greetings fellow adult gymnasts!

[Andrea1973]

Hi All!

I am new to this forum and I'm so excited to see that there are other "crazy" adults who do gymnastics too!! This is so great and motivating, I always feel like I'm the only one in my community, so thank you to all who are a part of this group

 

[nicci1999]

Glad to have you aboard!

 

[LittleLady]

Great to have you on board, Andrea! We are NOT crazy! (chuckle) I think it's the coaches who are crazy for not giving us the respect and time we adults are worthy of. I'm glad to have made friends with you. We can inspire each other to accomplish our dreams, no matter how "crazy" the world may think we are. Never forget, our bodies are finished growing, so we don't have growth spurts to worry about that throw our timing off, like growing kids. Plus, adults have the ability to be much stronger than children! Keep working hard at what you love, gymnastics, and it will pay off with satisfaction, self esteem, and a fit body! Go For It! I have! Been there. Done that. Got the T-Shirt!

 

[Andrea1973]

oh you are just awesome, Thank You for the words of encouragement!!! And you have some really good points about growth & strength, you're right, it is all in the mind, since I feel the same in my body as I did when I was 14 so why not, right?! haha! Honestly I wish I could train all day all week long, we go for 3.5 hrs, 3 times per week but I feel I could easily do more...too bad gymnastics isn't a full time paying job!
What's your level, how old are you, have you been training long? Do you compete?

 

[nicci1999]

I realize your question was probably more directed towards little lady, but I am goig to chime in, because I always have to have my statements heard! I would LOVE to be able to work out three times a week for 3.5 hours! I would actually almost love to have the lvl 10 training schedule, at the gym ALL the time! You're very fortunate to be able to go that often! I only get to go a couple of times a week, until I am actually working out with the team, hopefully will be prep opt, so I will be working out about 5.5 hours a week, or maybe a little bit more. Would love to do USAG levels, but seeing as how I am 27, I don't think parents would take kindly to me working out with a group of 8 year olds-I am about a lvl 4 on most stuff, working lvl 5 on beam, and my bars are non existent, can't even get a pull over yet. What about you?

 

[Catya]

Hi and welcome, Andrea! Hurray for another adult gymnast! Oksana Chusovitina has yet to retire from competition and she's 33. So I don't see why we can't start gymnastics at 15, 20 and beyond. And like LittleLady said, we're NOT crazy! All the people who think you can't do gymnastics just 'cause you're not a kid are the crazy ones. I'm glad to see that others think the same as me; that it's never too late to work on your physical potential through a sport you love.

 

[Andrea1973]

HI Nicci! I love hearing about everyone's experiences & backgrounds!
Yes I do feel very lucky with the gym here, they are so encouraging! I'm 36 and working with what would be the level 4-5 in the US I think? (CR-3 - P2 here) and the girls range fom age 9-18, with the average being 10..! the parents are all good with it; they know I'm in a Sr category & their younger ones are novice or tyro so we don't even compete against each other. The coaches are fantastic too, they're the ones who encouraged me to train more & compete when I was like, "no I'm too old!!" but looking around the gym at the other kids I usually feel out of place, even if they're welcoming. Too bad you don't live closer by, you could be doing the 10 hr group with me! I'd love to train with more adults.

 

[Andrea1973]

Hi Catya! Thanks for your response too! More encouragement the better, we all need it!!

 

[GikiGirl]

Hey..nicci..you are nicci from atlantic right I am Gina.

 

[kyliesmith1]

Hi to all the new adult gymnastics posting out there. Its so great to have more and more of you to talk to and hear how you are progressing. My husband still thinks I'm crazy and doesn't take it seriously at all. I'm going to try and compete this summer at the aau junior olympics in the modified optional ladies division because I have a ways to go before I'll get to level 8. Talking to guys makes it seem possible. I've increased my actual gymnastics training to 3 hours a week and I can already tell a difference. I wish we weren't scattered all over and could train together sometimes but anyway maybe we can get more recognition just this way.
Oh, my gym here in Myrtle Beach, SC just told me Saturday that they'd be all for hosting an adult gymnastics competition if I can just find out how they could go about it. Any of you that have suggestions out there let me know .

 

[Catya]

HI Nicci! I love hearing about everyone's experiences & backgrounds!
Yes I do feel very lucky with the gym here, they are so encouraging! I'm 36 and working with what would be the level 4-5 in the US I think? (CR-3 - P2 here) and the girls range fom age 9-18, with the average being 10..! the parents are all good with it; they know I'm in a Sr category & their younger ones are novice or tyro so we don't even compete against each other. The coaches are fantastic too, they're the ones who encouraged me to train more & compete when I was like, "no I'm too old!!" but looking around the gym at the other kids I usually feel out of place, even if they're welcoming. Too bad you don't live closer by, you could be doing the 10 hr group with me! I'd love to train with more adults.

