Hi Coaches,
My daughter competed level 5 last year. Throughout the season, she largely just made it over the vault at competitions and often needed a spot at practice. Although she has gotten significantly faster and definitely stronger, the vault remains a thorn in her side and by far her weakest event.
Her gym spends most of their vault training time working the components of the vault -- i.e., the run, the punch, etc. -- in the form of drills. They spend much less time (and really almost no time during the summer) actually vaulting over the table. For a lot of girls this training strategy seems to work. I worry, however, that it may not work for my daughter. We have done a few privates over the last year and when she vaults repeatedly, the vault does tend to improve during the session. However, that "progress" doesn't stick. I think my daughter may be the kind of kid that needs repetition and it may not be any component of the vault that is tripping her up, but rather putting the pieces together. In general, she is not one of those kids who learns a skill quickly. She usually has to work hard at it over time and then gets it. The problem (I fear) with the vault is that they hardly ever practice the full vault and when they do she gets one try and then has to wait for the rest of her team to vault before she can try again.
So here's my question. Is my concern misplaced? Do you think that training the parts will eventually lead to a successful vault? If not, what do I do? Should I try and schedule a few privates in a compressed period of time so she can get the muscle memory down? Any other advice? HELP!
My daughter competed level 5 last year. Throughout the season, she largely just made it over the vault at competitions and often needed a spot at practice. Although she has gotten significantly faster and definitely stronger, the vault remains a thorn in her side and by far her weakest event.
Her gym spends most of their vault training time working the components of the vault -- i.e., the run, the punch, etc. -- in the form of drills. They spend much less time (and really almost no time during the summer) actually vaulting over the table. For a lot of girls this training strategy seems to work. I worry, however, that it may not work for my daughter. We have done a few privates over the last year and when she vaults repeatedly, the vault does tend to improve during the session. However, that "progress" doesn't stick. I think my daughter may be the kind of kid that needs repetition and it may not be any component of the vault that is tripping her up, but rather putting the pieces together. In general, she is not one of those kids who learns a skill quickly. She usually has to work hard at it over time and then gets it. The problem (I fear) with the vault is that they hardly ever practice the full vault and when they do she gets one try and then has to wait for the rest of her team to vault before she can try again.
So here's my question. Is my concern misplaced? Do you think that training the parts will eventually lead to a successful vault? If not, what do I do? Should I try and schedule a few privates in a compressed period of time so she can get the muscle memory down? Any other advice? HELP!