Coaches Meet Week Conditioning?

[coachmolly]

Do you stick to your regular conditioning plan (whatever that may be) the week/few days before a meet? Or do you change it up to allow more time for routine work? Is there anything you add specifically for meet season? Is there anything you will not do the practices before a meet?
Our kids have been out of the gym for the holidays (we've had 3 optional "open" practices for the interested kids but nothing serious) and will only have 2 practices before a biggish meet on Saturday, so I'm weighing my options as to how to work conditioning those days. Thanks for any tips!

 

[gymgurl]

We cut back on conditioning but not by much (just shorter versions i.e. maybe 2 sets of back raises instead of 3 etc) but the day before we always do a mini comp and if we have time we work on what needs work however this sometimes ends in a massage circle

 

[Aussie_coach]

It's not good practice to do a lot of conditioning when you are In Competition time. You should be building up your strength to a maximum before the season and during the season the aim is to maintain your strength at the level it is already at. If you build a lot your body composition will change and this can affect the way you do skills, which in essence can cause you to have to relearn skills mid season.

 

[coachmolly]

Thanks so much for the feedback. We are a HS team so start practices in November, meets in December, and end practices when the meet season is over. None of the girls are club gymnasts (no clubs around here), so the only "off season" conditioning is they get is from whatever other sports they play. We try to do lots of conditioning from November to mid-December when meets start, but then it's figuring out how to keep improving strength and upgrading skills throughout the season without killing them with conditioning.
I'm not planning on doing any the day before, but we have meets almost every weekend in January and a few weekday ones as well, so I feel like calling off conditioning for an entire month wouldn't be in their best interests either. Overall "gymnastics" strength isn't the best with this group, so I don't want a lack of strength work to cause them to lose what they do have if we don't keep up with it. It's ultimately not a huge deal, I just don't want to unintentionally overwork them or let them slide by to the point where injuries are more likely.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Oh, that presents a whole lot of new challenges. Is there anyway you could offer optional (and strongly encouraged) conditioning classes in the off season. I would be quite worried about coaching a team who took 9 months off every year.

In your case periodization is not going to help you much so I would recommend you do the conditioning while you can. Why not do a mock comp or X number of routines first and keep the conditioning for the end of practice depending on how much time you have left. They won't be the fittest gymnasts so doing the conditioning before hand may really affect their ability to practice the skills.

If they are tired they will practice poorly and in essence get very good at doing it poorly.