Maximizing Performance through Training Repetitions

More is not always better! It is  important to me that my athletes get the most out of practice productively and safely at the same time to keep them healthy to stay in the sport longer. The reason I believe that  quality is more  important than quanity. I tell my athletes at time to manage their energy so they can save the best for last. I have seen kids do too much over time that their performace declines. The more you increase the repetition, the less performance outcome you will see the more injuries you team will have.

In this case, I set a number of repetition that are expected to be completed based on the time of the year (off season, pre-season, season, and post season) and my goals for the team. The training repetition numbers to be as follows, 2,3,5,6,8,10. Im not exactly sure why I don't  or ever rarely do 1, 4, 7, or 9 in case you may ask.

Here is the break down of training repetitions:

Reps.                                                   Reasons
2-3.                                 - Attempting a new skill for the first time
                                       - Warm-up to preperate for higher skill level
                                       - Work on full routines during meet week (Hit or Miss Chart)
                                       - Working on 1st and 2nd half routines (meet week)
                                       - Warm-up routine (meet day)
                                       - Belt work

5-6.                                - Drills for new skills
                                      - Review old skills
                                      - Working on 1st half routines
                                      - Working on 2nd half routines
                                      - Cleaning up individual skills
                                      - Doing mini routines (3 skills)
                                      - Working on consitency
                                       - Belt work

8-10                                - Drills for new skills
                                       - Doing mini routines (3 skills, break into sets)
                                       - Clean up individual skills (break down into sets)

Some reps can be mixed together. Example: My kids will go 3-5 first half routines and 3-5 second half routines. Once that is completed then they do 1-2 full routines. Their break time is about 2 -5 minutes in between. This allows the body a chance to re-energized and get re-focus before their next turn.

In order to have your atheltes to optimized performance during meet week, it is best to keep the numbers low. Best when you have the athlete to save their energy for a good routine rather than waste it on warm-up or practice. Besides the warm-up passes doesn't count for their score!

Best of Luck!

The Illusion of Twisting

Help!  Which way do I Twist?

While I'm getting ready to head off to Woodward Camp, I'm ready to answer any questions about the biggest topic of all gymnastics, twisting. It’s truly a never ending conversation! So what is it about twisting that is such a debate? It’s all about which is the correct way to twist. For 23 years of coaching and hearing all the questions, conversations and clinics about twisting, I have come up with my own conclusion.

Which way should I twist?

No one really has the right answer for this question since everyone is different when teaching twisting direction to their athletes. The two theories come in mind about the twisting direction.

Theory 1: The twisting direction is all about what side your roundoff is on. Example, if you do a right roundoff then you twist to the right (right goes right) or if you do a left roundoff you twist to the left (left goes left). In this case it makes sense to them because if you were to step out of an arabian, front full, back 1/2 twist, or back 1 1/2 twist you will be stepping out while you are squaring upon the completion of the twist. It also makes sense when you do more multiple flipping and twisting skills on vault , floor, bars and trampoline.

On the visual aspect, you are using your right eye as a guide for both roundoff and twisting. More than interesting is using a car steering wheel. If I was to turn the steering wheel as if I was to do a right round off  the car will turn right! However, you notice the right arm is crossed over toward the left! We will get that in my experiment!

Theory 2: As for the some of us, theory one doesn't make any sense! Since you do a right roundoff your right arm is the lead arm (drops forward) and the left shoulder goes back, therefore you should be twisting left. So right roundoff goes left and left roundoff goes right.

On the visual aspect, it is opposite because you are using the right eye as a guide for the roundoff and then using your left eye to guide you for the left twisting. What is interesting about this, is thinking about a baseball player who bats right. The ball player uses his left eye to target the ball. As the right batter swings the bat, the body is twisting left! However, more than interesting I use my left eye to look through a camera or if I was to aim at a target for archery or shooting. I'm right handed, I do my roundoff  on the right, and I twist left.  So,  my left eye seem to be my dominate eye to guide me through my twisting skills.

However, stepping out of a twisting skill is not impossible but difficult since the body has to fully complete the twist to square out before stepping out.

