Growth spurts...better to be in "old" level or "new" level?

[UnoMas]

I have a question for anyone with an opinion or experience with this.

My DD is 10. She will turn 11 in December. She is likely going to be repeating L5 next season (Oct-May). I am guessing that she is going to hit the big growth spurt sometime in this time period...I am basing this on her age and seeing what other 11 year olds are seeming to go through. I am wondering if it's going to affect her when she finally does get to L6, being a lot taller and possibly heavier.

Do you think it's better to hit that growth spurt when you are in a level that you are comfortable with the skills, or hit it when you are in a new level learning all kinds of new skills (flyaway, back tuck, etc.)? Our gym does NOT uptrain, so she will not really work any L6 skills until she is actually IN L6.

I worry about her going through that growth spurt and then being so much taller/heavier/etc and having more fear and body issues. You always hear that it's better to train scary skills young. She loves gym and I just hope that this won't discourage her from continuing to tackle the skills that are scary for her.

Any opinions? (I know I am projecting lots of stuff that may or may not happen but I just wondered about others' experiences and/or opinions). Thanks.

 

[bogwoppit]

It was very hard on Baby Bog this year. She is 11 and began to really grown about three months ago. Her other team mates were the same age but remained tiny and she is just sprouting up in all ways. THis of course means readjusting skills to work with her new height, weight and size. She also developped Osgoodes Schlatters as she is growing fast and her tendons are tight.

I feel if she had redone last years level she would have done better and struggled less with the pain etc as the skills are easier on a growing body, but she so wanted to move up a level and had the skills, but continueing to practice them four times a week just ended up too much for her. SHe quit!

I wonder if she would still be in the gym if she had repeated.

 

[AlexsGymmyMom]

My DD is 11 right now and I keep waiting for her to hit her growth spurt but it has not happened as of yet.
I would think as long as a gym is uptraining that it would not matter which level you are in. But in your situation I don't know what to think. Most of the skills in L5 are used in L6.
I will say though that it seems to me that this age group 10-13 seems to be the group with the most fear issues. I think they are more aware of what "could" happen. My DD hurt herself doing a flyaway timer into the pit and now will not let go of the bar. She is also afraid of the BWO on beam. She can do a beautiful BWO all day long on the low beam but put her on a beam any higher and she just freezes. She also has a fear of being spotted....go figure! I think she does not want to give up control!!

 

[UnoMas]

It was very hard on Baby Bog this year. She is 11 and began to really grown about three months ago. Her other team mates were the same age but remained tiny and she is just sprouting up in all ways. THis of course means readjusting skills to work with her new height, weight and size. She also developped Osgoodes Schlatters as she is growing fast and her tendons are tight.

I feel if she had redone last years level she would have done better and struggled less with the pain etc as the skills are easier on a growing body, but she so wanted to move up a level and had the skills, but continueing to practice them four times a week just ended up too much for her. SHe quit!

I wonder if she would still be in the gym if she had repeated.

Thanks Bog. This is really interesting. I wonder, too if baby bog would have stayed in. Pain is such an awful thing to be dealing with. My DD had knee issues bad last summer when she was a new L5. I think the knee issues came from the vault and the harder tumbling. What you said about practicing the new skills 4x/week also interested me. Our other issue is that with our gym, you add 5 hours to your practice schedule when you hit L6. So, I wonder when the better time is to add those hours...when growing like crazy or after you've grown alot. Of course, you can never predict when your child is going to hit that spurt, I'm just guessing. How is baby bog doing now, with being out of gym?

 

[Bajanswife]

My DD is a very petite 8, so I probably won't have to worry about this for ages, maybe never. My girls are unlikely to hit huge growth spurts, because they take after the females in DH's family who are tiny adults!

But in our gym we have a 10 year old who is really tiny - short, slim and wiry. She can do amazing things, and will probably be able to for quite a while. We also have 11 - 13 year olds whose bodies have changed in the past year, and you can see they are starting to struggle with certain things. The 12 year old in Level 4 is absolutely beautiful with dance elements (she does ballet and jazz at a high level) and her form is exquisite. But she's having issues now with flight e.g. BHS. She is so tall and slim and without the requisite leg and arm strength, she just can't get off the ground and all the way over without a spot. She is also having issues with FHC on bars, mainly getting back to front support (lack of relative arm strength now that she's grown so tall). But her shoot-through and pinwheel (mill circle) are lovely. Her beam is fabulous, because she is so elegant. Same with the larger 12 and 13 year olds trying to get Level 5 - only one of them has the muscle build to be able to compensate for her size. The ones who are moving ahead are the smaller ones who have not gone through such a growth spurt.

 

[bogwoppit]

THis was my issue too, last years level was L4/5 skills. This years was more L6 with a lot more back tumbling. THe new level added four hours a week to the training and that in addition to practicing tumbling lines and vaulting over the table to feet instead of a flatback over the vault table, was a lot more pressure on her body. We do not have a pit or a tumble track and that does add to the pounding. She isn't really fearful and had been competiting a flyaway off the bars for three years and back tucks off the beam this year with no issues. BUt the pain was just too much, then you add in 15 minutes of physio a day to work on the pain and that is just too much.

