coaching boys vs. coaching girls

[NYgymfan]

This is for those of you who coach boys and girls (either at the same time or separately). If so, how does your coaching style differ when working with one gender vs. working with the other? Are there certain elements of practice/workouts that are more important for the guys than the gals (or the opposite)? I always wondered this.

 

[gymnastbeth]

Oh, I've only coached young girls, but we used to have a boys team, and they had to work on their focus a LOT. It was so bad that it would become a safety hazard; a girl would be doing giants, and a boy would just walk right under her.

 

[cher062]

Well I'm not a coach but a parent of a girl and boy who were or are both on teams. My son now is a coach.

Just from a parent perspective. The girls are definitly more focused at a younger age to do the skills. Boys well lets say there are alot of underarm farting and other silly things like that going on. boys however get over things quicker than the girls do and I don't remember ever seeing emotional tears in the boys like I have seen in girls.

the boys need to be moving all the time so you need to have staions where boys aren't waiting where girls are ok with waiting and socializing while they wait. If boys wait you usually see behavioral issues crop up.

 

[gymdog]

For the most part, girls can definitely learn more complex things in terms of detail earlier. Not necessarily in terms of physically doing skills better, but in terms of recalling sequences of movement or having the focus to even learn it in the first place.

Girls definitely seem to pick up on certain social cues earlier. Boys will rarely have cliques in the all boy classes, with no girls around. There might be a kid who is kind of out there but it doesn't usually become a problem unless it's really extreme. Whereas with the girls at the same age, there's definitely social and self esteem issues as early as 5-7 where with the boys I would say they're a lot more oblivious until almost like 9-10. Again, not always, but in general I have more of those problems with girls vs boys. Of course middle school age boys can be brutal with the "girly"/"gay" type of teasing.

The boys in general need a lot more physical movement in order to keep them compliant and interested. But I try to keep this principle for all classes, because I think they can use the exercise, but the girl groups will complain more about it or start concocting complex scenarios where everyone has to play their role, while the boys would race through the pit throwing things the whole time if you let them.

 

[BlairBob]

Shoulder girdle flexibility and strength is far more important for the guys compared to hip flexibility. If a guy doesn't have his splits it is not as big of a deal than if a girl does not. There isn't as much of a need to train oversplits as we don't need to do split leaps. Males still need active split flexibility for presses and straddle-L but don't except to see the same sort of hip compression as you will see with females in endo/stalders/tkatchev/basket seat,etc. The gals as their hips grow out suffer from more hip/knee/ankle issues.

Shoulder extension flexibility is super important. An example is the bottom of a skin the cat or the ability to sit in a pike and reach behind you until your back gets close to the floor while your pinkies are overlapped.

You also have to watch out for sore forearms with the guys because of mushroom and pommel or floor circles.

Boys typically on average are much more daring and willing to try a new or dangerous skill. In my experience, they are also less likely to freak out and stall in the air compared to females. If they miff and get lost, they typically seem to always recover in time far more often that a female will. There will be more close calls but they seem to escape them far better whereas with the girls it seems to lead to a bad outcome.

In general, boys lack focus and patience. Coming from coaching girls, I still expect to do events a lot longer but it seems a chore and we never get as many repetitions or work with boys compared to the girls. It seems kids nowadays lack this from when I started coaching and was as a kid, but I always a bit OCD as well. To note, I see more OCD in girls than boys, but that is probably a numbers thing.

To note as boys get older and become young men past puberty they are much easier to train and focus much better. In fact, so long as they are disciplined, which by this time they are since they have been training longer, they are easier to coach than the girls which generally need much more time especially when it comes to pushing ahead and emotionally. Men sort of train on their own much better by HS and college age and need less emotional support. You just need to steer them and give them correction cues, drills, or spotting whereas with girls...it's not always the case. And of course, there is all the drama issues. Generally, as they reach higher levels, this thins out because those girls and boys who are like this simply quit.

Another is getting girls to eat enough. Not generally a problem pre puberty, but definitely a problem post.

What isn't known is young boys can be very sensitive, much more than you would think. It generally isn't about stupid stuff though as it can be with the females but I've seen boys cry a lot easier about being picky about skill performance during training. To note, one of our girl's coaches had our L4 boys practically all in tears some years ago as she had to sub the boys because the men's coach wasn't able to make it. It was a disaster that started with simple cues and corrections for backward rolls.

Boys can be very hurtful with language once they hit about 11 or 12. This is nice compared to any of the stupid clique fighting you get with girls. However, as boys get older they can be brutal towards each other or other girls in the gym with their verbage. I've seen incidents with some of our guys and girls and it generally became girls crying and us coaches dealing with it and a young guy making a jerk comment ("you're fat, ugly, dumb, etc"). These can be brutal to deal with from the opposite gender. And of course, sometimes they fight with each other. Which honestly, besides being a nuisance or danger, solves problems and tension somewhat well.

