coach to gymnast ratio in practice?

[gymnasticsnewbie]

what's the average number of coaches on the floor during practice? my daughter's gym usually only has 1 coach work with her entire level 4 team - 11 girls. That seems like a very low ratio to me and i'm wondering what's "normal."

 

[skschlag]

Our boys' team will sometimes have 12-13 levels 5-7 with one coach. Sometimes there are 2, but sometimes when there are 12-15 level 4s or beginners, the other coach goes to help out there.

 

[wandrewsjr]

I would say between 8 and 10 gymnasts per coach (for team) would be ideal, but up to 12 per coach would still be within "normal" range. The older the girls, the easier to handle a larger number. So while we try to keep the preteam and level 4's at closer to 8 to 1, 11 to 1 is still within reason.

 

[gymgurl]

Well we have one coach until we reach 16 then you can have two coaches so in ideal world its 1:8 but sometimes it can be as much as 1:15 but most of us are older so we can do most of our program without a coach if need be

Mind you the NDP people seem to have about a 1:6or7 ratio with i think 4 coaches on the squad while we had 15/16:1 with 1 coach but that rant will come later.

 

[hawaii_gymnast]

WOW 15:1 that is crazy. We have a max of 8:1 for all classes. Right now my class is 5:1 but then again our gym is small, so there isn't as much equiptment as other big gyms have.

 

[gymgurl]

Our coach is fixing the 1:15 ratio at the moment as we have split the squad now so that its about 1:8

 

[Esoteric]

Our level 4s have 2 coaches and 14 girls. At level 5 there is one coach to 13 girls and level 6 has one coach to 12 girls. The optional girls have 2 coaches at all times with 23 gymnasts- down from 29 last year (due to graduations, recruiting from other gyms, injuries, and teenage priority changes.) There is a "floater" coach in training who helps where he is needed. He is an ex-gymnast turned parkour instructor that fits in great with our gym philosophy. He tends to work more with optionals and level 6s.

 

[Aussie_coach]

The gym does have to make enough money to survive, pay the coaches, pay the rent and utilities, replace the equipment and all the other overheads. In a perfect world the classes would be 6:1 but in the real world that just can't happen.

1:15 is not that bad, in school gymnastics programs you would usually have a ratio of 1:25.

Most of our classes work on a 1:12 basis, some will be less and some will be more. A good experienced coach can do more with 12 girls than a less experienced coach can do with 6 in the same time.

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

Because we have many more kids in compulsories than optionals, and because it's a little easier to run a compulsory practice than an optional one because everyone is doing the same things, we have much larger compulsory than optional groups. The ratio when I was a level 4/5 was about 12:1 or 14:1. It got a little dicey on beam, because you had to wait for your turn for a while, but the coaches found side stations for us to work on and we always stayed busy.

In optionals, we have a ratio of usually 8:1. Sometimes we combine our two groups and it's 15:2 or 16:2, which works fine in terms of coaching but creates a problem with the equipment. In that situation we have 4 different ways the vault needs to be set or more, 4 girls for each high beam, and issues with the bars because some girls need them in close and some need them out far. Tumbling's a mess, obviously. Luckily we don't have to do that often.

 

[BlairBob]

In compulsory, especially developmental I would prefer lower ratios. Optional levels can probably run on higher ratios but fortunately in most gyms, there tend to be fewer girls so it adjusts on it's own. I wouldn't want 10 kids, boys or girls, rec or competitive without ample space and equipment. 9-12 girls on one set of UB and a single rail is a pain in the butt. Fairly doable with 2 UB and a single rail and 2 coaches. If you crunch numbers, gymnasts just aren't getting a lot of dedicated time and coaching with 10+gymnasts. Figure an event is up to 60 minutes long as low as 20 and in between time like chalk, water, bathroom, setup and you'll see what I'm saying.

 

[Esoteric]

I agree that along with the ratio the amount of equipment is important. We have 2 floors- but one is typically used for rec and devo programs. The team girls have 5 high beams and 6 low/mid beams, 4 sets of bars along with the strap bar and pit bar, 2 vaults along with pit vault and level 4 mat vault. There is a tumble track(tramp) and a rod floor tumble track. There are separate beams for the devo/rec girls on the other side of the gym so as not to be a distraction to team girls when they are on beam. So even if there are upwards of a dozen gymnasts to a coach, they all have a place to be and something to be working on as opposed to waiting in line for a turn. All of the boys equipment is near the rec area with the exception of vault and high bar. We , sadly, have a very small boys program- so they are able to share space with the wild kiddos without much worry.