Keeping Male Gymnasts Safe In The New Code with Tyler Green

Prepare to revolutionize your understanding of men's gymnastics as we welcome Tyler Green to unpack the latest updates to the men's gymnastics code. Discover how these new rules, emphasizing increased difficulty and more complex skills, will reshape routine construction and skill development. Tyler and I discuss the urgency of balancing the pursuit of advanced techniques with the long-term health of gymnasts, ensuring even those at intermediate levels are safeguarded against burnout and injury.

What's the impact of reducing required skills per element group on athletes' strategies? We dive into this critical change, highlighting how it will affect everything from dismounts to routine excitement for fans. Our conversation underscores the necessity of proper physical preparation, cross-training, and adequate metabolic conditioning to safely meet these heightened demands. Learn why cardio endurance and robust leg strength are non-negotiable for young male gymnasts aiming to master high-difficulty elements and avoid injuries.

Managing wrist injuries, building shoulder strength, and mastering high-risk skills are just the tip of the iceberg in our discussion. Tyler and I also explore the importance of gradual skill integration, modern flexibility methods, and effective workload management to ensure long-term athlete health. From advanced shoulder training for pre-pubertal gymnasts to the complexities of upper bar skills, this episode offers a comprehensive guide to adapting to the evolving world of men's gymnastics while prioritizing the well-being of athletes. Don't miss our deep dive into these crucial aspects, designed to keep gymnasts engaged, healthy, and performing at their best.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the Shift Show.
My number one goal is to giveyou the tools, ideas and the
latest science to help youchange gymnast lives.
Today on the podcast I'm veryexcited to have on Tyler Green,
where we are going to break downa lot of the new men's
gymnastics code updates and,more importantly, what that
means for the safety and healthand performance of male gymnasts
.
So big code changes coming up,particularly around like

(00:32):
difficulty and harder skills oneach event, things like that,
and we kind of go through andbreak down, or he breaks down
the code changes and what arereally the significance of that,
what changes people need to bethinking about from a routine
construction and skill point ofview.
And then I kind of weigh in andjump in on okay, what do these
changes mean for our physicalpreparation, for our injury
prevention, for some of ourmaybe flexibility requirements,

(00:53):
right, what can we do to makesure that, if we're going to
chase this higher difficultywhich I'm a fan of, to be clear,
what are we doing downstreamearlier in people's careers to
make sure we set them up safelyfor these double flipping skills
, these really hard dismountsand lots of things in there,
because my fear always sometimesand this kind of came up on an
episode with John Roethlisbergeris sometimes, when we push the
difficulty envelope to help becompetitive on the higher level

(01:15):
and national stage, which isamazing we sometimes have to
make sure that the middle of theroad, people who are still kind
of coming up and are gettingtheir skills together are are
taken care of and are not justgoing to be, you know, blown out
of the water with thisdifficulty, because now, as you
have to do more skills acrossmultiple categories, it's gonna
be harder, it's gonna be a lotharder to get those skills and
we don't want to rush thesethings.
We don't want to push somebodyinto a position where their

(01:35):
shoulders start to get reallysore with strength moves or
their knees start to get bangedup with floor tumbling or
dismount.
So, yeah, I really liked thisconversation because it's nice
to kind of dip in and out of theweeds of the technical side,
the performance side, but alsothe health and safety side, the
longevity side, um, I think allof this in the end of the point
of view will be a veryproductive uh change for the
code Um, but just want to makesure we're aware of the changes
and we know what those mean forour athletes.

(01:57):
So hope you all enjoy thiswonderful conversation with good
Tyler.
What's going on, man?
How are you?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
I'm doing great.
I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, thank you for the time.
I appreciate you coming on tothe podcast and listening To
give readers or listeners alittle context here.
We bumped into each other atNational Congress, slash,
olympic Trials, no-transcriptand just said you know code

(02:39):
changes and you know I thinkit's going to change a lot of
things with difficulty and I'llto stay up to date with as much
code stuff as I can.
But as you know, as a judge, itis thick man, it is thick in
there.
So I think many peoplelistening probably feel the same
way that they want to.
You know, coaching side it's Iwant to.
I want to know the code, I wantto understand it, but I'm so
stressed out I got so much othercrap going on.
So yeah, that's kind of my twocents on how we met.

(03:00):
But what are your thoughts onthe high level before we dive
into it?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, no, that's one of the many reasons why I'm
excited to talk to you isbecause everybody knows the code
changes every four years, butevery eight years is when they
go through the more dramaticchanges, and if you don't know
the rules, you can't play thegame.
So I think being up to datewith all of these little changes
is sometimes challenging andoverwhelming, because it's so
much.
So sometimes it takes a codenerd like myself to kind of

(03:31):
decipher it and give the bulletpoints of what's important and
what to look out for.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah and I mean not to date the podcast, but it's on
definitely the positive impactsof, I think, some things that
have changed in the sport withmore difficulty right, like a
lot of those guys we see now whoare doing big skills that had a
great Olympic cycle and kind ofmade their way up to the lead
end.
Obviously, coming from collegethose guys are all from colleges
that we do see the positiveimpact of changes across the
sport.
When we do push difficulty, youknow we can obviously need to

(03:56):
hit, you know.
But at the same time I thinkthat in years past it's always
been, even if you do kind of hiton the elite stage, you kind of
struggle with the scoresbecause the difficulty gap is so
wide between China and Japan.
So obviously this is not onlyabout the elite.
It's a small percentage, but Ithink a big part of this code
change correct me if I'm wrongis we're trying to encourage the
sport and the whole environmentto encourage more challenging,

(04:17):
more difficulty, more variety,not just like doing 13 releases
from one category, right.
So the impact and the goal isphenomenal and I love it.
I'm a performance dude myselfbut, as you rightly have brought
up in the outline as we'll talkabout.
There are some very serious,you know, thoughts we have to
put into this about what thismeans for younger athletes, to
keep them healthy and longer,because obviously injuries are
still a huge problem in thesport we're trying to work

(04:38):
through.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Absolutely, absolutely.
The.
The changes are going to begreat for the elite level
athletes who are probablyalready doing some of these
higher level skills.
But the truth is that thesechanges for FIG that the
Olympians are judged by trickledown to your level 10, 9, 8
athletes.
So your average Joe is judgedby the same criteria that your

(05:00):
Olympians are.
So, yeah, it's going to beinteresting to see how these
changes are applied and receivedand accepted amongst the
gymnastics community and see howpeople adapt.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
For sure.
Yeah, and before we dive intothe code stuff, just to give
people some context, can yougive a short elevator pitch on
your background and what yourrole is now with judging and the
code, like why you're such acode nerd?
So that way people know.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, sure.
So my name is Tyler Green.
I'm going on my third cycle asan FIG judge.
I'm a former board member ofthe NEIGC and founder of Georgia
United Gym Act team.
I was president of the GeorgiaJudges Association for about
eight years before hitting myterm limit and now I just

(05:42):
recently moved to Minnesota tobe an optional team coach at
many hops, which is Shanewhiskers Old gym.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Nice Shout out, shane , that's great.
Yeah, I think obviously you arewell qualified to offer your
opinions on the code and how itchanges.
But yeah, I think my favoritethis is probably terrible to say
like out loud, it sounds bad myfavorite types of people.
I don't want to say that's howI sound, but I love people who
dabble in two worlds, right?
So myself, whether it's likeobviously, coaching, medical
strength, right, a littleresearch you have like judge and

(06:09):
coach, I like people who kindof morph between two, because
there's nothing wrong with justbe only being a coach, only
being a judge, don't get mewrong.
I love you guys who do that, butit's it's good to have your
hands in other lanes, you know,when you're driving, I don't.
I think it's sometimes whenyou're only bullheaded against
one thing and all you do iscoach.
Sometimes you're not empatheticto the judge's side point of
view, right, or things like that.
So I enjoyed the fact that youkind of have most and before we

(06:30):
kind of go nitty gritty in thecode.
So the big picture for you.
What do you see when you lookat the code changes?
You talked about downstreamchanges.
Are there any other things at amacro level?
You see that like kind of raiseyour eyebrows a bit about
things people should beconcerned about.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, for sure, and kind of touch on that, I always
say that I have three differenteyes for gymnastics, right?
I have my coaching eye, whereI'm looking at technique and
their progress with the skill.
Then I have my judging eye,where I just see everything
that's wrong with it and I justpoint and poke and jab all the
little holes and.
But then when I'm stepping backand trying to be a fan of the

(07:07):
sport and just watching it forthe beauty of it, I have to shut
the spectrum of each eventinstead of just one athlete
who's really good at fronttumbling and just shows off
there as a judge.

