WAG Ideal training hours

[Deleted member 18037]

There has to be some kind of benefit in the long run to keeping the hours and training manageable/reasonable.

Every kid at our gym is at our gym because at any other gym locally the hours would be more then they want to do.

So we have kids who would of been done at L4 at ages 8-10. Who are now flipping vaults, working double backs and bar releases/changes.

They have a safe group of friends away from school drama.

They are excelling at other sports because of their gymnastics training.

No they aren’t going Elite. They aren’t going to the super seven regional team. But now that they are upgrading skills a couple might make regionals as second years.

These are wins not fails.

I think that’s pretty remarkable and pretty good use of the I try not think about how much money I’ve spent.

 

[LJL07]

Every kid at our gym is at our gym because at any other gym locally the hours would be more then they want to do.

So we have kids who would of been done at L4 at ages 8-10. Who are now flipping vaults, working double backs and bar releases/changes.

They have a safe group of friends away from school drama.

They are excelling at other sports because of their gymnastics training.

No they aren’t going Elite. They aren’t going to the super seven regional team. But now that they are upgrading skills a couple might make regionals as second years.

These are wins not fails.

I think that’s pretty remarkable and pretty good use of the I try not think about how much money I’ve spent.

Yes. My youngest would have been done after level 4 if I left her at the first gym. Way too many hours and racing through skills for her first optional year. She will fall behind the little hotshots but she is much more likely to stick with it. And you are absolutely right that it is a win for these kids who would have hated the sport and quit.

 

[SMH]

I think this is so much of it. I saw a post a few days ago of a level 3 that was training 20 hours and had an additional 2 private lessons a week. They seem to wear it like a badge of honor. A reasonable person should be able to gauge that training hours that are equivalent to a part time job is too much for a 6/7/8 year old child. But we live in a instafame culture and I think people are blinded by the stars in their eyes and it takes away their ability to think rationally.

I remember this post- and the mom replied the 2 hr privates were for ‘uptraining’-
If a coach can’t get in uptraining with a level 3 in the gym 20 hours, then they are doing something wrong. Needing an additional 2 hrs of privates per week is insane.

The Facebook groups crack me up because almost every single post includes their child’s age/level/hours they practice- even if the post has nothing to do with those things. It’s all ‘look how young my child is at such a high level/practicing so many hours’ veiled under a simple question.

We are at a low hours gym. Compulsory is 8 hrs for level 3 and 9 for level 4. I think 7-10 max out around 25. I’m always a little baffled when I see level 3’s practicing as much as the optionals at our gym.

Our gym has a pretty relaxed/slow take on compulsory- while they don’t hold back girls who are clearly ready to move on, they err toward holding back based on age and maturity especially. They would rather a younger girl do 2 years of level 4 at 9 hours than one year at 18 hrs.

I don’t know that there is actually any good way to keep practice hours within a reasonable amount of hours, and I don’t know what those hours would be. As long as there are parents willing to buy into the insane amount of hours, even if there are rules, coaches and parents will find a way to skirt the rules. I don’t know the answer.

 

[cmg]

I have been reading CB now for a while and never posted but this is a very interesting thread for me. We are at a low level hours gym. My daughter is hoping to compete L9 this spring and of course it depends on what skills she has and is she confident enough to compete them. Her optional team practices 17 hours per week 3-3.5 hours per day for 5 days. I do pay for a one hour private per week to help increase her confidence and add that extra hour. I also just signed her up for a one hour PT/strength training session to help prevent typical gymnastics injuries.

I frequently look at which girls are being recruited for college and look at scores history via meetscores.com and how long they have been a level 10. Many of the girls that have been L10 for 4-6 years also have many years with a lot of zeros for scores or whole years missed. I am assuming this is due to injuries. I could be wrong of course but I am assuming because I see it pretty consistently. There have been other threads on CB discussing college recruiting and stating that if you are not a L10 by freshman year forget it. Well of course my daughter is a sophomore this year and is a L9. She is still hoping to compete at college but most likely as a walk on or lower D1 school and I know she needs to have the skills and we will just have to see if she gets them or not. I would be happy for her just to get to L10 which is a pretty amazing feat on its own, never mind college level.

She has been a pretty consistent 36+ range AA competitor with her 18 hours per week. I know that many of her competitors are training more hours but she has stayed relatively injury free. In her last State meet I was talking with some of the other L8 parents and it was almost as if the parents were bragging about how their daughters were recovering from serious injuries and still competing. One of gymnasts was recovering from a broken back!! Personally if a coach called me at worked and told me I needed to spot my kid on beam I would remove my kid from that gym immediately. Those parents happy with 20 hours per week for L2, well it is very likely those kids won't last either mentally or physically. Gymnastics is a marathon not a sprint and patience is required from both athletes and parents.

So I guess my conclusion is that I think less is more for gymnastics. There is a fine balance of training enough to be competitive and training too much to get injured all the time. Every gym is different so find the one that works for you. But I do feel that excessive hours at a young age is something the USAG should monitor. But USAG can't even figure out how to keep sexual predators out of their ranks and hold people accountable. I would like to think that the USAG can develop competitive Olympic gymnasts without them having to be abused sexually or mentally and that to get to college level gymnastics a young lady does not have to train 30 hours a week for many years just to be a recruitable.

 

[LJL07]

Gymnastics is a marathon not a sprint and patience is required from both athletes and parents.

