WAG Q about fast twitch/speed and body control

[LJL07]

DD is training for level 7. She just made 9 yrs old and has come a long way over the past year with her form. She isn't one of those kids with naturally great form. She has to work hard at being "tight." Her strength is that she is extremely fast twitch and has great speed and power. So, she is working fulls on floor and level 8 tumbling passes. She's got a great straight body kip cast handstand, and she can whip giants around the strap bar so fast I don't know how she doesn't puke. The plan is for her to have the giant to fly away in the next month or so. My concern is that anything requiring body control or "holding still" is very difficult for her. So, she can't hold a handstand for more than about 5 seconds but can walk on her hands just fine. Beam has been a challenge for her when she has to hold poses. She actually does much better doing back handsprings on beam than back walkovers. She's got high aspirations (if she doesn't burn out or get hurt). She has ADHD, and I can still see a disconnect between her body and brain. My question is: how realistic is it to get far without great body control, or is this something that might still come for her? Because 9 is not that young in gymnastics world. Also, another thought is would it be better for her to stay back on level 6 for example until she develops better body control? I guess I'm nervous about her doing 7, and the other girls generally look tighter and have better body control and are relatively close in age to her, although they don't have the same speed/power.

 

[ayyyrial]

Sounds like there is an element of body control but also an element of balance - handstands and beam BWOs are all about balancing through the hands, adjusting your weight using the fingertips and palms and/or adjusting the weight balance between your shoulders and hips. This kind of thing just takes practice, practice, practice. You mentioned that speed/power are pretty natural to her, while other kids seem to have better body control but not as much power. Those kids are going to have to work on being aggressive and making things faster, while your daughter will have to work on control, awareness, and balance. No one has it all without practice and training.

There aren't too many static hold skills required at the higher levels, but it's definitely good to have a handstand hold - not being able to hold a handstand is a bit surprising at level 7. I wonder if they don't do too many handstand holds (without walking) in conditioning. That is something that CAN be practiced at home as long as there's enough space that she won't kick the coffee table if she comes down the wrong way.

 

[LJL07]

Yes! Weirdly, she does not have good balance, which is a bizarre thing in a gymnast. She can walk all over the place on her hands. She just can't hold a static handstand. She can do pretty much all of the tops conditioning/skills, except the handstand hold! I just asked her and she said they don't really practice static handstands. As silly as it sounds, I've considered taking her to yoga with me so she can practice balance poses. She's just been a quirky gymnast from the get go. So I'm guessing holding her back on 6 won't help much?

 

[vagymmomma]

Does she have poor shoulder flexibility? My DD says that a static hold is harder if you don't have good shoulder flexibility (and she is a level 9). I think some of the body control may be her age.

 

[LJL07]

Does she have poor shoulder flexibility? My DD says that a static hold is harder if you don't have good shoulder flexibility (and she is a level 9). I think some of the body control may be her age.

Possibly yes. Extremely flexible back and uses back flexibility to compensate a lot.

 

[thefellowsmom]

Possibly yes. Extremely flexible back and uses back flexibility to compensate a lot.

First, I's sorry about going off topic a bit, but be very careful with this. If her back is really flexible and she is using it to overcompensate for lack of flexibility elsewhere this can be dangerous down the road. This is one of the leading reading for back stress fractures. Totally don't mean to be scary, just a heads up. Core strength with be key to protecting her back and really work on shoulder and hip flexibility. Hopefully her coaches are working with her on technique with backward motions that will keep her back safe. Again, sorry. This just coming from the mom of an upper level optional that has dealt with back issues from using back to compensate for weaknesses.

As far as a handstand hold goes, if you gym doesn't work these intensely then it can take a long time for those not naturally talented at it. Our gym doesn't do tops, but my dd can do all the stuff. But the handstand hold only came from her taking it on herself to work on it at home. She is constantly in a handstand and still sets goals for herself etc. Mom, time me!

She couldn't hold it for longer than about 10 seconds before starting to consistently work on holding it for a long time and can now go a minute plus on the beam and 30-40 seconds on the floor. Some of the girls at her gym can hold it, but most not as long as she can and those that can tend to spend a lot of time playing with it.

 

[Committed]

OP, I can relate. My DD also just turned 9, but she's currently competing L7. Generally, she has poor balance, so she works very, very hard on beam. It's now one of her best events; however, she struggles with sticking tumbling landings.
Anyway, last summer she was struggling with static HSs. After working them hard (at home) for about a month, she was able to go from 3 second holds to 30+ second holds.
As she's gotten older and gotten more experience, she has gained much more control. DD has scored way better in 7 than I would have ever imagined. As long as your DD can do the next level skills nicely, I don't think she should repeat 6. She still has 8 months!

 

[twinklytoes9468]

I was going to say , as others have, body control improves with age (in y experience it clicks in quite suddenly)

 

[LJL07]

@thefellowsmom I appreciate the head's up, and I've read quite a bit about the back issues. I know it's a concern. Fortunately with all the core conditioning her group does, she has lost a bit of the back flexibility, but I know that her coach intends to use the back flexibility in the optional routines with a planche handstand in her beam routine and that sort of thing. I'm not sure they identified the shoulder issue. I'm pretty sure it's an issue bc I also have an extremely flexible back and tight shoulders, so she inherited it from me probably!

