I think a big issue at our gym is that the boys get very limited access to the floor and the vault because they share these apparatuses with 200 girls. Consequently, they end up spending way too much time on the arm events. They rarely even get access to floor space (not even an edge) for...
My son’s a gymnast. He plays flag as his second sport and I always have lots of current and former gymnastics parents to hang out with at the games. Flag is a very gymnast-friendly sport.
He’s 10, so no weight training yet. He has a list of PT exercises he’s supposed to do but he’s not very interested in doing them. Our gym does not emphasize physical preparation. I’ve read that physical preparation should be 30% of training time, but it’s closer to 10% at our gym (sometimes...
The mushroom is actually a really good place to start. Even through it is low to the ground you have to keep your legs up high on the pommel horse to get over the handles, so the mushrooms is good preparation. You could put a mushroom up on a bit of a pedestal to get a bit more height...
Move up season can be very stressful! Parents are wondering if their child’s training schedule and tuition are about to change dramatically, if they will be getting a new coach and whether that coach will be a good fit, if their kid is about to be separated from their friends or placed in a...
It has been almost 6 months and my son is finally starting his return. He’s attending two full practices per week. He’s able to practice high bar and rings fairly normally. He’s still hands-free on vault and floor. He can’t tolerate planche positions yet, which includes swing handstands of...
At our gym, gymnasts who are going to be out multiple months are switched to 1/2 time and 1/2 tuition. Gymnasts also have the option of quitting with one month notice. If they quit, they pay nothing, but they are also not allowed to attend practices for conditioning purposes. Meet fees are...
If it’s any comfort to you, at my son’s gym there are zero overuse injuries in the kids training 12 hours per week. At 16 hours there are just little annoying things like shin splints and Severs. We don’t start seeing serious overuse injuries until the boys start training 20 hours per week...
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You can ask, but it’s not recommended. A scan would have to be repeated every 6-12 months to be clinically useful and a child has a lot of growth plates. Serial scans of multiple joints without medical indication would be very strange. If an activity requires that amount of monitoring...
I recommend seeing a PT for preventative care. Sports med doctors typically focus on treating injuries. We’ve been to a lot of sports medicine doctors in the last year. Their preventative advice is simply to see a PT.
That’s impressive. I think a lot of kids would really struggle with such a big increase in the difficulty of the tumbling. You must be really good at coaching standing back handsprings!