Gymnastics Coaching.com

A coach at the 2007 BC Fall Congress asked me a tough question, one I’ve been unable to answer in the past.

“What do you do when it comes time for the obese child to do “pullover” on a bar. And there is NO WAY the coach can physically heave them over.”

Well … we talked about a couple of ways to minimize hurt feelings.

But the honest answer is, “We should not require the very overweight to do pullover. Coaches need to come up with alternatives to that skill.”

We want overweight kids in our programs. Gymnastics is very, very good for them.

And the percentage of heavy kids, sadly, at least in North America, is still increasing:

About one-quarter of Canadians aged two to 17 are overweight or obese, and they are expected to live shorter lives than their parents, the Commons health committee warned Tuesday.

An all-party committee report titled Healthy Weight for Healthy Kids calls on the federal government to stop the trend toward increasing obesity levels among Canadian children by the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, and to decrease levels by at least 25 per cent by 2020. …

“It has been said that obesity outranks both smoking and drinking now in its effects on health and health costs,” said committee chair Rob Merrifield, a Conservative MP for the Alberta riding of Yellowhead.

“For the first time in recorded history, today’s younger generation will live shorter lives than their parents. Yet parents, and this is, I believe, the most alarming statistic that we found, do not recognize the problem.”

Obese children will die younger than their parents: report

cartoon – Mothers Have Inaccurate Perceptions Of Children’s Body Weight

Rick McCharles

Gymnastics Coaches are the world experts in warm-up games and activities. Games should be the very best time spent in our gyms.

They are fantastic for all athletes.

I did a presentation on this topic at the 2007 BC Fall Congress:

goals: FUN, Fitness, Fundamentals

kids use their own body first … delay adding balls, ribbons, etc. for as long as possible

near continuous activity

success for all participants (no “losers”)

challenge / discovery

use a wide variety of games

repeat favourite games of the group

Of course, SAFETY (physical and emotional) is the over-riding principle. The inexperienced coach is prone to start a game appropriate to the majority of the kids, but too complicated for the youngest and least experienced.

age appropriate

ability appropriate

ethical

I led a sampling of games in these categories:

Organizing games and activities

Mimic activities (e.g. “fly like a jet plane”)

Co-operative games and activities

Tag games

Combative games and activities

Races

Relays

The easiest way to increase FUN, challenge and complexity is by putting kids together as partners, trios or into small groups.

I advised coaches to do more combative games with girls, fewer (or none) with boys.

Christchurch School of Gymnastics

Many clubs overuse tag games which are often dangerous. We should do more co-operative activities and races.

Unfortunately there are no GREAT books or videos available yet on this topic. The best is the out-of-print Gymnastic games and activities: A compendium, by Ken Daley (1981).

We’ve posted Games Guru David Adlard’s PowerPoint presentation previously. Dave is an elite Artistic coach who no longer uses a stretching warm-up. His girls do games only for warm-up.

But what every coach needs is a video database of recommended games. Leave a comment if you are interested in working on a project like that.

Posted by a fan:

Nastia’s birthday is October 30, so I decided to make a montage to celebrate her absolutely lovely gymnastics! It’s very short, just over a minute, and the music is a little quiet at the beginning. Hope you enjoy!

Music: “Honor Him” from the Gladiator soundtrack

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Slow motion, it’s easy to appreciate her fantastic amplitude. But also see her loose form on some skills.

I don’t know that we’ll ever have another World Class gymnast like her. Nastia is unique.

Athletes are in Quebec. Training sessions began Monday October 29th. The big show is about to start.

Unfortunately this blogging coach will not be there, after all.

I’ll be following the event via the official website: Trampoline World Championships Quebec 2007.

And likely watching even closer the GYMmedia coverage on their dedicated World’s page.

One other great site to check is AcrobaticSports.com.

Olympic spots are on the line. This time round you can make no mistakes if you want to get to Beijing. The competition is as tough as it’s ever been in T&T.

Canadians will be cheering loudest for strong favourites Karen Cockburn and Rosannagh MacLennan in synchro Tramp. We consider ourselves a “trampoline superpower, you realize.

Good luck to all competitors.

It’s going to be a fantastic event!

Wednesday, Nov. 1st, Debbie Brown, of Cirque du Soleil, has choreographed a grand opening show including a trampo-wall presentation. (I want to see that. Someone please videotape and post it on YouTube.)

Just subscribed to a new blogger who has been known to go by the pseudonym martha károlyi.

(Hmmm. Fake Martha? Good idea. Reminds me of Fake Steve Jobs of Apple.)

Here’s a sample post:

Cheng Fei: New Skill Verified

It has been revealed that the new skill Cheng Fei had been working on in early 2007, was indeed a quadruple full. She had taken it from the pit, onto a resi, and then onto a four incher. Cheng’s coach, Lu Shanzhen, had hoped that she could perhaps unveil the skill at the Olympic next year. Since then, Cheng has been laying off of her “Crazy Tricks”, in order to work on her vaulting consistency, and continue training in the All Around.

