WAG Age of change

[profmom]

DD got serious about moving forward the first year she competed after a year on pre-team. This was around age 8. She did a lot of open gyms to work on specific skills.

Gym got hard and frustrating for her at around age 11. She had vestibular issues that prevented progress on beam. She did a second year at L7 as a result. When she finally moved to L8, she almost immediately started going through a string of frustrating injuries that limited her ability to train and compete. During her third year of L8 (defined loosely, as she barely competed), I was thinking it was only a matter of time. She never balked at going to practice, but she was obviously unhappy.

Then the third thing happened, the thing you don't mention.

She switched to XCel and stopped fighting with her body and trying to make it do the things it couldn't do. She found the places where she could progress. She made peace with herself and her trajectory in the sport. She refound the fun in gymnastics, and she re-entered competition with a completely transformed attitude. And now she is concretely planning how she will continue in college at the club level so that she can continue to enjoy the fun and camaraderie.

 

[gymbeam]

As soon as she started gym at 8 she couldn’t ever get enough and was very focused and determined. She’s 13 (Level 9) now and while she’s had some challenges physically with injury and extended sickness-knock on wood- she’s not experienced any mental or emotional struggles like you describe in your second question.

 

[coachmolly]

It’s not just fear. Younger kids (6-10) are wired to learn and gain skills, their major developmental goal is skill acquisition in many areas of their lives. It is the ideal time to teach as many skills as possible, once gymnasts reach adolescence their life developmental goals change, they are still wired to develop skills but their brains are undergoing many more complex developmental tasks, they are developmentally wired to socialise, judge themselves and others more, refine previously learned skills and they are working through an abundance of physical, emotional and hormonal changes. Their thinkingmmatures and they think a lot more deeply which leads to fear, doubts etc.

As coaches we do our gymnasts a disservice by not understanding this, as you point out early skill acquisition is very important. Teaching higher level skills early, when kids are more wired for skill acquisition will usually result in them getting a lot further in the sport. Wasting time in the lower levels on excessive routines, repeating levels to get high scores etc is not helpful. Failing to significantly uptrain young gymnasts is very detrimental to their development.

When they are teens they are in a better position to develop strength, polish, dance etc.

While I totally see where you are coming from and agree, I would add the caveat that this training methodology should only be employed by coaches who know what they are doing. I have seen too many kids coached into the ground by pushing too much too quickly, numerous overuse injuries at a young age, and kids with big skills but frighteningly little in the way of posture and refinement that make the skills look like an injury waiting to happen. Coaches with stars in their eyes who get their hands on a talented little one and throw every skill in the book at them so they can say they have a 9 year old doing double backs and paying no attention to proper conditioning, flexibility, and injury prevention.
So while I agree in theory, and know there are great coaches out there who can and do create great athletes in this way, I think there are also lots of coaches using this methodology very poorly and to the great detriment of their athletes. I guess I just say this because I know of parents who think they have hit the coaching jackpot because they have a coach who has their 7 year old doing level 8 skills only to have an 11 year old with a back injury down the road.
But I also wholeheartedly agree that wasting excessive time perfecting compulsory routines and repeating levels for the sake of winning is unnecessary and also a roadblock to an athlete's progression in the sport that should also not be encouraged. Just goes to show the necessity of well trained coaches who understand not only how to teach gymnastics skills but also child development, physiology, and how to teach those skills safely.

 

[Aussie_coach]

While I totally see where you are coming from and agree, I would add the caveat that this training methodology should only be employed by coaches who know what they are doing. I have seen too many kids coached into the ground by pushing too much too quickly, numerous overuse injuries at a young age, and kids with big skills but frighteningly little in the way of posture and refinement that make the skills look like an injury waiting to happen. Coaches with stars in their eyes who get their hands on a talented little one and throw every skill in the book at them so they can say they have a 9 year old doing double backs and paying no attention to proper conditioning, flexibility, and injury prevention.
So while I agree in theory, and know there are great coaches out there who can and do create great athletes in this way, I think there are also lots of coaches using this methodology very poorly and to the great detriment of their athletes. I guess I just say this because I know of parents who think they have hit the coaching jackpot because they have a coach who has their 7 year old doing level 8 skills only to have an 11 year old with a back injury down the road.
But I also wholeheartedly agree that wasting excessive time perfecting compulsory routines and repeating levels for the sake of winning is unnecessary and also a roadblock to an athlete's progression in the sport that should also not be encouraged. Just goes to show the necessity of well trained coaches who understand not only how to teach gymnastics skills but also child development, physiology, and how to teach those skills safely.

Yes, I was referring to intelligent up training not skill throwing. But even many very, reputable gyms and reputable coaches damage their gymnasts due to uneducated coaching. Or even not uneducated coaching, but doing what everyone else is doing.

So many gyms in the US seem to do excessive hours, few have realised that less is often more.

Ask a kid to do a skill 100 times and you get a few good ones, then quality starts to deteriorate slowly. The problem here is that once the quality deteriorates (often after 6-7 repetitions) the gymnast is now practicing skills with compromised quality, basically practising poorer technique and getting good at mistakes. Excessive training and repetition results in getting worse not better.

 

[sbaker22]

Questions for parents and gymnasts. Just doing a little of my own personal research and looking for patterns.

Two questions?

1. At what age did you see the change when your gymnast started to really get into their training, the age you started to see it change from fun to that point where they wanted to be in the gym all the time, started to be driven, learned new skills at a rapid pace etc.

2. At what age did you see that next change where it didn’t go so smoothly anymore. More fear, mental blocks, injuries, days when they would rather stay home etc?

I have 12 year old identical twin girls, both currently competing Xcel Platinum. The started in rec at about 4 years old and then started competing as Level 2 at 7 years old, after being out of the gym for about 6-8 months due to a family move/relocation to another state. Both have always loved being in the gym and never want to miss practice. Won't admit when they are sick as they are afraid we will make them stay home. Both have suffered with knee, wrist, heel pain the last couple of years, mostly during growth spurts. Both did very well in Level 2 and 3 and were on the podium a large part of the time. Tested out of Level 4 and competed Xcel Gold (gym philosophy to use Xcel as pre-optional route). Tested out of Level 5 and completed Level 6 last year at age 11. One had a stress fracture in her great toe and was in a boot for 8 weeks leading up to competition season last year. The other broke her ankle at practice the day before Thanksgiving last year and was out most of the Level 6 season. The one with the stress fracture ended up competing most of the season, but sometimes only a couple of events per meet. The one with the broken ankle ended up competing 2 full meets plus State. Level 6 was not a good season for us and I believe they both lost confidence and fell behind in some skills due to injury. In addition, one developed a mental block with her flyaway as well as her ROBHSBT. The one that broke her ankle developed fear of her ROBHSBT since that was the skill she did when she broke it. Instead of repeating Level 6 this season, we decided to go back to Xcel and compete Platinum so they have more options while they work through their mental blocks with tumbling. So far, the one has recently been able to work through her flyaway fear and has it back and able to compete it. Both have been doing connected front tumbling passes and a front pike to satisfy their tumbling requirements on floor, until they are able to do connected back tumbling again; however, practice has been going well lately with ROBT, so we are making progress.

I think the 11-13 age range is a prominent time for fears/mental blocks to set it, even without injury. I wish our coaches had let them work more up skills when they were in Level 2/3, but they didn't. I think some of the fears would have never been an issue if they had learned the skills earlier. Even struggling with some skills and the mental blocks, both still love going to the gym and don't want to quit.