(07:34):
I appreciate that as well.
I go into the example of I'veseen I can't tell you how many
routines that I've seen where anathlete goes and he throws a
very challenging set that hassome deductions, nothing major,
but they just add up and theyend up scoring.
The coaches have come to meconfused why an athlete who did
all A's in their routine end upscoring better than an athlete

(07:56):
who threw a high level set.
And so now this new code isreally going to adjust for that
and help athletes be encouragedto go for it.
So yeah.
And, as a coach, my third eye isa little concerned because now
I'm going to have to force someathletes who I could avoid,
certain skills, but now there'sno way around it.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, exactly, I think to the scoring point.
I would agree that sometimes,you know, my lens is the medical
providers I'm always trying tobe like how can we keep you
involved and keep youcompetitive in the sport,
enjoying what you do?
But, to your point, when youtry to do all of those harder
skills or get athletes to becompetitive for whatever if they
want to go to college, you wantto go to club, but their
scoring kind of feels like deathby a thousand cuts, right, they

(08:38):
have a bunch of high levelskills but it's two here and a
hop here and two here and youlook at your score and you go
like God damn, I am like gettingcrushed by.
You know just clean, basicgymnastics and there's a
definitely a role to play inthat.
As someone who's more of atraditionalist, like I love
seeing clean, beautifulgymnastics over Hawk and Chuck.
You know messy gymnasticspersonally, but at the same time
, to your point, my fear andwhen I take a big step back, is

(09:01):
I'm always trying to think abouthow can we keep kids in the
sport for longer, because thatis the ultimate goal, right,
it's like if you're in the gameand you're not injured and you
enjoy what you're doing.
You're going to get the mostout of the sport, both from a
competitive point of view, butalso from a overall sport
cultural level point of view.
Right Like I am only herebecause my coach was great and
an amazing dude and I had a gymwhere I really grew up with and

(09:22):
I love the guys I trained with.
I was terrible bro, like I wasreally bad right, but I got
through level nine, level 10,barely.
I got into a D three team andit changed my life and that's
the only reason why I'm in thesport still is because I had a

(09:42):
at that time, a code thatallowed me to kind the sport.
The more we push the marginsaway, we push the people that
are really, really good, like toyour point to be keep doing
really well and adapt.
But the people who are in themiddle of the curve become
really struggle bust right Toget their requirements.
They get burnt out or trying todo these skills, they might get
some nagging shoulder stuff andthen, unfortunately, they just
drop out of the sport becauseit's so hard, right Like it's.

(10:04):
It's tough to go to acompetition and keep struggling
to perform the way you want andthen, on top of that.
You have injuries, right.
So my fear is that we sometimesmight be pushing kids away from
the sport.
For the lack of specializationon events or the difficulty
barrier is so high, they feel asthough it's not worth
continuing to push on.
So that's that's my point ofview.
I'm not sure if I said thatbefore, but that's kind of where

(10:24):
I sit.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, all, all valid points of view.
I mean as much as we want toreward the athletes who are
doing the big tricks and, youknow, putting on the best show.
At the same time, we want thepeople who maybe aren't as
talented, who put just as manyhours in the gym, to feel like
they are getting success as well.
So I do think it's veryimportant that every athlete

(10:49):
keeps in mind that everyone'sdefinition of success is always
going to be different, and justbecause somebody else is
throwing something bigger andscoring better with this new
code, it doesn't mean thatyou're completely out of the
running in total.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, for sure.
So let's kind of talk aboutmaybe what you see the big
changes are and the difficultyand how that affects scoring,
and then we'll trickle that downinto maybe how that affects
routine construction or likeyour thoughts.
You have some great thoughtshere on how the scores may be
looking very different, eventhough you feel as though you're
going forward.
So some athletes will feel asthough they're running in place.
But yeah, give your thoughts onsome big level changes and then
we'll kind of dive into nittygritty stuff.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, so, um, the first main change is more on the
senior level.
Uh, they are going to eightskills instead of 10.
So that means shorter routinesfor the senior guys.
Uh, but level nines, level tens, have already been at eight
skills, so not much of a changethere.
But we are moving to only fourskills per element group uh

(11:50):
instead of five.
So, again, if you're really goodat n bar now, that's one less
skill that you can do on highbar.
So, um, I think this is goingto be great.
It's going to be moreentertaining for, uh, the fans,
because imagine you're trainingfor a mile race, right, and you
show up to race day and you haveyour pace, you know where to go

(12:11):
, but now, all of a sudden,you're only doing three laps
instead of four.
So, you can kind of push thatpace a little bit and hold back
a little bit less and justreally hit the gas.
So it's going to be interestingto see what we see on that front
from the senior level.
But again, usag, the optionalswere already at eight skills, so
we're not going to have toomuch change there.

(12:34):
But with fewer opportunities tobuild difficulties, athletes
are really going to be relyingon the dismounts to get their
start value up where it used tobe.
So this is one of the biggestchanges that we're going to see
is that now the value of yourdismount is going to be not only
the amount of points you getrewarded for for the skill, but

(12:56):
that's going to be how manytenths you get for your element
group as well.
In the previous code it used tobe a D dismount, uh or higher,
would automatically give youfive tenths for element group,
and now that D dismounts onlygoing to give you four tenths,
the E is going to give you five,but then the F is going to give
you six, right, um.
So the previous code, uh, Imean there's a.

(13:19):
There's a reason why you onlysaw the Wittenberg on high bar
on on rings once you know it wasan eye level skill which was
super exciting to watch, but atthe end of the day you got four
extra tents for throwing thegnarliest trick that's ever been
done.
Um, and you know you take a fewsteps on that and you're not
going to score as well as theguy who did a standard.

(13:40):
You know, run of the milldismount.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, and I think when you, when you outline it
like that, you know there's twothings that really popped out to
me when I was reading over this.
One is that, um, this actuallycomes from a thought in the
women's side when they weretrying to change the uh senior
age of uh, like to be 18 beforeyou know that, and Nick, a good
friend of mine, was like, well,we can't just change the age
unless we change everythingdownstream behind it.
Right, you can't, you have tochange things that happen at 16

(14:04):
and 14 education at 12 and 10.
And I largely feel like thiscode is going to really force us
to do that.
Right, we can change theseskills for difficulty, we want
people to do harder dismounts,we want these big skills.
But if we want someone to dothat at 16, right or 18, right,
we have to really thinkcritically about, like, what are
we doing at 14 and 12?
I think the 10 to 14 age gap forboth men's and women's, is

(14:26):
where a lot of the shit hits thefan, so to speak of like
overuse, injuries, volume,puberty.
You know, stress levels are upand down and, frankly, guys
mature later.
They are physically not strongenough to handle some of the
skills we ask of them, I think,right now.
So, whether that's ringstrength, in this context, it's
dismounts, right.
So that is the first thing Ireally think about is that we
need a very large cultural andalso educational gap to be

(14:49):
filled on.
You know, what does Tom Meadowsdo with these guys when they're
10?
What do what does Paul do withthese guys when they're 12?
People who have like multipleguys on senior national team.
We need to really be tappinginto all these long term
expertises and be like, okay, ifwe're going to do really hard
skills at 16, 18, 20, whatever,what are we doing to slow kids
down when they're younger andreally make sure that they're
technically sound and physicallyprepared, which leads to.

(15:10):
The second thing is is you know,this is becoming much more of a
thing on the women's side,thankfully, but seeing the code
changes with so many harddismounts and so much harder
skills like cross training andweight training and getting your
legs strong is almost going tobecome mandatory, like we have a
lot of guys that live with usand see the benefits to it, but
I still think it's still like abit fringe in the culture of
cross training in the off seasonand weight training and

(15:31):
squatting.
But force is force man.
If you're doing, you know EFGlevel skills.
Your legs are taking 15 to 20times body weight and ground
reaction forces the highestrecorded forces in all of sport
are landing heavy things onfloor and landing heavy
dismounts off like high bar.
So if we ask young kids tostart doing these things and
they have growth plate issues orthey have some not really

(15:52):
prepared legs or they don't landproperly in a squat, we're
going to blow these kids legs up.
So that that's my two biggestfears from the outside.
Looking in, as I see the codeis the cultural level, impact of
education and the need for guysto weight train, starting at
like 12 years old and really goslow to get super, duper strong.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, no, I love that .
I actually love the cultureshift that you've initiated with
this podcast, because that waseyeopening for me.
I've started using the analogyof.
In every car commercial you see, you hear them talk about their
IIHS safety rating.
You know, and how safe is theircar?
And the car is not safe becauseit's risk adverse.

