WAG Extreme training practices?

[mamaS]

Just to remind you, my daughter is from the gym that takes large donations from parents and gives training priority to the kids whose family donates. If you remember they allowed a group of very novice girls to train and go to L7. None had bars and the one in question didn't have beam.
Our first meet was a disaster. 5 of the 6 scratched bars and the 6th didn't make her major skills and fell once. The next day in practice they made her stay on the bars for two and a half hours. Our bar rotation is about 40 minutes long. She still couldn't do her giant. After an 1 hour 45 she was choking back tears. Her face was pooring sweat and she was beet red. While everyone was on on floor, the coaches left her there to work it alone. They would yell across the gym at her. We have a viewing area above the gym. They made her attempt one after another for the whole 2 1/2 hours. By the end she was collapsing after every attempt and crying out of exhaustion. I asked her mom if she was going to let them continue and she said they knew what they were doing. I had to leave. It was awful to watch. When I picked up dd, I saw the little girl. She was a sobbing mess, her arms were shaking and she had nasty, bloody rips. I found this so unacceptable. She never did make the giant, btw. Anyone out there seen this before? I'm sick about this. The kiddo just turned 9. I can't believe her mom wasn't the least bit concerned. Maybe I don't understand but, my mom instinct tells me this is really wrong.

 

[Faith]

I'd be out of there.

 

[GymGirl's Mom]

MamaS- I think I'd say goodbye to whatever fees I might not recover, make sure my bill is paid up to the end of the month and leave TODAY!

 

[bogwoppit]

Call child protective services, tell them what happened and they will involve the police and investigate. I do not know where you live, but I do not know anywhere that what those coaches did isn't a criminal offence.

On top of that I would never take my child back again, I wouldn't trust them to look after my hamster.

I am stunned at how they treated that child.

 

[lhmom]

So would I. That poor kid was not going to make anything once she was completely exhausted. Yikes!!

 

[gym law mom]

That type of "training" just leads to injury and humiliation. I would leave that gym ASAP.

 

[cbifoja]

I agree 100% with Bogs on this one. If the parent will not protect her child, get someone who will. These people need to be reported to the authorities....the coach and the "mother".

 

[Amusibus]

How long until they do something like this to your child?

 

[AlexsGymmyMom]

This is quite alarming! I don't understand how a parent can sit by and let this happen to their own child. It makes you wonder what was said to this girl on the car ride home.

I also find it odd that the gym openly accepts donations and gives preferential treatment to those families that donate. Something is just not right about that.

Please do yourself a favor and let some outside authority know what is happening at this gym and high tail it out of there as quickly as you can. Nothing good can come from this situation. I feel so sad for this girl that is having to endure this type of coaching. She will eventually burn out and leave gymnastics because of this type of treatment.

 

[wallflower]

IF that is really true of course it's not acceptable, but I take everything I read on the Internet with a grain of salt. This is one side of the story and people tend to exaggerate the circumstances when retelling a story.

It is also not unusual for a level 7 to scratch bars at the beginning of the season even after a full year of training that level. Ask around here and you'll find many kids in that situation at quality gyms. It does not necessarily mean anything.

If the situation happened exactly the way you are retelling it then why would you even stay there?

 

[emorymom]

Call child protective services, tell them what happened and they will involve the police and investigate. I do not know where you live, but I do not know anywhere that what those coaches did isn't a criminal offence.

On top of that I would never take my child back again, I wouldn't trust them to look after my hamster.

I am stunned at how they treated that child.

Honestly they probably have enough on their plate with garden variety child abuse. You could try going straight to the police on a child endangerment. I don't recommend either because ...

Be very careful treading in those waters. You bring the wrong police / prosecutors into ANY girl's optional training situation, there is always a chance of everyone being charged. Imagine what outsiders must think walking into any optional training facility and on any given day 2/3 of the kids may have wraps on injuries. Now imagine that prosecutors decided to come back with a camera to document on a busy evening and what do they see? Some little L4s crying as they are pushed down in oversplits.

