Gymnastics adopts new training strategies to try to vault to new heights

On Wednesday, UCLA gymnastics went through its training session. Assistant coach Chris Waller kept tabs on the bars, making sure everyone was hitting their daily handstand quota.

It was business as usual.

Then, something happened.

“Stella (Savvidou) held a handstand for 20 seconds on bars,” said freshman Kyla Ross. “It was crazy. Everyone stopped in the gym.”

Savvidou’s bar display showed the Bruins’ commitment to cleaning up the details, like handstands, in their routines.

After two up-and-down meets to start the season, No. 6 UCLA (1-1) is focused on turning in clean events and upping the team score against Oregon State on Saturday.

“We’ve been focused on upgrading some of our vaults to 10.0 vaults and getting ready to come out on floor,” said coach Valorie Kondos Field.

Increasing the start values is half the battle.

The other half is in the smaller things that add up over the course of a meet – the “finite details,” such as handstands, stuck landings and staying in time with the music on floor exercise.

“We were focusing on the details because we are all capable of (being) great, but it’s the little details that have made us not reach our potential,” Ross said.

Working on vital elements such as these over a one- to two-week span can take a toll on the body, as the Bruins had a bye week last week. With the injuries the team already has, alternate measures to simply churning out reps were implemented.

“We’re showing a lot of video in the gym,” Kondos Field said. “We’re showing them every single turn. It’s all about less numbers and seeing what they can improve on each turn.”

Video proved helpful, but the team still needed to get on the equipment in order to pin down their routines.

The important thing, again, was not increased numbers, but a tight focus on improving the minor deficiencies exhibited by each gymnast.

“We have a saying on bars, we say, ‘One and done,’” Savvidou said. “You get up there, say you’re doing a dismount, you’re going to do it to the best of your ability, but you’re going to do one, so you save your body, but you also get the practice.”

Aside from the primary goal of galvanizing for the upcoming meet in Oregon, UCLA plans to use exhibition routines to get a look at gymnasts who haven’t been in the competition lineup and see how they do outside of training.

“We’re hoping to see Gracie (Kramer) on floor,” Kondos Field said. “And Mercedez Sanchez will be traveling and hopefully do exhibition on bars and beam.”

At the end of the day, however, the focus remains on the Bruins stepping up their collective game against the Beavers, and leaving the first two meets behind them.

“We haven’t really clicked, but this week we had a very important team meeting,” Savvidou said. “It put everyone in the right mindset, and we’ve been seeing improvements in the gym since then. It’s looking very good. We’re very excited for going to Oregon and showing them what UCLA gymnastics really is.”