Square Hips in Stretching

What stretching does to your body

Where would we be without Velcro?

Wade Petersen was mentioning to me about how he was thinking for a way to show square hips with posts sticking out the sides.  So I came up with this:


Also thought about maybe attaching flashlights or laser pointers to the sides (Al Luber used to talk to the kids about pretending like they had headlights).

And the bottom idea I had a couple of years ago and had bought the material but never executed the idea until this past week:

Stretching at the beginning of practice

Here are some preteam and excel kids and part of their warm-up across the floor:








Related post:

[Not] Stretching the Truth

Abductors & Adductors with Resistance Bands

Structuring rec like team

Looks like part of a power points presentation:

Is your back leg doing what your front leg is doing?

Swing Blog:

I always have my gymnasts do “normal” splits and “straight leg” splits. Meaning I want both of their knees totally locked out. That way when we start working split leaps or jumps I can say “does your back leg feel like it does in your straight leg splits?” and they understand what I’m talking about.

Sunday Funnies

Clinic with Dutch Coach Patrick Kiens

Flexibility Extreme

TOP Flex Testing

Conditioning for the Tour Jete

Les Jeunes Filles et la Vie

I mentioned the movie White Nights yesterday.

Here is a video I did for the LASG rhythmic gymnastics team several years ago, using the music from that opening piece that I liked from the movie:

Developing the Illusion Turn

The Office Stretch

The girls understand what I mean by that.....

Technique Tuesday: Stall Bar Flexibility w/ Bungees

New one from Gymnastike:

2012 Olympic Coach and Twistars Gymnastics Co-Owner Kathryn Geddert gives us a drill to improve flexibility in the shoulders, hip flexors and quads. While holding onto a bungee wrapped around the stall bars, the gymnasts leans pressing the hips and shoulders to the floor.

The Troubled Waters of Bridging

Following on the heels of my "posture Tuesday" posts...

 This is going to be a long post- but one which I feel is important to read.  I'm also going to blockquote quite extensively; in the event that the sites I am citing get wiped off the face of the internet, at least some of the info can be preserved in this post (until this blog disappears into the ethers...).

Therefore, I think I will let this post stand for most of the day at the top of the blog; so do not anticipate anything new being published the rest of today ('cept for one minor one that is related and will publish tonight).



A few years ago, I watched Beth Gardner talk about the appropriate age to begin introducing bridging to children and in what manner, on this Gymnastics Minute video:




Influenced by some information and perspective I got from listening to Tammy Biggs, I posed the following question to Gardner on the YouTube video:

Anything in this Look Familiar?

To the BGS optionals, I'm sure some of these stretches look familiar to you:







Also this:

Snack Food as Motivator

Once at SMGC, I hung a bag of cookies above the bars to motivate one of the girls.

Active Flex Across the Floor: Split rolls