The illusion of twisting:

If you were to stand in the front of a person watching a complete revolution of the full twist you see the front of the body at the start, back of the body (1/2 twist), and again the front of their body (full twist). So if you were to do a right roundoff and you see their back first (depends on what side you are standing on) on the first 1/4 turn of the roundoff, you should be able to see the front of the body next when they go into the first 1/4 twist going into the twisting skill. If you ever observe this, you be surprise what you will find out!

Depends on what direction the athlete is going and where the coach is standing:

1. A gymnast does a right roundoff and I saw the back first. Then the gymnast did a half turn to the right and I saw the back again. You may be thinking the gymnast is changing directions.

2. A gymnast does a right roundoff and I saw the back first. Then the gymnast did a half turn to the left and I saw the front. You may be thinking the gymnast is going in the same direction.

Now if you were to stand either behind or in front of the gymnast while doing a roundoff. It will be a different perspective of how you see things.

Now you are thinking, "That is not right!" So, what is all the fuss about? YOUR BRAIN! Your brain receives different information on how you see things in perspective. Twisting can really create an illusion because we see things from different views of being inverted, upright, sideways, front, and back.
So what is really going on here? Let’s do an experiment that supports all the fuss!

THE WATER BOTTLE EFFECT:

Experiment: You will need one empty plastic water bottle.

Hold the water bottle upright.

1. When you take the cap off, which way does the cap turn? Clockwise (CW- right) or Counter clockwise (CCW- left)?
        
2. When you put the cap back on, which way does the cap go? CW or CCW?
          
Hold the water bottle inverted.

1. When you take the cap off, which way does the cap turn? CW or CCW?
 

2. When you take the cap back on, which way does the cap turn? CW or CCW?

Hold the water bottle inverted.

1. Try turning the cap CCW. Does it come off?

2. Try turning the cap CW. Does it go back on?

Hold the water bottle upright.

1. Try turning the cap CW. Does it come off?

2. Try turning the cap CCW. Does it go back on?


                   Upright           Inverted
 Cap off         CCW                CW

Cap on           CW                CCW

THE STEERING WHEEL EFFECT:

Experiment: You will need a steering wheel, gymnastics ring, small hula hoop, or a bowl. Otherwise just imagine you are holding a steering wheel.

1. Hold the "steering wheel" in front of you and turn it CW (right). As if you were driving which way does the car go? Right or Left? Which way is the body pulling? CW or CCW?


2. Now hold the "steering wheel" above your head. Turn the wheel to your right (CW). Which way do you feel the body is pulling? CW or CCW?

3. Now hold the "steering wheel" down. Now turn the wheel to the right. Which way do you feel the body is pulling? CW or CCW?

4. Now hold the “steering wheel” down. Now turn the wheel to the right and you turn to your right. While you are turning the wheel and yourself to the right, raise the wheel above your head. What happened? Your arms get crossed over! To unwind your arm you will need to turn to the left!

Conclusion: So which way do I twist?

In conclusion, that there is no right or wrong way to twist as long as the back and front somersaults are twisting in the same direction. It is common that theory one is being used due to other twisting skills that are done on the apparatus such as doing full twisting giants and blind changes, and ect.  on bars.  Power tumblers, trampolinist, divers, cheerleaders are not so much of a problem because they don’t do bars. Its important that they do twist in the same direction while somersaulting forward and backwards. 

Can a gymnast be successful going to the Collegiate and/or international level using either theory of twisting?  I believe, yes! The difference will be the lacking of variety of learning more complex skills.  Example, I do a right roundoff and twist to the left. I have trouble doing 1/2 in full out. However, I reversed the process of doing a full in half out!  Yes, I did step out  into a roundoff out of a front full, back ½ and back 1 ½ . CRAZY!

As a coach, I make sure they don't twist to early that may cause confusion of the twisting direction. Example, doing barani like a no handed roundoff (old school).  As now as you see you really don’t want to teach kids twisting to early that may cause a lot of confusing on twisting direction. Flip before you twist! I have used this experiment trying to figure out why we all get confused of which way to really twist.  I prove that there is no answer to this issue. I support both theories. If the child can't figure out the twisting direction, I have them do a seat drop 1/2 turn on trampoline. It works most of the time. As a coach, teach the athlete to be successful and make the right choice for what it is best for the athlete and your program. While there are ways to help the athletes know which way to twist, what do you do to help the athlete to determine which way to twist?

