Drills for Connecting Kips

Hi All,

Today I thought I would share a few drills and techniques for teaching your gymnasts your gymnasts how to kip out of either casts or other circling skills. This is often hard for gymnasts, and if done incorrectly can put a strain on their hip flexers, result in their feet hitting the floor etc. So below are two great videos that may help you.

This first one is the latest video from Jason Mortimer. This video stresses a couple things 1) conditioning 2) shapes 3) constant pressure on the bar. You can see in all of the swing drills the gymnast is maintaining pressure on the bar on the way down.

This second video is from Enrique Trabanino, you can hear him saying some of the things that Jason emphasized in his video, round shoulders and press away from the bar after coming down a ways. His technique is slightly different in that he prefers flatter hips. The other thing that is really important to note is that what he is saying about keeping the feet up too high when beginning the second kip. If gymnasts do this, their feet will drop at the end of the glide and most gymnasts just won’t be strong enough to get them back to the bar fast enough to make their kip. So to conclude, keep the shoulders over the bar when coming down from handstand a ways, keep the shoulders round and pushing down, then make sure the feet don’t come too close to the bar.

Train hard!