(16:32):
Right, it's not just avoidingtaking risks.
It's safe because it's builtand engineered in a way that
when it gets in a crash, it'sready to take that blow.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Right, it's ready to take that impact.
So, um, you know your body'sthe same way you want your body
built for tough.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
And another thing I'd like to touch on is the the the
important of air awareness.
You know you need to know howto throw those airbags.
When it's when you're going torun into a wreck, you need to
know when it's time to deploythose.
So I find it baffling to seehow many athletes have a double
back on four different events,but they're terrified to do one

(17:14):
on trampoline.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, or just a layout period.
They can't do a layout.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
And it's one of those things that you have to learn
these skills in an area whereyou can do dozens and dozens at
a time and you can fall multiple, multiple times and learn how
to fall safely.
I don't want the first doubleback that you do and miss a leg
to be happening on floor Onceyou go through that on tumble
track.
I want you to do a lot of thosein the pit and we'll take it to

(17:40):
the floor once you've fallen afew times and know that you can
handle that safely.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, and I agree, I think that the you know.
Obviously, in an ideal worldeveryone has access to an Aussie
bed and a tramp and can have agreat Steve Gluckstein to teach
them how to do all these things,but I think most people that's
challenging.
But everybody oftentimes haseither a tumble track or a
springboard set up or some sortof mini tramp that they can do
snap down work and it's really,really important that kids learn
to your point from a young ageyou know how to, how to mostly

(18:07):
manipulate rotation.
I think the amount of turnoveris where kids really start to
get, uh, in sticky water.
So, knowing like a faster or aslower layout, or a faster or
slower double full, and likebeing able to safely fall out of
multiple things, Um, and likelearning, that is crucial
because you know they have tohave those, uh, technical basics
, I would say those, thoseelements of, of really
controlling their gymnastics.

(18:28):
Um, tumble track is good becauseit exaggerates your errors for
better or for worse.
If you have great technique andyou know how to stand up well
and slow yourself down, it'sgoing to go great.
But if you come out the sidedoor early and you're doing a
three quarter to your side.
Well, that's going to be a oneand three quarter to your head,
right, so you really got to becareful of that.
So yeah, I agree with that.
I think that the more thechallenging here, if you take a
big step back, is the need to goslower.

(18:50):
But that comes with a need tokind of subdue parents and other
coaches maybe, or the gymnaststhemselves that are like more,
more, more now, now.
Now you know, I think thatthat's the art of coaching is
trying to slow somebody down andpaint a picture of why grinding
for three years when you'regrowing like a weed and you
can't take a lot of volume, willpay off in spades when you're
16.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Absolutely.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Okay, and then here we have what you say is kind of
the biggest change.
Right, those four elements,right, the two of the four are
needed to be devalued.
Can you kind of explain more?
Because that's that's where thejudging piece gets in the weeds
for more.
So I want to make sure peopleare clear on this.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Um, fig is keeping four elementgroups per event, but now in uh
, where the old code, you coulddo an a and any element group
and get full credit.
Uh, now two out of four ofthose groups are going to have
to be a D level skill or higher.
A lot of people were thinkingthat a level 10 would adapt and

(19:47):
it would be a little easier thanthis, and it is not so.
Level 10 athletes will need a Dlevel skill and two element
groups to get full element groupcredit.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Let's pause there and just take floor.
So what would examples of Dskills be for those that are
maybe still diving in, like whatwould they have to do on floor
to get credit for that?

Speaker 2 (20:06):
yeah.
So floor is the one event whereyou need three element groups
that are a, d, so, uh, you needa d level front, tumbling pass,
a double front.
You need a d level back,tumbling pass, uh, without
twisting.
So that means a back doublepike, which just got upgraded to
a d, or a full twisting doubleback, or a double layout, which
is now upgraded to an e.

(20:28):
And then they removed thedismount group and instead
replaced it with single saltoswith one or more twists, both
forward or backward so you needa d level twisting skill, a d
level front tumbling skill and aD level back tumbling skill.
Yes, so that is a lot to handleas a 16 year old athlete.

(20:51):
Again, double backs used to bepretty rare in the junior code
because it just wasn't reallythe risk versus reward just
wasn't there.
You do a double back, you get aC, you take a 310 step and the
guy who does a back layout andsticks it is going to come out
on top.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
I'm just laughing thing out loud.
Back in college, when MIT wascompeting against us, they would
do back layout, front layout,on 13 strength moves and get
significantly higher.
I just want to call that out.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Oh yeah, I've heard about people winning nationals
by doing a pommel horse routineon floor.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
They have cracked down on that, and now there's no
way around doing real tumbling,yeah and uh.
Something that came up and Iwanted to jump in here is uh, I
didn't think about this untilnow, but so harder when each
skill is harder, the amount ofcardio endurance you need to
safely do a routine is likeexponential, right, because
every skill and floor is a greatexample, which is why I thought
about it.
But to tumble hard enough to doa full in, to do a front double
, double or whatever, you need alot more power, right, more

(21:53):
power requires more cardio fromyou to not fall apart, and so
that's something else.
I really think anybody in men'sgymnastics should be really
doing some research in, probablynow in September.
What else is like?
What are the ways that Iincrease someone's metabolic
capacity without only eventspecific mileage?
Right, so just doing halfroutines and full four routines

(22:14):
does increase someone's cardio,but you're really letting
somebody a bit hot water becauseall you need is one short
landing to break your ankle,right.
All you need is one real baddouble front to hyperextend your
knee.
When you're under rotating, youkick out low early.
So I'm a fan, and I thinkthere's other podcasts we've
talked about.
This is that, I think in theSeptember month of now you want
to be training the energy systemthat will be used on that event

(22:35):
.
So, like doing a lot of, youknow, sled sprints and metabolic
work in a 90 second window,jump squats, you know all sorts
of stuff that just bury somebodyfor 90 seconds If you have
access to an echo bike, thosethings are terrible, but they
train whole body, metabolicconditioning and they set
somebody up to then use that ina gymnastic specific way.
So I would.
I would be encouraging peopleto spend like a solid six weeks

(22:55):
or four weeks just buryingsomeone twice a week and 90
second intervals and preparingtheir body for eventual half
floor routines or full floorroutines.
Because asking someone who'sdone maybe one D or they took a
deduction and did one hard passbut now they have to do two or
three, Um, you're settingsomebody up for for a rough uh
final pass or dismount ifthey're gassed and they, you

(23:16):
know, can't hang on to the landshort.
So that's, that's a veryimportant other piece.
I think that's in the bucket ofphysical preparation.
But metabolic training is is, Ithink, still under
underutilized quite a bit ingymnastics I would agree because
a lot of people can do thattriple full.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
But can you do it as your fourth pass?
Right now can you do it whenyou're tired and can you do it
safely all season?
so um, uh.
Now for for fig.
There are requiring that thedismount is a double flipping
element.
So, to go back to it, athletesare going to be pushing hard

(23:51):
level skills as their dismount,not just the safe triple full
anymore, they're going to begoing full twisting double back
or double layout as a dismountNow for the junior code.
That is not required.
Dismount Now for the juniorcode.
That is not required.
Usag has stated that a doubleflipping element is not required
end quote.

(24:11):
However, in order to fulfillfull element group credit, you
inherently are going to have toperform at least two double
flipping elements in yourroutine, Right?
So there's just really no wayaround those hard landings
anymore If you want to becompetitive and get to those
high level, high level startvalues that are going to put you
on top of the podium.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, and the other piece you keep saying that I
think is worth highlighting toois like a lot of these are not
allowed to be twisting right.
So the triple full or the frontdouble full like are not really
there, they have to be doubleflipping.
So you know, I again, when Iwas competing or kind of even
forward eight years ago, youwould see guys do front double
full.
You know, front two and a half,back two and a half punch, like
all that kind of stuff wouldfulfill the requirements, but
that the person who alwaysleaned into twisting because

(24:52):
they couldn't double flip willhave to get deducted.
And I just mean not even me.
But is it Arabian double pikeor an Arabian double tuck?
Is that D level?
Is that counter?
Is that no?

Speaker 2 (25:05):
That is level.
Is that count or is that?
No, that is a d.
Every arabian, uh, double flipis a d level.
Sorry, let me.
Let me restate that, uh,arabians are in the back
tumbling group okay, so theycould count.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
If somebody struggled us hard on a double layout,
correct, okay, cool, good toknow, okay, cool.
And then, like you said, doublepikes are upgraded, so that's
obviously an option.
A tuck to a pike is much moreuser-friendly than a pike to a
layout or a double tuck to adouble layout.
Um, yeah, and I like that we'retalking about floor because it
does really solidify my mythoughts on um landings.

