Support Swing on Parallel Bars

Hi Everyone,

As someone new to gymnastics (since Feb), I've been enjoying your posts and conversations. I've made considerable progress but am having trouble with some pbar basics.

Any advice that might help me get my back swing beyond the 45 degree level? I don't have a lot of confidence in my strength there, especially on the way down so maybe there are some conditioning exercises I could do that might help (planche?). I am ok swinging to handstand with a spot's help, but by myself I just can't get that high without feeling I might collapse or lose control of my swing. I also have trouble swinging beyond 45 degrees for dismount as well. I started training completely new to the sport (and not immensely strong) 7 months ago, so maybe simple patience is in order.

Well, I suppose that learning the upper arm roll will make you much more comfortable. If you know that, the worst that can happen is that you just roll forward to upper arm support!

As far as strength, if you can do the full swinging dips for at least 10 reps then you should really have all the strength you need. If not, well, that's a good place to start! Are you doing the WODs, your own conditioning program or something the gym coach has you do?

Hi slizzardman,

I agree about the roll, it's something I've been meaning to ask coach about learning (if for no other reason than work on eliminating the fear element). I've never tried the full swinging dips, my guess is I would not be able to hold yet once I got the back swing. The closest thing to that movement I think I've done is swing to shoulder stand and press up out of it. I'll try it this week though.

Currently I workout an hour, twice a week, with a coach at the gym and then another day at the park or on parallettes at home usually.

That's a pretty good start!

Well you need to counter lean so when legs are back you lean forward and then once legs get high you open your shoulders and reach the HS. I advice doing it on the end of pbars so if you fall over you can just make a half turn and land on some mats on your feet. You can start learning "swing to straddle stand-->jump press HS" then once you can do that movement without stopping but just a quick jump you can try not touching the pbars with your feet. Then later you can learn full swing to HS.

http://drillsandskills.com/skills/pbar/Z/pbz001

If you can develop a high front swing, you will have more swing into your back swing versus having to muscle it out.

http://usa-gymnastics.org/pages/home/publications/technique/1998/2/basicswing.pdf Hopefully, this will work or you will have to go to USAG and then into their magazine archive.

What's important is knowing how much you are arching in the back swing of the PB swing. Tight arch not banana. We want the heels to drive but toward the peak of the swing, you will hollow out rounding at your upper back and shoulders with flat hips. This is very important if you swing to the HS because otherwise you will over-rotate and end in a mess on your back on or through the bars. This is where the shoulder roll comes in.

Get two P-blocks (generally big blue spotting blocks) and set them up wide enough that your hips will fit through while gripping the edges of the blocks. Get into a shoulderstand with your head inside the blocks and then roll over. Eventually you can press or jump to HS and lower through the shoulder roll or you can even do it from sitting in a straddle on the bars (this is the old school basic way of backward and forward shoulder rolls on PB).

Awesome, thanks everyone for the advice. Sounds like I need to practice, practice, practice.

Post a video it's hard to tell what is wrong with you swing.

Planche won't help you (or very litlle). Why? At swing you must not never be in a planche position, shoulders must be always above the wrists at whole time (just minimal deviations are allowed). Head is allwasy looking end of bar (of course you must do them in the middle of bar).

Gregor said:

Post a video it's hard to tell what is wrong with you swing.

Shoulders must be always above the wrists at whole time (just minimal deviations are allowed)

I tried learning support swings with this advice in mind, as this guy who taught me the basics about pbar swings said the exact same thing. So i tried keeping my shoulders above my wrists only allowing very minimal movement, and it felt very unnatural and even hurt my shoulder a little (maybe used too much strenght to minimize the shoulder lean). Then this young gymnast who saw me swingin the other day told me to lean more forward with relaxed shoulders while trying to hollow my body as i get close to handstand (ie. push my chest forward) and now the swings feel natural and its very easy to swing to HS.

And also, on most of the youtube videos there is a forward lean in swings..?

edit: for example take this guy (i think hes someone here on the forum?). Beautiful swings, and if you pause the clip around 2second (swing INTO the HS) and again at around 8seconds (OUT of the HS), there is a huge lean, almost planche-like. Confusing.

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Mikko Saks said:

Gregor said:

Post a video it's hard to tell what is wrong with you swing.

Shoulders must be always above the wrists at whole time (just minimal deviations are allowed)

I tried learning support swings with this advice in mind, as this guy who taught me the basics about pbar swings said the exact same thing. So i tried keeping my shoulders above my wrists only allowing very minimal movement, and it felt very unnatural and even hurt my shoulder a little (maybe used too much strenght to minimize the shoulder lean). Then this young gymnast who saw me swingin the other day told me to lean more forward with relaxed shoulders while trying to hollow my body as i get close to handstand (ie. push my chest forward) and now the swings feel natural and its very easy to swing to HS.

I can't speak for gregor but i think he was trying to say that you never get anywhere near the lean required for a planche. With your swing at the moment you are probably within his "minimal deviations"

In his swings there, he roughly only leans forward about the same angle a tuck planche would be in general.

I was kinda miffed about resurrecting this thread but it's justified.

Thanks for the clarification guys! My mind is finally at peace with the amount of leaning thats happening when i swing comfortably

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Slowly making progress. Still far from perfect, but getting better every time.

Something i could do to improve/make the swinging easier?

Don't bend your arms!

Yes fight the arm bend. Utilize the your back not your arms. Pay attention to what your lats are doing and where your shoulders are at.