Where do arms go after roundoff and backhandspring??

[Alorah Walsh]

I am a coach for beginner level 4s and they are currently learning back handspring. When i was a gymnast ever coach I had told me to land with my arms by my ears after both round-off and back handspring. A new coach comes in and says that they must land with their arms in front of them. Now all my gymn is arguing about position of arms. My question is that does it really matter where they arms arm? as long as there is a nice shape it should matter right.


Fellow coaches i need your help!!

 

[gymdog]

My suggestion for level 4 is that they stand up and get their arms up by their ears. When you see more aggressive/advanced tumblers, they generally hit a very exaggerated "scoop" out of the roundoff, with the hips leading back and the upper body/arms rounded in front of the lower body, then the arms throw/snap back very aggressively. If you watch a power tumbler do a roundoff into a whip back you will see this technique. Of course that's on rod floor. With beginning level artistic gymnasts on a spring floor, this is not a technique I would suggest in the development of roundoff back handspring. You're going to have kids landing on their heads.

 

[hakunamatata]

I always tell my girls to get their arms by their ears. I think it's a good lesson in form until they start doing more advanced tumbling and change their technique a little bit with the RO to BHS connection, like gymdog said. And also like gymdog said, it prevents back headsprings.

 

[CoachTodd]

All tumbling skills land with arms by the ears unless you are sticking a landing. If you are sticking the landing, the arms go forward to the stick position. If I'm teaching the skill, I teach it with a rebound so I don't have to fix it later, but that's just me.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Gymdog pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Mechanically, there is definitely some advantage to landing with the arms in front -- it shortens the body, allowing it to turn over quicker.

That said, I wouldn't teach level 4s to do roundoffs this way, because it would likely cause more problems than it would solve -- the biggest problem it would cause is that the gymnast would be more likely to lead with the head in the backhandspring.

I do, however, teach my boys an exaggerated scoop right from the start -- I teach them to land with their arms by their ears, but with the head down and forward and the eyes on the floor (I don't teach my girl this way, because they can get deducted for it at the lower levels). The advantage of this is that it allows the gymnast to shorted the body and get a very aggressive snap into the backhandspring without the head coming out from between the arms -- I like to teach all tumbling (aside from saltos, of course) with the head and arms as a single unit -- the arms never move without the head and vice-versa.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

^^^ good geoff. i'll only add that the arms/hands should not be forward/lower than the angle to the eyebrows.

 

[wordsmith]

Ok,

I'm going to be a contrarian and argue on behalf of the other side: Arms in front, chest hollow. Like Alorah, who created this thread, I grew up being told arms by ears; And I've been an advocate for that, passing it along to my gymnasts, up until less than a year ago.

My gym has a coach who used to be one of the national coaches for the jr. boys team in Australia. He's sold me on the idea of teaching arms in front, even to beginners (and yes, influenced from power tumblers); and part of the reasoning behind this is for the very fact that yes, beginners aren't going to be as powerful as more mature tumblers.

The Australian coach rationalized it this way (this is my understanding/interpretation, at any rate, partially in relation to discussing Yurchenkos with him, as well): If you simply isolate the arm-push and forget the ability to generate a powerful snap-down/snap-up scooped shape, which direction do you need to push off the floor to get your chest up? For beginners trying to keep their arms up by their ears and not having a powerful enough snap-down, they'd basically be pulling their arms off the floor by trying to keep them by the ears. The push direction is wrong when they're trying to stand-upright with their arms glued to the ears. The reality for them is that they simply don't have the fast turnover needed to punch into a long backhandspring.

That said, I wouldn't teach level 4s to do roundoffs this way, because it would likely cause more problems than it would solve -- the biggest problem it would cause is that the gymnast would be more likely to lead with the head in the backhandspring.

This problem is solved by the way this particular coach (and now, myself, although I've only experimented with it in modified form to ones who can already do BHs, since currently I'm not with team developmental groups) teaches backhandsprings. There's no reason for the gymnast to lead head first even with the arms starting out in front (I've gone from arm-swing, to no arm-swing, to small arm swing AND no-arm swing in teaching standing backhandsprings).


He has a series of progression drills that only work if done in conjunction with each other. Other methods and drills aren't "wrong" and of course there is more than one way to teach a backhandspring (just as there are more than one way to teach RO BHs and everything else- as evidenced by this very thread); but the drills he uses are very specific to what he's trying to get across to his gymnasts. As far as he's concerned, he's simplified the process and factored in the issue of young gymnasts who lack the strength/ability to generate a powerful round-off or standing backhandspring.