Best of Luck!

What is Winning?

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I had a nice conversation with my former coach. With all the different topic we discussed, one thing came up that really hit me. It was about philosophy of winning. It brought memories when I was competiting. I never dwell on how many medals I have won, although I have won many including national titles, but it was about my scores and increasing diffuculty. The outcome of placement took care of itself. So, What is the definition of winning?

Winning means different things to different people. Winning for the most of us is all about first place, earning medals, trophies, banners, and/or plaques. In this case, everything else is failure! At one point in time we feel like a failure. It's really up to us how we cope with failure.  Losing is part of life. How you cope with it, can help you grow to be a better person and can make you a winner!  A good support system from the coaches and parents can help to deal to cope with the good and bad times.  I like to say that you must learn to cope from losing in order to win.

Winning is not about earning medals and trophies. Being a champion is not about the numbers of medals your team brings in, not the number of trophies on the wall around the gym, and not about how many team banners you have hanging on the ceiling. Winning is a common goal for everyone.  I like to see the scores since they meassure their performance and success. Example, An athlete can get 3rd place all-around with a score of a 34.5 and then gets 5th place all-around with a score of a 36.0. The athlete was successful because of the increase of the score. The athlete has control over the outcome of performance not the outcome of placement (Judges are another story). Stats don't lie when you are trying to build a sucessful athlete. Medals and trophies don't measure anything. They are memories of the athletes'  hard work. Your athletes is successful due to the coaches leadership!

Coaches should be leaders, a mentor, a guide to help athletes to be sucessful and not worry  about the  outcome of placement. I can't control weather my athlete wins or not. However, I can control how I lead and how I deal with each ahtlete to help them be sucessful every way possible. Not every athlete learn the same way. Its my duty to find that learning curve of the athlete and guide them from there. Athletes has full control of how they excute the skills and routine at their best of their ability (mental imagery). If they make a mistake, it all part of the learning process (mental toughness). Me as a coach is how I guide them through it.

Ideas to keep kids to be sucessful:

1. Can you make the least amount of falls on the Balance Beam?
2. How much time can you take up doing your 10 skill trampoline routine? More time the better since the athlete is going higher or maintaining maximum hieght.
3. Hit and Miss chart. This is one of my popular charts I have made to keep in track of how many routines they hit and how many they miss. This teaches them to stay focus on being consistant.
4. Make a skill report card. This report card tells the athletes what skills they have and what they are working on. Also keeps track of score progress over the season. I do at least four report cards a year (one every three months). The forth report card should before the post season (Championships season).
5. Strength and flexiblity progress report. Pick only the most important sport specific excercise in your sport and make an assessment.

While there are so many ideas to help kids to be successful to achieve their goals, I can't list them all. Kids love to see their own progress on a chart or on paper. It serve as a motivator to achieve their goals of their own and see it on paper. When they are successful they are winners in their own way. This will help keep the kids in the sport longer! Trust me kids are naturally competitive!

WHAT IS WINNING?

"Winning is a happy byproduct of learning well." -Brian Payne

Best of Luck!

Feedback- Part 2

Giving out feedback:
  Okay, so we are all not so perfect coaches when we first started. Thanks to my coach who was also my mentor to be a better coach, my learning experience, and my education. So I'm sharing this with you and hopefully you learn from my mistakes. Sometimes I wonder why athletes are not responding or making changes I want them to make. It was so frustrating on me and the athletes. I ask myself is it me or the athlete.
At times, I used to give out too much feedback thinking people would think I was smart and knowing what I was talking about. Yes , I'm smart and know what I'm talking about therfore I was certainly WRONG about giving out too much as if I was lecturing. No wonder the kids are giving me the Scooby Doo look! So I guess it was me that was the problem.
In part one I have identified the types of feedback. The augumentive feedback can be qualitive and quantitive.
In my coaching experience giving out feedback, I believe that quality is more important than quantity. However that's really depends on the age and level of the athlete. The quality of feedback is more concrete of what you want the athlete to do. Telling athletes what not to do is not quality feedback. Telling the athlete what they did wrong and support it what they need to do to fix it, is quality feedback. Make sure you use words that athletes can understand. Do not use the big kinesiological science words. So put yourself in their world.
Quanity is how much feedback or information you give to the athlete. Have you ever go into a class room or lecture hall and listen to a 55-60 minute lecture? How much you really remember what was being said? I guarantee you may only remember the first 2 minutes and/or last 2 minutes what actually being said! The is the same for giving out to much feedback. The athletes may remember the first and last sentence you said. Too much feedback is like multitasking in their brains that can lead the athletes to be overwhelm thinking too much at one time. This results of poorer performance and frustration for both athlete and the coach. When giving out feedback try to keep it short and one focus at a time.
So what is my solution to my problem I used to have? I have what I call, bits and pieces. Bits and pieces help me give feedback one mistake, one focus, and one part of the skill at a time rather than the outcome of the skill. To help me, I deconstruct the skill in bits and pieces and focus on that. The outcome will come when the athlete organizes itself to understand the skill as a whole. Becuase the quality and quanity of feedback depends on age and level, my rule is to give them 1-3 things to fix and no more than 5-8 seconds to control the amount of feedback I give!
Best of Luck!

