bend with no invert?

[cyrusb06]

I have an athlete that has no troubles bending the pole and has a decent take off but never collapses the bottom arm which hinders her ability to invert. She rarely can get her hips above her shoulders and remains in the L position then drops her legs on the bar. The interesting part is that she can invert very well on a straight pole pop-up and can easily invert on bar and rope drills as well.
Any ideas or drills that are good at eradicating this problem?
Thanks

[Steve]

I have found success with the following three methods

Progressive Pop-ups:
1-do some straight-pole pop-ups (inverts) on a stiff pole that the athlete is comfortable on
2-with the same grip and run, continue to do straight-pole pop-ups using progressively softer and softer poles
3-at some point, the evil-arm will again appear--at that point, alternate back and forth between the last pole that was stiff enough for the athlete to do a pop-up correctly, and the pole that was just too soft.
This typically takes a day opr two to really embed the new behavior

Training pole:
1-put a full bend on the pole
2-close-out (get the bent-pole to contact the shins (L-position)
3-have the kid unbend-the-pole in an action that feels like water skiing (also similar to a "Romanian Dead Lift in the weight room).
Presupposes a kid knows how to water-ski

Scooter and PVC:
1-use a phy-ed scooter or moving-dolly
2-use (2) 10' of sch 40 pvc 1" diameter end-to-end, with 10' of 1.25" pvc over the 1".  This replicates the engineering of a pole (stiffer in the center)
3-put one end of the 20' pole into the corner of a gym floor, hang on to the other end
4-sit on the scooter and back into the corner (bending the pole)
5-start in the L-position (feet straight out not touching the floor, butt-on scooter--lean back and allow the pvc to unbend
6-rehearse with an arm flexing-in and with an arm staying straight.
The PVC unbends slowly enough to allow for the learning, and the correction to happen

Good Luck

[cyrusb06]

Thanks Steve, I think i'll start with the progressive pop-ups. I'll keep u posted on the progress.

[Caroline]

Sometimes having them kick off high bars is all it takes.

Sometimes we're not that lucky and you have to do all the stuff Steve mentioned.

Good luck.

[cyrusb06]

Wow, I noticed an immediate change with the progressive pop-ups. We have had 3 practices to work on this and the results are amazing!!! she even has the "vaulter's bruise" on her left forearm!!! only thing is that she is getting inverted late but I guess that should come with time. We are working on progressive full run vaults now. I have had her kicking a bungee and that has definitely helped as well. I suspect that the slow invert may be more of a takeoff issue because her trail leg sucks in as soon as she leaves the ground reducing the swing's momentum. But there is always something else to be fixed! Thanks again for the great drills--they really worked!!!

[Kurt Riska]

this is where you stress full extension of the trail leg behind the body.  once she learns that the take-off and swing are mutually exclusive (but one feeds the other), you stress not waiting for pole feedback.  when you wait for the pole to tell you when to swing, you miss time your speed with the pole's speed.  the result is getting thrown horizontally vs. vertically.  sorry i'm just talking out my ass...i'll butt out.  going through coaching withdrawals since dIII's happened 2 wks ago. take care[^]

[Caroline]

you are a smart ass so no need to apologize[]

[Steve]

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