Her first senior competition.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Category: psychology
Félix Dolci – amazing comeback at Commonwealths
Félix is in great shape right now. BUT fell twice on Pommels to score 9.500 in the all-around final at the Commonwealth Games.
Disaster.
He ranked 17 / 18 after two events.
But this guy has character. He fought through the final 4 apparatus to finish silver in the AA. One of the great comebacks anyone can recall.
Never. Never give up.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Here’s how Félix felt after the competition.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Gymnastics Spotting Checklist
First ➙ are there alternatives to hand spotting? (eg. Throw mat)
Gymnasts will be more confident in their own ability when learning skills with a minimum of spotting.
Next …
UNDERSTAND THE SKILL
BEFORE YOU TEACH THE SKILL
Are you spotting for orientation? Or to help the gymnast complete the skill?
If you must hand spot, here’s a checklist from an older Canadian National Coaching Certification Course:
- GYMNAST PHYSICALLY, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, AND TECHNICALLY “READY?”
- INDIVIDUAL PHASES OF SKILL BEFORE WHOLE SKILL
- Safe landing is the most important phase for the spotter
- ANTICIPATE “NORMAL” ERRORS (eg. Under-rotation)
- Spot “just enough” and steadily reduce the amount of spot
- CONTACT EARLY AND “FOLLOW THROUGH”
- SUPPORT HAND AND ROTATION HAND
- USE GOOD EQUIPMENT (BLOCKS, BELTS, ETC.)
- USE SAFE SPOTTING PLATFORMS (eg. Uneven Bars, P. Bars, etc)
“It’s the Hard Knock Life”
Nobody knows better than gymnasts how to fall safely. And get back up.
It’s not the falls that stop girls from training sport.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
SAVING handstand on Bars
I admire gymnasts who have the physical preparation and mental quickness to SAVE a handstand that ends up in reverse planche position.
Click PLAY or watch it on Twitter.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
gymnasts are incredible
This is from the private Cognition Coaching – Conscious Growth Facebook page.
The benefits of training acrobatic sports are incredible. These are super humans.
coaches should not require weigh-ins
The last time I saw a scale in a Gym was 2003. I asked that it be removed.
Unless there is some specific reason — scientific research in training, for example — there’s no need for weigh-ins at training. And there are some risks, as we’ve seen in the past.
I prefer gymnasts weigh in at home in private. Or under instructions from medical staff.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. This is the new policy of British Gymnastics.
what keeps kids in Gymnastics?
Gymnastics Ireland interviewed some young ladies.
Everyone has ups and downs. The coach needs to step in when one of their gymnasts is in a down phase.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. Video by Georgianna Scurfield (Women in Sport UK).
Teenage dropout amongst girls is a widespread issue in sport and in gymnastics, which if tackled, can support lifelong involvement in sport and physical activity to improve the lives of women & girls.
As a predominantly youth sport, Gymnastics presents a unique and powerful opportunity to help girls develop a strong love of sport and physical activity from a young age to nurture continued participation through adolescence and beyond to support their health, happiness and wellbeing into later life.
Through our research and beyond, we asked girls and women involved in our sport “What keeps you here?” – because what keeps you here matters to us.
making flexibility training more … fun
Coach Brittany has some tips.
a successful conditioning program
by site editor Rick McCharles
The newly arrived Head Coach in a gym with over 100 competitive girls, I needed to organize a very adaptable conditioning program.
We had large numbers. We had kids with vastly different training hours. We had too few coaches to directly supervise every child.
Here’s what we did:
First half hour of training for every girl was warm-up stretching, games and “floor complex”. These were line drills adjusted to the specific needs of each ability level. Emphasis was on “form” and body position.
The second half hour was conditioning: either Partner or Individual program. Each gymnast had both programs back-to-back in a plastic sheet along with a small golf pencil to make revisions. Kids tried to finish all exercises within 30min.
Actually, both the Partner sheet and the Individual sheet had 2 programs: Medium intensity and Hard intensity. If the gymnast had training the following day, they did the Medium intensity. If no training the next day, then the Hard intensity.
Once gymnasts had their sheets, the onus was on them to do the work. The coaches stayed “free” to observe and step-in when necessary. (Coaches were steadily busy.)
At first we feared the girls would “cheat” or “slack off”. Not so. Within a couple of weeks everyone was “into it”. The psychology of the gym was excellent. It developed intrinsic motivation.
The girls were asked to do each exercise “to exhaustion”. Until their muscles were shaking. We did not assign specific numbers of repetitions though the girls were encouraged to remember their personal records and try to beat them.
We changed both programs once a month. The individual training plan changed on the 1st of the month, the Partner plan on the 15th.
We kept about 50% of the exercises and changed the rest to something more challenging. By the end of the year girls were doing better ring strength than many of the boys!
sample – individual-conditioning (PDF)
Gymnastics Coaching.com 