 

[Moxiegrl83]

Be very careful treading in those waters. You bring the wrong police / prosecutors into ANY girl's optional training situation, there is always a chance of everyone being charged. Imagine what outsiders must think walking into any optional training facility and on any given day 2/3 of the kids may have wraps on injuries. Now imagine that prosecutors decided to come back with a camera to document on a busy evening and what do they see? Some little L4s crying as they are pushed down in oversplits.


Several of our parents are local law enforcement, a couple of them team dads. So having law enforcement and/or attorneys in your gym shouldn't be an issue. Of course sometimes kids cry, but I don't think you should have to be scared or ashamed to have officials in your gym. If anything, they should be impressed at the strength, form, and discipline of they girls working out.

The OP's story is awful, and if it happened that way, she should take action. But thankfully I've never seen girls crying in our gym from being stretched. I'd actually prefer my DD not be stretched to the point of crying. It takes a lot for her to get to that point, so if she's crying in front of people, she's hurting badly.

 

[mamaS]

Wow, wallflower. That was quite rude. I actually left out a lot of the details. I did not inflate snything. That being said, I am looking at all of the avenues available. We won't be staying long. My dd is safe because she is 100% proficient at her level. We are in an area where it is difficult to switch gyms after season begins. I am going to talk with HC about this incident as she wasn't there that night. I have nothing to lose.. It's not like they can take anything more away from my kiddo. I did talk with a mom who said they did that to her dd a few years ago. They claim that it would build muscle if nothing else and the kid had to keep trying and not quit. I told the little ones mom that I thought it was way too extreme. They claim that Elite gyms would do way more extreme things. If they did that to my dd, I would have pulled her in a nanosecond.

 

[vagymmomma]

It is also not unusual for a level 7 to scratch bars at the beginning of the season even after a full year of training that level.

Hmmm ... I'm certainly no expert, but it seems unusual to me to have that many scratches at L7 unless the gym has a habit of skipping out of L6. Scores may not be great, but I can't remember a single scratch at that level in 5 years at our last gym and certainly not this year at the new one. Level 5 and 6 are different stories -- I've seen plenty of scratches at those levels.

To the original poster -- listen to your heart. Not sure I'd be calling the authorities, but it seems to be dangerous behavior on the part of the coach.

 

[wallflower]

Hmmm ... I'm certainly no expert, but it seems unusual to me to have that many scratches at L7 unless the gym has a habit of skipping out of L6. Scores may not be great, but I can't remember a single scratch at that level in 5 years at our last gym and certainly not this year at the new one. Level 5 and 6 are different stories -- I've seen plenty of scratches at those levels.

To the original poster -- listen to your heart. Not sure I'd be calling the authorities, but it seems to be dangerous behavior on the part of the coach.

That may be the case at your gym, but bars is typically the event that keeps girls from competing level 7. Especially in a case where the girls are skipping level 6, which is the OP situation. We see a lot of scratches on that event at the beginning of the season. Actually all the girls that are new level 7's scratched bars at their first meet here last weekend and same for my daughter's friends team. Some teams won't allow girls to compete unless it's completely safe and consistent.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Just to remind you, my daughter is from the gym that takes large donations from parents and gives training priority to the kids whose family donates. If you remember they allowed a group of very novice girls to train and go to L7. None had bars and the one in question didn't have beam.
Our first meet was a disaster. 5 of the 6 scratched bars and the 6th didn't make her major skills and fell once. The next day in practice they made her stay on the bars for two and a half hours. Our bar rotation is about 40 minutes long. She still couldn't do her giant. After an 1 hour 45 she was choking back tears. Her face was pooring sweat and she was beet red. While everyone was on on floor, the coaches left her there to work it alone. They would yell across the gym at her. We have a viewing area above the gym. They made her attempt one after another for the whole 2 1/2 hours. By the end she was collapsing after every attempt and crying out of exhaustion. I asked her mom if she was going to let them continue and she said they knew what they were doing. I had to leave. It was awful to watch. When I picked up dd, I saw the little girl. She was a sobbing mess, her arms were shaking and she had nasty, bloody rips. I found this so unacceptable. She never did make the giant, btw. Anyone out there seen this before? I'm sick about this. The kiddo just turned 9. I can't believe her mom wasn't the least bit concerned. Maybe I don't understand but, my mom instinct tells me this is really wrong.

they actually didn't know what they were doing. and for reasons on so many levels.

