Drill of the Day- Back Tuck

The drill of the day is the back tuck going down the wedge. This drill is most popular with the kids I work with. Not only it is fun for them but also learning the proper back tuck at the same time. Who says you can't have fun while learning?

Set up: You will need one wedge mat and one spotting block or panel mat. Stand up the wedge with a block or panel mat behind the wedge. The block or panel mat should be at least 12 inches high. In the first video below notice the wedge is on a panel mat because the block I was using was 24 inches high. Having the block to high will make it difficult for the athlete to push it back unless they are tall. So I made the wedge taller by putting it on a panel mat. At times you may need to set up panel mat in front of the wedge for smaller kids to help them be taller.

This set up can also be used on the Double-mini Tramp (second video). Yes you can do it on the end of the tumble track!

The task: The idea is to have the athlete jump up against the wedge causing the wedge to tilt back. Once the wedge tilt back then the athlete will begin to pull their knees up and rolling their hips over their head doing a backward roll. The athlete should be able to jump at least half way up to the wedge in order to tilt the wedge over.

 The purpose: What makes this drill so great it really help avoid a lot of mistakes such as throwing the head back, arching their back, not setting up,  pulling the knees up to soon, and throwing the shoulder back during take off.  You will see this mistake toward the end of the second video. All these mistakes are quite common when they first learn the back tuck. This drill really fix it all in one!

Coach's notes: If you have a folding wedge it can work as well. Having a folding wedge can be beneficial because if you don't jump high enough or pulling the knees to soon, you may find yourself being eaten by the wedge (wedge being folded)...he he. If you don't like it being folded then you can turn the wedge around using the back of the wedge.

Gone to far! Exercise as a form of punishment- What is the message behind this?

With childhood obesity on the rise in the US, its important to help get the message across about health and fitness by letting them know that exercise is good for you and healthy. However, over the past years I have heard and seen coaches use exercise as a form of punishment. I ask myself what is the benefits of using exercise as a form of punishment?  Are we suppose to say the exercise is fun and healthy but yet they use it  as a weapon for punishment? What is the real message behind this?

Using exercise as a form of punishment is not a healthy message we want to send out when exercise should be fun and enjoyable to maintain a healthy lifestyle for life.

Here are the things I have heard over the years from coaches.

1. "If you can't run faster than you have to do 20 push-ups." So if a child can't run fast enough, they do 20 push-ups. How is  20 push-ups going to help the child run faster? I don't ever recall in personal training class that push-ups helps you run faster. Is punishing a kid to do 20 push-ups really going to get the kid to run faster?  The punishment of doing 20 push-ups is like a lab rat that gets an electrical shock because it didn't run fast enough on the exercise wheel. You really think that lab rat is going to run faster? NO, they would want to get off. The same as the child wants to quit! Kids are not lab rats and stop using negativity using exercise as a form of punishment to get results. The only result you get is an unhappy kid that will quit.

      If you want them to run faster give them drills or games that requires them to run faster such as doing a relay race, tag, bungee run, and even going to a pool to do sprints in the water. So many fun things you can do to help them learn to run faster.

     A simple solution is  I give the kids drills or exercise to help make body correction to help increase performance. This is not punishment, this is something positively productive to help train the body on what is needs to do to help with proper form and technique to increase performance. The drills should be appropriate, successful, fun and interesting to have the kid to stay engage with the activity. Do you ever do you ever stay in an activity that wasn't fun? Of course not!

2. "If you talk again the whole class will do conditioning! Do you like doing conditioning? " Ok, I see a bad cop coming!  You threaten them to do conditioning over some 6-8 year old kids talking and then ask them about if they like doing conditioning. Of course the kids will say no. How is it by threaten them to do conditioning is going to get them to stop talking? Worst of all you just taught them to hate conditioning when conditioning is good for you to help increase performance and get healthier. What message are you really sending here?

     What even worst is you punished the whole class! Class is a recreational setting so let them be kids! They just want to get their exercise and have fun. How do you think the kids who are good feel about being punished when the bad kid did something wrong? The kids are really going to hate the bad kid and be singled out from the group. So many things can go wrong in so many levels. I can tell you that you will have unhappy parents and kids.