Tumble Tuesday- April drill of the month.

Snapdown drills for roundoff back handspring connection.

Welcome to Tumble Tuesday!! Sorry for the delay. I was recovering from an illness as you may know by the sound of my voice sounding very raspy in the video. Now that I'm feeling better I can finally post this up to share.

The purpose of this drill is to learn to snap the feet in front to allow the body to go backwards for the back handspring. This is a great alternative for those who can't get the handstand snapdown. A few things to watch for and you may notice it in the video. As they snap down the body should be rotating at the same time as the feet comes though keeping the back tight. In other words, the feet is in front while the rest of the body is leaning back without arching. Some common mistakes are the knees are moving foward past the ankles (rolling knees). The idea is the keep the leg straight so the knees are behind the ankles. This drill is set up for either on the trampoline or tumble track. If you remember the previous drill of the roundoff flyback you can do the same with this as well.

As shown in the video:

1. Bounce three times on hands and kness, snap down, backhandspring

2. Seat drop backhanspring. Although this is not a snapdown but its great to learn to keep the feet in front while they lean back for the handspring. Great to learn body shape and educating the feet placement. If you want to you could do this first.

3. Handstand snapdown backhandspring.

Stay tuned for the second part of giving out feedback!

Best of luck!!!

Giving out Feedback- Part one

Before I tell you how to give out feedback, we must identify the types of feedback. Once you identify the types of feedback, then you will know the importance of giving feedback and learning how to give out feedback.

Think about the time when you were beginning to learn a new skill. How much success did you experience on your first few attempts? Most likely, you were not very successful. Having a professional gymnasticsc coach to give you feedback to help you better understand what you were doing wrong and what you need to do to improve your skills.

The types of performance -related information that will "tell " them something about the outcome of the performance or what caused that outcome. There are two types of feedbacks.

One is the task-intrinsic feedback, which is the sensory-perceptual information. Sensory information is a natural part of performing a skill wheather its visual, audiory, proprioceptive, and tactile. For example a gymnast who is doing a roundoff  backhandspring double back tuck on floor, the gymnast is getting visual task-intrinsic feedback knowing where the floor is in relation to hieght so he or she knows when to land or how many flips he/she is doing. The gymnasts also knows the movement of his or her posture along with arm, head and legs when he/she is tumbling and taking off the ground. This feedback is the propioceptive task-intrinsic feedback. The auditory task-intrinsic feedback also comes in place when the gymnast hears the impact from the hand and feet hitting the floor while tumbling (you hear mostly from the feet).

The second general type of performance-related feedback information is augumented feedback. Augumented is refers to adding to or enhancing something. In this case enhancing the task-intrinsic feedback. The task-intrinsic feedback can be augumented in various ways. For example, a coach who is standing by can tell the gymnast to punch harder when taking off for the double back, which would augument the auditory task-intrinsic feedback. The coach may tell the gymnast to spot the floor for the landing to augument the visual task-intrinsic feedback. Or, the coach could tell the gymnast to stand taller on the take off to augument the propiocpetive task-intrinsic feedback.

There are two types of augumented feedback. One type is concurrent augumented feedback, which the feedback is being provided while the gymnast is performing a skill or making movements. The second type is terminal augumented feedback. This information is given after the performance, in which gives information about the outcome of performing the skill or about achieving the goal of the performance.

