Teaching gymnasts to be straight

Hi All,

Today I’m going to talk a little bit about straight bodies and young gymnasts. I have to say this is a hard thing to teach. It’s one thing to be able to lay flat on the floor and be tight, but it’s all together another beast when you have to get young gymnasts to MAINTAIN that straight shape when doing skills. Here are a couple videos that I think are good ways to tackle this.

Teaching gymnasts to be straight

This first one is cute, fun, and I think is really good. It’s a good way to finish out class or add a fun side station and reinforce STRAIGHT.

This second one is a varation of the barrel drill for front handsprings that I posted a little bit ago. SO MANY COACHES run into problems teaching their gymnasts how to turn over with a straight body on vault (myself included). That being said, getting your gymnasts just to FEEL what turning over with a straight body is, is a big step, but spotting that a million times is hard. I really like this set-up.

Train hard!

 

2 Comments

  1. Claudia says:

    Great idea! That is a problem my 8 year old daughter has. How can she work on getting her body straight at home. We do not have all those equipment. She wants to advice to pre-team but she only has gym on two days.

    • Zari Goldmann says:

      Hi Claudia,

      Thanks so much for the comment. Learning how to maintain a straight body can be very difficult for little ones. One of my FAVORITE drills is this one: https://swingbig.org/one-of-my-favorites/ . If you have a physio or yoga ball at home that is best, but is not she can always use a chair or the couch. To make it harder she can lift up one leg slightly and then the other making sure her hips dont drop and that she is still tight.

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