WAG Summer vacations and level 9/10

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tomtnt

Proud Parent
In the past, we've taken many long vacations without ramification. Throughout my DD compulsory career and up to last summer when she trained level 9, we've taken at least 3 weeks off for overseas vacation. The coaches were never very happy about this but she has aleays managed to regain her skills and have done very well. We think the break probably helps her heal little injuries and recharges her for the intense summer training and subsequent season.

Now that she will be training level 10 this upcoming summer, thereally is increases resistance from coaches and from my DD to take such a long vacation.

What has your experience been in managing vacation time away from the gym? Are we destined to travel only during meet season to meet cities for the remainder of her competitive ?career?
 
i do not know about wag, but any other sport out there encourages (!!) their elite athletes to take of at least three weeks off per year before off-season preparation starts. bodies need time to heal, minds need time to relax, and from a sports science point of view of periodisation ("programming" your training) you need some weeks off to get your system to become kind of "unconditioned", so that intense training gets better results after that. you can not be on the top of your game year round. just does not happen.

of course you do not want to do nothing for three weeks. you would keep training like 3 to 5 times a week, but only for one hour or so per day with a strong focus on crosstraining (try new sports, go swimming, hiking, biking...) and fun and some basics (in track ans weightlifting that would be some stretching and mobility routine followed by some easy core work). so nothing that could not be done on vacation basically anywhere.

i guess what is good enough for all the elite athletes in track and weightlifting and so on is good enough for competitive gymnasts as well.
 
I tend to your way of thinking. Can't speak to level 9/10 but I think if you keep conditiong it shouldn't be a problem. But I know that my opinion, is different then most. Really kids lose time for injuries and come back.

Now because you are getting pushback from your daughter, perhaps the solution is in the middle. Some vacation 10-14 days or arrange training at a gym for the 3 weeks away. Or just 7-10 days as it is her first L10 season.

In other words find a compromise that works for everyone.

And again, yo this is coming from a person who thinks some downtime is good.
 
I agree with @Deleted member 18037 - perhaps a compromise would work? Maybe train a couple days/wk while overseas? Even if it's not working skills but strength/flex, etc? Or go for less time?

How solid are her L10 skills right now? I'd consider that when deciding what to do. Honestly, I completely respect your commitment to travel and family time - that's important, too, and a great experience for your DD. But with her transitioning to L10, I can see the coach's argument that three weeks does maybe seem like a lot of time to miss, too. I imagine I'd get some pushback for anything more than a 1.5 week vacation for my DD, and she's training for L7 (that's with a scheduled week break for the girls in Dec).

All this said from my perspective: the previous two seasons, my DD had extra time off due to injury, so we've avoided additional long breaks!
 
We get push back from coaches for any time off. But we are not a high hour gym. The gym doesn't close for any time during the year, otherwise we would arrange our time to work with theirs.

So our compromise with coaches. We take our time in early summer or June and try not to miss camp weeks. But vacations happen :cool:
 
Dd took off 2 weeks at L9 last year and essentially did nothing but walking/jogging and conditioning during that time. She had some trouble coming back. Took about 2 weeks for all her skills to solidify again. But it wasn't as bad as I would have predicted. We offered to have her workout at a gym by where we vacationed but she doesn't have the type of personality where she would be OK walking into a new gym to train a few days.
 
Can you plan your vacation around a week where the gym is closed? and then possibly just take a 2 week vacation instead? Or can your dd meet up with you after a week or so of traveling?

Just trying to think of alternatives. I figure there has to be a compromise between 3 weeks or travel and no travel.
 
As a coach, I feel that more than 1-2 weeks off (depending on the gymnast) definitely throw them back quite a bit. Especially the ones who have to work hard on strength/flexibility. However - if the gymnast is aware of that and understands why training is a lot harder/more frustrating after some time off, then it's ok. I'd say go on you holiday.....family is important too.
I have a gymnast who will be on holiday for 3 weeks, gym for 2 weeks and then on holiday again for 3 weeks this summer. Skillwise she is in the level 7/8 area. I'm really worried about that.....at 11 and at the beginning of puberty, she might have a really hard time to find her way back.
 
DD is 12 and working L8, we are going to be away 14 days in October. I am worried, but it is a once in a lifetime trip for us and we have to go when we are b/c of work, so it is 8 weeks before the first meet. I will talk to her coaches after everyone's season is over (regionals, east/west etc) They may want her to train somehow wile away. I don't know.
 
We generally take time at the beginning and end of summer (Level 10). While away, my daughter does her best to do conditioning and some cardio every day.

She's never had a problem with losing skills. Mostly when she gets back, it's a day or two getting into the more intense conditioning groove plus vaulting that always seems to give her problems. Not enough to stop her from the down time of a vacation though!!
 
I can understand both your side and her coaches side. As a training level 10, taking off a few weeks at once can be hard on both your daughter as well as the coaches when trying to train her for the upcoming season. Summer practices are a crucial time for gaining new skills as well as building muscle. It's not like she'll take 3 weeks off and that's it. Coming back, especially as a high level optional, also takes a couple weeks to get back into the groove of things. It might be 2-3 more weeks before she's totally back on track, totally a whopping 5-6 weeks of wasted up-training time.

