shape to begin the exercise. Oh, I just remembered, I have used the "Pac-Man" BHS trainers for this exercise too, but that is a bigger incline angle and requires more core strength and stability to begin with.

HTH

 

[FormFreak]

Of course it would be easier to diagnose her if I could see her in person, haha. I am not a seasoned coach so I don't have a whole lot of tips or tricks but here are a couple i know of:

For her handstand- She's seems to be what I call "sitting on her shoulders" in it. She doesn't look like she's really pushing through her shoulders all the way through her toes. This one drill an old coworker taught me was to lay on the floor face down in the stretched position with your hands on the edge of the floor (not sure if hand placement really matters, haha). When laying face flat on the floor, tell them to push their hips and their shoulders to the floor as hard as they can and time it for 30, 45, 60 seconds... However long you think is sufficient. I think this is a great drill to understand what your body should feel like in a handstand.

For the flat-foot running- I ran track in high school after I had to quit gymnastics... it is important, especially for vault, to run on your toes as you may know. That is where you get your speed from obviously pushing through your toes. Maybe try some toe rise off the edge of a floor or a mat. Running with high knees on your toes may help, no heels on the ground at all. Also, when she's running laps tell her to stay on her toes the whole time and not let her heels touch, hopefully she's get used to it and it will become 2nd nature.

For her shoulder flexibility- I have my kids do bridge rocks during warmup, walk forward and backwards in their bridge. Have them do their bridges with straight legs and knees together. Also, elevate their feet onto a mat so it'll be easier to push their shoulders forward and stretch it out more.

I hope this helps a little and I hope I wasn't redundant from the other replies (I didn't feel like reading through them all, haha)

GOOD LUCK!

 

[ACoach78]

First, let's look at every postural abnormality that I jumps out at me. Then, I'll explain that there could be multiple causes and you'd probably need to find an extremely well-trained physical therapist to create a corrective exercise program.

Starting at the top, the head looks to be in pretty good alignment. So, there is probably no issues with the deep neck flexors/extensors.

Moving down, the humerus is internally rotated. That is quite visible from the very first picture by how turned in her hands are in a natural standing position. This is probably the result of a very tight/short pec minor coupled with a lack of strength/stabilization of the scapular stabilizers - lower/middle traps, rhomboids, etc. Additionally, due to the front side tightness/shortness, the shoulders have been pulled forward and this causes the upper back (thoracic spine) to begin to "hunch." This postural flaw is called kyphosis. Again, probably due to the imbalance between the front and back. Remember, everything we do in life is in front of our body. So, it's important to probably spend more of a strength training program focused on the back side. Perform more pulling/rowing movements as opposed to pushing movements. Further, the very nature of gymnastics and tumbling exacerbates this because few of the movements require any sort of pulling action.

As we move down, there is a lot of anterior pelvic tilt, which results in increased hyper-lordosis (low back arch) of the lower spine. Just looking at her, I'd assume that much of this is the result of a lack of core strength (external obliques in particular) coupled with weakness in the hamstrings and gluteals.

If you do an internet search for Janda's Lower-Crossed Syndrome, you'll find a very common pattern that tends to form such that certain muscles often become weak/elongated/inhibited while others become very over-active/shortened/tight. The Lower-Crossed Syndrome related to pelvic control and there is a delicate balance of forces (force couple) that occurs around the hips. To keep the pelvis in good alignment from front to back, there must be a balance between the activities of the gluteals/hamstrings, hip flexors, back extensors, and the abdominals/obliques. If you imagine 4 strings pulling on the pelvis from a side view, the abdominals/obliques pull up on the front of the pelvis while the hamstrings are pulling down on the back of the pelvis. This moves the pelvis into a position of posterior tilt (rounded under). The hip flexors pull opposite of the abdominals and therefore, pull down on the front of the pelvis while the back extensors are pulling upwards on the back of the pelvis. Well, the typical lower-crossed pattern is that the abdominals/obliques are weak and the hamstrings are usually lengthened or weak. In contrast, the hip flexors and back extensors tend to become very short and "over-active." If the hip flexors pull down on the front of the pelvis and the back extensors pull up on the back of the pelvis - you get a forward (anterior) tilt.

Further, often people think that the hamstrings are really tight. In many cases, it's the exact opposite. The hamstrings are actually normal or even lengthened because they are on a constant stretch due to the position of the pelvis. The focus should be on strengthening the hamstrings to counter the hip flexors and trying to stretch the hip flexors. Additionally, the focus should be on strengthening the abdominals/obliques. Leave the low back alone. Fixing the position of the pelvis by attacking these other muscles would correct the low back posture.

One other thing that I'd like to mention related to this is in reference to glide swings. Often coaches are always suggesting that gymnasts have weak hip flexors if they can't keep their legs off the ground during a glide or have issues with their kip. I believe that to be false. I believe the issue is pelvic control. If the gymnast lacks the strength to posteriorly tilt the pelvis, then the legs are going to drag. I believe that working towards better pelvic control is what will correct such.

Moving down, we see hyperextended knees. The quads are involved in knee extension while the gastrocs and hamstrings flex (bend) the knees. I would assume that some of this is related to hamstring weakness (as opposed to gastroc weakness...as knee flexion is a secondary job of the gastrocs...it's first job is to point the toe - plantarflexion). But, here's where it gets tricky and why you need a highly qualified therapist to analyze - the hyperextended knees may be a compensation due to the abnormal pelvic position. With the pelvis in anterior tilt and the abdominal/oblique weakness (her belly is a bit protuding), this shifts the center of gravity forward. In order to keep her center-of-gravity within her base of support, there has to be a compensation - the hyperextended knees might be that compensation - it allows her to shift her C of G back ever so slightly to maintain her balance.

Pretty amazing how the body can make subtle compensations isn't it?

The foot pronation (flat-footedness) may also be a compensation of some sort. She may have some other hip issues going on (slightly rotated pelvis or something like that...that you can't really tell from the pictures) that could be exacerbating the foot pronation. In addition, there may be some other hip issues such that foot pronation is a compensation. A really really good therapist could evaluate and figure this out.

So, this gives you some idea, but if you want a thorough answer and a true corrective program, my suggestion is to find a really good PT. My suggestion is to look for someone who might be associated with the Postural Restoration Institute (Postural Restoration Institute) or someone that has been trained under Shirley Sahrmann's Movement Impairment System. This type of info is probably not taught in most PT schools and requires that the PT go pursue this on their own as part of their continuing education. But, from reading material related to these folks/institutions is where I came up with some of my knowledge base.

Good Luck. Hopefully, you have some tools to help now.