Stick it and Stick it good!

Stick It is a classic game that is played in all gyms across the country. While there are many ways to play Stick It with different versions of the rules, this past weekend I came up with my own new version of Stick It on the Double-mini Trampoline (DMT)

Set up:

1. A Double-mini Trampoline or Mini Trampoline.

2. You will need five poly dots with numbers on them (4, 3, 2, 1, and 0). Place the numbers along the side of the landing zone. Place the number four closet to the DMT. Approximately 2.5 feet away from the end of the DMT. Place each number along the side approximately 1.5 or 2 feet apart. You can use odd number (7, 5, 3, 1, 0) or even numbers (8, 6, 4, 2, 0) as well. See the picture below.

3. If the player lands between the two numbers the player will receive the lower score. Example if the player lands between 4 and 3, the player will receive 3 points.

4. Make a score sheet using Excel. The names along the sides and the numbers of rounds along the top (10 rounds) with each round being different skills or passes. Make sure the skills are level appropriate for your group.

Rules:

1. The score is determined where the athletes land on the landing zone. If the player lands on the landing zone next to the number 3, the player will receive 3 points.

2. The player must land with control. If the player cannot land with control, take the appropriate deduction in tenths from their score. Example,  if the player landed on 4 and took 3 steps on the landing. The player get .3 deduction from his/her score from 4. The player will receive 3.7 points. See deduction below.

3. If the player land outside the zone close to the DMT, you will deduct 1 from the highest number. Example, if the player land outside the landing zone his/her score will be out of 3 (4-1). Take any additional deductions from the score of 3.

Landing Deductions:
1. There is no cap deductions.

2. Each step is -.1( one tenth)

3. Falls such as hands and knees, knees, or whole body on floor or on apparatus is -1 (one point)

4. Fall such as hand down on floor or on apparatus is -.5 ( five tenths).

5. Deductions is taken from the score the player receive.




































Have fun! Stick it!

Fun Games in Practice

Practices at times should be serious when getting ready to prep for a big meet. However kids are working hard and doing the assignement that the coaches gives them. In most cases these hard working kids should be awarded for it. In most studies, kids stay in sports becuase it is fun. Fun should always be part of the equation in youth sports. Fun also keeps their minds off of those hard practices.
 
My team kids are always working hard and its important to me that the kids know that I do appreciate their hard work. On occasions we play a few games. Games are often played during the off season, pre-season, holiday season, and after championships.

Here are some games ideas:
1. Candy Land: Candy Land is a classic childhood game of learning colors. I bring this game to life. Each color represent either an event, conditioning, skills, or drills. The activity should be ability and age appropriate.  So for example, if you land on red they do 5 backward rolls. If they land on green, they do 5 forward rolls, etc. If they land on the cupcake, lollipop, cinnamon bun, ice cream, gummy candy, ice pop, and the gingerbread man they choose what they like to do. If they land on the licorice, then it's the coaches choice (yes, coaches have fun too).

2. Chutes and Ladders: Chutes and Ladders is another childhood classic game. This game is about numbers. Numbers can represent an activity they have to do. You can break the numbers down between odd and even numbers or you can split the numbers 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, etc. Make sure the activity is age and ability appropriate. I made conditioning cards using index cards. If they slide down the slide they pick a conditioning card from the pile.

3. Gym Pong: Ok, its like beer pong but this version appropriate for kids. This game is set up the same way as beer pong. You can use plastic cups or brown paper bags. Take each index cards and cut in half. Write an activity (age and ability appropriate) on each of the index cards and place them in the cup or bag. The opposing team will try to get the ping pong ball into the cup or bag. If the ball lands inside, then the other team must to the activity.

4. Stick it: Stick it is a fun game and its played in so many ways. My favorite one doesn't require elimination. I make a list of skills (age and ability appropriate) and they have to go through the list. If they stick it then they can move to the next skill.  I usually have 10 skills list. You keep playing until you get through the entire list. If you don't stick it then you stay at that skill until you stick it. If you fall down on any part of your body, you must start all over again at the top of the list.

5. Trampoline add on: Add on is one of our favorite game. To play add on, the first person does a trick. The second person does the first person's trick and add on of their own trick. Its best to play with at least 3-5 students. This is a great game and practice to pay attention and remembering the order. Each students will have three tries. If they used all three tries then they are out.

6. Doing the trampoline routine backwards: This is my personal favorite. The students will do their routine backwards. It's great to learn how to work into and out of skills by doing the routine backwards. Make sure they go back and do their normal routine so they don't get confused. I haven't had that happened yet. The students have a blast trying their routine backwards. The level 6 trampoline routine is quite challenging doing it backwards!

Have fun!

Trampoline- Getting Your Bounces in Control.

The trampolines in your gym is by far the most popular equipment in the gym. Not to mention the most dangerous piece of equipment than any other equipment in your gym. Kids get on the trampoline and the first thing they attempt to do is to try to bounce really high. Not to mention that they don't realize how much core strength and balance it takes to bounce high. Without proper training and instruction serious injury can occur. It is more important to bounce with control rather than how high they jump. Today I will be sharing my workout that I do with my class and team kids to learn body control on the trampoline.

Drill #1: Knee bounces:
    The knee bounces are great to work on proper body alignment when bouncing on the trampoline. It really target the core muscles, lower back muscles, and the glutes muscles. This drill also serve another purpose on working the quads muscles for kicking the feet through when doing front drop to seat drop, back drop, or doing a cody.
    I have my kids set up a throw mat on the trampoline and they get on their knees with arms up by their ears (hiding their ears) and glutes tuck under. They attempt to start bouncing by pushing down with their legs by slightly extending the legs (kicking). Bounce 10-20 times.

Drill #2: Bounce with arms down:
     Bouncing with arms down focus on good body position and alignment. Most important body control. The kids will attempt to bounce with good control while maintaining a strong body while their arms are pressed against their sides (hand in pockets). The goal is to keep their core area strong and not allowing the shoulders to move forward or backwards. Everything should be in a straight line in which they stack the bones. Again bounce with control. If they start to bobble and wobble then they need to lower their bounces. 10 bounces

Drill #3: Bounce with arms up:
   Bouncing with arms up is very challenging due to changing their level of center of gravity. Therefore making it more challenging to balance themselves when they bounce. The kids will attempt to bounce with the arms up, hiding their ears while maintaining good stability and control. 10 bounces.

Drill #4: 4 count arm swings
    This drill allows the kids to learn the proper arm swing when bouncing n the trampoline. It has been common for kids to do full arms circles creating unnecessary shoulder movement that causes imbalance while bouncing. I have created the 4 count arm swing to help solve this issue. The goal is to be able to swing the arms while maintaining good body alignment and control.
    The kids will start off by bouncing with control starting with the arms down to the sides. When you the coach will start the four count arm swing. ONE- arms extended in the front. TWO- arms extended up above the head with arms hiding the ears. THREE- arms out to the side creating a letter "T". FOUR- arms press down to the side (back to the starting position). One and two should be moving on the way up and three and four is on the way down. You can count on every three jumps, every other, jump, or every jump. I would recommend to count on every three jumps so they can learn the arm count and body control. Once they can do it will with body control then they can bounce with the arm swing on consecutive bounces.

Again nothing is more important to bounce with control and quality body movement then how high you bounce. At a developmental stand point it is not how high you go its how well you can control your body. Once they get to the higher developmental level then height start to become important as well because you need more air time to complete the skills. To develop good height is good body control. Having good body control is having good focus.

"I figure in practice you put your brains in your muscles" - Sam Snead

Best of luck with the new TnT routines in the upcoming season.

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!