Sarah Korngold Discusses Developing Elite Level Gymnastics, Putting The Athlete First, and Building Cultures

In this week’s podcast, I was excited to chat with another member of the phenomenal Ascend Gymnastics Coaching Team, who works alongside Cale Robinson and Brett Wargo which we recently interviewed on the podcast.

With high-level success with Elite and NCAA, Sarah Korngold has achieved this with her nurturing and progressive philosophy.

As well as picking her brain on the culture of her gym, and specifically what they do to be successful and how they help the athletes progress, without sacrificing someone’s health.

She also shares her fantastic knowledge of Beam, something which we’ve not yet covered before on the podcast. She gives a comprehensive insight into her lower-level development program, what she thinks is important with compulsories and basics that she uses, and also education on what drills and exercises to do and why.

I think the more we can get education on the event-specific stuff along with the philosophy side, the better experiences coaches and athletes are going to have in the gym and be happier and confident with themselves and their ideas. We discuss:

The culture at Ascend Gymnastics, how they got there, and what they are doing to be continuously successful.
How to deal with kids that are not always motivated, don’t want to put their effort into strength, or are maybe talking in the chalk bucket instead of doing drills, and how to still help them progress with their training.
Sarah’s thoughts on the College recruiting problem, how she is approaching and talking to parents about it.
How to find a balance between high-level aspirations and goals at a young age and training hours, safety, health, and long-term wellness.
What foundations and basics you need to be doing at the lower levels, to build a solid base and be successful on beam.
Sarah’s thoughts and drills for beam flexibility and do gymnast’s really needed three full square splits to be successful in women’s artistic gymnastics?
We talk about fears and mental blocks, and what you can do to help your athletes overcome them.

To listen to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher click below.