Benefit from Injury: A Back Handspring Drill for Hand Placement on Balance Beam

Today's gymnastics coaching tip is the lemonade that came from lemons. Recently, two of my WAG Level 5 gymnasts suffered from foot injuries. My heart always goes out to injured gymnasts knowing that they feel left out; I try to find ways to give them special attention to remind them we are a team and they are important as well. With the limitations on training that include no running, jumping, bounding or hard landings, I found myself (not to mention my gymnasts) bored with basic kicks, swings and turn drills during our 1 hour balance beam training.

These training partners have the support of each other while during their recovery and coincidentally, these two gymnasts have been struggling with correct hand placement while learning how to do back handspring on beam. Taking reference from a YouTube video on hand placement, I found some equipment available at our gym.

Gymnastics equipment I used in this set up:

• 1 large barrel (an octagonal tumbler would work as well.)
• 20cm blocks
• Low balance beam

I really like this drill for a couple of key reasons besides the obvious:

• they can do this drill independently
• going crooked adds to the fun and the difficulty of the drill. After all, not every back handspring a gymnast a performs is perfectly straight.
• it's fun

How have you found ways to work on a gymnast's weakness during times of injuries? I would love to hear your stories.