Parents rubbing leg raw trying to get mill circle

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emorymom

Proud Parent
My daughter made the back of her leg raw today (age 5.5) working on her mill circle in open gym. When I saw it I made her stop. She was very PO at me for making her stop but then again I have to listen to the whining when she notices how it hurts on the way home in the car. She may be willing to hurt herself in the gym, but she's not particularly tough out of it. It is not like she has nothing else to work on on bars and I don't think I was out of line to tell her to go work on her back hip circle instead. She declined and played the rest of the time. Hey, her time.

(1) Would you have made your daughter stop if she was hurting herself?

(2) Can I wrap her knee open in an ace bandage or something for next time to both protect her skin and keep her legs straight? Or another trick to either protect the kneepit or straighten the leg?

If it's not obvious, the problem is she is not getting all around the bar yet and so wherever she stops she hooks her front knee and hangs there on the bar.
 
From a coaching perspective, that is one of the problems with "open gym" without instruction. Kids keep practicing skills that they don't really have independently and they keep reinforcing "wrong" technique and bad habits.

On the other hand, chalk on the back of the knee may help with the friction between her leg and the bar.

Good luck!:)
 
You bet I would have stopped my dd if she was hurting herself. She may need to be held back a little doing these in an open gym until she can get her form to the point where she isn't hooking her knee all the time. The problem with wrapping that part of the knee is that the wrap doesn't stay on long due to flexing and extending the leg. Also wrapping the knee may encourage her to keep hooking her knee since she will think she can't hurt it.
 
This happened to my DD as well. I did not pull her out. I put neosporin on it when she got home. Then I told her to stop hooking her knee!!! He-he. I'm kinds a smarty pants.
 
DD had the same problem with the mill circle when she first was getting it. She was KILLING her leg with the hook but it wasn't raw she was bruising herself. I didn't pull her but told her to stop hooking too. Her coach said she will stop as it keeps hurting. After about a month of a black and blue leg she finally made the correction
 
I probably would have made her work on something else and I have at open gym when my DD has a rip or something. I think most like to work on bars most at open gym. YOu did the right think mom
 
Madi does the same thing with her mill circle and the hooking knee problem is and chaffing is always an issue too. I make her put chalk on the back of her leg to reduce it but I remind her she is supposed to keep her knee straight the whole mill circle. She does it sometimes and most of the time still hooks her knee... I hate the stride circle...
 
From a coaching perspective, that is one of the problems with "open gym" without instruction. Kids keep practicing skills that they don't really have independently and they keep reinforcing "wrong" technique and bad habits.

On the other hand, chalk on the back of the knee may help with the friction between her leg and the bar.

Good luck!:)

Thanks. You're right, although she did get some instruction. On the whole while she was def. using bad technique, she is still working on not being scared and sometimes open gym is the best place for that.

Thanks everyone!
 

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