Its important to note that there are two catagories of augumented feedback: knowledge of results and knowledge of performance. The augumented feedback can be qualitive and quantitive. This will be further discussed in part two on how to give out feedback.

As a coach its always important to keep updates on your technical knowledge of the skills that you are teaching. Going to gymnastics camps, local clinics, regional congress, and USAG congress all help to educate yourself on training methods, drills, excercises, and technical knowledge. Without the knowledge of training, your feedback may not be as valid to help the athlete to understand what they did wrong and what they need to do to improve performance.

Good luck! Stay tune for part two!

Drill of the month- Round off, Flyback

It's Tumble Tuesday! It's now time for the drill of the month. This month drill helps the learning process of connecting the round off (R) back handspring (BHS).  Although there are many drills to help learn the connection, the R flyback as been the most popular and successful drill in learning the R, BHS. See the video below for the drill.

Objective:
      To learn how to connect the R BHS by focusing on standing up on the roundoff with the feet in front of the body. Also to learn the timing of the connection.

Set-up:

1)  Resilite Pit (If you don't have a resi then you can stack up two wedges andd place a 8 inch mat on top)

2) Sting mat or panel mat. This serves two purposes. First purpose is to allow the student to know where to put their hands. Secondly, it helps to stretch the round off to generate more turnover to build momentum to go backwards.

Place sting mat at least 3 feet away from the resi. If using two wedges, make sure you set up the wedge so the student is doing the flyback up hill (not shown in the video).

Best of luck!
Thomas Hamblin

Class Management: Importance of having stations

This article will focus on two things to help with class management. First is the importance of making stations to keep the students productive. Secondly is how to set up stations to manage the class time more effectively.

Importance of making stations:

I have heard some coaches don't like stations becuase they want to work with one student at a time to make sure they are doing things correctly. As far as the rest of the students is concern, they are standing in line watching and listening (in which you hope they are). I have found in this case that kids are getting bored and focus is lost on the task. Therefore, the coach becomes a babysitter. By all means the kids want to learn and have fun!

In the past of my coaching career, I have learned the importance of making stations to help keep the kids productive and moving. All at the same time, I learned to make lesson plans before class started so the class can run smoothly. Nothing more irritates me to set up and discussing a plan during class time wasting 5 minutes of the student's time. 

Time is also important here in this case. You wouldn’t want to have 10 students standing in line waiting for their turn when the event last for 15 minutes.  Let say a student got three tries per turn and you spend about one minute per student. That leaves the last student waiting for ten minutes to get a turn. Most of the students in the class will get at least one turn and three tries. Now let just imagine how much a student can learn in ten minutes if you had stations!

How to make stations:

Depending on your gym class program and how the gym is set up, you may need to start being very creative making stations so the students are getting more turns. Everyone is different when it comes to making stations. Stations can include a drill for a skill, practicing the skill they have mastered on their own, conditioning, flexibility, reviewing a skill from the previous class, and working on skills with a coach (coach’s station).

Over the years of coaching, I have found that this rule of thumb in making stations has worked for me.
     
1.      Have at least 2-3 kids per station.

2.      Have at least 3-6 stations.

3.      Stations should last about 30-45 seconds (this is about 3 tries per turn at the coach's station). This allow the kids to not to get bored and/or getting out of focus on the task.  In this case if you happen to give a long feedback then you may need to keep the feedback short (that is another topic coming soon).

4.      Stations should be appropriate based on level ability.

5.      Always make sure you can see all of the stations. You should always have your back facing the wall. If you can’t see all of the stations then either adjust the stations or adjust yourself (a really good reason to learn to spot on both sides).

BEST OF LUCK!
Thomas Hamblin

A new change

For those who like to follow my blog, I thnakyou. I have recently made a change for the Tumble Tuesday. The first Tuesday of every month will be Tumble Tuesday. Tumble Tuesday will be the drill of the month. rather than every Tuesday (drill of the week).

Best of luck!

Tom

What is the purpose of doing drills?