Baby Bog is fine now, well her knee is still quite sore, she downhill and cross country skis. She would like to go into cheer next year but it is very far away and she also needs to be able to tumble. So we are waiting to see. SHe will grow out of the Osgoodes once she finishes growing, but that is at least two years away. BUt she is happy as a clam and doesn't miss gym at all, she missess gym friends, but that's it.

 

[bogwoppit]

I guess some of it really comes down to the body that they will be growing into. I am 5'6" and the girls dad is 5'11", so our kids will be at least 5'5" and we are curvy hourglass types (me not him lol). Bigger Bog at 13 was 5"5" and looked like a woman if you know what I mean, and that just isn't the right body type for gym. TO go from being a little girl to a woman in 18 months is a lot of adjusting and some bodies are just not gym bodies.

SO look at your family, if you are all tiny muscular hard bodies like Shawn Johnson was, all is good, or if you are short and lithe and lean like Nastia was, then you are also good. But if you are heavy, or very tall or have huge breasts, then chances are your kids will grow that way. It is just genetics at play.

When gym gets too hard due to physical changes their bodies hurt and they get left behind skill wise and even lose skills. THat is not fun anymore when the tiny little great gym bodies surge ahead.

But gym has brought great things to our lives and I am so glad that they particiapted and did love it a lot. They learned so much more than skills.

 

[UnoMas]

I guess some of it really comes down to the body that they will be growing into. I am 5'6" and the girls dad is 5'11", so our kids will be at least 5'5" and we are curvy hourglass types (me not him lol). Bigger Bog at 13 was 5"5" and looked like a woman if you know what I mean, and that just isn't the right body type for gym. TO go from being a little girl to a woman in 18 months is a lot of adjusting and some bodies are just not gym bodies.

SO look at your family, if you are all tiny muscular hard bodies like Shawn Johnson was, all is good, or if you are short and lithe and lean like Nastia was, then you are also good. But if you are heavy, or very tall or have huge breasts, then chances are your kids will grow that way. It is just genetics at play.

When gym gets too hard due to physical changes their bodies hurt and they get left behind skill wise and even lose skills. THat is not fun anymore when the tiny little great gym bodies surge ahead.

But gym has brought great things to our lives and I am so glad that they particiapted and did love it a lot. They learned so much more than skills.

LOL well I am NOT tiny but also do NOT have a large chest! Can't say I am muscular either, LOL. I think I lose the genetics lottery! Had to giggle a little at that one. I am about 5'6 too and hubby is about 5'11. We are both at healthy weight and I have a smaller frame (shoulders, etc.). DH's family though, the females are short short short and do have the larger chests. So it will be interesting to see what DD ends up with. She is about average height right now for her age and below average weight...skinny and lanky for now which is serving her purpose in gymnastics pretty well. It can all change so quickly though.

 

[bpatient]

It seems to me that many of the problems associated with the teen growth spurt with respect to gymnastics come from the difficulty of stepping back and slowing down. As kids grow older, they tend to train longer hours and to attempt ever more difficult skills, and those training-related changes seem to accelerate in the early teen years. Unfortunately, that training program is contrary to medical advice regarding the avoidance of injury: during the growth spurt, kids should train less, not more.

Moderating activities to avoid excessive volume and intensity (particularly during the adolescent growth spurt), scheduled periods of rest, time away from sport, and delaying single-sport specialization are basic tenets. Educating parents and coaches not to ignore complaints of pain is important. Many may not consider that an injury can be present in a child who is describing pain yet is able to continue training and competing without apparent limitations. [DiFiori JP. Overuse injury of the physis: A “growingâ€￾ problem. Clin J Spor Med.2010. 20(5):336-337]

Your daughter’s coaches should be able to modify her training program to help her to continue to enjoy the sport as she undergoes some rather dramatic physical changes. I suppose that could be most easily accomplished by keeping her at a given level for another year, but it might simply mean that she does fewer repetitions or trains shorter hours than the other kids at the next level (or perhaps even fewer hours than are commonly trained at her current level) during her peak growth period, or that she delays learning a particularly problematic skill. My daughter, who just entered her growth spurt as she turned 14, recently complained of some wrist pain associated with the Yurchenko-style vaults that she’s been doing for the last couple of years. Her solution is simple: she’ll just back off from vault training, as well as dust off an old, less stressful vault for the remainder of the season, in an effort to preserve the only wrists she has. In her case, I think that it’s not the particular level at which she’s training that matters so much as the ability to just relax and realize that she has lots of time.

