Parents What To Do With Time Off For Injury?

[GymMomK]

My daughter sprained or strained her big toe and her foot is crazy swollen and sore. This is not her first injury... Anyway, what does your gymnast do when they are injured? I realize it depends on the injury, but thought I would ask.

In my opinion, she should be visualizing and conditioning as she can. Is there anything else you recommend?

 

[NutterButter]

Assuming the doctor says it’s ok, my DD goes to gym. She will do strength and flex and whatever else she is capable of. The coaches will often give the injured girls little tasks. But I also take the opportunity to give my DD whatever R&R she needs. She may miss a few practices or leave early.

 

[thefellowsmom]

At our gym the kids go to gym for practice as usual unless it is post surgery or the doctor says absolutely no activity whatsoever (like some types of back issues or severe overuse in the wrists etc).

My dd is in the late stages of recovering from a broken ankle and she was in the gym everyday after about three days of rest and initial recovery, basically a long weekend. Now, she is on the intense end of the spectrum and hates being out of the gym for more than a day or so so this was easy for her.

She was non weight bearing for six weeks and in the gym she did tons of core work and upper body conditioning. She just plugged around on her crutches and did what she could. Lots of stretching and more core and bar conditioning. And more stretching and upper body conditioning. LOL!

I also downloaded some meditation audios for her and she would listen to those and visualize. She would sit straddle on the beam and do arm routines. She would stand in the corner of the floor and do floor arm routines. She would stand at the end of the vault runway and visualize her vault and do arm sets. She would stand with her hands on the low bar and visualize her bar routines.

There is a ton of work that can be done but even with all that she had some down time at practice. She did homework, read and she would stand next to the coaches and listen to them coach, talk with them and watch the other girls, learning about coaching and soaking in the others corrections.

It has actually been very productive time for her. She has bonded with the new coaches rather than feeling on the sidelines and although the comeback has been slow, she is now accelerating and is strong and ready to go and having a great time coming back rather than being worried and scared.

I’m sorry about the injury and wish her a speedy recovery!

 

[GymMomK]

Assuming the doctor says it’s ok, my DD goes to gym. She will do strength and flex and whatever else she is capable of. The coaches will often give the injured girls little tasks. But I also take the opportunity to give my DD whatever R&R she needs. She may miss a few practices or leave early.

Thank you. Our coaches do not differentiate like I wish they would. So it is basically up to her and I to figure out what she can/will do.

 

[GymMomK]

Than

At our gym the kids go to gym for practice as usual unless it is post surgery or the doctor says absolutely no activity whatsoever (like some types of back issues or severe overuse in the wrists etc).

My dd is in the late stages of recovering from a broken ankle and she was in the gym everyday after about three days of rest and initial recovery, basically a long weekend. Now, she is on the intense end of the spectrum and hates being out of the gym for more than a day or so so this was easy for her.

She was non weight bearing for six weeks and in the gym she did tons of core work and upper body conditioning. She just plugged around on her crutches and did what she could. Lots of stretching and more core and bar conditioning. And more stretching and upper body conditioning. LOL!

I also downloaded some meditation audios for her and she would listen to those and visualize. She would sit straddle on the beam and do arm routines. She would stand in the corner of the floor and do floor arm routines. She would stand at the end of the vault runway and visualize her vault and do arm sets. She would stand with her hands on the low bar and visualize her bar routines.

There is a ton of work that can be done but even with all that she had some down time at practice. She did homework, read and she would stand next to the coaches and listen to them coach, talk with them and watch the other girls, learning about coaching and soaking in the others corrections.

It has actually been very productive time for her. She has bonded with the new coaches rather than feeling on the sidelines and although the comeback has been slow, she is now accelerating and is strong and ready to go and having a great time coming back rather than being worried and scared.

I’m sorry about the injury and wish her a speedy recovery!

Thanks for your response and well wishes! Our coaches don't really differentiate like I wish they would so that is why I am looking for ideas as far as what she can do. She is 16 and level 9 so we've been doing this for a while

 

[mom2gymnast]

Mine still goes to gym and does what she can. Right now she cannot use her arm so she does all the warm up minus anything that she can't do like handstands. Then she pretty much rotates with her team. On bars and vault she does some conditioning and on beam and floor she is working on no handed skills. And lots and lots of leaps and turns. She does leave early on occasion when they do bars or vault last. I don't think she would continue if she couldn't go and feel like part of the team!

 

[sce]

Team kids still go to practice and do what they can, at the very least conditioning. If they are really limited they might only go for half a practice.

 

[Muddlethru]

My daughter has been injured more times than I care to count starting when she was a Level 9. But through all her injuries (except surgery where she stayed at home for two weeks until cleared by her doctor to do some conditioning), my daughter went to gym and trained/conditioned all on her own. Her coach never helped her with conditioning or training whilst injured, so it was up to her to stay in shape.

If you are in a good gym with experienced coaches, they usually have a training plan for injured gymnasts. Perhaps because my daughter has had so many injuries in the higher levels (9 and 10), she has figured out what she can or cannot do. She usually did a lot of rope climbing and core exercises. She worked on her splits (she sat on oversplits for longer periods of time) or improving her flexibility. She used thera bands for stretching and strengthening exercises. She did a lot of handstands (if your daughter can't hold it for long periods, she can do this against the wall). There are also a lot of upper body exercises, push ups, pull ups etc. While she did not have enough exercises to fill the four hour practice, she did as much as she could. She also did cardio on a bicycle at the gym when her injuries allowed. On the later stages of her recovery, she joined the team in whatever she could.

