Gymnastics Skills

Feet giants

2010-06-10T02:56:00Z

Here is a little video of us having some fun in the gym with an athlete that couldn't use her arms for a week. You know we had to do bars somehow!
Watch the feet giants on youtube!

Teach a giant 1/2 handstand and/or a blind change with this simple channel bar drill that requires no spotting!

2010-03-24T03:03:00Z

HTML clipboard Teach a giant 1/2 handstand and/or a blind change with this simple channel bar drill that requires no spotting!

Enjoy,
Bart

Cast Handstand (teaching the lean over the bar)

2010-03-14T17:39:00Z

Teaching the lean over the bar for cast handstands through this spotting technique.
What many times is one of the most fearful things a young gymnast experiences in gymnastics is leaning her body weight forward over a bar. There are many ways to teach and help a child to lean over the bar with straight arms throughout their cast handstand. Try this simple spotting method to teach the lean over the bar, also this method teaches the gymnast to control their body in the handstand phase.

Cast HS lean over bar (watch video)

Enjoy,
Bart

Yurchenko full-on back tuck off vault timer/drill

2010-02-25T20:08:00Z

Hi all, I posted some quick video of the Yurchenko Full-on back tuck off vault timer!
Happy Coaching,
Bart

Yurchenko vault timer with scoop to back

2010-02-24T19:02:00Z

Just added to the website a new drill of the week, a yurchenko vault timer with scoop to back, to help promote an earlier block and initiate the flipping rotation from the vault.

Teach a bail or shootover to handstand with your channel bar in 4 simple steps

2010-02-07T16:39:00Z

Teach the bail to handstand in your channel bar with these simple steps.
1. tucked tap swing to tuck bail
2. cast to tuck bail
3. cast to bail
4. bail to handstand

http://www.gymnastics-skills.com/bail-handstand.htm

good luck,
Bart

Introduction of the Front Giants to young gymnasts

2010-02-03T05:01:00Z

You should be able to introduction the Front Giant just as early, if not earlier than the back giant. Here are a couple of fun drills for the young gymnasts to get comfortable with the front giant at an early age.

Introduce the Front Giant to 5 & 6 year olds drill 1 -This drill helps the young gymnast feel going over the bar forward, hanging on all the way around the bar and the wrist shift on the upside.

Introduce the Front Giant to 5 & 6 year olds drill 2 - This drill helps the young gymnast with their hollow shaping the how to hang onto the bar.

Happy coaching,

Bart

Beginning Drills to Introduce the Handspring Front Salto Vault

2010-01-17T16:23:00Z

Handspring Front Salto Vault Beginning Drills, use caution when starting these drills as the gymnasts must keep there arms slightly bent on the landing. Do not move onto the 2nd drill until the gymnast has mastered the 1st drill.

Drill for the back leg in the hurdle for yurchenko vaults.

2010-01-13T16:43:00Z

Watch the drill on youtube

Newly designed Gymnastics Drills website all FREE

2009-12-09T22:11:00Z

I am excited to announce that I am posting all of my video progressions on my newly designed website at www.gymnastics-skills.com for FREE and I am trying to show a featured drill once a week. So, check it out!!!

www.gymnastics-skills.com

Happy coaching,
Bart

Clear hip circle to handstand

2009-12-01T08:21:00Z

Hi all, I thought I would share some basic clear hip to handstand teaching/shaping drills. The first video is a prerequisite in the teaching process and that is a hollow body back circle with straight arms and neutral head position. The second is a video that demonstrates the 2nd half of the clear hip handstand and this drill starts with the athlete pushing back in their shoulders to extend to handstand with again straight arms and neutral head position, then we go on to add a small cast into the same drill.

Enjoy the videos and happy coaching,
Bart

clear hip handstand back circle drill

clear hip handstand open drill

Uneven Bar Routines

2009-11-08T15:16:00Z

We are getting ready for our 1st optional preview meet in 2 weeks. Here is a quick video of Annie's 1st half bar routine. We are still working hard to make sure we hit all off our handstands!

Happy Coaching,
Bart

Teaching a double layout on trampoline

2009-10-29T20:16:00Z

I thought I would discuss something I have video for; The double layout on trampoline. Please excuse the poor video quality as this video is very old, however I cannot make any new videos with me spotting since I am not spotting too much right now with my arm in mechanical brace (3 weeks out of surgery, seems like a lifetime).
This double layout technique is for very young (approx age 6-10) athletes as an introductory method to help develop their kinesthetic awareness. The final video in the series is a 6 year old performing the double layout with spot.
I hope this video gives you a simplistic teaching method for an advanced skill. Please make sure you master the spotting techniques used before trying a few of the drills in the video.
Good luck and happy coaching,