 

[coachmolly]

I think it really depends on the child, some seem to have almost no problems at all (or very few in the grand scheme of things) while others struggle terribly and I'm really not sure there is a way to predict what is going to happen until you get to that particular hurdle. I think a lot can be said for maintaining a good strength to weight ratio, meaning a progressive strength and conditioning program, preferably implemented early on. One of my greatest struggles as I grew was that I did not have a strong conditioning background. At gym #1 we only conditioned in the summer and even then only every other day. At gym #2 we did very basic conditioning, but not nearly enough. While I was a pretty naturally muscular kid which helped a ton, as I grew and gained weight I did face struggles. When I switched to my final gym at the age of 15, I was well behind where I should have been in terms of strength.
Besides maintaining a good conditioning program, I think the experience of the coaches really plays an influential part. Are they familiar with dealing with girls who are growing? Are they familiar with some of the more common growth related injuries and how to deal with them? Are they willing to be flexible in their training plan to accommodate girls struggling with growing and related fears and injuries? I think that can play a much bigger part than the level of the child. The personality of the child also plays a part. Level 6 is a typically hard level, bringing with it skills that are notorious for causing fear problems (bwo on beam, flyaways, back tuck on floor). But whether or not those somewhat common fears impact your dd really depends on her personality.
As far as your daughter, if you trust her coaches, I would let them make the decision about what level to compete next year and just play it by ear. Dealing with a growth spurt might not even be a problem for your dd, so I wouldn't worry too much about it until you get to that point.

 

[CoachGoofy]

Not uptraining, especially in kids who are growing, kinda irritates me--how do you know if they're adjusting or not if you don't have them try to learn new skills?

I agree with the above that it really depends on the kid--I've got 2 who are growing a lot right now (I had the world's slowest, least dramatic puberty EVER so I don't have a lot of personal experience)& it's interesting how they're coping. One is now taller than me but not particularly...uh...shapely & she's slowed down with the learning skills, but hasn't lost anything. The other is still pretty short but is rounding out a bit & has been struggling with old skills in addition to new ones. The center of gravity change has been very hard on her.

It's so individual. Keeping up strength & confidence is important, IMHO.

 

[superflipgirl]

It really depends on the child, like other people have said. But I'll tell you what I think. Sometime between 7th and 8th grade, I had an INSANE growth spurt. My coach and I both noticed how hard it was for me to do skills like I used to. But when I seemed to have stopped growing, it seemed to be easier to gain new skills again. I think it's better to have a growth spurt when repeating a level because you can get used to doing the same skills while you grow and then when the growth spurt ends, it's easier to get new skills for the next level

 

[Panda-girl's Mom]

My daughter has definitely had a rough time with level6 and heel pain related to growth spurts she is your daughters age. But should she have stayed in level 5 I am not sure. She may have been bored and not challenged. She has learned to enjoy meets without getting high scores or medals and has overcomed challenges. I personally would not worry about it in relation to what level she is in there is no predicting what she is going to experience. Not every girl her age is going to have difficulties just take it 1 day at a time. Every kid is different. As for fears I believe the younger they are the less fears but I think how the coaches handle the fears makes all the difference.

 

[marie83]

I've not read every reply, so hope I'm not repeating too much! Just my story and opinion:

I went through my growth spurt when I was 12. I was a small skinny child, long lean muscles rather than bulky ones! When I had my growth spurt I also got the hips and chest. I had a really tough time adjusting. Tired all the time, ill a lot. In the end mum took me to the dr who told me to take time off from everything! I was very active, doing gym, competitive dance, swimming, horse riding and so on. I took drs orders, cutting dance down to just once a week, and stopping gym altogether for 2 yrs! I was much better for allowing my body to rest, But I never did go back to competitive dance.
In my opinion your dd would be better to repeat a level during her growth spurt and take her time to adjust to her 'new' body! Increasing training time will probably lead to frustration and negative results.

 

[cher062]

I don't think it really matters one way or the other groowth spurts happen and do affect how they do their skills. I've seen girls loose skills trying to get comfortable in their skins. I think its how the girl or boy handles the results of what might happen with that growth and skills. Be supportive and let her know that this will pass. Maybe not as fast as she would like but they always seem to get over it and move on.

 

[shelovestoflip]

My daughter is an 11 year old Level 6 who really hasn't hit a growth spurt yet and I don't think she'll ever hit a huge one. When we went for her 11 year check up, her pediatrician pointed out that she's always been 10% for height and weight. She showed how if you follow that % up the chart to age 18, she will likely only be about 5'1". Her pediatrician said some girls just go slow and steady without the huge spurt. Considering she's 4'6" now, there's not much 'spurt' to happen!

That being said, I agree with some others who commented that fear (and control) at this age can play a big part. My daughter struggled early on this season with the flyaway on bars. Her coaches knew that it was all mental for her and let her get there when she was ready. Thankfully, she has no fear about the bwo on beam or back tuck. However other girls her age on her team did struggle with those as well.

I think it depends on your child. My daughter likes control (yikes...can make for tough tween hood!) and has thus far been able to conquer her fears on her terms when she was ready. LLuckily, we've got great coaches who respect that and see her drive to succeed and give her the space she needs. As a result, she's had a great season, even seeing success with bars as the season progressed.

Hope this helps!

 

[Deleted member D3987]

too hard to predict all this. great posts though.