Parents High hours

[Tmacs]

I was told dd’s hours would stay close to 16 (4 days) this year for L5/6. We just got the schedule and it’s 5 days/20 hours. I’m bummed. She’s bummed even though she absolutely loves gym. She always wants to go but liked her days off! I could pull her a day each week but she’d hate that too. Does anyone have great suggestions for how they’ve handled this? Mandatory rest day every two weeks? Other?

 

[raenndrops]

You were told her hours would "stay close to" 16 this year.
20 hours is a 25% increase over 16. That is NOT close in my book.
I would talk to the coach or owner or whoever at the gym.
Ask if there is an option to only go 4 days ... or go 5 days one week and 4 days the next.
My gym is extremely flexible, but I know how lucky we are and others aren't as lucky.
Good luck.

 

[PeanutsMom]

Level 5/6 is 20 hours? My DD's old gym didn't hit 20 hours until level 8. All the way through 7 they were 16 (4 days 4 hours). Her current gym is only 12 hours and she is training level 7/8. It actually works pretty well. Its much smaller groups, so they don't have to wait for turns on equipment, so the 12 hours is pretty much on station each day. High hours leads to burn out and over training injuries. I am not sure it would be worth it at level 5/6.

 

[gymgal]

It's worth a discussion with the HC. Not sure if there will be much flexibility in this but it doesn't hurt to ask. 20 seems high to me for L5/6 but it really depends on your gym's structure.

ETA: if they do allow her to stay at 4days, she needs to understand that her teammates may (likely) progress more quickly that she does and needs to be ok with that.

 

[MuggleMom]

Our gym is typically at those hours at that level. We have had girls that skipped a day a week but they still had to pay full tuition price as they were taking a spot in that group, so thats something to keep in mind. My DD is at that many hours and it can be hard, I let her leave early one night a week (due to a late night early satruday practice in her gym schedule) and I tell her she can pick 2 days off a month. So if she says hey I dont want to go to practice today, I say you want this to be one of your two days? If she says yes she can stay home, and play, or be lazy or go to that thing with her friends whatever---she doesnt need a "reason" to miss. She doesnt always use her two days but she likes knowing she has them. She is going into middle school which I know will be a tough transition so I will give her more schedule flexibility with gym to help keep her happy in the sport. The truth is those that go to practice more may end up scoring better its hard to say. Just keep an eye on what days you miss as well, our gym has different days like basics, or uptraining or routines, if you are going to have set times you miss make sure you pick strategically, so she doesnt miss the same event all the time or miss the fun uptraining day.

 

[Tmacs]

Our gym is typically at those hours at that level. We have had girls that skipped a day a week but they still had to pay full tuition price as they were taking a spot in that group, so thats something to keep in mind. My DD is at that many hours and it can be hard, I let her leave early one night a week (due to a late night early satruday practice in her gym schedule) and I tell her she can pick 2 days off a month. So if she says hey I dont want to go to practice today, I say you want this to be one of your two days? If she says yes she can stay home, and play, or be lazy or go to that thing with her friends whatever---she doesnt need a "reason" to miss. She doesnt always use her two days but she likes knowing she has them. She is going into middle school which I know will be a tough transition so I will give her more schedule flexibility with gym to help keep her happy in the sport. The truth is those that go to practice more may end up scoring better its hard to say. Just keep an eye on what days you miss as well, our gym has different days like basics, or uptraining or routines, if you are going to have set times you miss make sure you pick strategically, so she doesnt miss the same event all the time or miss the fun uptraining day.

Yes, I know I will be paying for the full amount. I don’t know how much I want to engage with the coaches about it. They are fantastic and super encouraging of her and she really progressed this summer. But I like the idea of giving her two or three days to choose each month. I was thinking one day off every two weeks which is similar. And I think the coaches will be able to suggest certain days over others. With school holidays/in services and half days etc, I think we can make it work. And who knows with COVID/delta what this year will really be!

 

[MuggleMom]

I will say at first we were going to take certain days off but I think the free pass system has worked better. Sometimes she is just randomly tired or sore or stressed and needs a break...but what if thats not her planned day off? What if she takes the day she needs then the planned day? Also sometimes she would say I think I want to stay home and when I would say ok is this your day off then she would think about it and decide she wanted to save it for when she needed it and went to practice and was fine. It gave her a bit more flexibility and I found she missed less often but she had the piece of mind of having it in her back pocket.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Not a fan of high hours

 

[Deleted member 26368]

Wowzers, at DD'S gym, optionals (L7-10) practice 19-20 hours/week. That is really high, IMO, for mid-level kids who are likely on the younger side.

 

[rlm's mom]

If you want to compare in our gym Level 6 do 15 hours, level 7-8 do 18 and only 9 and 10 do 20. A few wanting extra training or with goals of elite do 24.

 

[GymnastMomX2]

Level 4 is 16 hours and levels 6+ at our gym are 20-29 in summer and 20-25 during the school year. We’re likely level 7 this year and at the highest hours 29/25. Why? I have no idea, it was never communicated to us. The amount of hours does not correspond to level. I do have some concerns with the high amount of hours, but she loves it, and they seem to do a pretty good job avoiding injuries and hard landings most of the year. That being said I have no problem skipping a practice if she needs a day off. We took 2 weeks this summer to visit family, then she ended up being out sick another week, didn’t seem to affect her skill progression at all.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Higher hours doesn’t necessarily equate to better gymnastics.

What are they doing that they need 29 hours in level 6? Is practice time utilised well?

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Even 16 hours seems on the high end for level 6 imo.....

 

[GymnastMomX2]

Higher hours doesn’t necessarily equate to better gymnastics.

What are they doing that they need 29 hours in level 6? Is practice time utilised well?