Going back to the head thing, among the very first drills he has kids do is get comfortable with falling backward and landing on their backs. Basically, going long and keeping the body flat. He then adds in the arms. And he drills it into the gymnasts that the head never throws back until the arms are by the ears (an image he's used is to imagine two pencils sticking out of your ears; the head does not move back until the arms swing up and hits the pencils- after which the arms and head move together as one unit).


Using his series of progressions, he boasts of having kids who will always have naturally long backhandsprings and none of the common issues you have to fix along the way, like head throwing back and too much lower back arching. He says once it's done, it's done and there's not much to really correct or fix as far as the backhandspring.

I do, however, teach my boys an exaggerated scoop right from the start -- I teach them to land with their arms by their ears, but with the head down and forward and the eyes on the floor

This is interesting to me, because it sounds similar to one of the Aussie's drills. Basically, he is eliminating any need for a power round-off in order to still end up with a long backhandspring. One of his drills basically puts the gymnast in the position which you are describing so that they are off-balanced (picture a cartwheel snap-up or round-off where the hands stay low to the ground as the feet land in a piked stand that has the hips far behind the feet with arms covering ears and head buried; the gymnast needs to jump back or end up falling on his butt in a pike sit).


It is definitely quite possible that I haven't fully comprehended all aspects of his method and concept of the standing backhandspring and the round-off backhandspring, as he understands it and teaches it (I'm learning from him every day). But after working with him for about the last 6 months, I think he's a genius.

So which method is better or superior? In the end, I'd advise everyone to keep an open-mind and not reject techniques without fully researching their own experience in trying and applying. The sport, along with technique, is constantly evolving. I've had to accept that things that I knew or thought I knew at one time are now "obsolete". Part of it is due to changes in the equipment (what technique to use for a rod floor? Spring floor? Panel mat? Wooden floor? Grass? Concrete? Vaulting table vs. long/side horse?). Things that I know today may one day also be abandoned in wake of something superior. Sometimes, also, what works for one gymnast might not work for another so it's sometimes good to have a bag of tricks that isn't a one-size-fits-all approach; different avenues can still get us to the same destination.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

Wordsmith, one thing to consider is that this coach is probably only involved with athletes who are hand selected at a young age and trained with the long term goal of elite. I am not against the method, but for the bulk of coaches teaching this skill we perhaps don't have athletes with superior strength/Flexibility/Coordination. Have you had a chance to try this with a variety of gymnasts, I would be interested to know how successful it is for the masses?

 

[CoachGoofy]

I teach power tumbling (and a bit of artistic, but mostly T&T), & I teach beginners to get their arms by their ears--and that they need to get their hips behind their feet on their roundoffs. A lot of the time on their ROBHS beginners get ahead of themselves & I want that extra level of protective habit there.

As their rebounds get stronger (as opposed to something they have to think about), we can move their arms. But I'd rather have a straight up and down rebound if my other choice is a cartwheel pikedown. Ew. The hollow comes with the power.

(Note: I don't really let them try roundoffs, just drills for such, until I am pretty sure they will be able to rebound and get their hands off the floor. Usually this is when they can almost do a backhandspring).

 

[wordsmith]

Now that I thought about it some more, he does teach the arms by ears when teaching it to beginners on tumbletrak (with a punch jump takeoff) rather than arm-swing from forward. He's always all for simplicity and arms forward would add an extra layer of complexity. So I'll have to ask him why not the same on his standing backhandspring progression for floor. Maybe introducing it early on in the series of progressions he uses eliminates the habit of the early head throwing back. For the drills to work, you have to drill, drill, drill, and not move on to the next stage until the one before is conditioned into them, perfectly.

Wordsmith, one thing to consider is that this coach is probably only involved with athletes who are hand selected at a young age and trained with the long term goal of elite. I am not against the method, but for the bulk of coaches teaching this skill we perhaps don't have athletes with superior strength/Flexibility/Coordination. Have you had a chance to try this with a variety of gymnasts, I would be interested to know how successful it is for the masses?

I understand. It's actually something that was discussed when he first arrived and started teaching. Our athletes are a lot different than elites- lots of whiny team kids who aren't as motivated and driven as any of us would like. But he's told me he's worked with some pretty untalented kids and have had success with stuff like this backhandspring series of progressions that he uses; and that it works because it's simple and eliminates the need for such things as the ability to generate power.

 

[wordsmith]

Have you had a chance to try this with a variety of gymnasts, I would be interested to know how successful it is for the masses?

I've been wanting to, but have not had the chance to take a fresh kid from step A to step z since I have not been working with team developmental this year. Unfortunately, not everyone on the coaching staff attended the one workshop he gave on his method of teaching backhandsprings; plus, the ones who were in attendance didn't retain everything (I saw one team coach try implementing his drills, but was rushing the kids too fast when they hadn't yet mastered what comes before).