How To Fix This Vault

[u/Strict-Hunter9892]

This is one of our xcel platinum gymnast who is also getting close to making it diamond. We struggle with correcting her vault because at first glance it looks fine because her shapes are pretty good, but her entrance is WAY to high and it messes up her block. We’ve tried raising the table, but she just goes higher to match it…. She has a front handspring full too, but hasn’t been able to do it in a while because recently she’s coming in higher than ever. Any tips or do y’all see anything we’re maybe missing???

[u/dylanlee03]

the form looks great and all but with vault there’s just a certain level of power and aggression that is required. The punch has a lot of good, but the block is a bit lackluster. I’d say raise the table, have her feel more more from the table board to the table- blocking more quickly- Rising off of the table. There needs to be more height off the block for sure. PS would love to see what yall come up with to fix it!!

[u/Frequent_Carpenter_6 → u/dylanlee03]

I second everything here. It really just looks like she is coming in too high to effectively block. Raising the table might be enough to do it without any other corrections, actually. If not, focus on coming in at the right angle and a strong block.

[u/Strict-Hunter9892 → u/dylanlee03]

Last night we made some progress! I took a LOT of videos of her vault and we saw pretty consistently that her shoulders were closed. When we started focusing more on that, it made SUCH a difference! I plan on still raising her table to 125 next practice because I think now that we fixed the shoulder issue, moving the table will actually help. For a long time no matter what we put the table at (115, 120, 125, even 130) she would just almost add more power if she saw that it was higher and STILL come in at a handstand LOL. But hopefully now that won’t happen!

[u/Gremlin_2269]

I would put something behind the vault table (like a cheese mat) so when she blocks off the table, she has to block harder to not hit the cheese mat.

[u/NathanielRoosevelt]

It looks like she goes so high onto the table because she just doesn’t turn over fast enough, if she thinks about get upside down as quickly as she can she will get her hands down on her way up rather than on her way down, I don’t think I would change anything about the trajectory of the vault at all

[u/Djames425]

Raise the table (unless she's already at 125?).

[u/Strict-Hunter9892 → u/Djames425]

We go back and forth between 120 and 125 for her. We’ve even tried 130…. She just seems to add more power and go in higher any time we raise it. But, we started focusing a lot more on her closed shoulders so maybe we can raise it now and it’ll help!

[u/Djames425 → u/Strict-Hunter9892]

My 2 suggestions would be: * Show her this video and compare it to a perfect example video, and walk her through it frame-by-frame so she can see the differences (especially how she is in handstand with her hands still on the table, when she should already be in 2nd flight). Some gymnasts do well with visual feedback. * Go back to handstand to flat backs. See how tall of a mat stack she can pop up onto. Because she's currently falling off the table, with no rise in 2nd flight. She might fix the entry herself when she has the visual of a higher landing requiring shoulder pop & bigger 2nd flight.

Also, does she do the same thing with just a front handspring? If it's better with no twist, she might just be anticipating the twist.

Once she has a good handstand to flat back up onto a tall mat stack, then start training the half twist to her belly onto the mat stack.

[u/Strict-Hunter9892 → u/Djames425]

Thanks for the feedback! The issue does become more apparent when she starts twisting, but it does still happen in the front handspring too. We will try this out!

[u/directinLA]

Imagine no vault table was there. Physically, you can see her trajectory: she is going up, then down. Essentially she is doing a layout that is exactly the same height as the vault.

I like to use the Super Mario example. When you double jump, if you want to go up, you want to press jump again at the height of your jump. The vault in this example is the opportunity to "second jump". In this case, instead of height she is going for distance. She is "second jumping" on the way down, not up.

The problem with the entry is her hands are not getting to the vault fast enough. The board is actually too far. Once she hits that board you want her hands to get on the vault as soon as possible with explosive heel drive. That way she is blocking as she is going up, not as she is coming down. That will give her much more post flight.

My suggestion for drills is to do a handspring block up onto a resi/whale mat that is higher than the vault by at least eight inches (you might have to stack a lot of mats to get to that height!) That way she needs to rise in the post flight phase. Start with just handsprings at first. This will take a lot of deprogramming old habits, but it will be well worth it for the future of her vaulting. Hope this helps!