How to Stay Organized During Meet Warm-Ups: Vault & Bars Prep for Coaches
- raisethebargymnast
- Jul 23
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 31
If you’ve ever been at a Level 8–10 vault rotation during a meet warm up, I’m pretty sure you know the definition of stress. One athlete needs a spot, another is doing a timer, you're scrambling to get the vault table height adjusted, figuring out vault types, resi mat in or out... Do we land on a 4-incher? An 8-incher?
And let’s not forget about the littles! They can’t remember where to run from, what order they go in, or, fingers crossed that they even remember they need to do two vaults.
And for those of you coaching everything from the littles all the way through optionals, hope you’ve got a great memory by the time you're on your 12th session of the weekend.
But seriously, the one thing that keeps me sane on meet weekends is pre-meet preparation.
You can never be too prepared. And you should always expect the unexpected.
Before we leave the gym, all vault and bar settings are written out by group or individual athlete and shared with every coach attending the meet. I always have a folder or binder in my meet bag with everything I might need—because even though we think we have it all organized in our heads, meet weekends are long. And the correct settings are crucial, especially for the safety of your upper-level athletes.
Hopefully, nothing goes wrong—but if it does, having systems in place allows another coach to step in seamlessly in case of illness or injury. It also frees up your athletes to focus on doing their best, while you, the coach, handle the rest.
Want to make this even easier?
Check out our Bars and Vault Competition Setting Downloadable PDFs—they’re designed to help keep things organized and stress levels low on meet day.
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