All things related to Gymnastics, Trampoline, Tumbling, Cheer, General Sports Psychology and Athletic Sciences. Click on a post and feel free to comment and share! Check back often for new posts. Click NEXT at the bottom of the page to see even older posts. Make sure to check out our Technique Articles too if you’re looking for in-depth analysis of specific skills.
Back Full Month!
This month, us Coaches at USA Trampoline Academy have decided that it is “Back Full Month!” This means that every athlete that is level 5 or above is expected to have a Back Full without a mat by the end of August. We want this move to become a basic!
We have been doing every Back Full drill in the book, plus creating our own and teaching them to our athletes (of all levels) for over a year now. Many of our athletes are so very close to achieving this skill, however, some of them need a little push. We’ve found that in our school, sometimes creating a “deadline” for the kids makes them work a bit harder for that skill.
*Please note*: We would never require our athletes to do something they are not ready to do 🙂 The drills our athletes have been doing for Back Fulls have increased their aerial awareness as well as their overall coordination for executing the entire skill.
Learning IS NOT Linear
Perhaps one of the most important things for Athletes AND Coaches to learn is that progress IS NOT linear. Often, an athletes progress resembles more of a slowly elevating cosine wave – some months the athlete will learn new skills, increase height, grow their difficulty and technique, and generally have good practices. Other months, athletes will lose skills, decrease height, lose difficulty and technique, and seem to have generally bad practices. While they go through this down wave in their learning curve, it may seem like nothing they (or you) do will help them. However, this down curve is extremely important for their growth and learning. Sometimes, an athlete will lose a skill for a little while and that’s 100% okay. If that happens, simply take a break from the problem skill (or skills) for as long as needed – don’t continue to push it. In most cases, leaving it alone will allow the problem to work itself out. Doing only drills for the problem skill will also help indirectly fix it. Unfortunately, failing is part of the process, but this means that the athlete is LEARNING! An athletes learning curve is always going up…even on bad days. Athletes will learn from their mistakes.
Avoiding Injuries After Lock-down
So, after a three month hiatus, coaches and athletes are back in the gym! YAY! But how do we, as coaches, know how hard to push our athletes after such a long break? When does it become too much?
The long, uninvited break that we all went through effected not only gym owners and coaches, but also the athletes. Think about it: Our athletes went from practically living in the gym to being shut out completely for over 3 months. Forget about the physical toll it may have taken on our athletes, what about the Mental impact? It was tremendous! Physical exercise releases endorphins in the brain that trigger a positive feeling in the body, leaving the athlete feeling great after their workouts. Having their regular workout routine suddenly ripped from their lives is enough to stress the body and mind. Now throw in the fact that the athletes realize they may lose skills, strength, and endurance and we have even more reasons to be cautious at first.
The point I am attempting to get across to gym owners and coaches everywhere is: Take it slow. It’s okay if an athlete loses a skill when they first come back. It’s okay if they are a little more apprehensive. It’s okay if they don’t look fantastic and competition ready. Take it one day at time. Each athlete will need to build their confidence back up. They will get back to where they were before. Just give it time! 🙂
Welcome Back!
Welcome Back! The gym is NOW OFFICIALLY OPEN AGAIN. Albeit in a slightly limited capacity (we are only allowing 10 students maximum to be inside the gym at a time, via the online system). BUT, indeed we are OPEN! This is great news.
More great news, the students have NOT lost their skills AT ALL! (Although, we are not surprised). But what is even more important, the skills & techniques that were originally “problem areas” or “issue areas” have almost completely disappeared. Sometimes taking a couple months off from our bad habits can be the catalyst that you need in order to erase them completely. To us coaches, it feels like every student has doubled their skills since the gym first went into quarantine.
We are so excited for what lies ahead. What upgrades will we see this Summer? How many new routines or new accomplishments?
We are expecting so much from you all!
5 Reasons to warm up and stretch
Here is a great article by we found today by Niki Wilson about the 5 best reasons to warm-up and stretch before you start training! Make sure you check it out!
https://www.leapflipandfly.com.au/blogs/news/5-reasons-to-warm-up-and-stretch
Quick COVID-19 Update
Unfortunately, due to the severity of the Coronavirus in Connecticut, around the United States, and around the World, and in order to play our part in the fight against COVID-19, we were forced to close our school for 2 weeks on March 18th. The current plan is to reopen on April 1st if all goes well. We felt that we would not be promoting an atmosphere of health, fitness, and longevity if we had remained open. We do not want to see any of our athletes OR their family members ill. We believe that closing will offer our members an extra layer of protection over the next 2 weeks.
The appearance of this terrible virus could not come at a worse time, especially since we just opened our new facility. (But honestly any time is a bad time!) And then add in the abrupt end to the competitive season…It’s all quite a mess. However, we always try to stay positive and find the good in the bad! The early end to the season means there’s an early start to UPGRADE season. We have lots and lots of time now to train higher levels and new skills, meaning our athletes may be able to jump up 1,2, or even 3 levels in time for the next competition season!
In addition, we are using this time to learn new ways of communication with our athletes and their parents. We have taken to different forms of social media, such as YouTube, Instagram, & Facebook to post workout routines and tutorials for our athletes to follow while we are on our two week hiatus. The most important thing to us is that our athletes dedication and hard work does not get thrown out the door! Physical and mental maintenance is extremely important, especially when one spends so much time in the gym. It can be a shock when all of that suddenly disappears. But don’t worry, we will be back open before you know it!
