A low single rail is a very useful piece of equipment to master different technical aspects of several horizontal bar or uneven bar skills. The back bail is the beginning part of back giants. The drill is performed falling very stretched from the handstand and landing flat down on soft mats approximately at the same height as the low rail.
In the front bail drill to prepare the first part of the front giants the gymnasts bail down with the shoulders very stretched and the body straight aiming to land on the mat as flat as possible without any hips pike or shoulder angle.
This low single rail drill helps gymnasts understand how to cast to a handstand with straddled legs. Beginning from a hollow prone support the gymnast moves down to a tight arch, and from there quickly snaps the hips up, aiming to bring the body weight on top of the arm support without letting the legs come down too much.
Technically correct front pirouettes on the horizontal bar or the uneven bars must be completed by the vertical or even slightly before. Kicking up with an undergrip short of reaching a complete vertical handstand performing a front pirouette and falling over flat in overgrip lend the athlete valuable understanding and experience about how to begin an early pirouette ahead of the body reaching the vertical line.
This low single rail drill helps gymnast beginning to learn a higgins to understand how to transfer their body weight over the post arm. Gymnasts must aim to keep a straight body line, and during the turn, maintain eye contact with the bar for catching the rail.
Low single rail full pirouette drills can be trained to a mixed-grip first, and then to a complete eagle grip. Some of the goals are to keep the body fully stretched during the turn without any arch or pike, and when coming down, to land straight on the soft mat instead of crooked to either the left or right side of a perfect perpendicular line in relation to the rail.
In this drill the gymnast begins with both hands in an eagle grip and jumps up to a handstand with eagle grip support afterwards to land flat down while maintaining a fully streched position and without loosing the grip on the bar. The drill can also be performed bouncing from a board, but either way, one of the goals is to show a vertically supported handstand without any pike before falling down.
In this stalder drill the aim is to land in a pancake position with the arms straight and shoulders pushing and stretching away from the bar. Gymnast that have some personal difficulty with the pancake position need to develop better flexibilty to be able to perform great stalders.
This is another example of the useful variety of bar skills that single rails help to introduce and develop. The goal is to jump back and get familiar with catching the bar and immediately push away to facilitate a good swing for any subsequent skill following the reverse hecht.
Horizontal bar reverse hechts require a quick opening of the shoulder angle before the body swings down beyond the horizontal line. Training low single rail back bails with the shoulders opening prior to landing down on the mat helps to develop an understanding of this technical action.
Though male gymnasts tend to perform the higgins while already bailing down, this skill can be performed beginning in the handstand support as optimally seen on the uneven bars. Spotting the gymnasts on a low single rail allows them to experience the body weight transfer and technical motions required to move and turn from an overgrip to an eagle-grip position.