A couple of months ago some bloggers addressed the issue of widening the beam over at The Gymnastics Examiner. Many shared their opinions on whether this would be a good thing, bad thing or safe thing. I  came across Coach Vladimir Zaglada’s opinion this week while reading his book “One Coaches Journey From East to West” and thought that it was very fitting and would share with you, the readers of Full Twist.

Coach Zaglada asks the reader to think about what would have to happen if a double salto was to be performed on the beam. He says this would require one of three things:

1. The beam would have to be wider
2. The beam would have to be constructed out of different materials with better shock absorbing properties to soften landings.
3. The material out of which the base is constructed would have to be changed

He points out that if this was to happen, essentially the beam would be a long springboard:

“something more appropriate to the circus than artistic gymnastics”

Zaglada seems against changing the beam;
“Every gymnastics event has it’s own unique image, and in my opinion this image shouldn’t change – no matter what.  As I have stated before, the basic materials of the working components of equipment have to constantly be perfected to make them more elastic, reliable, and safe. The vaulting table was an exception. Given the increasing difficulty of modern vaults, the FIG was compelled to update the design for safety reasons.”
He also welcomes the FIG’s move to enhance the shock absorbing qualities of the floor apparatus with thousands of shock absorbers. In both this instance and the vaulting table, the FIG improved the safety of both events and made it possible to raise the difficulty.

• What do you think?
• Do you think we should have wide beams, like those in the tv show Make It or Break It?
• Would you be as impressed  by beam World Champion Ana Porgras if you knew she was performing her World winning skills on a sprung beam?

Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

I posted in January about the decision my gymnastics club took to purchase a handstand rebounder. I asked for other coaches and gymnasts opinions and experiences on buying / using rebounders. I have to say I am a fan of the rebounder, I was before and am more so now.

Although it has only made improvements to say, five out of seven gymnasts in my group so far, these are great improvements. We purchased the GymNova single rebounder and we’ve had no problems with it structurally. We don’t have a full time gym, so we rent our gym time from a sports centre, which involves setting up and putting away the equipment at each of our training sessions so it’s very quick and easy to tidy away when class is over. The girls who’s casts have improved, have really grasped the idea of driving their heels up and putting their shoulders forward keeping their arms straight.

I’m glad of the improvements form using the rebounder (as well as using other techniques and conditioning!), a great purchase!

For a few months I’ve been debating whether to buy a Handstand Rebounder for the club. I’ve been looking at the “Single Rebounder” from GymNova. Whilst my club has improved a lot on A Bars over the past year, our casts still require a lot of work and I’m tired of seeing sloppy, messy cast to handstands. It’s taking a lot of the girls a long time to get all the way up to handstand in giants. I’ve talked about the rebounder with a few other coaches in local clubs, they swear by them and say the investment was well worth while and that their giants / cast to handstands have improved immensely since buying the rebounder.

What are other coaches or gymnasts views on the Handstand Rebounders?

Have you found them useful? Do you think they’re a waste of money?

Bear in mind that this is for a gym that is not a full time facility so the likes of wall bars, a pit etc are something we don’t have.  If you don’t recommend the Gymnova rebounder, is there another you would suggest?

Yesterday I was reading Al Fongs latest blog entry “My Coaching peers remember when…“. It made me think about all of the things that I have told my gymnasts about how I trained and they laughed at me! So I made a list like Al Fong. You don’t realise how good you’ve got it girls!

• When I first started gym my club had only wooden benches to work on, after three years in the club, we bought a high balance beam. So yes, we used to enter competitions having never practiced on a beam!

• We had one springboard to share between the whole club

• My first leotard was lycra!!

• I first learned to swing on the bars, on a metal bar – no, not a metal loop bar with gloves but a metal bar!

• We had to put our music on tapes and search for days and days for music, slowly fast forwarding to the part that we needed to use for our routine. It used to take ages to get it right, as opposed to nowadays when music is so easily available to gymnasts. We couldn’t easily get any piece of music we wanted

• We didn’t have a full sprung floor to work on, in fact I don’t even think there was a full sprung floor available until nearer the time had to give up training.

• When doing full floor routines, we used to place extra matting where we would be doing our “big tumbles” – big being just a round off triple flip and maybe a front somi! We even did our dance parts on the wooden floor.

• We vaulted on a horse vault and found the vaulting table very scary when it was first introduced

• It wasn’t as easy as it is now to buy leotards. They weren’t as easily available but now there are so many companies, online and offline that sell leotards. I’m sure in some countries you might even be able to buy them in shops and stores

• When I first began training, we had only three short floor strips, blue school PE mats and some green mats which fell apart and smelled like feet. I can remember the day we first got a big carpet roll mat and everytime we bought one after that.

In fact, looking at the club now, I can remember when every single piece of equipment we have now arrived to the gym for the first time! In the last 17 years – we’ve come a long way!

What old memories do you have? Please share in the comments below!

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