History of the Trench Bar

BGS has 4 red spotting blocks and one yellow block.  I am a self-professed block hog.

March 14, 2013 Makeshift spotting trench

 I set this up for Rowan during a workshop last month; and believe it or not, she could fit through that narrow corridor.  That's actually as wide as I can set the blocks apart due to the cables (more stability, turned on the sides).  I set up something similar a few weeks later on a raised low bar for hand-spotting her through tkatchevs. 

Along with a state-of-the-art foam pit, on my coach's wish list I'd also add one of these:




Examples of what you can do with a trench bar:


On a side note to that video, a commenter asked what the girls had on their ankles.  The coach responded:

they are ankle bands that have velcro on the inside, so when there legs come apart they hear and feel it, I don't remember what company we bought those from

What a great idea!  Better than  squeezing a bean bag between the legs or using tape.  I think one advantage for the gymnast would be to do straddling elements through a routine, and then feel the velcro-reminder when the legs need to be together.


I did something similar to this for Claire when she was working on her Shushunova.

As a bonus, so many conditioning variation possibilities to the example in the video below, limited only by coach's imagination::




And a little history I was able to capture on film:



Personally, I prefer the narrower channels, because you can step across, or straddle the trench.