     I'm not no behavior specialist or a psychologist or pretending to be one. In my own personal experience, If you want make correction find other ways to discipline other than threaten them on exercise. When addressing to bad behavior, make sure you let them know what they did is wrong and give them a warning. Always follow through with the warning if they do it the second time. Nothing more worse than giving out 20 warnings and not do it. The kids won't ever get the message because the kids always get their way. Always follow through what you say you do.


 I have also given kids two choices. One choice is to sit down (time out) and let me know when you are ready or they miss a few turn (2-3). Second choice is to listen and follow direction so you can get more turns and of course more fun! So the more they listen and follow directions, the more turns and fun they get! Who wants to have fun?!?!

    3. "Stop bending your knees, stop bending your elbows, or you will do 50 sit-ups." No sit-ups is going to make corrections  on keeping your knees straight or make your arms straight. So again how is it that stronger abs is going to make your leg or your elbow straight? How is abs related to the legs and elbows?

     If you want to fix the straight legs and straight arms do some exercises that help them understand the positions. Have them feel their legs and arms being straight. If you can feel it, you can train it, and you can do it. So work on their propioreceptors!

    Praise for good performances. Nothing is more feeling good to praise for good performances. The kids will feel good and help build confidence. The kids will feel the appreciation from the coach. In results, they will want to come back for more. In hope the bad kid will catch that and will want to do something good. I always look for improvement in bits and pieces rather than the whole outcome. Praise for the good no matter how big or small the improvement is. There is always room for improvement. When you work on bits and pieces the whole outcome will come together. Worrying about the outcome is too much for a child to think about all the things to worry about to make it good, so keep it small. Positive reinforcement can go along ways!!!

In conclusion:

Sports are supposed to be fun and not feel like you are in the military or boot camp. Yes, there are ways to push your athletes to be their best but certain things such as threatening them to run more laps, no water, comparing other kids, doing 30-50 push-ups, 30-50 squat jumps, doing 30-50 sit-ups are all crossing the line.

Exercise should be a way of life and promoting healthy living at the same time to increase athletic performance. Sending the right message can also help increase the awareness of promoting an active life style through out their lives. This is a must have goal.  Exercise is the best health insurance you can have. Plus it is a lot cheaper than paying thousand of dollars on drugs to keep you alive.

Don't make a good thing [exercise] a bad thing!

Sports should be about building champion of character and maintaining healthy lifestyle for life. Sports is not about putting trophies and medals on the wall. The kids are not lab rats and trophies kids. Let them be kids and enjoy life through sports. Positive reinforcement can go along ways than negative reinforcement.

Best of luck to all athletes! Have a safe and fun 2012-2013 season!

The 4 W's of management

Over the years working at different gymnastics gyms, they all run differently as long as all the staff are on the same page of their philosophy and goals.  Parents are paying your bills and you want to be the best out there. Parents don't pay for staff to talk and socialize while their child is running around the gym and not being properly supervised or not learning what you say you provide. There is no right or wrong how gyms runs as long they promise their services and the program runs safely and smoothly. So how does a gym make sure their program runs smoothly and be able to keep the clients coming back for more or gaining new clients? I see it as knowing the 4 W's.

The 4 W's are Who, What, Where, and When.

1. "Who" is the person in charge of the program and normally its a program manager that over sees the class or team programs. In most cases the program manager it is the owner of the gym. In some gyms they hire a program director to overlook the class programs and another director to over look the team programs. The director should have the same vision and goals as the owner.

"Who" is also the staff that teaches the classes or teams. The staff should be reliable to show up to work on time and every time. The program can't be consistent if you have to keep changing the staff all time. Its important that your staff is reliable and not taking off work on a regular basics. So who is in charge of the program and teaching classes or team?

Whoever running the gym program, should have good quality of leadership skills.

2. "What " is your lesson plan, your objectives, and your expectations. The parents are expected their child to learn gymnastics and of course have fun at the same time. In most cases I have seen kids have more fun but they really never learn gymnastics. This makes it dangerous because you are not providing the services you say you offer. You should always have a lesson plan set. You can do that by using a rubric or skill sheet to keep track of the child progress.  Having a lesson plan prepare you to help keep the classes or teams organized. A lesson plans should be based on the student's needs and introducing a new skill.

