Coach Keith's Corner

We all know the expression "Practice makes Perfect."  It's short and it makes us feel great that all we have to do is try real hard and we will improve at our task.  However, what if it lots of reps makes you worse? How can practice make you worse you ask?  Its simple.  Anytime you do a task, it becomes a habit.  If you continue to do a skill in the wrong way, that will become a habit that you will be hard to fix. Suppose you can't do a muscle up.  Do you think doing hundreds of  muscle ups with wrong...

What the are you thinking, earlier you told us to have a plan.  Ok that's right I did, but what if your plan isn't any good? Brief story.  I have this gymnast I coach that is really good for 13.  He didn't have a release skill on high bar.  In my mind I could see him doing the most beautiful geinger (let go of the bar, do a back flip with half turn and recatch).  I thought this was the perfect skill for him and knew it could lead to my favorite skill a Def (a geinger with another full twist).  So I...

Before you think I don't like the holidays (I do), I am referring to this time of the year for a Gymnast or Gymnastic Coach. For the most part, our season is split into a few time periods. We have meet season which lasts from roughly January to May.  Each practice is pretty similar and drama free.  The kids come in do their routines and some strength and go home.  They are getting consistent on their routines, they just have to do the work to clean them up and maybe add something here or there.  Its not the most exciting practices but ...

Lack of wrist flexibility and strength is an often overlooked problem.When you are in a handstand, you want to try to keep your back and shoulders still and do all of your balancing with your hands and wrists. This means you need to work on your wrist flexibility as well as the strength. Look at a close up of this boy’s hands and wrists. When holding a handstand his fingers should be pointing forward. See how his fingertips are pressing into the mat? He is using his fingers to help him balance.   Notice the angle between his hand and...

You were watching the Olympics and you could generally tell who was the best, Nastia and Tim tried to explain to you the deductions etc, but you just want to know how those scores came about.  The scores weren't just pulled out of a judges hat, or body part  - there is a method to the madness.  And I will try to explain to you how! Each final score is made up of two scores added together - the execution and the difficulty.  The execution score is the easiest to understand but also the part that is subjective.  The execution score...