Coaches Struggle with chin ups

[gymisforeveryone]

I have an 8 year old gymnast who has beautiful lines, very polished and nice skills, always pointed toes and knees and powerful round-offs, jumps and leaps.

She started on pre-team last September. She has also been a competitive figure ice skater. The thing is that I think she is more than ready to compete in the lowest level we have but she isn't allowed before she can do 3 perfect chin ups on high bar. That's one of the skills they are tested before being allowed to participate their first real competition. She has already mastered all the other skills (14 total) and only this one is missing. The first competition is coming in late April.

Do you think it would be possible to get three chin-ups in a month? Right now she can barely do one! As a former ice skater her lower body and core are really muscular but her upper body isn't. She really really wants to compete this season and I know her mum wants that too. I'm also pretty sure she would do awesome on floor, beam and vault (and ok on bars)

I have asked her mother to train chin ups with her every day. We only practice twice a week so at practices she can't spent too much time doing chin-ups. Can I "promise" her that she gets her chin-ups in a month if she practices REALLY hard, is it realistic?

 

[gymgurl]

Chin ups are hard! I'm a level seven and I still battle with them!! Something that has really helped me is doing chin ups on the leg lift bar (the ones on the wall that have a kind of ladder. Hang off the top bar facing stomach to the wall and chin up. You can't swing so you have to use your strength it is also good as if she can't get all the way up she can use a ladder rung to give herself a tiny push so she can get her chin over the bar. She will be able to get three in a month I am almost positive! Once she has them on the leglift bars she should be able to do them much more easily on high bar

 

[JBS]

We only practice twice a week so at practices she can't spent too much time doing chin-ups.

So you are not really going to train the only thing that she needs to achieve? I would definitely be doing lots of chin-ups at practice. I would force that kid to struggle as I spotted her on chin-up after chin-up after chin-up.

Three in a month is possible.

EDIT: Do not make promises.

 

[catou]

You can also work them in an eccentric way. Help her get her chin above the bar and then ask her to come down as slowly as possible. This is one of the best way to get stronger. She might be a bit sore the next day tough as it's harder on the muscles.

 

[CreateMagic]

Try tying two bicycle tire inner tubes together, with it looped around a high bar. She can put her feet in it while maintaining a hollow body, and do assisted chin-ups.

 

[BlairBob]

Going from 1 to 3 pullups in 1 month is possible. She is going to need to do a lot of pullups. A mix of intensity and volume.

Something like the Armstrong Pullup Program can be looked at but most be modified since she can only do 1.

Armstrong Pull Up Program « From Civilian to Marine Officer

Since she can only do 1 regular pullup, I would scale it down to body rows and flex arm holds and eventually negative pullups.

Don't bother with the bands, a novel idea that's fun but I prefer to spot unless I absolutely cannot. This is almost never the case with a child in a gym.

More than likely though she will need to be doing pullups outside of just gymnastics time as she is probably only in the gym 1-3x a week at her level.

Something simple would be starting off with 30-60 seconds of flex arm hangs coupled with about 25-50 repetitions of some form of pullup progression that she can do 5-10 repetitions thereof. So you have to figure out a progression that she can do volume with. Be it spotted pullups, spotted pullups off a box in L, rows. She will need about a 10-15 second flex arm hang before she can probably do a negative pullup for a few seconds. Ideally 5-7 seconds is a nice repetition, at least 3-4 and nothing less (don't bother with if she can't do it for 3 seconds).

Or you could make her climb rope 10x a practice with legs, maybe 15.

Give her time to recover between pullup training as she will have to adapt to it. Watch out for shoulder and elbow irritation due to volume and not recovering properly. Probably not an issue, but could happen.

And for pete's sake, don't make her do her pullup work, then bars unless you want a lot of headaches.

 

[gymisforeveryone]

Thanks everyone!

She is now really really motivated to get three pullups in a month. I have spoken to her mother and as a former gymnasts she really understood the importance of doing pullups at home also. Now they practice together and this little one was so proud to show me her "gym notebook" where she had wrote the repetitions she had made every day. Of course we gave her stickers for that and encouraged her to keep doing them.

At last practice one of the other coaches came to me and started to talk about this girl. She said she has been watching her progress and she is impressed how fast she has become so artistic and graceful and so polished with basics. She said she would want her to join a "elite track group" during summer if she has got a little bit stronger by then. I was so happy to hear that! I'm absolutely sure she would love to be invited to that "big girls group".

Now I'll send her to bars with these exercises at practices. The practice time is short (1.5 h) so she definitely needs to practice at home as well.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

Of course it's possible, but if you have great expectations for a child, you need to up her hours and up her conditioning. 1.5 hours is what our superstar pre schoolers do and they are 4.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

unrealistic goals and objectives given the short practice sessions. and NEVER make a promise that you can't keep.