(25:32):
Man, like the forces of floorare brutal, like that's, without
having to do a bunch of thesed-level skills.
So you need to have somebodywho knows how to land properly,
which is there's an enormousamount of resources we have on
that, like how to to.
I think the code is changing.
The guy's code has always beenmore or less accepting of a
proper squat landing, but likethere's a lot of guys that just
jump around all over on floor,they land and kind of hop with

(25:52):
really stiff knees and like thatis all extra mileage over
thousands and thousands of reps.
So you have to land properly.
You have to get just the mostjacked legs right, like
hamstrings, glutes, quads,calves, and I think too, I think
this will require people todouble down on basics and
technique and really goodfundamental gymnastics.
Because all of these things atthe baseline level, if you let

(26:14):
kids skip body tension,flexibility and they don't get
away with it, these things aregoing to come back and just
annihilate kids when they'restarting to try to land these
really high level skills.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Absolutely.
And just because the rewardsthere for performing these high
level skills doesn't mean it'salways going to pay off.
You know you?
Yes, you get a three 10 bonusuh, compared to athletes who
don't have it, but that's stilleasy to lose if you're not doing
it properly.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, hopping all over the place, right, little
steps, right, that death by athousand cuts again right, you
hop on a little step or a littlehop on every pass, right?
That's going to be almost apoint in deductions, not to
mention your actual form stuffand all that kind of jazz.
So yeah, so that makes sense.
I think starting with floor wasa good example because it helps
.
I, like most people, can wraptheir heads around floor.
But let's transition to p yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
So, uh, pommels, uh, you will need a d level skill on
uh for the circling elementgroup and for the travel element
group.
So, uh, that means we're goingto be seeing a lot more people
kind of forced to go for flops alot more people going for the
zone or bazugo and also russiansin the middle are going to be
pretty common because russianson the end are downgraded yep um

(27:24):
, you could also do a fullspindle, but I'm not convinced
they're going to have a hugecomeback because, uh, it's very
challenging to do those skillsclean.
Um, but then you're also goingto need a d level uh travel.
So that means maggie r savatosare now uh going to be very
valuable uh, roth woos, tongphase are going to be uh the
more commonly sought afterskills for athletes who don't

(27:46):
quite have that extension uh intheir circles and still need a
d-level travel.
You can't just do a side travelanymore and get full element
group credit no you can still doan a-level scissor and get full
group, but but for the circlesand travels you're going to need
a D level skill.
So, um, that's why I'm excitedto talk to you.

(28:07):
I wanted to ask uh, do you haveany tips for athletes who, uh,
you know, have hip puberty?
They're starting to bulk up andthey're they're losing that
shoulder flexibility and now,all of a sudden, you have to do
single palm work and you can'treach behind your back.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, so there's.
There's two pieces to this, soone is.
Almost every single time wetalk with somebody who has
injuries, particularly overused,the.
What is it like?
The the medicine they want isnot the medicine they need,
right?
What they want me to tell themis that there's a special
exercise for their wrist, thatif they do it, their wrist won't
hurt and they can swing pommelsix days a week and have no
problem.
That's just not how humans work,right?
The reality is that these areworkload issues.

(28:41):
Right, you are doing too muchtoo fast is 90% of kids issues
with wrist pain.
They are growing and theirbones grow faster than their
muscles can keep up with theirgrowth.
Plates are open and you could,you could duct tape your wrist
together and wear as muchsupport work as you want on your
wrist for wrist supports, butyou are hurting the bone, right?
So, like, the bigger issue hereis that you have to be willing

(29:02):
to take a very long three monthor two month approach to adding
in skills that you want to do.
So if you want to work moreMagyar Savato, you want to do
leather work, you cannot justask someone to warm up with 100
circles and then do five MagyarSavato drills and then go do a
whole bunch of extra physicalprep on one set of pommels,
because then they're going to goto P bars, then they're going
to tumble, then they're going tofloor right, then they're going

(29:23):
to go to vault, right.
That is all the same impact onthe risk.
So workload management is byfar and away the most important
thing that people need to thinkabout is that you generally
don't want to bump somebody's uhpercentage of workload up more
than like 10 to 15% per week,because that's generally what
they adapt to.
All of these injuries show uptwo weeks later after you start
bumping up their volume andpommel.
So if you get back from a breakand you're like, okay, let's do

(29:45):
all these circles in a warm up,let's work these five stations
like a normal practice would be,that's all fine and dandy.
But if the next week you go,okay, pommel horse challenge,
we're going to have everyone doas many loops as they can and
the winner gets whatever.
It's a cool idea, but you'regoing to have somebody spike
their volume and how manyMaggiara, savados or circles
they do by like 200% and theirforearms are going to start to
hurt.
They're going to start to getsome really bad growth plate

(30:06):
related issues.
So I think that the other stuffI'll comment on is really
important.
But like there's no amount offlexibility exercises or
strength exercises or magical PTexercises coming from someone
who does it for a living, thatis going to outpace somebody
just not having a good workloadmanagement system.
So think, if there's somethingyou want to add back in because
you see a cool drill or you seesomebody who is struggling with
a certain skill, think threeweeks, don't think three days,

(30:29):
don't just throw it at themthree days in a row.
Think like, okay, monday,wednesday, friday, we're going
to add in these new bucketMagyar drills because I think
they're great and they'll helpyour extension, right, three
days a week.
We're going to do these uh kindof volume based endurance
routines, right, don't justthrow all those in day after day
after day.
So that's one.
Two is I actually am a huge fanof using like, like slower and

(30:50):
lower impacts, uh settings tolearn hand placements.
So I think the the value of abucket training system on a low
horse um is really great becausekids can go super duper slow
and feel where their hands arein a two on one or feel where
their hands going to Magyar.
Just asking someone to do abunch of Magyars and focus on
their hand placements is reallyfast and it's challenging for
them to learn, but also it'sjust a lot of extra mileage.

(31:12):
So I would suggest that people,if they're technically trying
to learn a skill a flop, aRussian, a Magyar, a Savado do
it in a slow, controlled settingon a side station where
somebody can really feel wheretheir hands go.
Then they can hop up and try itafter they learn.
So yeah, that's two and thenthree.
Not to be the longest answer ofall time is, I think that trying
to stay ahead of modern dayflexibility and strength

(31:33):
training methods is reallyimportant here because you need
to have kids doing daily softtissue work to their forms.
Getting a lacrosse ball diggingaround their form so they
maintain their wrist extensionright forms.
Getting a lacrosse ball diggingaround their form so they
maintain their wrist extensionright.
Getting into their last with afoam roller and a lacrosse ball
every day doing proper likeloaded eccentric chin up
negatives, physio ball, reverserocker negatives.
That's what actually stretchesout their soft tissue over time

(31:54):
If you let them get really stifffrom puberty, from soft tissue
tightness, and you just stretchtheir shoulders cranking on over
their head, you're juststretching their joint capsules
out, so you're missing theflexibility.
And that's where guys start toget that you know Quasimodo
upper back, and they can'textend for P bars, they can't
extend for pommel horse.
So yeah, those three things,workload, technical drilling
first, before just volume, andthen I would say, more updated

(32:14):
flexibility methods, which Ithink we have a lot of resources
for.
So sorry for that very longanswer.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
No, no, uh.
I think they're all incrediblyvaluable points, because Pommel
Horse is the one event that, asa coach, it's incredibly hard to
stay on top of that workloadmanagement and to not overdo it.
We get to Pommels and that'sthe one event that everybody
needs to spend extra time on,because we're behind and it's
very easy to say, oh, your wristhurts, well, go stretch them
out real quick and then comeback oh, your wrist still hurts.

