Creating Presentation in Beam Warm Ups

A lot of times when I want to keep moving forward, but I realize I need to step back and return to basics. One of the hardest thing I find to teach and to maintain is arms on beam, and keeping them focused while doing so. These are some of the drills we’ve used that have helped our gymnasts be ‘locked’ into the correct arm shape. About ten minutes of this per practice and you’ll seen tons of improvement!

In this video we use this to create proper presentation arms. I usually have the girls try to take at least 30 steps down the beam so they can stay focused on their shape and they don’t rush. One of the things to watch for is piking in the hips. She is pulling her hips back just a little, and you really want them pressed forward. Also, because here we are working that high oblique position, I would really like her fingers stretched which you can do by pinching the theraband between thumb and middle finger.

You can utilize pvc pipes for keeping the arms in the right position. You’ll see a lot of times (this video included) the girls tend to come up out of the lever with the head out. The pipe helps them focus on the arms without letting them get too wide.

Again working on arms locked in place. Pivot turns should be sharp, and clean looking. The half pivot it a good way for them to slowly walk through the turn without losing shape. Some girls have trouble with the girls turning with their shoulders and getting loose throughout the turn. This forces them to stay tight and help create good muscle memory for the releve lock.

This is one we use on beam and floor. There are a lot of videos like this, but it’s a great thing to add into their warm up. We have half of them up on the beam doing half pivots, and half on panel mats doing split holds for about a minute a piece twice through(combining this video with the previous). You can put hands on parallettes  to make sure that when she pushes down to straighten her back leg – her chest stays up.