To note, boys will sometimes ostracize other's boys if they are too weird or talk too much baloney and make lots of phoney excuses such as "I only lost in the pushup contest because of blah-blah-blah". Basically, they will call each other out on BS a lot earlier whereas girls will just talk about it behind their back. And of course, they are more willing to escalate it to violence and aggression which you have to watch for as well.

Oh, and as for myself, I typically find coaching girls much less stressful. I think this is why many males end up preferring to coach girls. Less babysitting, more focus on training early on. OTOH, many male coaches are not liked by the girls nor do they like coaching girls in general. I dunno why, but that sometimes is a pattern.

I like coaching boys because I don't have to deal with less drama and the girls yapping with each other but with coaching girls I don't have to police as much and get more focused work done. Also, with the boys, we can talk about much more cooler stuff and I don't have to deal with the horrible music selection.

 

[Aussie_coach]

I coach both, and I think both are equally easy and difficult just in different area's.

Like others have said boys tend to have less fear, they are more willing to go for a skill or do it without a spot. When they screw up they are less likely to develop a mental block or freak out. Boys also have more energy and don't tend to complain as much about being tired or sore. They are also less likely to make a big deal when they get a few little bumps and scrapes. Boys are also easier to coach emotionally and socially, there is none of the little drama's you deal with when you coach girls, and far less friendship issue's and social issue's. They don't get so upset when they don't get invited to someone else's sleepover.

Competitively boys can be easier too, there are lot less of them in most competitions so they tend to get success without being as outstanding as girls. I don't know about in other countries but in Australia a female gymnast has to be very, very good to win places in competition. But males have less kids, and more apparatus so they tend to have a little more competitive success with less effort.

Boys are also easier to get to do conditioning, they often love being strong just for the sake of it and want to do the strength work a lot more than girls.

The advantages of girls are of course a longer attention span at a younger age, a better ability to pay attention to detail. There is no stigma about doing gymnastics if you are a girl so its easier to keep them in the gym when they get to the age where all the boys want to play football.

Girls are better able to sit still and listen for longer periods of time. They also tend to be able to work more repetitions and work on an apparatus longer than boys. Also more girls want to do gymnastics so you have more kids to choose from when it comes to selection for teams. And they are much easier to control.

 

[coachinkal]

BlairBob summed it up really well. I would have to agree with all that was said.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

geesh...i like both.

 

[Jamie]

This is for those of you who coach boys and girls (either at the same time or separately). If so, how does your coaching style differ when working with one gender vs. working with the other? Are there certain elements of practice/workouts that are more important for the guys than the gals (or the opposite)? I always wondered this.

I coach boys at Recreational Level and Girls at competitive level. I find that girls learn quicker as the boys lose interest quickly and their attention span goes. The boys seem to love vault but the girls hate it.

I actually found that this years group of boys were more afraid than the girls i also coach at recreational level and would "tell" on each other. We had our display for the parents and the boys were more confident at the girls - showing off to the parents and waving to them in the crowd. I much prefer to coach boys at rec level than girls.

 

[superflipgirl]

Boys will try things faster, and I think it's easier to spot boys because you don't have to worry about touching you know whats. That's what my bars coach at igc said

 

[BlairBob]

Boys can still be sensitive when not invited to a party of a teammate. Some boys will just blow it off with some talk of " I'm busy anyways, blah, etc. " They have fragile little egos and many will try to BS themselves out of predicaments. "I'm not strong today cause I held my HS longer than they did, etc." Their BS they will spew is far higher, so you have to call them out on it a lot more. Generally the other boys will be more up front about voicing their BS-o-meters than other girls will.

I've never seen or heard other boys in competition do some of the stuff I've heard from girls like nasty faces, taunting them, making fun of them for bad scores, etc. None of that silly BS. If so, it'd probably just be a fight.

As for boys and conditioning. I've seen plenty of boys half-*** conditioning or strength work. Of course, the ones that are strong love or don't mind it which is the same thing with the girls. The ones that aren't, hate it, just like in the girl's camp.

Quite often, boys and kids play to their strengths. If they are strong, they like conditioning. If they aren't flexible, they dislike flexibility work.

I don't think I've ever had a boy that was scared of the table except me. I've had so many issues with the table and never really converted over from the long horse nearly as well. I dunno why. I think also it was because I was older at the time I started vaulting on the table vs I was in my young 20's with the long horse and didn't know enough about gymnastics to realize the danger I could have been in.

The latest generation of boys the past 5 years have been disappointing to me than the previous 5 years I was a coach. Nowadays, they have their head up their rears even more, cry more and far less discipline and focus.

Boys also have more energy and don't tend to complain as much about being tired or sore.

Baloney. Then again some of the boy's I've had were very wussy at times.

Rec boys and boys in general till puberty. Great way to get grey hair. Same for the girls after puberty. Girls before can be trained to become machines.