That said, I also came from a family that LOVED to take long summer vacations. Every single summer I'd be out 2 weeks at a time. My coaches hated it, but it gave my body time to mend, my mind time to rest, and my soul time to heal after a long and stressful season (+ school). Not being at the gym for 14 days straight also made me miss my sport, and it made coming back that much more fun. Burning out both physically and mentally is a real thing, and is one of the biggest reasons kid's quit this sport. Taking time off is sometimes more important than being in the gym.

Talk to your daughter. Tell her not to think about what she thinks she SHOULD do, but instead what she WANTS to do. My only reservations on NOT taking a 3 week long vacation is if she's older and it's crucial for her to have a good season for college reasons. If she's young and has plenty more seasons of L10, or if college gymnastics is not a goal of hers, take the trip. Otherwise, compromise is great. Perhaps 2 weeks instead of 3? Or 3 separate mini week long vacations spread throughout the summer? It's much easier to come back from a week off rather than 3 weeks off, trust me.

If you ARE going to go for 3 weeks, ask her coaches for a strength/flexibility sheet that your DD can do in the mornings or at night. It is so important to stay active. If she were a compulsory, this would not even be a thread - everyone would say the same thing, "Go on vacation". But the fact that she's training level 10 makes things trickier. Even a repeating 10 I would say go. But 9 to 10 is a big jump. Good luck!
 
That's a tough one. Our gym understand folks go on vacation but they make it clear to parents that long vacations will make it harder on your child to move forward. Last year we took a 10 day vacation which included my daughter at a week long gymnastics camp and it coincided with her level beginning to fine tune their routines for the competitive season as it was a month away. Despite being at the gymnastics camp I felt she was playing catch up with her routines and decided that going forward vacations will be more mindful of training schedules and proximity to competition season.

As much as it doesn't seem fair to the family as a whole I think you need to be fair to your athlete child who is making a big investment as well. Not sure if it's possible but can your daughter stay with a relative or teammate friend and stay in training?
 
As much as it doesn't seem fair to the family as a whole I think you need to be fair to your athlete child who is making a big investment as well. Not sure if it's possible but can your daughter stay with a relative or teammate friend and stay in training?

Not bashing you at all GymDad, but imho the point of the vacation is to make it a family one. I would go with either
a. the compromise (shorter trip)
b. the compromise (less family time while on vacay, but a gym where she could keep up to speed as well as meet girls from another country-how cool would that be, actually!)
c. some form of compromise that my tired brain can't think of now, but because your daughter is also pushing back, I would work to achieve one.

....and I DO think how old she is in this situation greatly matters, as well as how far along she is in acquiring the needed skills...
Good luck to you OP, and may I just say that if you need someone to drive your daughter to those gyms overseas, that I am more than willing to be hired as chauffer and accompany you?:D:D:D
 
As someone who has been in and around the sport for 18 years, and with at least one level 10 gymnast in the family since 2006, my 20/ 20 hindsight advice would be to take your trip...and don't look back.

You mentioned you are going overseas so , to me, 3 weeks is not long at all...go, go ,go and have fun and don't worry about it. As others have mentioned, kids are out for weeks and months with injuries and come back fine ( yes, they have to work at it but it can be done)...my own girls missed weeks/ months in level 10 seasons along the way and we were always at JOs at the end of the season.
 
As someone who has been in and around the sport for 18 years, and with at least one level 10 gymnast in the family since 2006, my 20/ 20 hindsight advice would be to take your trip...and don't look back.

You mentioned you are going overseas so , to me, 3 weeks is not long at all...go, go ,go and have fun and don't worry about it. As others have mentioned, kids are out for weeks and months with injuries and come back fine ( yes, they have to work at it but it can be done)...my own girls missed weeks/ months in level 10 seasons along the way and we were always at JOs at the end of the season.

Can't tell you how many times we've heard this advice from parents of senior level 10s in our gym. The irony is that these successful girls Did NOT take these long breaks so the coaches tend to point to them as examples of success from never missing gym for prolonged stretches.

She is still quite young having just turned 12. She does struggle with bars and that will be the toughest skills for her to obtain this summer. Last 3 week break really set her back with bars.

I think this year, we will take a 1-2 week vacation and see how things play out. Love hearing the different perspectives!
 
My dd is nowhere near the level of yours we took 2 weeks last year had a long night flight on the Friday night got home at 6am on Saturday and competed on the Sunday it was my dd best competition if the year she did a ting amount of conditioning ran her floor a couple of times some climbing but other than they played on the beach and she was only 8
We have recently moved gyms and all holidays had to be approved by previous gym the new one isn't strict even letting girls train at different gyms we are going to Florida for 2 weeks in a couple of months and will be off for most of march next I honestly don't care if the coaches are happy about it or not
 
Not bashing you at all GymDad, but imho the point of the vacation is to make it a family one. I would go with either
a. the compromise (shorter trip)
b. the compromise (less family time while on vacay, but a gym where she could keep up to speed as well as meet girls from another country-how cool would that be, actually!)
c. some form of compromise that my tired brain can't think of now, but because your daughter is also pushing back, I would work to achieve one.

....and I DO think how old she is in this situation greatly matters, as well as how far along she is in acquiring the needed skills...
Good luck to you OP, and may I just say that if you need someone to drive your daughter to those gyms overseas, that I am more than willing to be hired as chauffer and accompany you?:D:D:D
That's fine. I realized my idea might go against the grain.
 

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