5 ways to improve tumble session productivity
We all want better results in our tumble sessions. It can be really frustrating for you, and your athletes, when you aren’t seeing the outcomes you’re aiming for.
Below are 5 things you can do that will streamline your sessions, create clear expectations and meet your athletes where they are- without feeling like you need to reinvent the wheel.
1- CONTEXT MATTERS
It’s easy to get carried away and push your athletes in a direction they’re not ready to go. You need to work to the needs of your athletes, not your own. Egos can cloud judgement and can pit athletes against challenges they’re not ready for. This creates anxiety because athletes don’t feel confident performing certain skills. Worse still, it can cause injuries.
We’ve all been blinded by our own ambitions but it’s important to meet athletes where they are NOT where you want them to be. This way you’ll be able to create pathways, with benchmarks and check points, that athletes will feel are achievable. There will be an element of fear in any new skill an athlete learns BUT by structuring your pathways this way you will be removing the opportunity for it to get to the point that an athlete will be unable to progress. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO, NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO! |
2- AUTONOMY
In today’s money routine is boring. Attention spans are short and we’re all looking for instant gratification. This doesn’t compute well with tumble. Muscles don’t build mass and memory overnight, it takes time. This is why having a clear routine is so important. Autonomy creates expectation, which creates habit, which creates culture. If an athlete arrives at practice knowing what is going to happen, they’ve already had time to mentally prepare themselves for the physical exertion to come. Even if they don’t ‘feel it’ that day. This raises the quality of the training environment because there’s no surprises. It’s not like athletes can say they’ve had the rug pulled from underneath their feet; they knew what they were walking in to!
Let’s take warm-up, for example. I’ve spent a lot of time playing around with what the right formula is. One thing that hasn’t changed is that it’s always demanding- to the point where I try to make it as hard, if not harder than the actual tumble circuits I’ve planned for them.
Why? 2 reasons:
1) it’s my precedent- I want to demonstrate from the start of a session that there are high expectations and laziness will not be tolerated
2) I aim to work all the key body areas I’m going to need when the circuits begin.
It’s not always easy and, when you’re starting fresh, athletes feel the challenge. However, once that expectation and culture has been set, it’s just another part of practice. I can’t tell you how many athletes have told me that they feel stronger OR that they’ve copied some of the shaping in warm up to help them perform a certain skill. It really does make a difference.
While having this routine is important, I also try to have something that softens the blow. After having completed a warm-up I always have some sort of challenge for the athletes to try, a peace offering if you will. They love it! It gives me just enough money in the bank to work them hard because they get to do something utterly ridiculous at the end- you can visit the AEC instagram page to see some of the things we’ve set for them to try (if not, TikTok and Instagram are your friend!).
DO: create a routine for your practices that athletes come to expect. The culture you set will become their habit. |
3- Teach shapes
Pssst. Yes, you. Come closer…
Whispers in AI “Don’t teach skills, teach shapes.
Shapes are your friends and they are, quite literally, the jigsaw pieces for all tumble skills. If you focus on teaching a skills as a whole, the athlete will never be able to fully grasp each component of said skill.
Let’s look at a BHS. It’s made up of:
1- athletic position
2- arch
3- handstand
4- hollow
5- landing/ athletic position
That’s not including overcoming the psychological fear of jumping backwards onto your hands and not moving your head. The struggle is real. BUT it’s more approachable when you’ve put lots of time into understanding HOW to perform each shape and WHY it’s so important to each skill. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t time consuming- it is! And, as coaches, we have to work within a very time-sensitive frame where results are a constant pressure. BUT it has made my life so much easier because athletes have such a clear grasp of the shapes they need to execute in order to perform a skill.
DO: use tumble shapes as the starting point to any session or skill focus. If you take it seriously, so will your athletes. |
4- Simplicity is key
Why make things hard? Life should be easier once you’ve drilled athletes with the fundamentals of the key tumble shapes. From there, it’s a case of using the shapes as the basis for for the circuits you create.
This is something I’ve personally had issues with in the past. I was trying so hard to be creative and ‘different’ that I was actually doing more harm than good. Athletes were getting confused, I was getting frustrated and no one was getting the results they were hoping for. BUT, once I started to strip things back and keep it simple, athletes were finding it easier to connect the dots and see a clearer pathway to success.
DO: KEEP THINGS SIMPLE. USE DRILLS TO CREATE A CLEAR PATHWAY TO SUCCESS. DON’T: OVER COMPLICATE THINGS. YOU’RE ATHLETES WILL BECOME FRUSTRATED, CONFUSED AND (WORSE) DISILLUSIONED. |
5- More reps less rotation
I realised I had fallen into a black hole when I saw how I was trying to do EVERYTHING in a 1-2 hour slot. This is, of course, insane and completely unsustainable. I think it was a consequence of the clinics I was delivering for other programmes. I was so desperate to do the best job possible that I ended up juggling with skills rather than actually doing a deep dive into their dynamics. This also found its way into my teaching at AEC. I felt like I was teaching everything but not enough, if that makes sense. Moving to a more ’simplistic’ approach meant there were often less drills in a circuit than I was used to setting up, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that this caused me severe anxiety- THERE’S NOT ENOUGH GOING ON HERE would constantly jolt through my body.
What I actually found was that I was able to hone in on exactly what I was looking for from a group. I started to assign them to specific drills and left them there for 3/4/5 minutes, depending on session length, then rotated them. I used to let athletes have free roam of a circuit and they could use rotate round for however long the length of the circuit was. This created a few problems.
One being that they would just go to the spot station
Two, they’d all go to the ‘cool’ or ‘fun’ drill
Or three, they’d go missing and not do much of anything.
By being assigned a station they can focus on the key body shapes, develop the strength, and the muscle memory for the skill they’re going to be performing. It’s a win, win!
DO: CREATE LESS DISTRACTION IN YOUR CIRCUITS. 3/4 DRILLS THAT COVER A SKILL, REPEATED A LARGE NUMBER OF TIMES WILL CREATE BETTER RESULTS THAN EXPANSIVE CIRCUITS WITH LITTLE ROTATION. |
To finish
If I’m being completely transparent, when I went through my old note books and social media it was pretty cringey viewing. To the point where I was shredding note books and deleting content. I was trying too hard.
Now I focus on:
Having a clear routine that athletes can expect when a practice begins
A challenging warm-up that focuses on the muscular areas needed for the session ahead
Key tumble shapes
Simple but focused drills
More reps and less rotation
I aim to to deliver this structure in every tumble session. While repetitive (I work on a 4 week cycle), I’ve found this has given me a greater sense of direction and outcome, with athletes feeling more in control and confident.
If you’ve got this far, thank you! I’d love to hear what you thought, or ideas you have for newsletters going forward. The Tumble Hub is for YOU and I want you to get everything from it that will help you to create better results for you and your athletes. So hook me up!
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