(32:46):
Well, we need to get thisroutine in.
Oh you need to get this extradrill in.
It's tough to stop becauseyou're behind, so I think that's
very valuable insight on waysthat you can be productive in a
palm horse practice for thelong-term goal of saying, okay,
you're a little beat up today.
We just had a week off, soinstead of focusing on actual

(33:08):
circles, let's go and do someeccentric lower downs to open up
those shoulders a little bit.
Let's take some time to diginto your forearms so that we
can have a good practice nextweek.
Yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
And I think this is a concept that Nick does really
well.
Because week yeah, exactly yeah.
And I think this is a conceptthat Nick does really well
because because female gymnastshave this with their back right,
every skill is backbending, sothey get parse fractures right.
So layout step outs on beam.
They're trying to think theneeding a layout step out on
beam is the equivalent ofneeding all your requirements on
pommels and having to spend somuch time doing them.
But then girls also do yourchankos, girls also coming on
floor.
So the other piece of advice Iwould give people is that if you

(33:41):
are planning for more volumework on a certain day or two
days in a row on pommels, maybethat's an underbar work day on
parallel bars.
Maybe you're not doing a lot ofdeons and stitzes and you know
upper bar work.
Maybe that's a moe day.
Maybe that's more of a peachday right underneath the bar so
that you can kind of spread outsome of that volume.
Or maybe that's a day on flooryou do more like bounding,
connected tumbling, and you'renot really worrying so much

(34:04):
about actual pounding on theirwrist.
So try to think about acrossthe events if you're doing like
front half, back half is apretty traditional way to
approach the practice over theweek.
Think about, okay, where can Ipull away some other wrist
volume if I do want to getdoubled down on maybe some ball
or some some pommel work, andalso to I think Nick's really
good at the phrase but like samebut different, right?
So there's a lot of differentways.

(34:26):
There's a great lecture from PatRedfern actually from one of
our symposiums on like lots ofdifferent creative side stations
for little guys to work on, soV holds or strength holds, like
changing the position of theirwrists If you want them to do
certain skills or side stuff.
There's so many other ways youcan put their wrists on a softer
surface with like supportparallettes, bring those over to
pommels and have them do some Lholds or some extensions
without just simply puttingtheir wrist into a bent position
.
So see if you can be creativeand find ways to work the drill

(34:50):
you need with physio balls orside supports or conditioning Um
.
That way they're still involvedinside the uh practice and then
just make circuits out of them,right, like you can find two
spots for real horse, two spotsfor a side station and two spots
for physical prep.
That's six, six solid stations,12 guys can get through that
pretty well in a 45 minutesession.
So yeah, just more like kind ofin the trenches.
Suggestions from my coachingdays.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, no, love, it Ways to stay busy without
beating yourself up.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, keeping little boys busy is probably the
hardest thing that any coach hasto do.
So, okay, cool.
So I think the naturalprogression from wrist injuries
on pommels is shoulder injurieson rings.
So, um, personally for me Iwould say that, uh, we'll get
into high bar too as well.
But ring strength, ring giantsand high bar dismounts releases

(35:39):
are like half the reason thatguys have cuff and slap issues
when they're young.
So like people are gettingbetter at delaying ring strength
, which I think is probably themost obvious one, but like there
are many other code changesthat I think are going to affect
guy's shoulders and we need tokind of think about that.
So let's kind of go throughsome of these ring changes and
we'll chat more.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Um, uh, you're very correct.
Uh, for the longest time, wehave been delaying ring strength
and I think that it's been, uh,benefiting athletes bodies.
But now level 10 athletes aregoing to need a d level strength
skill and a d level swing tostrength skill.
So, um, it's going to behappening earlier than ever.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
So, uh, they did sorry to jump in, but what are
like d level things that peoplecan kind of wrap their head
around?

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Yeah, they, they did upgrade the value of a cross.
Um, so a cross, a static cross,is now a C, perfect.
And for level 10, you will geta one letter upgrade for all
crosses, inverted crosses,planches, maltese and Victorian
skills.
So, um, yeah, so a very commonskill we're going to see level

(36:40):
10 go for is Kip cross, and thenA very common skill we're going
to see level 10s go for is KipCross and then maybe a straight
planche thrown somewhere inthere.
Level 9s only need a C-levelskill across all element groups,
throughout, all events.
One thing that I'm actuallypretty thrilled about is that
they did upgrade the lock armpress for level nines to be a C,

(37:02):
so you can get your C levelstrength as a level nine without
having to go for a cross,without throwing a rough looking
planche.
You can just do a lock armpress hands in, still get your C
strength.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
That's great.
That's great, yeah.
So back to the point ofshoulder health and that kind of
stuff is young guys who are notgoing through puberty.
They don't have the hormones toget muscle bulk.
They need to protect theirelbows and their shoulders, like
.
That's the reality of why wedelay these things.
Right, like, and that happens,like in some guys, like 1516.
Some guys are really late ontheir development.

(37:35):
So you think about how much timeand effort you need to get
strong from just doing ringstrength and doing physical prep
.
But sometimes the square holeis not going in the round circle
.
You want to do all this ringstrength and they're eating like
every day, having smoothies,trying to get a big upper body,
but they just simply don't havethe growth hormone or some of
the puberty elements inside, andso it's a bit of a waiting game
.
But I think again, not to soundlike a broken record, but this

(37:57):
is why cross training is soimportant is because what do you
do for two years while you'resitting around waiting for
someone to get really strongfrom the ages of 12 to 14?
What can you do besides justbury them in more skill,
specific volume.
The female side of gymnasticsis very beneficial on lower body
strength training because ofhow much leg events they do.
But there's so much that crosstraining, a proper sports

(38:20):
performance program forgymnastics, does for your upper
body to build a lot of healthyhypertrophy in your rotator cuff
, for example, or your upperback or your middle back, which
is obviously not as developedfor guys because they're doing
so many rope climbs, so manypull-ups, so many pushups, so
many leg lifts.
That is all just like lat city,right, and I'm okay with guys
having bat lats and being giantmonsters who are strong.

(38:40):
That's okay.
But if you are jacked in yourlats and your pecs and you don't
have a strong upper back,that's how your shoulders start
to fall apart.
So the flexibility pieceobviously carries over from like
wrist to shoulders to try tomaintain that with pommels.
But, um, if someone is, youknow, 13 or 12 or 13 years old,
get them in a weight room andhire a strength coach to learn
how to do heavy upper backrowing and learn how to do face

(39:01):
pulls and learn how to do singlearm pressing variations right,
especially in the summer or theoff season.
And then, of course, summercomes along and you can do your
own thing, but like this examplein particular, and then we'll
go to high bar with likereleases is why guys need cross
training, because the amount youcan build their shoulders up to
protect their joints, thebetter.
Right Slap tears and rotatorcuff are almost always workload
issues soft tissue flexibilityand a lack of strength.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Balance 90% of it is that, yeah, and I can attest to
that.
I remember the first time I hadone of my programs get into the
weight room I had a coachteaching them just how to squat
proper squat mechanics and I seetheir knees kind of doing the
baby deer effect, squatting in,and they just did not understand
how to control that properly.
And I'm visually seeing theadjustments that they're making,
being so thankful because youknow that they're landing just

(39:53):
like that every single time.
And so you make the changes inthe weight room and you're going
to see better form outsideinside the gym.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
Yeah, and I think a lot of times people hear me talk
about these things and theyknow that we care about injury
prevention.
I care about keeping kidshealthy.
That's what the end goal is.
If you have to be in the gameto win the game, if you're
injured you're not in the game,but it's a performance thing too
.
The same thing that increasesyour power, right, your upper
body power to rip the bar apart,to do a laid out to catch up
and not a straddle to catch up.
That is the same thing we'retalking about.

(40:21):
That also keeps your shouldershealthy.
So I think sometimes peopleonly see it as an injury thing.
But like these things also willmaximize your power.
Your upper body power comes fromthe raw baseline level of
strength and oftentimes guys getto 15, 16 years older and
they've more or less notmaximized.
But they are very high up onthe curve of gymnastics,
physical preparation, pull-ups,leg lifts, all that kind of

(40:46):
stuff.
They've done a thousand, 10,000pushups and pull-ups and
weighted pushups and pull-ups.
By the time they're 16.
Right, so like if I'm 80% maxedout in the sport specific
bucket of strength but I'm 0%maxed out on the external load
point of view of all I've doneis a weight vest or my teammate
who's a level six on my legs anda pull-up.
There's so much opportunity tofill that bucket with a little
bit of external loading becauseyou know we won't go into the
dorkness of physiology butthat's how you get maximal
strength and power is acombination of body weight

(41:09):
training for neural and strengthoverload and external load.
Right, there's guys that can do, you know, three sets of 25 to
30 push-ups, but they can't do afive by five loaded, eccentric
weighted push-up.
It's a different fiber type.
So, like cross training, both ofthose maximizes for athletes
yeah yeah, that was morephysiology than anyone needed,
but yeah, um, so this actuallydoes transfer well to like the

(41:31):
power and the sprinting elementfor vault, so let's talk about
that yeah, so vault is uh notundergoing too many changes.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
They are lowering every start value by four tenths
just to kind of mimic uh thechanges that you'll see on uh
other start values across otherevents uh, but the truth of the
matter is that vaults harderthan ever, um it is stop doing
reesey bongs, man, man uh, yeah,for the rest of us, um, and

(42:01):
honestly, it's a lot of bang foryour buck for one skill, but,
uh, it is one skill that youhave to show how fricking
powerful you are.
You know, um, how fast can yourun, how hard can you stomp a
board, how high can you fly?
And can you stick that landing?
Yeah, um, it's getting harderthan ever and, again, if your
legs are not explosive andstrong enough to handle the

(42:22):
numbers that you're doing, it'sgoing to be a rough season for
you.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yeah, for sure.
I think that the landing pieceof this obviously carries over
from Florida.
It's the exact same argument ofwhy you need strong legs, but
actually sprinting power isprobably one of the things we
see people benefit from the mostwhen they do a hybrid strength
program.
So we'll have girls and guysthat will train with us One.

