Parents High hours

[Aussie_coach]

We attended a seminar on preventing injuries in gymnastics and their research showed that after 3 1/2 hours the injury rate soars.

Of course, a good program can avoid this by looking at what they schedule when. If they train longer than 3 1/2 hours and put the low risk stuff at the end it can still work very safely.

 

[Aussie_coach]

I have my gymnasts on every apparatus every session. But I schedule all the classes so can make it work.

If you have coaches fighting for apparatus time and all with their own agenda it’s a nightmare.

 

[Jenny]

I found 3 and half hours my optimum coaching session length. I would always do bars, beam and floor of some kind every session. I can't imagine taking kids to a competition that only do one beam session a week. I can't see how that can work.

 

[ReluctantGymMom]

Here's roughly the curve I'd want to follow if I were designing a girls team program right now, and had enough space and equipment to have at least 50% of the group on equipment at any given time, and lived in a perfect world where there were never any scheduling conflicts:

L2/preteam:
-15 min warm-up/basics
-15 min conditioning
-30 min each on bars and one other event
-15 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
3x per week.
= 6 hours/week

L3:
-15 min warm-up
-15 min floor basics
-30 min conditioning
-30 min each on bars and one other event
-15 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
3x per week
= 7.5 hours/week

L4:
-15 min warm-up
-15 min floor basics
-30 min conditioning
-45 min each on bars and one other event
-30 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
3x per week
= 9.75 hours/week

L5 - L7:
(Same as L4, but 4x/week)
= 13 hours/week

L8 - L9:
-15 min warm-up
-10 min handstand basics
-10 min tumbling basics
-25 min bars basics
-30 min conditioning
-1 hour on 1 event
-30 min trampoline, etc
-15 min stretch/cooldown/conclusion
5x per week
= 16.25 hours/week

L10:
(same as L8-L9, but 6x/week)
= 19.5 hours/week

Elite, training full-time:
-15 min warm-up
-10 min handstand basics
-15 min either bars or tumbling basics (alternating)
-20 min conditioning
-1 hour on 1 event
-30 min trampoline, etc
-15 minute stretch/cooldown
10x/week (meaning at least some of the days would have both a morning and evening workout)
= 27.5 hours/week

Having said all this, in the real world lower levels would have to stretch things a bit longer due to group size and infeasibility of having enough space and equipment to always have at least 50% of the group working; L10 and elite groups, by comparison, tend to be much smaller and are thus able to work more efficiently.

I'd also (remember, we're talking theoretical perfect world scenario here) want level 5 and up to have an hour or so of "open" workout each week, where they could pick whatever events and skills they want to work on, but that wouldn't be an every-practice thing.

For any practice that's within 2 days of a meet, I'd cut out conditioning entirely, and rather than doing one or two long event rotations, I'd have them do one or two routines on each event.

Out of curiosity - would you not have concerns with basically doing beam once, max twice a week? We usually do two/three rotations per practice but that’s due to coaching shortage and poor scheduling, not purposeful and when we don’t have beam for a few days you just see massive regression in skills (for skills not mastered).

one group that was struggling on back handsprings on beam was down to two eight inchers and a red pad on the beam, so making solid progress - then the coach went on vacation for a week - they ALL lost all progress. Back to floor beam with panel mats - it’s taken over a month to get close to the same point again.

 

[rlm's mom]

I think my DDs do 2 rotations a day but they definitely do the basics of bars/beam every day even if not a full rotation of it. We also don't have sessions longer than 3 hours. When they have morning and afternoon practice (as opposed to evening) they have a 3 hour practice, 45 min lunchbreak and then a 2 hour practice.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Out of curiosity - would you not have concerns with basically doing beam once, max twice a week? We usually do two/three rotations per practice but that’s due to coaching shortage and poor scheduling, not purposeful and when we don’t have beam for a few days you just see massive regression in skills (for skills not mastered).

one group that was struggling on back handsprings on beam was down to two eight inchers and a red pad on the beam, so making solid progress - then the coach went on vacation for a week - they ALL lost all progress. Back to floor beam with panel mats - it’s taken over a month to get close to the same point again.