With the higher summer hours they did double bars twice a week. Spending a lot of time on level 9+ skills and drills. They also did a tramp rotation every day. On the days with double practices they did extra time working strength and physical abilities plus extra tramp or mini tramp into pit drills. I don’t think the high hours were needed, but I also think they do a good job of not destroying their bodies. Our girls aren’t even allowed to really tumble on the floor or do hard landings at all during summer, not until much closer to competition time.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Here's roughly the curve I'd want to follow if I were designing a girls team program right now, and had enough space and equipment to have at least 50% of the group on equipment at any given time, and lived in a perfect world where there were never any scheduling conflicts:

L2/preteam:
-15 min warm-up/basics
-15 min conditioning
-30 min each on bars and one other event
-15 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
3x per week.
= 6 hours/week

L3:
-15 min warm-up
-15 min floor basics
-30 min conditioning
-30 min each on bars and one other event
-15 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
3x per week
= 7.5 hours/week

L4:
-15 min warm-up
-15 min floor basics
-30 min conditioning
-45 min each on bars and one other event
-30 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
3x per week
= 9.75 hours/week

L5 - L7:
(Same as L4, but 4x/week)
= 13 hours/week

L8 - L9:
-15 min warm-up
-10 min handstand basics
-10 min tumbling basics
-25 min bars basics
-30 min conditioning
-1 hour on 1 event
-30 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
5x per week
= 16.25 hours/week

L10:
(same as L8-L9, but 6x/week)
= 19.5 hours/week

Elite, training full-time:
-15 min warm-up
-10 min handstand basics
-15 min either bars or tumbling basics (alternating)
-20 min conditioning
-1 hour on 1 event
-30 min trampoline, etc
-15 minute stretch/cooldown
10x/week (meaning at least some of the days would have both a morning and evening workout)
= 27.5 hours/week

Having said all this, in the real world lower levels would have to stretch things a bit longer due to group size and infeasibility of having enough space and equipment to always have at least 50% of the group working; L10 and elite groups, by comparison, tend to be much smaller and are thus able to work more efficiently.

I'd also (remember, we're talking theoretical perfect world scenario here) want level 5 and up to have an hour or so of "open" workout each week, where they could pick whatever events and skills they want to work on, but that wouldn't be an every-practice thing.

For any practice that's within 2 days of a meet, I'd cut out conditioning entirely, and rather than doing one or two long event rotations, I'd have them do one or two routines on each event.

 

[rlm's mom]

Having said all this, in the real world lower levels would have to stretch things a bit longer due to group size and infeasibility of having enough space and equipment to always have at least 50% of the group working; L10 and elite groups, by comparison, tend to be much smaller and are thus able to work more efficiently.

Wishful thinking! I would say we have about 25% of the group working at a time. This is during peak times when there are a lot of different optional levels overlapping practice times.
I like your workings though!

 

[gymgal]

L8 - L9:
-15 min warm-up
-10 min handstand basics
-10 min tumbling basics
-25 min bars basics
-30 min conditioning
-1 hour on 1 event
-30 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
5x per week
= 16.25 hours/week

L10:
(same as L8-L9, but 6x/week)
= 19.5 hours/week

Elite, training full-time:
-15 min warm-up
-10 min handstand basics
-15 min either bars or tumbling basics (alternating)
-20 min conditioning
-1 hour on 1 event
-30 min trampoline, etc
-15 minute stretch/cooldown
10x/week (meaning at least some of the days would have both a morning and evening workout)
= 27.5 hours/week

1 event per day is interesting. I wonder if other gyms do that as well. Once in optionals, Dd primarily had 2 rotations per day, sometimes a 3rd shorter rotation. And I liked that she had only 5 practices per week all the way through L10. She did mon-fri, which we preferred both for her and the family. It also gave her body 2 days to rest/heal.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

1 event per day is interesting. I wonder if other gyms do that as well. Once in optionals, Dd primarily had 2 rotations per day, sometimes a 3rd shorter rotation. And I liked that she had only 5 practices per week all the way through L10. She did mon-fri, which we preferred both for her and the family. It also gave her body 2 days to rest/heal.

Our gym they hit all events, but depending on the day the focus is on one event more then others

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

To clarify, the one event/workout model is not something I've ever had the luxury to actually do; this is just sort of my "if I ran everything and didn't have to deal with the inconvenience of having to make it work in the real world" ideal.

There's several reasons I think one event/practice would be ideal:
1) Keeps practice as short as possible while still hitting all the necessities. I don't want athletes practicing tired and worn out gymnastics, I want them practicing good, strong, fresh gymnastics, and going home before fatigue really sets in.
2) Keeps practices very specifically focused. If an athlete has a bad day on one event, they often take that with them to the next rotation. But if there's only one event per workout, this isn't an issue.
3) Keeps the focus on physical prep and basics. Ideally, I think actual event/skill/routine work should be less than half of the practice. Focusing on strength, basics, body control (hence trampoline every practice), etc, is a more effective and efficient way of training. No reason to do the big risky skills any more than is necessary, and the precision developed through basics and trampoline will help with those big skills anyway.

And they'd still be doing basics on floor and bars every practice.

At one point, back when I was coaching boys, I had my boys down to 2 events per practice, and I think it worked spectacularly for them.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

I don't want athletes practicing tired and worn out gymnastics, I want them practicing good, strong, fresh gymnastics, and going home before fatigue really sets in.

This why our gym keeps practice to 3 hours. Even with camp. They break at hour 3 for lunch and some fun….

They feel going past 3 hours, is cost any gains in the first 3 hours.

It’s also, been my experienice…… Practice that goes longer then 3 hours and they are taking snack breaks, there is more standing around time waiting for turns etc….

At our gym. They are there for 3 hours, work hard and done…. There is no wasted time…….