For Coaches Pre team training hours

[gymcoachhh]

Hi all, im a young coach and ex-competitive gymnast with three years experience coaching competitive gymnastics. This is my first time developing a pre team from the beginning all on my own. They are 5-7 years old and they’ve been training 4hrs a week (2hrs 2 days a week) since august and from november ive been thinking anout increasing their hours to 5hrs a week (adding on a a half hour to each two hour session they're doing) or possibly more. My main reasons for this is being that im always so stuck for time and im always rushing to try get their warmup, conditioning, two apparatus and flexibility stretching done in the two hours while having time to set up equipment for stations and drills/preps and explaining/demonstrating and correcting them. However im looking for the opinion of anyone experienced in coaching pre team or competitive gymnastics and wondering how many hours you or your gym has their pre team in for and how you divide up your time (for example how long you spend on conditioning) just to get an idea of how many hours i should be doing or how to more effectively divide up my time.

 

[Aussie_coach]

At that age 4 hours can work well. Increasing the length of time they train won’t necessarily improve their training. It could even make it worse.

If young kids train for too long and tire, they will train poorly and then they will start practicing mistakes.

I would recommend against spending a lot of time on conditioning. You can incorporate conditioning into your apparatus time, side stations in your circuits etc.

Make it fun, at this age kids will be driven to excel with little games and competitions and challenges.