3. "Where"  is your rotation schedule. You should have a schedule of where to go such as floor, tumble track, trampoline, bars, beam. vault, rings, pommel horse, etc... When doing a rotation schedule you should make sure the traffic pattern is safe to move around so you are not crossing over some one's class or team. Without knowing where to go, it can cause a lot of problem among staff talking to each other trying to find out where to go. In most cases I have seen staff fight over the event! So have a rotation schedule to know where you are going.  Having a rotation schedule of knowing where to go can help organized the traffic pattern and keeping the students safe. The students should always be lined up behind the instructor to the next event to avoid the kids roaming around the gym to the next event.

4. "When" is your time management. Every event should have a time frame of how long you should be at that event. In most cases you can go to an event for 7-10 minutes (pre-school classes), 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or 45 minutes. Time management is depends on how long your classes or team practices are and the level of the classes and teams.

When managing you should always have who. Without what, where, and when, whoever is teaching the class will have no idea how to manage or don't have good leadership skills. What, where, and when must interact with each other. If you don't know where to go then you don't know what you are doing and don't know when you are going. When putting all this together, communication, leadership, and working together is a must. I believe the work place is more enjoyable when everyone is on the same page and working together as professionals.

I hope you all have a great 2012-2013 season! I'm looking forward to a great one!

Good Luck!
Tom

May the Force Be With You: Mental Toughness to Increase Athletic Performances

Last week at Woodward Camp I had the honor to meet Dr. Alison Arnold, PhD. She is a mental toughness coach for several Olympic teams in the US and Australia. She also runs her website on mental toughness training. She did a clinic that involved athletes' participation. She first handed out a string with a fishing weight tied on to the end. She asked everyone to hold the string with their index finger and thumb. The athlete had to relax and stay focus on how they wanted to move the weight on the other end without moving thier arm, wrist, and fingers.
The athletes was able to move it in small circles and large circles in either counter clock-wise and/or clock-wise movement. The participant were surprised how it ever happened. She explained how the brain send electrical signals by the nervous system that runs through the fine muscles in their fingers causing it to vibrate through the string making the weight move. The point of this experiment was that proves that the body respond by what you think.
She tells a story to the athletes about a grandfather who was telling his grandson about the 2 wolves that were constantly battling and butting heads. One wolf was a bad wolf. The bad wolf was always angry, uses negative reinforcement, depressed, and lacking self confidence. The second wolf was happy, using positive reinforcement, and self confidence was high. The grandson ask about which wolf won. It was obvious that the second wolf won. The athletes was then to ask to write down 5 feeling about gymnastics using the bad wolf thoughts then write 5 things about their gymnastics using the good wolf thoughts. She tells the athletes to read the bad thoughts and the good thoughts. They were asked of how they felt reading the bad thoughts, most responded that their body feel bad and lazy. When they ask how they felt reading the good thoughts, most responded that their body feel good and feel more confidence and powerful believing that they can conquer their fears to get over the bad thoughts of why they don't do the skill they hated most.

Having much thought about mental toughness, I like to use the movie Star Wars when Luke Skywalker was training to be a Jedi but had a few challenges along the way. Like his trainer, Yoda, he says to focus, feel the force, and let the force be with you and he can be a good Jedi. I see the force as a positive reinforcement. The force can be viewed to believe, positive reinforcement, increase self confidence, increase self esteem, and to conquer your fear. The force was also the use of mental imagery of  yourself doing the skill. Darth Vader comes in and wanted to recruit Luke to be on the dark side. Darth Vader was angry and uses negative reinforcement thinking he would be best to take over the Empire. I see the dark side as a negative reinforcement that kills the self confidence, self esteem, and not believing in yourself to conquer your fear.

Luke is a powerful Jedi all because he was patient with his training, has positive attitude, never gave up hope, and his self-esteem  grew stronger increasing his self-confidence to believe in himself. As of for me is was important to be patient when learning a new skill. Learning a new skill requires patient. At times I felt frustrated not be able to do the skill and takes me to the dark side of  negativity and  not believing in myself to conquer the skill. The more I battled myself to be on the positive side of thing by worry about making the bit and pieces of the skill better rather than the whole skill. I felt better thinking about it that way. My confidence grew stronger and knowing one day my time will come knowing that I finally won the battle to get that new skill. I also use the mental imagery of myself doing the skill. Not only I could see myself doing it, I could feel my body as if it was doing it. It was the greatest feeling in the world to have much appreciation of how much work I had to put into it regardless of the ups and downs I went through. I never gave up!

