Ankle weights?

[Shan126]

Our team coaches just bought the girls ankle weights to do their warm ups and some conditioning in. They run in them, do kicks, handstands, even backhandsprings. To me, they seem like a horrible idea. Some girls already have ankle issues and these girls are still growing. Putting more strain and stress on their ankles just seems like a bad idea to me. I was wondering how many other gyms use these and what do you think of them?

 

[T.Gymnastics]

I use ankleweights sometimes i am 14 and 5'1 and yea im still growing. i have used ankleweights to run kick cast leap and handspring with them on since i was seven. i have osgoods slaters (idk how to spell) but not from that. i have no ankle problems. it doesnt really stress the ankles. just the conditioning muscles. as long as its not too heavy for the girl i think its fine and will not give them further promblems. my coach makes girls in casts and boots put ankleweights on the other leg to even things out. i dont think its a bad idea.

 

[canadiangymnast_eh]

My gym uses ankle weights and in my opinion they are a good idea. we use ours for warm up and conditioning. we sometimes use them for leaps on floor. Over all they help our gym a lot and we have never had a problem with injuries or anything.

 

[LittleLady]

I had a great floor and beam coach for 1 year and she made us do floor routine dance throughs with ankle weights and wrist weights which were about 1 lb each. We never tumbled with them on. It made our floor routines better because we gained strength doing our leaps, jumps and dance with them on. When we took them off after training with them for weeks, our leaps, jumps and dance were much better because we were stronger and everything was easier. We never had injuries because of training with them. We all missed her when she returned to Slovakia after 1 year with us. She was a gymnast in the 1972 Olympics, so I trusted that what she was asking us to do would benefit our training and it did!

 

[gymdog]

Better to use weight on the torso for jumping, tumbling etc. Even just from a timing standpoint. I think some ankle weight use is okay. For kicks, etc if anything I think most strain would be on the knees (so I would be concerned for girls with problems there).

Handstands should be mostly okay I guess (added weight may a problem with wrist issues), but I just don't see the point (not the most productive exercise to me). There are more better more specific handstand exercises to me.

Same with kicks. If I was going to be purchasing and using specific equipment, I would go with resistance bands 10x sooner than ankle weights. If ankle weights were all I had to work with, I would probably use them for some things. I'm more inclined to be concerned about knees than ankles, but I don't know why. I'm not an exercise expert that's just my inclination.

 

[cathiann]

Our gym uses the weights around the waist (two sets of ankle weights hooked together works nicely). Wish the gym provided them, but we had to buy them and send them in.

 

[Reecee]

we use ours a lot! we do handstands, leaps, cast handstands, back handsprings, running etc..... with them on. they help a lot, the only problem is that we use them so much we get blisters. but then we just wrap them and keep going, it makes your skills a lot better.

 

[Pogo]

My dd's old gym uses them (dd is in college now). They really help with jumps and leaps.

 

[mariposa]

DDs gym has the girls use ankle weights. They use them quite a bit on bars, for conditioning and also while doing pullovers, front hips and kips. They use them on floor the other day to do press to handstand into a forward roll with them on. They also use them on the tumble track for split jumps and straddle jumps. The little ones use 1lb on each ankle, not sure when they transition to 2lbs on each ankle. I can't see mine doing that for a long time as she weights 45lbs and I think 1lbs each is plenty.

They don't use them everyday, but I would say at least once a week, especially because it is summer and they are conditioning more. My daughter likes using them and they don't use them for long periods and only on one apparatus per day it seems.

 

[ZJsMom]

Ankle weights are great for doing conditioning, e.g., leg lifts bar stuff. I used to be a personal trainer and I know there's evidence that doing high impact stuff with weights on is dangerous. That said, dd has been at two gyms and both of them jump with weights, at least at the optional levels. I guess, given that they are very fit and doing it on a spring floor, it's probably not too bad. I'd rather they didn't do it, but it's not something I'm going to try to interfere with the coaches over. Doing backhandsprings with weights on sounds even worse to me though. The wrists and elbows aren't really meant to be weight bearing joints in the first place. Why add even more stress to them?

 

[gymnast695]

My coach requires ankle weights for conditioning only. We never do gymnastics with them on because he believes that will lead to injury. We don't run in them either because that can cause shin splints. However, they work great for leaps, leg lifts, press handstands, etc. And if you strap them on your wrists you can do some upper body conditioning. They are great for conditioning, but seem very dangerous to do anything more than that with! My coach would never make us do gymnastics/running/routines with them!

 

[cher062]

Our team coaches just bought the girls ankle weights to do their warm ups and some conditioning in. They run in them, do kicks, handstands, even backhandsprings. To me, they seem like a horrible idea. Some girls already have ankle issues and these girls are still growing. Putting more strain and stress on their ankles just seems like a bad idea to me. I was wondering how many other gyms use these and what do you think of them?

Our gym uses them as soon as they hit preteam. they are only on the ankles however when they are doing leg lift type of conditioining other wise they join them together and put them on their waist to run etc.