It is doubtful that Fei will unveil this massive skill at the Olympics in Beijing, because they don’t want any maybes; and with that skill it is a complete gamble, and perhaps not worth the prestige. However, it has not been stated whether Cheng Fei will or will not compete in the All Around at the Olympic Games.

Gymnastics Dish: Cheng Fei: New Skill Verified

Of course Nastia has attempted that skill in competition already. And Kent Caldwell competes it regularly.

Click PLAY or watch Cheng Fei Floor Exercise 2007 World’s Team Finals on YouTube.

Cheng Fei needs “something” more if she wants to win the Olympics on Floor. But quadruple twist is too deductible. She’s done triple backs into the pit — but that’s far too risky. The winner in Beijing will compete triple twisting double back … that’s my prediction.

Related post:

tumbling – triple and quadruple twist

It’s obvious that there will be far more air-filled equipment in your gym over the coming years. And used in new and innovative ways.

At R2R Congress in Spokane, TumblTrak showed what they call a … Bungee Mat. The name confused me at first since there is no bungee (bunjie, or bungy) visible anywhere.

The bungee is inside, creating a tighter response than air alone.

That set-up shown above was used by John Carney at summer camp in Idaho. The kids could practice free hip circleand Stalder without needing a spotter.

This gymnast had never used the set-up before. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via Funtastics HPTCamp.com)

related – John Carney’s Wall of Death – flyaway video

Rick McCharles

At 2007 BC Fall Congress I did a presentation on best videos for recreational gymnastics coaches. Sadly there are far too few available. Most videos are targeted at competitive.

Click PLAY to see the PowerPoint presentation or watch it on YouTube:

Here are the most important links:

YouTube SaltoCafe channel

GymnasticsCoaching YouTube playlist

American Gymnast | Gymnastics on Demand

GymSmarts

Tumbl Trak – new product videos

Charles Minster Productions:

Complete Recreational Gymnastics

Impact (Safe Landings)

Advanced Gymnastics for Boys and Girls with Paul Hall

Related posts:

BEST gymnastics coaching DVDs

BEST gymnastics on-line video

DVD – IMPACT – teaching safe landings

Circuits are essential for gymnastics coaches. For best practice, all circuits:

must be SAFE for the least experienced child in the group

must be FUN

should develop fitness and include target movement patterns

be directed towards the long-term goals of the group

should be fast to organize, easy for kids to understand

frequently changed (adding more difficulty)

be very ACTIVE

At both BC Fall Congress and R2R Congress in 2007, I recommended:

games and activities to organize kids

setting an order for the gymnasts (usually tallest to shortest)

preparing lesson plans in advance

prepping one of the kids in advance to demonstrate the circuit, …. or

starting with the same base circuit each class, and modify soon after

buying as many mat “shapes” as possible

consider purchasing the innovative air inflatable and trampoline equipment available through TumblTrak

quickly removing “bottlenecks” by having kids skip any station where there is a line-up

Best case scenario, the gymnasts build their own circuit. The coach watches the circuit, free to make small adjustments as needed. Stand close to the station which is the most challenging for the kids.

Here is a video of my PowerPoint presentation at Gymnastics for All, BC Fall Congress:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube:

At Region 2 Rising (R2R) 2007, Spokane I presented a similar PowerPoint presentation but using Vault as an example. I challenged coaches to do one (easy) vault / minute in a vault training session with young competitive gymnasts. For example, 30 circuits in 30 minutes.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube:

Rick McCharles

Just home from BC Fall Congress in Vancouver, their biggest coach education event of the year.

This week I will be writing up a number of posts on my presentations there. You can get to them by clicking on the BC Congress link in the right hand navigation column.

It was very well organized and quite well attended. Great to catch up with the excellent coaches in British Columbia.

There were some good performances at the World Cup last weekend, especially Daria JOURA from Australia.

But the bigger story was how many top athletes did not show:

For the 25th time, the “DTB-Cup 2007” took place in Stuttgart (Porsche Arena).

Altogether 69 men and 33 women … participated at this event, which took place right in between the world championships in the wake of September and the pre-Olympic Games in Beijing in the end of November.

Beside the three mentioned world champions, there were only 8 of 48 World Championships-finalists participating in Stuttgart…

GYMmedia points out another interesting trend in the Men’s competition:

Out of 69 competitors, not one did all six or rather five apparatuses.

One single gymnast – Samuel Piasecky from Slovakia did four qualification starts: on floor, horse and qualified for parallel bars (3rd) and high bar (7th).

Only eleven gymnasts did a kind of “small all around” competition performing on three apparatuses.

The vast majority (54) cultivated “world cup tourism”, doing only one or two apparatuses…!

GYMmedia.com

Sure the timing is bad for athletes focused on Olympic preparation. In my mind, though, I feel it’s the extreme physical demand of the new code on All-around gymnasts which is convincing so many TOP men to opt out of doing all 6 apparatus.

Jade Barbosa from Brazil performs in … vault at the 25th DTB Cup, a gymnastics World Cup competition, in Stuttgart, southwestern Germany, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007. Barbosa took second place behind Germany’s Oksana Chusovitina.

(AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle)

ESPN – Gymnastics Photo Wire