@Committed did your daughter do any special exercises to improve her balance? I'm guessing that is something that would be OK to do at home. And how did she get up to 30 seconds?! Wow! Because yes, 3 seconds is about the best my daughter can do now. She never competed level 6. She finished level 4, and they score out of 5. Then the girls move to either 6 or 7. It really is dependent on the bars, and they don't seem to think Giants will be an issue. I guess my thought was would there be any value to doing level 6 and getting better control over some of these skills? I don't know if I'm explaining that very well. But she does sound similar to your daughter with lots of power and height on tumbling but then sticking landings might be a bit of a challenge. But isn't that kind of thing a big deduction?

 

[JoyAvenueMom]

Kipper has a team mate with very similar issues. She is super fast and super strong, and is training L9+ skills (C's and D's) However, she doesn't have the control yet to be solid in competition. She competed L8 this season as a 10yo, and often fell or took extra steps due to her lack of control on landings, etc. However, she would likely have fallen in L7, too. So, no point in competing at a lower level. She just needs time to learn to control her exceptional speed. (she isn't unsafe, just not "stick it" solid) I get the impression she may have some attention challenges as well. But, the coaches are very confident she will come around. (she just turned 11)

 

[Committed]

[USER=13655]@Committed did your daughter do any special exercises to improve her balance? I'm guessing that is something that would be OK to do at home. And how did she get up to 30 seconds?! Wow! Because yes, 3 seconds is about the best my daughter can do now. She never competed level 6. She finished level 4, and they score out of 5. Then the girls move to either 6 or 7. It really is dependent on the bars, and they don't seem to think Giants will be an issue. I guess my thought was would there be any value to doing level 6 and getting better control over some of these skills? I don't know if I'm explaining that very well. But she does sound similar to your daughter with lots of power and height on tumbling but then sticking landings might be a bit of a challenge. But isn't that kind of thing a big deduction?[/USER]

Okay, I gotcha. Last year, DD did the L5/L7 split as well. This year she's been really working on sticking ALL her landings. Flyaway landings are solid. Beam dismount landings - she just started paying attention to. She realized that she was giving a tenth away each time ... sometimes costing her a 1st or 2nd place finish. Floor is tricky, but she's working on it!

DD didn't do any special exercises, the only thing she did was work her HSs on the beam - both regular and English. She started out by doing HSs until she hit 60 seconds. Meaning, she would hold a 3 second HS, then a 2 second HS, then 3 seconds ....... she added them up until she hit 60. Once she got better, she would make it a little harder for herself - a HS wouldn't count unless it was 5 seconds, then 10, then 15. Eventually, almost all would hit 30-60 seconds.

 

[Faith]

What's an "english" handstand?

 

[LJL07]

What's an "english" handstand?

That's the one where they kick up into the handstand and they are facing the length of the beam. The other one is used more in the usag level 2-5 dismount. I guess it's more like riding side saddle??

Yep, same issue with landing stuff. She actually took more time than the others on her fly away because she was flinging herself off the bar so aggressively. And at times she would over rotate. So that was the kind of stuff making me wonder about staying back to learn better control. Sounds like there is no real advantage, and upon more research, the main difference between 6&7 is really bars/giants?? I am continually telling myself that all this power will be really good one day, but yes, it's hard when they lose a tenth for those little details. That's dedication with the handstand hold. I don't know if DD has enough motivation to actually do that!

 

[Faith]

That's the one where they kick up into the handstand and they are facing the length of the beam. The other one is used more in the usag level 2-5 dismount. I guess it's more like riding side saddle??

Never heard it called that before. Do you mean where they are sideways to the beam, both hands on the long side?

Is that commonly used in the us? One of those wierd things like Victoria's Secret where Americans assume it's English but we've never head of it ..

 

[Paint A Melody]

I've never heard it called an English handstand either. We always call it a cross handstand.

 

[Committed]

Never heard it called that before. Do you mean where they are sideways to the beam, both hands on the long side?

Is that commonly used in the us? One of those wierd things like Victoria's Secret where Americans assume it's English but we've never head of it ..

It's where their wrists are touching, fingers on top and either side of the beam......like the HS in the compulsory routines NOT the dismount HS.

 

[sce]

I have never heard of an English handstand.

As for power vs control. Really, the coaches should be teaching the control. It comes with practice.

 

[Faith]

It's where their wrists are touching, fingers on top and either side of the beam......like the HS in the compulsory routines NOT the dismount HS.

English, remember . No idea which one is the compulsory dismount

But yes, thanks. The wrists together thing clears it up. Still not sure why that makes it "english"

 

[Sasha]

We call it English Handstand, too.

http://www.gymnasticsrevolution.com/GymInteractive-Beam-CrossHandstand.htm

also

http://site.mansionathletics.com/lib/0181/pdffiles/English-Handstand-Sectional-Beam.pdf