(42:46):
They actually don't know how tosprint technically.
Right, there's a technical wayto sprint.
When you watch Olympic sprinters, why do they sprint with their
toes up?
Why do they sprint with theirchest forward leaning?
Why do they sprint with theirarms 90 degrees?
It's I wouldn't say proven is astrong word, but it's highly
suggested that that is the bestway to get the most power out of
70 feet.
So there is oftentimes peoplewill come to us and we won't
strength train them at all.
We'll just teach them how torun properly and they'll
increase their leg power right,which obviously is, for a cause

(43:08):
entry or a souk entry veryimportant to get that right.
But this is like the biggestargument for why somebody should
be cross training because power, sprint, horizontal power and
stop me if I'm getting boringhere but sprinting forward power
is very much a function of youryour power into the floor and
the velocity in which youexpress that.
So if you can lean forward andstrike more force into the floor

(43:31):
below you, you will propelyourself faster forward, right?
So how do you get more powerful?
You either have to increaseyour baseline level of quad,
hamstring and glute strength andor you need to learn how to
sprint faster with intent.
So guys will run as hard asthey possibly can, which is the
intent side, but they're justphysically not stronger to push
more force into the floor to getthemselves to go forward faster

(43:53):
.
So that is a huge benefit ofstrength training.
Brett contraris is probably oneof the leading experts on like
sprinting power and it showed heshows in his work that, like
weighted hip thrusts anddeadlifting and squatting is
probably the best way toincrease your raw leg strength,
to then increase your raw legpower, which means that in 70
feet you can accelerate to afaster top end speed, more

(44:14):
efficiently and more uh top, yetmore top end power than anybody
else can.
So Duesch Padel is our headstrength coach at at Champion
and he is like a guru for thiskind of stuff, but he also loves
getting new gymnasts who don'tknow how to run and are not as
strong as they should be,because we'll see girls who will
get like a full to a one and ahalf going from their sophomore
year of college to their senioryear of college, right, so

(44:36):
they're increasing their amountof flight time for a one and a
half.
We'll see a lot of guys who canget a double full around after
a couple of years of really goodstrength training.
So if there's any performancesell more so than you know
injuries it is.
Getting a bigger vault requiresfaster run speed and then, of
course, upper body blocking is apiece of it, but like, yeah, if
you can't run faster, you'renot doing a harder ball.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
It's very true, and the run is going to come from
one part strength and one parttechnique.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yep, exactly Right, and I think most coaches
intuitively know that.
But that's the best example ofit.
Like, oh yeah, run faster toget a bigger vault equals I need
stronger legs to do said vault.
So how do I get stronger?
There's only so many bodyweight squat, jumps and lunges
you can do to externally loadsomebody before they get
stronger.
So yeah, vault seems more orless business as usual, I would

(45:24):
say, minus a couple of nuancechanges, but just sells more.
So I think we can move on toP-bars, high bars, and we'll
kind of zoom out a bit.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah.
So for parallel bars, theD-level skills you're looking
for are going to be in thesupport group.
So your Makutsis, your Deomhalves, your Gatson, your
Bilizerchevs and your underbarskills, so to pelts, peaches and
things of that nature, againgoing to need a D-level skill,

(45:52):
which a lot of athletes wereable to do.
I find that on parallel barsthere's the biggest gap between
C and D-level skills.
You know, a lot of athletes canfigure out how to do a straight
leg moi but then that gap ofturning that into a tapelt is a
lot of work.
For one-tenth, a lot ofathletes can figure out a deon,

(46:12):
but turning that deon into adeon half is a pretty big step.
So this is one of the areaswhere the new code is going to
really reward and separate thehalves from the half knots.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yep, yeah, absolutely .
And I think we were kind ofstarting to overlap Venn diagram
in terms of, like, what to doand how to help because, um,
these skill categories have alot of overlap in their like
movement mechanics.
But the same, uh, the peoplewho are really good at Stutz's,
dioms, makutsu's, um, all thatkind of stuff front up, rise,
dms, those people have enormousend range shoulder flexibility

(46:45):
and also control at that endrange, right.
So not only can they find thishuge extension swing, they're
very strong in their triceps andtheir upper body to handle that
.
So obviously a lot of that istechnique, like knowing how to,
you know, use the bar as well.
But the person who is very goodat those skills has that end
range flexibility and strength.
So training the same stuff thatthat side station on pommels to

(47:08):
get that person to open up fora front loop is going to be very
important to get that end range.
Look for a stutz or a deon.
And I think the other side ofthat equation is the guys who
have really good overheadshoulder flexibility are the
ones that can do to pelt andreally bounce their noise really
well to a support position,right.
So you need to be very cognizantand or dedicated to the end
ranges of flexibility work.
And to get that, you knowflexibility research is pretty

(47:29):
clear that most things work, butit has to be consistently done
every single day.
And that is really theunfortunate part is that any,
not anything, but most thingsdone five to six days per week
with the proper volume of liketwo to three sets of 30 seconds
of static stretching, pnf,whatever followed up with
eccentric loading or followed upwith strength work.
They do work, but end rangeflexion and end range shoulder

(47:51):
extension are only going to comeby just boring grunt work of
just stretching and doing stuffevery single day.
So again, the art of coachingis making that tolerable, but
that really is like that.
Those two categories arepeaches, less so, but Moyes and
then end range extension, it'sall coming from really good
shoulder swings and really goodoverhead positions.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Yeah, and, like you said, doing it daily.
I am guilty myself of coming upwith great exercises to work
that end range and say, oh yeah,I'm so glad we did that today
and then we don't see it againfor the next month and it's like
how much should we really getout of that one-time exercise?
But picking your few key onesthat you can tell your athletes

(48:31):
every day, I need you to touchon exercise A, B and C.
Don't skip it.
We'll have way more valuablethan we'll have, way more
results than just one extremeday.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Yeah, absolutely Right, just 10 minutes, five
minutes here, and there is waybetter than a two hour
stretching session on Sunday.
So, and the other Pete aboutthe other part, about P bars,
here is the upper bar landing,so can we chat about that real
quick, cause that's obviouslysomething I love, upper bar work
.
I never did it, uh, but uh,it's high risk, high reward man.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, yeah.
So you do not need a D-levelskill from upper bar.
But now skills that werepreviously banned of landing in
upper arm are going to have acomeback in the junior level
because athletes who are in that18, 19-year-old age group are
now allowed to do it and withthe way that USAG rules are

(49:21):
determined for age group, youcan be 17 years old all season
long and competing in the 18year old age group.
So we'll see 17 year oldsthrowing those front one and a
quarter to upper arms, andhistorically, I mean, I know my
coach.
When I started thinking aboutthose skills, he said well, when
I was in college, the way thatI trained these is I just had my

(49:42):
teammates punch me in the bicep.
So I just got stronger and moredurable and, um, that's how we
did it back then and I uh, evenas a, you know, 16, 17 year old
kid, I was like I don't thinkthere's much science behind that
, coach.
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Uh, and to those points I mean this is a good
example too is that if you'retrying to be a 17-year-old doing
a front one and a quarter,you're probably 15 starting
drills for that right on P-barblocks or whatever.
So two pieces are please,goodness, do not do them over
the uprights right in yourroutine construction.
For the love of God, please putthem on the middle of the bars.
But also is yeah, dude, youhave to have just like the most

(50:17):
jacked lats in the entire worldto handle the forces that come
through that.
So, um, I think, like Russiandips are a great example
weighted chicken wings like lotsof, lots of really heavy,
because pull-ups, rope climbs,will get raw strength, but it's
not positional right, it's notthat end range, uh, kind of
chicken wing position.
So, uh, a thing we use a lot inthe other sports and other

(50:37):
cardio stuff is preparing forwhat we call the worst passage
of play.
So you want to prepare somebodyfor like the oh shit moments
when they happen to hit oneforward and their feet are a
little bit scorpion and they'rereally over themselves and they
have this really deep dip.
That's the one you want to tryto prepare somebody for with
physical preparation.
So doing loaded chicken wingsand loaded dips and Russian dips
and stuff like that is veryimportant when they're young and

(50:58):
again for the third time.
This is why, like, really heavycross training is great,
because what's a better way toincrease the surface area and
the size and the power to loweryourself eccentrically than
getting a really heavy cable rowright Like two handed heavy
cable row with a three secondeccentric all the way out is
going to get your latsabsolutely yoked.
So there's ways to prepare forthat high force overload.