During training, we all have our darkside in us. It is our choice what we do with those dark side feelings. We can either fight the darkside or we quit. Luke Skywalker did once felt the darkside but he never gave up and fought through the darkside and use his power to feel the force. Like Yoda said "Do or do not, there's no try". Mistakes do happen and make you feel on the darkside at times. Remeber that mistakes are for learning not for quiting so fight the darkside.

We all need to have that mental toughness and fight the dark side and start feeling the force. So try writing 5 of your darkside feelings and then find ways to fight it and write the 5 force feelings. Once you have that, rewrite your goals of how you will achieve them.

Tip: Always look on the positive side of things regardless of the outcome. No matter how small or big the improvement is, it is always an improvement. You may not get win a medal but look at your score and realized you have beat your personal best score. Winning a medal should not be your goal becuase you can't control it. You only control what you can do to make improvement by beating your personal best score, learning a new skill, adding a new skill in your routine, and moving up a new level. Winning medals or not doesn't make you who you are. Your attitude toward yourself makes you who you are.

 May the force be with you through out the season.

You can checkout Dr. Alison Arnold, PhD Mental toughness training website at www.HeadGamesWebCamp.com to learn to banish fear and doubt, remove mental blocks, and create an unshakeable mind.

"Remember this taste no matter how many times you go through it because when you finally get it you appreciate it more." - Ray Lewis, Baltimore Ravens.

Good Luck!

What make you a great coach?

A great coach should be flexible, understanding,  knowledge of the sport, reliable, and  communication. I believe these are important when it comes down to the chararistic of a great coach.

Flexibility: Coaches should be flexible in ways that they can adjust their coaching based on the child's learning curve. No one learn the same way. Everyone learn differently but still get the same outcome at the end. Some kids are visual learners, auditory learners, and kinetic learners. A coach should be flexible to adjust those types of learners. I have coaches claims they teach the same way all the time and reality is that they don't. If we are learn differently it is impossible to teach the same way. Coaches should be flexible and find other methods of teaching the skill. Keep in mind there are more than one way to teach the skill and get the same outcome.

Understanding: A coach should be understanding that not all athletes are created equal from a personality and development stand point. They should be able to identify the personality and development of their athletes. Boys are different than girls and I don't coach boys the same way I coach girls and vise versa. I don't coach a 12 year old the same way I coach a 5 year old and vise versa. Some athletes like to be pushed hard and like their coaches to be hard on them and some athletes rather have their coaches be nice and friendly and not be so hard. So as a coach I look and to identify those personality and development of each athletes.
   Coaches should always be understanding the child feelings and work those out accordinly. Not only you have to understand them physically but also understanding thier minds on the pychological aspect.

Knowledge: Coaches should be reading the rules, looking for drills ideas, and improving coaching and spotting skills. Nothing more frustrating to go to a meet and realize your athlete did the wrong thing or missing a special requirement because these coaches didn't read the rules throughly. As a coach its my job to do my homework to look for resources and take full advantage of them. The USA Gymnastics University has many courses and great staff to help you gain more knowledge. Other resources you can learn is by attending USAG National Congress, Regional Congress, and even attending a gymnastics camp such as Woodward Camp in Woodward, PA.  I may know a lot but I don't know everything or ever claim I know everything. So more tools I have the more resources I have to help make my program better. So you never stop learning or ever too old to learn more. The more knowledge the bigger my fire! Knowledge is power!

Reliable: Coaches should be reliable at all times. They should be able to make all practices, spend time working with each individual athletes regardless of level of ability. Favoritism is not tolerated when being reliable.Coaches should be consistent on rules and practices. Most importanly being reliable is dressing professionally. Coaches should also be prudent of their own behavior even on a bad day.

Communication: Communication is very important and its critical to have good communication. Without proper communication everything falls apart in your program and the relationship you have with you clients. If I don't know the situation due to lack of communication then I can't help. Nothing more worst than someone to accumulate the problem by holding on to it for months. This causes problems because the person that holds on to it tends to make excuses or not seeing the reality of the situation clearly. The simple way I put it, is speak of your thoughts or concerns otherwise forever hold your peace.