I never told her to keep up her conditioning, she did it all herself because she wanted to. Many girls don't care to keep up their conditioning, but I think when you hit Level 9 and 10, it is vital to do so.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Kids go. Do what they can. May modify other things. May only go for part of practice. But its rare they completely stay out of practice unless they have no choice.

My kid has gone with a wrist issue. And 2 foot injuries. I will say she dealt better with the foot injuries then the wrist. I think she just felt she could do more or perhaps it was just more of what she liked to do.

 

[GymMomK]

My daughter has been injured more times than I care to count starting when she was a Level 9. But through all her injuries (except surgery where she stayed at home for two weeks until cleared by her doctor to do some conditioning), my daughter went to gym and trained/conditioned all on her own. Her coach never helped her with conditioning or training whilst injured, so it was up to her to stay in shape.

If you are in a good gym with experienced coaches, they usually have a training plan for injured gymnasts. Perhaps because my daughter has had so many injuries in the higher levels (9 and 10), she has figured out what she can or cannot do. She usually did a lot of rope climbing and core exercises. She worked on her splits (she sat on oversplits for longer periods of time) or improving her flexibility. She used thera bands for stretching and strengthening exercises. She did a lot of handstands (if your daughter can't hold it for long periods, she can do this against the wall). There are also a lot of upper body exercises, push ups, pull ups etc. While she did not have enough exercises to fill the four hour practice, she did as much as she could. She also did cardio on a bicycle at the gym when her injuries allowed. On the later stages of her recovery, she joined the team in whatever she could.

I never told her to keep up her conditioning, she did it all herself because she wanted to. Many girls don't care to keep up their conditioning, but I think when you hit Level 9 and 10, it is vital to do so.

My daughter is very motivated to keep up with her conditioning. She does a lot at home on her own, too.

 

[Annikins]

When dd had her broken wrist, she would go along, do the bits of conditioning etc that she could do. Work lots of leaps, jumps and spins. It was harder with her broken toe, although she still managed some conditioning and bars. Good luck!

 

[gymnastmom05]

Vacation ! My DD normally goes to gym when she's injured and does what she can on each rotation with a lot of conditioning. Sometimes she will go for a shorten amount of time (usually during the school year when she has a lot of homework to do). She was out with back pain for 2.5 weeks (Doctors orders) just to rest her body. Thankfully we already had a 1.5 week vacation in the middle of it. It was probably my saving grace!

 

[Gymsy4]

Mine have always gone despite injuries. They do extra conditioning and work on the events they can. When mine had a broken toe she wore a shoe and did a lot of bars. With an arm injury mine did beam and floor still. Our coaches have been pretty good at working around it.

 

[flipping_girls]

We had an injury plagued year last year. It is such a hard time for athletes physically and mentally, and I am sorry that your daughter is injured. For injuries that required casting on hands and feet, my girls went to gym and did what they could (conditioning, dance, front tumbling, tramp, strap bar, flexibility, etc.) For injuries that allowed for zero participation, my daughter went to gym every day and helped the coaches. Counting numbers, timing drills, etc. It kept her mentally in the game, and allowed her to feel like she was part of the team. Now others in the gym have taken different routes, and only come in part time during their injury time, because they were bored sitting around the gym for hours at a time. Seems like it depended on the athlete.

 

[mommyof1]

My gymmie spent several months injured this season and still attended all practices. I stayed in close communication with her coach about what she was and was not supposed to be doing, especially while she was easing back into full training. Coach modified everything to allow her to do as much as possible safely—for example, she did non-impact work on low beam to avoid landing on the injured ankle in a fall from the high beam, did dismount drills onto her back or belly, and did split jump drills on parallel bars. The gym also maintains a binder of conditioning assignments for injured kids.

I would have concerns about sending an injured kid to the gym without cooperation from the coach in ensuring that the kid would obey the restrictions. Gymnasts are easily tempted to do more than they should, and I would want to be certain that the coach would not tolerate (or worse, encourage) any of this.

 

[Amanda]

We've spent the last 4 months working around what we thought might be an injury (turns out it was an arthritis progression/flair.) She wasn't supposed to do any impact and nothing that stressed her SI joint or lower back- which eliminated lot of things! She couldn't even do any flexibility work for a long time. It was also an unusual situation that the coaches weren't familiar with. She took about a week and a half off completely. Then she started going in a couple of times a week for just an hour or so. She could do most upper body conditioning and some core conditioning. She would do the arm choreography for her beam and bar routines. She has slowly added back in most of her bar work and good amount of beam, and some floor- no vault yet. It was very slow at first when she started adding back in skills- ie she would try 5 spotted kips at one practice and then see how she felt. Then she added 5 spotted handstands on beam. As of right now, she is going in 4 times a week for about 2 hours. (Full practice would be 15 hours.) For her, we wanted her to stay connected and do what she could but there was so little she could do for awhile, I think it would have been emotionally difficult to be there for the full practice- plus the temptation to add in things too soon or to do something she really shouldn't increased the longer she was there. We did go to the pool once or twice a week so she could do some cardio work.