Bart

4 Steps to a Double layout on trampoline

Gymnastics Skills discusses Spotting, Injuries and Planning

2009-10-27T18:33:00Z

Hi all,
Sorry I have been away for so long. I recently had an accident in the gym and ruptured my bicep tendon at the elbow, causing the muscle to fold up my arm towards my shoulder, OUCH! Of course it was my dominant arm, so needless to say that this has really slowed me done a lot. I am 3 weeks out from surgery and recovering rapidly. Thank you to my wife and people around me helping me try to get back to normal as fast as possible. Back to the accident; I had this accident spotting a gymnast after she hit her feet on the low bar going into an advanced dismount out of half routines, the crazy part, we have it on video.
This setback for me has made me think about how important the spotters role is at so many different times of year as we move new skill combinations to competitive surface, add upgraded dismounts to full and half routines, etc..
This has changed our day to day routine in the gym, however the athletes have adapted extremely fast to being independent and making sure they take the right steps to safely perform there skills and routines (they have adapted faster than I have). This leads me to my point of planning.
What does planning have to do with a coaches/spotters injury? Simple, with a detailed training plan and schedule in place we can now make small modifications to the entire plan to accommodate our workouts to still reach our end goals. This possible team catastophy is a small bump in the road due to a detailed training plan and organized system.
"Failing to plan is planning to fail".

I will try to start posting drills, progressions and video for gymnastics skills we are training right now in the next few weeks again.
Until then, happy coaching.
Bart

Full twisting double flyaway (layout and tuck)

2009-10-03T03:45:00Z

I would like to talk about eliminating a problem we can face when teaching the full twisting double tuck flyaway that is not common with the full twisting double layout. These two gymnastics skills are very similar yet quite unique. Commonly we will see the full twisting double tuck flyaway begin to tuck early through the bottom of the swing and not rise with the tap of the swing; therefore not rotating as fast as necessary and sometimes causing this skill to be thrown out of an athletes "bag of tricks" or not becoming competitive worthy skill for that athlete.
We have a drill I like to use to help with the lift of the shins into the flip and get the body shape of the tuck correct with pelvic tilt. We do this by performing tucked tap swings to a double tuck flyaway into the foam. Using the tuck shape requires the initial rotation by shin kick and the hips to tilt for correct shape flipping.

Hope this tip helps, until next time,
Happy Coaching,
Bart

full twisting double tuck flyaway

Jaeger progressions and drills

2009-09-29T16:41:00Z

Our gymnastics skills topic today is the Jaeger on womens uneven bars!

Many times as coaches we step through all of the proper progressions with our athletes however when we get to the whole skill we forget to go back to some of our core progressions and drills that we used in the early stages of learning that skill.
Currently I have 2 girls performing jaegers and 1 more in the later stages of learning this skill and I keep finding myself coming back to 1 or 2 core drills that help remind the gymnasts of the feeling their bodies need to go through while performing this skill. A quick and easy drill I continue to come back to is having the athlete do a tap swing and press open to their timer position as I will assist them and hold them in that position to help find the correct shape.
This drill helps eliminate the break in the shoulder line both on the transition to the upswing and upon release of the jaeger when the athlete may cheat the salto by pulling on the bar. The focus when doing this drill is make sure the shoulders are completely open throughout the swing, especially on the upswing and timer position. Many times you will see a small break (pull) in the shoulder line right before the athlete gets to the timer position. I hope this helps!
Happy coaching,
Bart

Looking for more drills and progressions? Don't forget to find complete written and video progressions for sale at shop.gymnastics-skills.com where you can pick and choose only the skills you want for a low price.

Late toe on drill for uneven bars

2009-09-26T03:01:00Z

Gymnastics Skills presents the late toe drop or late toe on for uneven bars.
Learning the late toe-on or toe drop motion can lead to improvement in many uneven bar skills, for example; the uphill (toe hecht to high bar), the toe circle to handstand, the rear stalder to handstand, the frederick (toe circle tkatchev) and the list goes on. To help with learning this motion I have added a video for you of a simple yet affective floor drill.

Happy coaching,
Bart
Late toe on drill

Tkatchev progression on the trampoline bar

2009-09-23T04:07:56Z

Here is a video of the trampoline bar progressions for the tkatchev.
Enjoy and happy coaching.
Bart

The start of a toe circle tkatchev (Frederick)

2009-09-21T01:35:54Z

Saturday practice was a lot of fun, I started a new release skill with one of my level 10's; a Frederick. One of the most difficult same bar releases in the tkatchev family, however a fun skill to watch when performed in competition. We are starting this now for the 2011 season. As with all of our release skills we start on the trampoline bar and here is a quick video clip of day 1.
Happy Coaching,
Bart

frederick drills on the trampoline bar

Jaegers in practice

2009-09-19T02:21:00Z

We have been working on moving our jaegers to the competition rails and its going well, check out the video with 2 different level 10's performing them in Thursdays practice.
I will be adding our Jaeger progressions and talking more about the drills we use in the weeks to come, until then;
Happy Coaching.
Bart