   
The purpose of this article is to identify the purpose of doing drills. Just about in any sport you ever engaged to, you did some drills. You may not call them drills but rather calling them warm-ups. Have you participated in any sports other than gymnastics? If so, I'm sure you have done drills! Example, when I was in the sixth grade I played soccer for my school. I had to do drills for passing, striking, and dribbling. Why the drills? To develop proper skills to increase performance, build confidence, and minimized injuries!

Deconstructing the skills:

    No matter what sport you may be engaged to, there are always drills involved to help us learn sport skills to increase performance and confidence.  In gymnastics, the purpose of doing drills is to learn the breakdown of the skill before putting it all together. While our brain controls the body movement, we learn by organizing information to understand what it is that you are learning to do.  Since gymnastics skills require a high concentration of technical movements, I deconstruct the skill. I break the skills into parts and make them drills to allow the athletes to organize the process of learning parts of the skill. In the course of time, the athlete will begin to put things together to achieve their goals.

Drills to control the intensity of the workout and motivation:

Other reason for doing drills is to control the intensity of the workout. I tend to do drills on an easy day or challenge day. Not to say that I don’t do drills on a hard day. On an easy day, I use drills step back to work on improving the overall skill without having to do the entire skill. Challenge day is a fun day for athletes since it’s motivating them be excited to come to practice. I tend to take a day to introduce upper level skills using fundamental drills that lead up to the skill. They really love that day!  So put the FUN in fundamentals!

Importance of drills for skill development:

     Over the years, I have heard from coaches and athletes themselves hate doing drills and some actually love doing drills.
     It is common for those who don't like doing drills since they don't have the time to learn or simply impatient that they go right at the skill. They are more than likely have no plan of action for the season or lack of knowledge for skill development preparation. This belief leads to poor performances, injuries, and lack of confidence. In most cases, athletes that are not properly trained leads to the lack of quality movements in which result of poor performance. This brings a lot of doubt in the athletes' minds that may results lack of confidence in themselves and their coach.  I have seen athletes get injured due to the lack of physical preparation of the skill. So these athletes are out for 4-8 weeks and do rehab for another 4 weeks or so depending on the injury. That is about 3 months out of their training for skill development! In some cases athletes are out longer since they are rebuilding their trust of the coach and themselves. This can be very frustrating to athletes and coaches so they won't last long in the sport. So what is your choice, train healthy for three months working toward the skill or be out for 3 months or more due to an injury (physically and mentally)?  While injuries can happen drills can help brings the athletes back while they are doing rehab.  Be careful not to have them work thru the injury. Only do what doesn’t interfere with the injury.

As one of my favorite saying: “If you don't have time to train, then you don't have time to be injured.”
 
      For those who loves doing drills, it is common that coaches makes a program for the season (off season, pre-season, season, and post season (championships)) to make time for drills to properly train the athletes. This belief leads to increase performance, minimize injuries, and increase confidence. This helps build the coach/ athlete relationship through trust and confidence. Athletes tend to stay in the sport much longer not having to deal with many injuries due to improper physical development. These athletes are also capable to learn more advance skills in the future quicker due to the nature of the fundamentals from the previous drills they learned in their program. Thus, increase of performance!
   
Conclusion:

     While some coaches makes mistakes using drills just to keep the athletes busy, drills could be treated as such to be productive (using proper mechanics of the skill) to allow the athletes to learn the skill more effectively and safely. Take the time to go back to analyzed your program and make changes to make time for drills. It’s the matter of being very creative. This can only help to develop safer and healthier athletes in the long run in their developmental training stage.

Best of Luck!

Welcome to Tumble Tech!

     Hello, welcome to Tumble Tech! The purpose of this blog is to share my ideas in drills for skill development, strength and conditioning, flexibility, training/class management, coaching experience, achieving your goals, and much more.

     If you are involved or like to be involved in men's and women's gymnastics, trampoline and tumbling, acrobatics gymnastics, cheerleading, and diving this maybe for you. The information may give you some ideas what you can do to make your team and program more productive.

     Coaches all have different programs based on time, space, and level of the athletes. We all make the best of what we have and at the same time it can be productive. While many ideas and opinions are great, please keep your comments clean and professional.

    Every Tuesday is Tumble Tuesday! Tumble Tuesday will discuss drills ideas for skill development.

   Thanks for visiting Tumble Tech. I wish you and your team the best of luck this season!