Under arm swing for front tuck?

[Cole Dano]

I was watching a DVD where the coach said he preferred his gymnasts to learn to do a front tuck on the floor using an under arm swing. So the arms swing down from behind in the hurdle, are fully down at the punch and then rise up to about chest level during the jump to set the flip phase.

 

Pretty much everything else I've seen advises to come into the punch with arms overhead.

 

However since the DVD was a respected gymnastic coach I'm curious is the under arm swing standard in gymnastics or does it vary from coach to coach? Also what are the advantages of it?

[Joshua Slocum]

I recently switched to doing this as opposed to punching with arms overhead. I find that it allows me to punch higher. 

 

However, I have seen big skills like double-fronts done both ways, so I think it's more a matter of personal preference than optimal technique. If your athletes have difficulty learning to punch one way, you could experiment with teaching them the other. 

[Cole Dano]

Thanks Hari_Seldon

 

More height was the rationale used, as well as more consistency in technique from vault to floor.

[Blairbob]

 Well, with underarm swing is pretty stressed in the US MAG program in the early levels, especially on vault. Roger Harrell also made me change my front to this back in the day. You can also try to initiate with a heel drive like a front layout then tuck.

 

 There is carryover from floor to vault as you are teaching the same thing and in the last quad there was a front for L5 vault (no longer). It was not stressed for the front tuck on floor. However, in the WAG world, other techniques are still used. So basically you'll see everything but the old Russian arm lift (swing arms backward).