What makes you a great coach?

Good Luck!

Got Fun?

What is the number one reason for kids to stay in their sport? Study and research has shown that fun was the number one reason kids stay in their sport. Having fun is a motivator for kids to starve for more attention to learn more and get better on their skills each time they come back. I love my sport and I remember the fun I had in my career. It is important that I have fun with the kids. I want the kids to have every opportunity to have just as much fun as I did.

While at Woodward Camp in Woodward, PA, I know the kids are having fun. They continue to ask the staff for a spot or asking for more tips to get better or to learn new skills. The kids enjoy learning new  things and challenging their own limits. Nothing more fun to watch these kids having fun achieving new skills and going farther than their own expectations. I believe if the kids weren't having fun they wouldn't be coming back for more.

So how do we put the fun in the sport and be able to achieve good results in your program? I have learned from a friend who came up with three divisions of fun. The three divisions includes the intermediate fun, short term fun, and long term fun.

Intermediate Fun: This is best describes as playing fun games and activities. These games and activities can be related to what they are learning or non-related to help keep their minds off of their own sport (nice to learn something different once in a while). This can be a warm-up or an an award for having a great practice. I know some kids like to show up late for practice so they can skip the traditional warm-up. So I use the intermediate fun as a warm-up and of course the kids who showed up late missed out the fun. Over time, kids were showing up on time for practice to find out what the fun was all about! Yes, we randomly still did our traditional warm-up.
At times kids hate conditioning. You can make conditioning fun by playing a game with the muscles you want them to work on. Example in doing V-ups, I have my kids hold the block between their ankles and have them pike up to grab the block. The idea is how many times can you transport the block back and forth with out dropping it. You can also challenge them how many times can they transport the block in such amount of time (20 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, or 60 seconds).

Short Term Fun: Short term fun is not just about playing games and activities its more about achieving through hard work.  Its not about how you fall, its about how you get up. Day in and day out kids are working hard and they are starving to want it bad. Nothing more rewarding for the kid to achieve a new skill and watching them jump for joy! It is also rewarding and fun for the kid to get on the award podium regardless of the placement. It not always about the podium but it is also about beating their own personal achievement by increasing their own performance scores. I believe that this short term fun is often overlooked when coaches only see success at the highest level of achievement while everything else is failure.

Long Term Fun: After many months and years, kids makes sacrifices and determination to stay in the sport. Kids show they have fun achieving things such as moving up a level, competing nationals, world age group, world championships, collegiate level, pro level, and the Olympics games. The kids have fun traveling around the world and learning different cultures in the world they live in.

"Remember this taste no matter how many times you go through it because when you finally get it you appreciate it more" - Ray Lewis (Baltimore Ravens)

Best of luck!

Drill of the week-stability strength

This week focus is on stability strength. Stability is important in almost all aspect in every sport. Stability strength can fire up almost every muscles in your body and sure be a good workout !
This week the athletes were working on the lower extremity to help make their legs stronger for landings. However due to working all aspect of the leg muscles from the ankle to the gluteus, it also helps the athletes run faster and jump higher. The reason is that power comes from proper stability and strength to withstand the amount of force that is applied when you are running and jumping. If you didn't have the strength and the stability you would lose control if you try to max out your running speed or jumping higher on the trampoline, floor, and vault. I'm sure you see this in beginner to novice level kids who would try to run fast and they loose control and fall (expecially the ages between 2-7 years old). I'm also sure you will see this when kids at any age that try to jump high on the trampoline and they loose control on the trampoline bed (this also core strength as well) Like always control is more important! That control requires stability strength!
Here are some pictures below of my athletes working on stability strength in the lower extremity. The 1/2 squat stand should be done with good form as if they are sticking a landing. You can have them hold a medicine ball above their heads to make it harder after they master these exercises.


Step 1: Using a half fitness ball. Squat stand 3 sets for 15-30 seconds.



Step 2: Place the half fitness ball upside down. Squat stand 3 sets for 15-30 seconds.



Step 3: Using a full fitness ball. I place some blocks around it to give a little stability room. Squat stand 3 sets for 15-30 seconds.



Step 4: Squat stand on fitness ball. 3 sets for 15-30 seconds.

Good luck!!

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