Region 3 Congress- Yurchenko vaults with Steve Arkell

Hurdle Drills

Hand Placement Drill for Round-offs

 Different coaches have different ideas about round-off hand placement.

As far as I know, standard/orthodox is the upside down "T".

Illustration source

Some coaches teach both hands turned inward.

On a straight line.

Or hands straddling the line:

Power tumblers might "hop 1/2-turn":

 The common "no-no" is hands turned out.


I saw this drill the other day:

Post by GymDrills.NET.

Description:

This exercise teaches gymnasts the correct hand placement during round off and encourages to perform the movement in a straight line. This drill has a positive influence on apparatus such as Floor Exercise and Balance Beam.

Since the single floor rail only allows the fingers to face sideways, I decided to use piroullettes to play around with this drill:

What I like about the floor bar(s) over symbols on the ground or drawing an upside down "T" and other markers, is that the gymnast has to turn the hands to face the desired direction in order to grab the push-up blocks (piroullettes).

Inverted Tight Stretch Snap to Hollow Drill

Yurchenko Drill Stations

Conventional vs. Unconventional

Hands turned in:

Tatiana Nabieva

Suzanna Harmes still going strong. Photo from AP Photo.

Hands turned out:

Note also how Maroney's arms are straight upon contact with no space between her ears.

She acquired her technique from Gym Max, prior to AOGC.

Gymnastics Coaching posted a slo-mo video of Maroney at World's:



When Wade's Australian friends were in town a couple of years ago, they visited AOGC and chat with Akopyan.  Wade experimented a little bit with the hands turned out (I forgot with which gymnast), with the idea of it opening up the shoulders and chest; but I think was undecided upon the merits of the technique for your generic gymnast. 

 It works for Maroney, of course.

Yurchenko Spotted Flipping Drills

Gymnastics Peeves

Whenever I'm coaching floor or vault and ask a gymnast to either stand in a lunge; or stand hollow with arms up and ears covered....so many compulsory and even optional gymnasts will stand with feet turned out in a lunge and crown arms; and in a hollow stand with arms up in crown.  Earth central command to beam-brain-washed gymnasts:  CROWN ARMS ARE NOT MADE FOR VAULTING!  FEET TURNED OUT NEITHER HELPS YOU RUN FASTER NOR HURDLE STRONGER FOR VAULT OR TUMBLING!!

I guess it's a sign of a good beam coach that they've conditioned crown arms and turnout into their gymnasts.

 Here is a vault drill for the hurdle in the round-off.  Note the direction in which the feet are pointing:


2008 Olympic Coach Marvin Sharp give us a drill to help the hurdle for the round off for vault. This hurdle to the knee drill helps the gymnast to keep shoulders back and the body square allowing the gymnasts to kick over the top on the round off and be tall on the board.

The Hardest Skill to Coach?

I think it might be the round-off....starting with your basic cartwheels.  Or at least I have trouble with it; perhaps it might be the hardest skill to perfect?  Most gymnasts even when they reach elite will still devote time to perfecting their round-offs.

I have Tammy Biggs' excellent GymSmarts dvd:




I'm still thinking of ways on how best to approach teaching this.  Also constantly debating about where to have the arms start and finish and how to hurdle.  Coaches also differ a bit on hand placement.


Here's a video from Mary Lee Tracy on squaring your round-off:

More from the IDP clinic

Mark Calton covering blocking drills:




Peggy Liddick on connection bonus:

History of the Yurchenko Vault

From Natalia Yurchenko's website:

The Yurchenko Vault  – in her own words:

“This vault is in the code of points under my own name. Indeed, I was the first gymnast to do this vault during an official competition. It was in Moscow during the Competition in 1982. I am very proud and very happy that there are many gymnasts today who perform my vault.

Few people know that the first gymnast who performed this vault was a male gymnast! It was invented by Russian gymnast Victor Levinkov during a national competition in Former USSR. But this vault was not well accepted in the male Russian gymnastics. So my trainer has decided that I should do it and I began to learn it. First I thought that my coach has gone crazy and wanted me to break my neck. I did not even succeed in imagining how I could arrive on the board back to the horse and spring without seeing where I should put my hands.

But always with clenched teeth, with eyes closed with fear, I began to learn it. After having repeated the motion a thousand times, it got easy and very dynamic with a second flight phase “high and far”.

At the beginning, I often fell. My legs were baldy placed on the board, my hands missed the vaulting horse. Concerning my vault, the study of the technique is very important because the little failings lead directly to the fall which can be very dangerous, especially when you fall on the head.

Technique Tuesday- Open Shoulders on Yurchenko

Gymnastike:

*This was the most watched Technique Tuesday of 2011. Kylee Botterman went on to win the 2011 NCAA All Around title* 

For the season 2 premiere of Technique Tuesday, University of Michigan assistant coach Shannon Welker shows us a drill he uses with his team to open up the shoulders in the preflight of yurchenko vaults. This drill has proven successful to the team - gymnast Kylee Botterman has tight shoulders yet is one of the best vaulters in the country and recently scored a perfect 10 on the event.

Neil Resnick: 2012 National Congress Intro to Yurchenkos

Yurchenko Reboot

 Kort had begun Shaz on Yurchenkos a while back because he didn't think she'd be able to get her tsukahara vault in time for level 8 season.  But then she had taken a break from them, due to some pain in her wrist.  So Kort had her back on tsuks. 

Over the weekend, she asked Kort if she could go back to working on Yurchenkos because she felt she had been making progress before she had to rest her injury.  Kort agreed.

After a couple of days, she asked to try her timers on the real table, from a half run. 

Belated birthday to the Shaz and her mom; but uploaded in time to celebrate her dad's birthday.

Vault Air Awareness Drill

Kort started having the 7/8s trying this vault drill today and one of them at the end of workout said it took her a moment to understand what was being asked of her.  This is essentially the type of drill:







If I find a better example, I'll post it up.

As with pretty much all drills, there are inherent diseases and imperfections.  The benefit of this setup is in giving the beginning optional gymnast some semblance of multiple flipping while still working on the vault entry at the same time.

 In my opinion, I'd encourage the gymnasts not to set with the arms up by the ears while back saltoing off the resi stack (i.e., if one wants to make the drill closer in simulation to actual vault flipping).

Food for thought for the aspiring tsuk/yurch vaulter:  Think of the direction of push/block coming off the table and where your arms will actually be when doing the vault for real.

Hope it helps.