Cheese/Incline Mats

The cheese mat is one of the best mats ever invented for the sport of gymnastics. It can be used on every single event and countless skills can be practiced on these incline mats. In this post, I am going to give an example of a drill for the bars, beam, vault and floor.

1. Floor: Forward rolls, backward rolls, back handsprings, back bends. There is so many skills to choose from especially on floor. The backward roll is ideal for this mat because most kids do not understand the concept of supporting their neck in the backward roll. The cheese mat allows for a soft landing for those who cannot quite push with their hands enough to get over. Also, because it an incline, the gymnast can get help with the momentum to get all the way over.
2. Bars: Back extension rolls from the skinny part of the cheese mat to the fat part of the cheese mat is a great way to get gymnast to feel what a clear hip is supposed to look like. Because they are going from the skinny part to the fat part, they have to really push hard and open their hips. Learning to be that aggressive in a drill will transfer nicely over to the bars.
3. Beam: Prop the chees mat up so that it is standing up and place it against the beam. Gymnasts can do handstand against the beam to get the feel of meeting the requirement of getting all the way up on a beam. This is great for the younger levels that need that vertical handstand.
4. Vault: Place the cheese in front of the vault. Having this obstacle there will force the gymnast to keep their chest up so that their vault is better. This is a drill I constantly do with my girls who have front handspring vaults.

Overall, get a few of these to go around! This mat is helpful in gymnastics and cheerleading as well.

http://www.greatmats.com/images/products/inclines/gymnastics-inclines.jpg

Beam Band Aid

Recently, my gym got a shipment of “beam band aids”. We call them band aids because they cover up the hard part of the beam and allow gymnastics more than four inches to do tricks. These things are great for skills like cartwheels, handstands, back walkovers, and back handsprings. The obvious reason is that gymnasts are less scared when the band aid is on the beam. Seeing the extra padding and the extra inch or two for their hands allows them to put fear aside and go for new tricks. As a coach, I really like these mats because they allow for gymnastics to get comfortable with their hand placement. Hand placement on beam is so important because it can make or break a trick. A back walkover and a cross handstand have ‘butterfly’ hand placement for a reason. The gymnasts weight is slowly distributed evenly through out the trick, so if one hand was to slip the other one would be able to support the body. A side handstand and cartwheel have the same hand placement for a similar reason, the weight needs to be distributed evenly. However, a back handspring has very different hand placement for a reason. One hand fits in front of the other in order to prevent the gymnast from face planting on the beam. If the butterfly had placement was to be used for the back handspring, the amount of lost teeth and black eyes would be very high because the probability of hands slipping in that fast of a trick is great. Beam band aids let the girls realize how close they are to skills as well. If they are consistently landing the tricks on the band aid, then they should gain confidence to go on the bare beam. This mat is great for older gymnasts who are working on harder skills as well because they’re doing tricks that are a lot faster and more nerve racking. The type of beam cover up that I prefer is from Cartwheel Factory. I find that these mats go on very tight and survive a lot of kids picking at them. Get a couple of these mats, because they are in high demand when the girls go to do their beam workout!

http://www.cartwheelfactory.com/gymnastic_equipment.html

Practice Panels

The panel mat is an institution at a gymnastics center. Hands down, we have more panel mats than any other type of mat at our gym. It can be used for every event and so many purposes. I would say the most common purpose would be for floor drills. I especially like to use this mat for beginner classes to practice cartwheels.The cartwheel is one of my favorite skills to teach because its so easy to figure out what the gymnast needs to do in order to improve. The skill can be seen as scary for a beginner, you are literally diving onto your hands and expecting your arms to hold you up while simultaneously keeping the motion going and hoping to land on your feet. I find that using the panels can be so helpful because gymnasts can place their hands on the top of the mat and just kick their legs over. Once they get the hang of this action, the coach can open up the panel and make the hand placement part lower, which gets the gymnast going closer to the ground. And eventually, the motions will all come together and the gymnast will be able to cartwheel perfectly. My pet peeve about cartwheels would be the bad habit of starting out in a poor lunge. If I was to give a crash course on how to do proper lunge here would be the main tips:

• Lean forward. This gives momentum for the skill, there should be a straight line from the top of your middle finger to your heel.
• Turn your front foot out. Not just for beam, this will help you tumble straight and keep those ankles safe from injury.
• Arms in tight! Your arms should be glued to your ears before and after the skill, this way you are prepared for the next skill, also it looks cleaner.
• Hips square. This again helps the direction of your tricks, and is a good habit to get into in order to take new skills to the beam.
• Feet apart enough. Not too wide, not too narrow, think about fourth position in ballet.

Combine all those tips and you’ll have a great set up for a cartwheel. When teaching beginners, insist that before they place their hands on that panel mat, they must show a lung the right way. This is a good habit to get into, and while using the panel mat, your gymnast is on their way to a great cartwheel. A panel mat that I find stores great and folds easily is the ten 0 panel mat.

http://www.ten-o.com/Gymnastics-Folding-Panel-and-Tumbling-Mats.html