Active gymnastics coaches are telling me they love the quick fix of a short video tutorial.
The Gymnastics Minute is a new series of free introductory video tips produced by GymSmarts.
The best so far for me personally was Mary Lee Tracy’s tip on Yurchenko.
Tom Beach, 1976 Olympian head honcho of GymSmarts, filled me in on the back story:
The Gymnastic Minute is all Tony Retrosi’s idea.
When he was growing up in NY there as a one minute TV spot called The New York Minute (most have heard of a NY minute). This TV show gave things to do around NY and was fairly popular.
Tony wondered if we could do the same with gymnastics. We were at his gym to film one of his Yurchenko DVDs so we just asked if he had any tips that he could do that day, and he did. We shot the Yurchenko video and 3 or 4 gymnastic minutes.
We were going to Mary Lee Tracy’s gym in two weeks so we edited one for Tammy and Mary Lee to see and they loved the idea so we shot several more with them on that trip. They are realitively simple to shoot (compared to the DVD’s we produce). The really cool thing to us is the music in the short intro is performed by Tony’s Band!
Follow GymSmarts on twitter at @gymsmarts. Or GymSmarts on Facebook.
Or subscribe to the GymSmarts YouTube Channel.
Or, best strategy of all, follow Tom Beach’s blog.
On Gymnastics Coaching I only post some of The Gymnastics Minute videos. All are posted on Tom’s GymSmarts Community blog.
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As a coach, I agree – these videos are great!! Tammy is definitely one of my favorite clinicians of all time and the one minute videos are nice refreshers of some of her best tips from clinics.
I second what Char said about Tammy, ontop of that i live in New Zealand so i feel extremely lucky to have seen videos of her clinics.
The Gymnastics Minutes are a great idea, maybe i could rip that idea off haha.
Valentin Uzunov
TheGymPress
http://www.thegympress.net
Thanks for the great write-up Rick. We’ll be filming more in the next couple weeks, suggestions are welcome.
They are all great! I personally love the gymnastics minutes that are the little things that I can use on for all levels, like the split leap and full turn minutes.
Love the Gymnastics Minute! Although I think many understand already, I’d love to see tips for proper technique on connecting flysprings! Anyways, keep up the great work!
Here’s a suggestion…
Don’t have Mary Lee Tracy advocating kettlebell swings when her athletes aren’t swinging the kettlebell properly nor is there any discussion of kettlebell technique. People who are RKC’s (certified instructors) go through an intense and rigorous weekend long training course and there is a specific technique to swinging a kettlebell. Just because it’s the latest trend does not mean that everyone knows what they are doing. Based on the kid’s technique, it’s very clear that she has not been trained properly. It should be very similar to a deadlifting type of action with the movement being produced by hinging at the hips.
And, while kettlebell swings are excellent for power production, this kid isn’t doing them correctly to produce that power. Furthermore, to my knowledge, there is never any “releve” in a kettlebell swing. If you’re using a heavy enough kettlebell, that would throw you off balance and potentially get you injured.
Wow, that is a pretty dumb video. KB do not magically make a gymnast jump higher. Maybe if their mechanic of a proper jump is poor. Ever wonder why I’m rarely impressed by how much knowledge of strength and power training WAG coaches don’t have in their head? That’s why.
A lot of the RKC isn’t just KB swinging but all the training stuff Pavel wants to send out.
Swinging a KB on the side of the body allows for a different form than swinging it under the crotch as they tend to take a more sumo like stance. It’s like the difference of a deadlift using a traditional bar vs using a trap bar ( where you stand in the middle of the bar- it’s much more like a back squat than a deadlift ).
Of course there is the debate of the KB swing of Pavel vs the OH swing. Honestly, I’m not gonna get into it here as I don’t care to going into it.
An 85lb girl doesn’t simply get more powerful by swinging a 5lb KB. That’s way too light of a load for that girl to get stronger or more powerful. It might train the mechanic of how to what Mary wants her to do which is more what Mary is interested in.
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