I train with kids too. There are actually 5 adults training at the gym I'm at but only 2 of us are consistent. The age gap between me and the older kids isn't too far (I'm 23 and they're 18-19) and I'm the youngest of the adults so I don't feel totally alienated. I especially don't feel out of place because the oldest adult is 65! If he can do it I most definitely can. All in all I'm at a good gym right now. I love being able to train 4 hours a day, 6 days a week and since it's open gym for the adults and team kids, we can work on anything we want.

 

[Andrea1973]

Hi Kylie!
What exactly is "aau junior olympics in the modified optional ladies division" ? where is it being held? what level are you planning to compete? sounds great!!

 

[Andrea1973]

I train with kids too. There are actually 5 adults training at the gym I'm at but only 2 of us are consistent. The age gap between me and the older kids isn't too far (I'm 23 and they're 18-19) and I'm the youngest of the adults so I don't feel totally alienated. I especially don't feel out of place because the oldest adult is 65! If he can do it I most definitely can. All in all I'm at a good gym right now. I love being able to train 4 hours a day, 6 days a week and since it's open gym for the adults and team kids, we can work on anything we want.

WOW it sounds like you have the ideal training situation! what level are you at? where are you training?

 

[kyliesmith1]

Hi, Andrea. I'm glad you joined this forum. I found out about this competition a few months ago. It started in 2007. This year its being held in Des Moines, IA. They have 2 different levels to compete in for the ladies division, the modified optional and the level 8. I'm not quite up to level 8 yet. I think that might take a year or two but I really want to compete so I'm going to compete modified optional. In this level there is a lot of leway on what things you can do. I found the requirements and it looks like I can handle it. On each piece of equipment except vault you are supposed to do 5 A skills and only one B skill and then on vault you do anything from a handspring to a 1/2 on 1/1 off to a handspring 1/1. So if your interested you can check it out at Link Removed

 

[Catya]

Hi Andrea. I train at this place called Rabbit Gymnastics Club in Iwaki, Japan. I'm probably level 4-5 on most things except bars. I'm very weak on bars! And I had to take most of last year off gymnastics because I was moving and looking for a new gym and all. So I'm really just getting back into it again. Next month will be my 4th or 5th month back in gymnastics. But being able to train all the time is just terrific!

 

[katy]

klyie,
if your gym is involved with aau, then it should be really easy to do an adult competition. if they are usag, check their website or ask some of the other gyms that are attending to help you reach the right person.

 

[BlairBob]

3dx3.5h a week is very cool for adult gymnastics. Most adults don't get the opportunity to train that much. Our group of old guys used to train Fri for about 3 hours and Monday for nearly 3 and they did a Wednesday I never could make for an hour and a half, sometimes trying to hit a saturday for 2 hours.

I think at most I ever really did was maybe 10 hours a week before and after classes coaching. Probably not anymore than that.

 

[Gr8flipR]

I am not positive on how your gym would go about hosting a meet, but I am sure they could find out everything on the AAU website. I know that your gym would have to get an AAU gym membership which I don't think is that much and each gymnast would have to get an athlete aau membership card.

I train in Virginia on Friday evenings. I just started back up about a month ago. I would love to consider going to SC for a mini vacation and to compete if your gym were to hold a meet.

I don't know how far you are from Charlotte, NC, but if it's not too awful far, you should consider joining a meet that a gym down there is hosting in april. It's going to be the first meet that I am competing in since getting back into the sport, and I too am going to be competing as a modified optional gymnast. I am driving about 5 hours to get there, but that's the closet meet around. No one in Virginia offers AAU sanctioned adult gymnastics meets.

 

[kyliesmith1]

I'll let my gym know what you said about going on the aau site and looking up information. I think because of our location we'd get a lot of interest. Who can pass up the beach? If you want to check out my gym, Gymnastics Inc, every so often the link to its website pops up on the "Ads by Google" thing at the top of this page.
Anyway, I think April is a bit soon for me to get all my routines down and practice them. In fact, I haven't even started on my floor routine yet, but I think there is an aau competition in Savannah, GA at the end of June I'd like to prepare for. I'm just trying to push towards adding more and more gym time. I started at 1 hour private per week and now I've added about 2 more hours of open practice. They let me come in an extra day. I'm hoping if they get real involved in the aau competitions they'll let me train even more and help me with some of my routines.