(51:18):
I don't think we know anythingabout the forces of those skills
, but I would be pretty safe tosay they're three to five times
body weight if I had a gamblingman mentality.
So you think about someonewho's 100 pounds as they're
younger doing one and a quarterdrill.
If they land low on that, itcould be like 300 pounds worth
of force going through theirframe.
And, to your point, how do wenot break our humerus in half or

(51:39):
honestly just get like a gnarlyrotator cuff injury?
That's it like, yeah, you gotto be uber careful with when you
throw those.
Like I think you got to bereally disciplined about when
you slide them out and letsomebody actually try that.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
um, but those kids should be like walking, walking
lats before they're allowed todo those you know, and a valid
point that I've not even thoughtabout, because a lot of people
just see those skills and theythink about the impact to the
bicep.
They think how do I reduce this, the, the, the punch to the arm
?
And they don't think about thefact that your shoulder has to
absorb and sustain that landing.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
That is all lats, man lats and pecs.
So cross training, weightedwork you know like guys should
be doing floor presses on theirback.
You don't want to barbell bench200 pounds, but loaded floor
presses, loaded a, bent overrows, Like that, is how you
build that.
That muscle bulk needed toabsorb those skills.
So it makes sense and then Ithink this is a perfect
transition.
Like high bar and releases inparticular are where I get the

(52:35):
most complaints.
People tell me that my shoulderwas doing okay, but I did a lot
of ring giants and I waslearning some release and my
shoulder feels like it.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yes, because now you're going to need a D-level
release on high bar, which meansthat that straddle to Kochiv is
going to get you a C andthree-tenths for element groups.
But once you can lay it out,you're going to get a D-level
skill and five-tenths in elementgroups.
So that is a three-tenth boostfor what is deserving of three

(53:06):
tenths.
I mean, that is a big gapbetween a Takachev lay and
Takachev straddle, but it'sgoing to take a whole lot of
numbers in order to get yourselfreally ready to perform that
well and a whole lot of physicalprep on the back end to make
sure that you actually can getto that level.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yeah, and to your point, not to jump in, but that
is a situation where kidsphysically aren't heavy enough
to bend the bar enough, right?
That is usually the equation ofa Takachev or a Kovacs is they
simply don't weigh enough, right, they can tap their hearts out,
but if they're a little kidthere's no amount like.
That bar is stiff man.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yeah, very valid point.
So I'm glad that level ninescan get away with a C-level
release.
You know you can learn astraddle Takachi there and then
slowly progress your way into alayout Takachi by the time you
turn 16.
But now you're also able to doa Ginger or a Pike Jaeger for a

(54:00):
D-level skill.
Those both got upgraded.
So I think that a lot of peopleare going to see that as the
easier route.
But then they're going to haveathletes who barely catch that
ginger and yank down at thebottom or, worst case, you know,
do one of those one-arm hang,one-arm catches shout out shane
whiskers speaking, speaking ofone arms and you know shane

(54:21):
whiskers was uh prepared tohandle those.
He did that with ease.
But your, your average level 10who catches that first anger
with one arm and is spinningaround and you can't do that too
many times per practice, andnext week Right, yeah, uh, two
pieces there.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
One is let's give more love to laid out Yeagers,
particularly from Eagle.
Right, like a full, a full to Llaid out Yeager is gorgeous, so
please train more Pike Yeagers.
To get a kid to do a fulltwisting, what's up?
I don't even know what a fulltwisting Jaeger is now called.
Is that a Nope?
I got nothing.
I got nothing, not to put youon the spot, but a full twisting
laid out Jaeger is amazing.
From Eagle that's probably like,aesthetically, one of my

(54:57):
favorite skills to watch is afull to L L giant and then a
nice full to L like.
That's a crazy skill.
So it doesn't always have to bea Kovacs kids, it can be more
virtuosity than that.
But the other piece of that, tokind of answer the landing part
, is this goes back to why trampis so important, right, and
learning how to fall safely.
There's one learning how tofall safely, which is over
rotating and landing on your,not landing on your head.

(55:18):
There's another type oflearning how to fall safely,
which is how to do a stomachdrop and how to absorb a long
stomach based landing, becauseobviously when you're doing a
Jaeger or something like that orginger, someone is sliding a
mat in.
But if you're loose when youhit the ground you're going to,
it's going to feel awful on yourback Right and then to your
point of barely catchingfingertips and your shoulders
get yanked.

(55:38):
That starts to spin you overinto a scorpion position.
So you have to have kids likeliterally from I don't even know
when, steve would teach it, butlike hands and knees on a
trampoline belly drop back tohands and knees, like that has
to be a fundamental thing.
They learn very early of how toput your hands up, how to brace
your core, how to squeeze yourbutt, how to elongate yourself,
because that then becomes like astanding stomach drop from jump
jump to your stomach, back toyour hands right.

(55:59):
And obviously it's really goodto learn stand up and you would
learn that for lots of releasetype skills anyways.
But teaching someone how tohave really good core tension
and protect themselves, all ittakes is one ginger you over
rotate and scorpion to have thatkid be scared shitless of a
Jaeger or a ginger and neverwant to do it again Right, or
also hurt their back Right.
You can really Jack your backup like that.
So, yeah, the earlier and thebetter you can do safely falling

(56:22):
forward as well as backwards.
I think the better.
But yeah, what is it?
Do we look up what a Jaeger is?

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Yes, the Winkler.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Yeah, I knew it.
Okay.
So I thought so fun facts, funside quest.
Here is he actually he was fromuniversity of Washington, I
believe.
Right, I think he was on theclub team at Washington.
I could be confusing him wrong,but back in the day when I was
just a young, ling um winter cuphad a new skill competition the
double full twisting Jaeger.
He tried there as well.
I do remember that and I thinkthat was also when a deaf was in

(56:50):
the equation too as well.
But I remember watching him dotry to do a double full twisting
.
Uh, laid out Jaeger, which wasbananas, but yeah, a, that is
one of the sickest skills ever.
So I'm glad to see the codepromote more than you know.
There's no shade to.
You know, winkler is a G levelskill, but nobody really took
the time to learn the C levelJaeger, because why?

Speaker 2 (57:18):
would you.
What's it going to lead to?
There was just such a huge gap.
But, now that a Pike Jaeger isa D.
That's the beauty of the code.
It's encouraged to learn thatstep.
And so, hey, I already have aPike Jaeger, why not try to lay
it out?
It's encouraged to learn thatstep, and so, hey, I already
have a pike Yeager, why not try?