Fair point. Perhaps alternate beam and bars for the basics/event focus?

The thing is, I think vault and beam directly benefit from floor work, whereas the reverse isn't necessarily true, hence the heavy emphasis on floor basics. Bars has much less in common with the other three events, hence putting it on the schedule more frequently.

But I suppose my proposed schedule does make it obvious I'm not generally a beam coach....

 

[coach1234]

Wow, our (what is roughly equivalent to) level 7/8s do 15 hours a week

 

[Aussie_coach]

While we do every apparatus every session, they are not al devoted equal time. I always prioritise floor, it is the basis of all gymnastics, followed by bars due to the strength and different type of skill needed.

Then we do slightly more vault than beam, only because we do our trampoline work in combination with vault. Trampoline training benefits all apparatus. Doing it with vault helps to balance out the pounding on the legs.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Wow, our (what is roughly equivalent to) level 7/8s do 15 hours a week

Optional in our gym do 12 hours

 

[Jenny]

Fair point. Perhaps alternate beam and bars for the basics/event focus?

The thing is, I think vault and beam directly benefit from floor work, whereas the reverse isn't necessarily true, hence the heavy emphasis on floor basics. Bars has much less in common with the other three events, hence putting it on the schedule more frequently.

But I suppose my proposed schedule does make it obvious I'm not generally a beam coach....

I think you need bars every time due to it being so different from the other events. But I would also have beam every session. The beam session can have a varied focus though including sessions on conditioning, floor basics, choreography, presentation, handstand skills, leaps and spins etc so you might be able to cut back somewhere else. I think it is very interesting to see different ideas.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

Fair point. Perhaps alternate beam and bars for the basics/event focus?

The thing is, I think vault and beam directly benefit from floor work, whereas the reverse isn't necessarily true, hence the heavy emphasis on floor basics. Bars has much less in common with the other three events, hence putting it on the schedule more frequently.

But I suppose my proposed schedule does make it obvious I'm not generally a beam coach....

I like the idea of your schedule, I would be modifying for the following reasons. The lack of Beam stuck out to me, confidence on beam takes time and repetition. Certainly lots of basics on beam (dance basics) and the handstand portion of the program could predominantly be done on beam/a beam rotation.

I work with FIG based code/scoring - so this program would need serious tweaking as our kids are subjected to harsher dance requirements and deductions (which I am not a fan of for developing gymnasts). I will add, I don't just teach to the rules at the time, I try to teach good gymnastic foundation- but you have to be prepared for the rules you intend to compete under.
I'd say your elite program would also need adjustment given the value of dance elements and the deductions incurred for doing them poorly.

 

[doublestrike]

Our optionals start doing over 20 hours. I always held my daughter out on Saturdays until level 7 so she could dance, play soccer, softball and go to birthday parties. I was scolded for it, but I can take it. Once you hit optionals and you want your kid to succeed, I think 20-24 hours in JO's is optimum and she did that and had to give up the other sports and dance once she hit level 10. She wouldn't have known to commit to gymnastics without doing the other sports so it was good she was able to.

 

[MuggleMom]

Our gym typically has them at 20 hours starting in Optionals as well, I do let my daughter miss when she seems overworked or just plain needs a break. That was a hard shift for me at first (its just so dang expensive!) but it has really helped her be happier overall and its honestly less stress for me too. We have one day we leave early and I let her miss 2-3 practices in a month when she needs a break or has something else fun she'd like to do.

 

[katrid11]

I am happy about reading some parents giving choices and allowing some missed practices.

I had never really thought about giving my daughter an option to miss a practice every once in a while. I think we may incorporate that going forward. She's bummed about her saturday afternoons being practice for 3 hrs so missing that every once in a while may make the difference.

FWIW we are at 12 hrs for L4. Our gym goes to 16 hrs at L6 and maybe 7. L8+ is 20hrs.

 

[Deleted member 26368]

My gymnast has only ever done Xcel, but I had no idea Saturday practices were so common! Her gym does offer L7-10 as well as Xcel, but even Optionals don't practice on Saturdays. That day is reserved for (optional) skills or meet-prep clinics. All team practices are M-F evenings.