Subject: Diving Trainer Equipment and Safety

I am trying to locate safety standards for a acrobatic diving board trainer which incorporates the use of a “Swing Ring” bar, 25 feet high, but uses a waist harness connected by two safety ropes, to elevate and steer center, the diver springing off the diving board, and landing on a fall protection mat.

I am going to have to apologize that I do not have a specific answer for you on this question.

Gymnastics no longer does swinging rings as a competitive event and there are no gyms in the United states that I know of that have or use swinging rings or “flying rings” as they used to be called.  As such, gymnastics has no safety specifications for this type of equipment.

Current still rings are mounted on a ring stand where the rings hang on straps mounted 19′ above the floor.  The current ring stands were not built to support swinging rings movements and may not be safe for swinging, especially for adult males.  The old competition swinging rings were mounted up to 22′ off the ground.

Here are some examples of swinging rings  videos, here you can see what the structures look like:
This set-up is mounted over a pool: 

This shows swinging rings mounted both from building I-beams and from steel structures:

This shows a steel structure on the beach:

If you are mounting the structure inside, I would recommend anchoring to a steel I-beam, if that is available.  If not, you might consider building an I-beam support structure and anchoring it to floor.

If you are building this for a diving board, the support for the “two safety ropes” (which we call a overhead spotting training system and which can be used with tumbling and twisting belts) should be mounted a few feet in front of the end of the diving board, so when a spotter pulls on the ropes, the diver is carried out and away from the diving board.

A bungee tramp loose foam pit is probably a safer alternative than just a safety mat or even a regular Resi-Pit. A bungee tramp Resi-Pit would be the next safest.

No pit, including bungee tramp loose foam pits or any other mat set up is safe for head first diving, even using a spotting belt with an experienced coach spotting.

Hope that helps, but I understand it is probably not everything you wanted.

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