Speaker 1 (57:31):
to lay it out.
Why not try to add a full twistor two?
Yeah, and hat tip to thewomen's side.
We saw this with Yurchenko'sright Is that people were going
from souk and no flipping skillsat all to then have to learn
Yurchenko or a souk in one year.
And so they did a great job ofmaking the back handspring as a
nice transitional skill forseven.
And this is what we're seeinghere.
Is that you know and again thisis kind of like we'll zoom back
out as we finish up here butlike, if you want 16, 18, 20, 24

(57:55):
year old guys to be doing likecasinos and Brett Schneiders and
stuff, you have to reward thoseskills when they're younger.
If we want to see somebodydoing a Van Winkler and getting
a G for it, you have to seesomebody what 12 learning how to
do a front giant tap for thatand straps Right, and then when
they're 14, doing a pike Jaeger,when they're 16 doing a laid
out Jaeger, when they're 18,twisting.
Like that is the naturalprogression.
And you know, fred is a localguy but he posts videos all the

(58:16):
time with him doing a straddleto Kachev and then two years
later, a pike to Kachev and thena laid out and now he's doing
the lay.
You can like that happen.
That van winkler, a uh casino.
Those are eight year skills andeight year skills require
physical preparation when you'reeight, when you're 10, when
you're 12 and a lot of years oftheirs.
So it's such a long game and I'ma fan of this code, like I want

(58:37):
to.
I want to make that clear.
I'm a fan of hard gymnastics.
I'm a fan of beautiful,well-done skills that are
difficult, like I love men'sgymnastics.
But, um, I'm not gonna lie topeople and bullshit and say that
I'm scared.
You know what I mean.
Like I'm nervous that wealready have so many guys we're
losing to injuries and shoulderand burnout, that like we can't
afford to just put more kidsthrough a meat grinder when
they're going through puberty.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
It's a circus.
Now it really is.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
I think the last thing we want to touch on is is
talks, right, yeah, okay andthat kind of stuff.
And then you said Eagles aswell.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
So athletes are now going to need a D-level in-bar,
which I mean, honestly, ahalf-talk is really the only way
to go.
I mean, you can go jam hop toundergrip, which is pretty
insane.
Props to you if you can figurethat out.
Or staller rebalco, you canalso do an eagle giant to an

(59:29):
inside endo from.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Eagle.
My friend Josh Fox did it.
It looked great but it's hardto do.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
That skill's not for everyone.
You can also do a Quintiero,which is kind of the inside endo
straddle, cut full pirouette,but at the end of the day, half
talks the easiest route.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
And to that point the other two.
You get hammered on angledeductions.
On those men you get crushed.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
They did open up the window, so now you have 15
degrees extra of no deduction.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
But either way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
it is so challenging to do correctly and not
everybody's built for it.
So half talk is really going tobe the way to go.
But it's going to beinteresting because you're going
to see a lot of athletes whohave already ruled out ever
doing a jam in their entire life.
They know I don't have theshoulder flexibility.
This skill is not for me.
But now I'm 18 years old, it'smy last year, level 10.
And if I want to shot a doingpretty well, I'm going to have
to learn a half talk whileskipping a jam.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Yeah exactly and it's not worth belaboring again.
But like, to do a really goodjam and get under the bar, you
need enormous pike flexibilityand enormous shoulder
flexibility, right Like youreally need to develop that.
And again, a 14 year old who'sgrowing bro, their hamstrings
are like crowbars.
It is so hard to get someone todo a full deep pike fold, so
you have to really make surethat it's slowly worked every

(01:00:49):
single day and make sure thatyou're not stretching someone's
sciatica nerve out, right Likethat's a big thing.
Guys get nerve tension if theypull their toes up and lean
forward, so be aware of that.
But yeah, hamstring stuff and adeep fold and a really good
shoulder flexibility intoextension from pommels and P
bars is where it shows up again.
Um has to be every single day,like if they really want that
goal of getting a really gooddeep fold, they can work on it.

(01:01:11):
But I think also too is theamount of strength you need in
your lower core and your hipflexors to maintain the bottom
pike position is usually overunderlooked, I should say.
So, yeah, tons of like seated Llifts and tons of active hip
flexor type work is reallyreally important.
Lower core training is usuallymore worked on and stuff like
that.
But I feel, though, talks arevery similar to the floor

(01:01:32):
discussion landings, where itonly takes one to destroy your
body.
Right, you need one one doublelayout gone wrong to break your
ankle.
You need one talk or jam gonewrong to ride the bottom out
really hard and then blow youryour cuff up, right?
So, guys should be a 10 to oneratio of drills to actually
doing the skills, and when theyactually do them, they need to

(01:01:53):
know how to let go of the bar atthe right time If they're not
feeling like the bounce drop inwas good.
They got to be okay hopping offinto the pit, and then, when
they do finally do it, you gotto be able to put a strap bar
down and just do it on a lowmetal rail and have a coach spot
, you, and kind of give you somelift that if you do get stuck,
you can just hop off and go toyour butt.
That's totally fine.
But you need to work hundredsand hundreds of proper uh stoops

(01:02:13):
and drop-ins and toe circles.
I'm really not a fan of doingthem in straps.
Some guys do that and it makesme want to cringe because, again
, all you need is one to ripyour shoulder off.
So yeah, I'm a fan of it, itcan be done.
But the physical prep needed,the amount of drills needed, um,
you really need a good low barsetup to teach those well and
safely.
To have somebody double spot,even if guys are a little bit

(01:02:35):
older, it really has to besomething taken very, very slow.
And again, I mean I feel thisway.
This is controversial sometimesbut, like, I am more of a fan
of going slower and taking somedeductions and eating it for
half a year until you get theskill properly done than being
in YOLO mode and trying to putit in and then you bottom one
out or you peel off or somethinghappens Like I know parents
don't like that.
Coaches sometimes don't likethat to just accept that you're
going to get a score you want tolook away from because you

(01:02:55):
don't have the element group oryou don't have that whatever
requirement.
But I'd rather lay the bricksfor two years down the road when
you finally learn it and younever have to go back and
relearn it or stop for sixmonths because your shoulders
are killing you.
That's personally my approach Itake with men's and women's
gymnastics, but I'm not sure ifyou feel the same way there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
A lot of people put a lot ofpressure on themselves to
perform at the beginning of theyear and for one specific
competition.
You know they want that, that W, they want that glory.
But truth of the matter is it'sreally not about how you do it
beginning of the year, it's howyou do it at the end of the year
and how you do next seasonRight.
That ultimately matters.

(01:03:31):
So always keeping that in mind,the end game, the long-term
goal of where do you want thisathlete to go and that's most
important and the number one wayto get them to that end goal is
to keep them healthy the wholeway there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Yeah, exactly, and I'm sure if you, you know, had
two hours to sit down with, youknow, tom and LaVon and the
coaches of Asher and Fred, theseguys and you'd be like over 10
years, 15 years, you know, werethere times when you had to slow
down a lot or get through this.
They'd be like absolutely Like,injuries pop up, they grow,
they do whatever social life,mental health type stuff comes
up.
There's so many bumps in theroad that I don't think people

(01:04:07):
know exist that I'm sure thatTom was like telling Asher, like
no, we're going to wait, no,we're going to wait, no, we're
going to wait, because he knewthat he had a long-term career.
And so you know, tom's been onthe podcast a few times.
I can say that I don't know, Idon't know what LeVon would say,
but I'm I guarantee those guyshad periods of their sometimes

(01:04:31):
where they have to really slowdown and take care of injuries
or grow or whatever.
So I think coaches arestigmatized.
The culture makes them feellike, oh, I'm the only one who
has kids that get hurt and havewrist problems, I'm the only one
who this kid is not justgetting this tap and we're not
quite ready to compete it.
But like everyone goes throughthat, literally everyone I've
ever met, that I've ever treatedgoes through that, so it's not
a big deal.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Yeah, success is not a direct path.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Yeah, absolutely Right, Rollercoaster for sure.
So I think I think we choppedthrough that really well.
That was a nice, smooth hour.
But what are your like?
Big, you know, big picturethoughts.
As you, as you summarize, Ithink we've hit a lot of the
main points multiple times.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Yeah, so again, I'm a huge fan of this new code.
Uh, I love the fact that it'sgoing to reward difficulty, so,
uh, I think that's what that?
What is most important is thatcoaches keep in mind that, um,
as much pressure as you mightfeel to get full element group
and to get your athletes wherethey need to be, everybody's in

(01:05:27):
the same boat, right?
Everybody's going to bestruggling for these skills and
the best thing that you can dois really start early.
Have a vision, have a set batchof skills that you want your
athletes to learn.
And be patient with thegroundwork, be patient with the
foundation.
The wider you build thatfoundation, the bigger you can
build the beat.
So take care of their bodieslike do those little baby steps

(01:05:49):
and take it slow so that you cango faster later in the year.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
It's great man.
I love it.
Thank you for helping me get upto speed.
I, you know, selfishly wantedthis podcast to make sure I was
in line with stuff too.
But you know, I think the worldneeds, you know, respective
dorks in the area.
We need the code dork, we needthe medical dork like me.
To summarize things, thetechnical dork can help out with
some other stuff.
So, yeah, I appreciate the time.
I'm sure there'll be somepeople who are curious for
follow-up questions or want somemore nitty gritties or what's

(01:06:12):
the best contact for you?

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Yeah, uh, feel free to send me an email at J Tyler
green for two at gmailcom.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Perfect, we will put that in the show notes and make
sure people have access to it.
So, uh, thanks, man, appreciateit.
I appreciate you coming on and,uh, appreciate you coming on
and hope the information isreceived super well, I know it
will be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Hey, not a problem, Thanks for having me.
Cheers, cheers.