 

[wallflower]

Wow, wallflower. That was quite rude. I actually left out a lot of the details. I did not inflate snything. That being said, I am looking at all of the avenues available. We won't be staying long. My dd is safe because she is 100% proficient at her level. We are in an area where it is difficult to switch gyms after season begins. I am going to talk with HC about this incident as she wasn't there that night. I have nothing to lose.. It's not like they can take anything more away from my kiddo. I did talk with a mom who said they did that to her dd a few years ago. They claim that it would build muscle if nothing else and the kid had to keep trying and not quit. I told the little ones mom that I thought it was way too extreme. They claim that Elite gyms would do way more extreme things. If they did that to my dd, I would have pulled her in a nanosecond.

Not meant to be rude, just pointing out to everyone that the Internet is a place where people can say anything they want. I keep that in mind every time I read something here or anywhere else.

I don't understand why, if it was as bad as you say, that it matters if it was your daughter or not. You say she is 100% proficient at her level so she won't experience this type of coaching. How about witnessing it? I'm assuming if you were there watching your daughter was there working out right? So she would have seen all of this. Sometimes witnessing abuse is as harmful as being abused directly. I would not be exploring other avenues. I would be pulling my child out of that gym effective immediately. I would not care if it was difficult to switch gyms or not. By exposing her to this you are telling her this is okay. By continuing to pay that gym after witnessing that you are telling those coaches that this behavior is okay. Even if it takes awhile to get started at a new gym and even if she misses valuable training time, gymnastics is not worth potentially damaging your daughter. Even worse you say you know of this type of coaching in the past. According to your posts the gym accepts bribes, they lied to you before and they are abusive. Why are you there again? It's just gymnastics, nothing is worth paying for the things you have said about this gym.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

i'm reminded of an old saying...more money than brains or misery loves company. not being rude here. just sayin.

 

[AlexsGymmyMom]

That may be the case at your gym, but bars is typically the event that keeps girls from competing level 7. Especially in a case where the girls are skipping level 6, which is the OP situation. We see a lot of scratches on that event at the beginning of the season. Actually all the girls that are new level 7's scratched bars at their first meet here last weekend and same for my daughter's friends team. Some teams won't allow girls to compete unless it's completely safe and consistent.

If they do not have all the skills why are these girls moved up to Level 7 in the first place? My DD has not been moved to Level 7 even though she had "most" of the skills. She finally regained her giants but is still struggling with BHS on beam. However, she can do the roundoff on beam so she still has a flight series to compete with. Even still, they have not moved her up yet.

If they stayed in the level they were in while working on the Level 7 skills, maybe there would not be so much pressure to "do" the skills because it is not required in the level they can compete proficiently. Just my 2 cents.

 

[wallflower]

If they do not have all the skills why are these girls moved up to Level 7 in the first place? My DD has not been moved to Level 7 even though she had "most" of the skills. She finally regained her giants but is still struggling with BHS on beam. However, she can do the roundoff on beam so she still has a flight series to compete with. Even still, they have not moved her up yet.

If they stayed in the level they were in while working on the Level 7 skills, maybe there would not be so much pressure to "do" the skills because it is not required in the level they can compete proficiently. Just my 2 cents.

That would obviously be ideal, but it's the same reason you see girls doing bent arm belly kips competing level 5. Maybe they are strong on 3 events and the gym feels by the end of the season they will be there on bars too. All gyms have different standards. So gyms will let girls compete without giants, some say you must have them, some will let them compete skills they only have inconsistently, some will expect a higher standard before competing. All of the new level 7's who scratched bars have giants, just not to what the gym considers competition standard.

It's the same case with the level 8's. Some don't have their flipping vaults 100% yet. This early in the season they just scratched vault. It's a long season. Some gyms would say nope you are competing level 7, others would have them do just a fhs vault, and some will just let the girls chunk it and hope they live (far too many choose this option).