Stay safe and healthy everyone! See you soon!
It’s Corona Time
To keep you updated about the situation, our school intends on remaining OPEN as usual until we receive recommendation from officials for any temporary closures. And we are pleased to inform you that as of today, no known Members of our school have contracted COVID-19 (coronavirus) or have even been in contact with it. And we will continue to monitor the situation every day and let you know immediately if that changes
Although there is no cause for concern right now, we want to remind everyone of the following:
- If you are ill with any sort of Cold, Flu, Fever, Allergies, Sniffles, Cough, Runny Nose, Sore throat, etc, or even if someone in your family is ill, PLEASE keep your ENTIRE family home. Do not have any member of the family present at the school during recovery; even if the child is not directly sick themselves.
- Please ensure that all your family members are 100% symptom free for 1-2 Weeks AT LEAST, before you send your member back to the school.
- Only healthy members may participate at the school. Any student may be sent home at Coach’s discretion. We will strongly be enforcing this in March & April.
- Limit spectators for now. Drop-off if you can. However, we understand that this is not always possible. But whenever possible, we encourage limiting people in the viewing area just for the time being.
And lastly, exercise common sense. If you have young children, teach them the following:
- Wash your hands often with soap for 20 seconds
- Avoid touching eyes, nose, & mouth
- Clean & disinfect work space & living space frequently
Rest assured, we deep-clean & sanitize our space every night. On certain nights of the week, we may even ask all members to join in and assist in spot cleaning after class, in a group cleaning effort. This will not only help disinfect the person(s) cleaning, but help keep viruses and germs from entering the facility. Together we can keep your gym immune and sickness-free, and everyone can keep training.
5 Ways to Rapidly Improve your Trampoline Technique
Want to improve your technique and skills more rapidly? Here are 5 sure ways that will get you there. These are all things that you can do at practice, without needing a coach to tell you. And after a few weeks of trying these methods, you should see some major upgrades! Let us know what you think?
- Jumping Higher on your single skills. If coach has you practicing something easy that you’re already comfortable with, like Level 1 routine, or maybe your Back-Tuck, then instead of coasting through it at your normal height, why not try to maximize your height before you begin! This will help you practice your coordination & balance. Why not try to make things harder?
- Making sure you always do an Out Bounce. Often, it is the out-bounce that is neglected. Make sure you always aim to do an out-bounce, which requires perfect technique on your previous skill. Neglecting the out-bounce can spell disaster when you go to compete.
- Adding a Tuck-Jump before your single skills. You’ll be surprised at how much harder a move can be if you just add a simple tuck-jump in front. Make sure that your tuck-jump doesn’t travel forwards though! (A common mistake). Practicing this will improve your connections vastly!
- Finding the wall in front of you. When you’re practicing connected somersaults…..don’t get into the habit that virtually everyone does. Virtually everyone, even elites, have a bad habit of staring at the trampoline bed even as they go into their next flip. This is a horrible habit, and you need to try to break this habit early on otherwise it will plague you for your entire career. Before you begin the 2nd somersault, you need to look straight ahead and find the wall in front of you, not the floor! Staring at the floor will keep your chest down and cause you to travel and diminish your height, among other things.
- Breathing! You need to breath….During your moves! You should be breathing out on every move that has a kick-out. This includes tuck-jumps, pike jumps, straddle jumps, kick-outs, etc. You should aim to make an audible exhaling noise every time you perform any move. Make this a habit!
Trampoline Lines are UP!
That’s right! The two trampoline harness systems are installed!
Over a three day period, we worked diligently to acquire all of the necessary equipment and install it where it needed to go. Let me tell you…those three days felt like an eternity! (But it was well worth it!)
After we secured everything, tightened all the bolts, and installed the pulleys and ropes, we decided to start placing the trampolines into the decking to make sure they lined up with the safety lines as well as matched the height and length of the wood decking. They did! As you can see below, the safety lines will go over the two far trampolines.
This whole project is proving to be quite a process! But we are so very excited to be making headway towards moving into our new home!
Do Different Drills, Mix it Up
It is important to mix up the drills every so often. Every technique can be modified an infinite number of ways to create an entirely new challenge. Athletes must not allow their minds or bodies to become too accustomed to performing the same drills the same exact way over and over again. If the athlete is performing the same motions over and over again, with no change to the external conditions, then plateau, fatigue, and boredom will eventually set-in. This can lead to very poor performance.
Another reason for changing up the exercises or the drills, these external components or different restrictions can make a simple move a lot more difficult. In the situation in the video, we have imposed a restriction on the athletes. They must perform a back-pullover from the end-deck mat, and still attempt to do a kick-out. This makes things much more difficult than what they are accustomed to, which also makes things more fun and interesting as well.
Other ways that you can bring more challenges to your trampolinist:
- Restrict the number of prep bounces to an “X” amount, or even zero prep bounces.
- Require the skill be performed when they are at maximum height
- Add a specific move in front
- Add a specific move at the end
- Perform 2 in a row, connected, or even 3 in a row.
- Begin from the End Deck
- Perform the move holding a light object with their hands
- Perform the move holding a light object with ankles/feet
- Face a different direction
- And many more! Be creative!