So I guess my conclusion is that I think less is more for gymnastics. There is a fine balance of training enough to be competitive and training too much to get injured all the time. Every gym is different so find the one that works for you. But I do feel that excessive hours at a young age is something the USAG should monitor. But USAG can't even figure out how to keep sexual predators out of their ranks and hold people accountable. I would like to think that the USAG can develop competitive Olympic gymnasts without them having to be abused sexually or mentally and that to get to college level gymnastics a young lady does not have to train 30 hours a week for many years just to be a recruitable.

YES. Since kids are not even eligible to compete in the Olympics until they are 16 (right?), I think it is important to put safeguards in place for young kids and training hours. Pushing little kids too hard and too fast perpetuates a culture that allows Larry Nassar types to carry on unchecked. The parents don't say a word because they know their child will be replaced by the dozens of other little hotshots waiting in the wings in this country. Youth sports in general has gotten out of hand at increasingly younger ages, but to my knowledge no other sport has had an abuse crisis of this scope and magnitude (Larry Nassar), so something needs to happen. As far as a solution, I don't have any great answers either. Don't the European countries and Canada and Australia have different "streams" for gymnasts? I am really not knowledgeable about this at all, but it seems like kids are identified early on as being rec or elite path and then steered towards certain programs or streams? In this country, Level 2 and 3 are basically glorified rec team levels and aren't even required, so why would any kid need to check out of school for that or go 20 hours per week? What about limits on the number of hours compulsory kids train? I might be naive to think this would help, but you have to start somewhere.

 

[cmg]

YES. Since kids are not even eligible to compete in the Olympics until they are 16 (right?), I think it is important to put safeguards in place for young kids and training hours. Pushing little kids too hard and too fast perpetuates a culture that allows Larry Nassar types to carry on unchecked. The parents don't say a word because they know their child will be replaced by the dozens of other little hotshots waiting in the wings in this country. Youth sports in general has gotten out of hand at increasingly younger ages, but to my knowledge no other sport has had an abuse crisis of this scope and magnitude (Larry Nassar), so something needs to happen. As far as a solution, I don't have any great answers either. Don't the European countries and Canada and Australia have different "streams" for gymnasts? I am really not knowledgeable about this at all, but it seems like kids are identified early on as being rec or elite path and then steered towards certain programs or streams? In this country, Level 2 and 3 are basically glorified rec team levels and aren't even required, so why would any kid need to check out of school for that or go 20 hours per week? What about limits on the number of hours compulsory kids train? I might be naive to think this would help, but you have to start somewhere.

Personally I would like to see the Olympic qualifying age raised to 18 for women. Ally and Simone and many other gymnasts have proved that you don't have to be a teenager to compete in the Olympics, in fact I think the older gymnasts are stronger and can stand the pressure more resiliently. That way young girls that now have to rush to the elite level to make the national stage at age 10-15 won't be as susceptible to sexual predators and/or mental abuse. I know this is a pipe dream, but I don't know of any other sport that you have to be at the elite level at such a young age.

 

[3rd_time_around]

YES. Since kids are not even eligible to compete in the Olympics until they are 16 (right?), I think it is important to put safeguards in place for young kids and training hours. Pushing little kids too hard and too fast perpetuates a culture that allows Larry Nassar types to carry on unchecked. The parents don't say a word because they know their child will be replaced by the dozens of other little hotshots waiting in the wings in this country. Youth sports in general has gotten out of hand at increasingly younger ages, but to my knowledge no other sport has had an abuse crisis of this scope and magnitude (Larry Nassar), so something needs to happen. As far as a solution, I don't have any great answers either. Don't the European countries and Canada and Australia have different "streams" for gymnasts? I am really not knowledgeable about this at all, but it seems like kids are identified early on as being rec or elite path and then steered towards certain programs or streams? In this country, Level 2 and 3 are basically glorified rec team levels and aren't even required, so why would any kid need to check out of school for that or go 20 hours per week? What about limits on the number of hours compulsory kids train? I might be naive to think this would help, but you have to start somewhere.

Levels 2 and 3 are developmental levels and must be precise and executed well, they are not “glorified rec levels.” They don’t, however, require 20+ hours of training. Just FYI, level 3 has the largest number of participants of any level, even though it’s not required, but it shouldn’t be trained like the much harder optional levels, that’s just too much (especially if there’s no uptraining).

 

[LJL07]

Levels 2 and 3 are developmental levels and must be precise and executed well, they are not “glorified rec levels.” They don’t, however, require 20+ hours of training. Just FYI, level 3 has the largest number of participants of any level, even though it’s not required, but it shouldn’t be trained like the much harder optional levels, that’s just too much (especially if there’s no uptraining).

Sorry if that came across wrong. I know there is value to the two levels. I just meant that many children are capable of performing well on 2&3 and it is really not a determinant of potential for optionals. I also know that level 3 has a really high number of participants. Most do not check out of school or aim to get 39s though because what is the purpose of that? Honestly, if the child is even getting a 38 early in the season on level 3 and they are checking out of school for this, why not start training 4 and move the child up if possible? And, I do not think there is any reason at all for any child to check out of school early just to train level 2. It can be precise and executed well going about 5 hours a week. I think if there was a rationale to checking out early and doing so many hours at the compulsory level (e.g., tops program, fast track to optionals, working towards DIC camp) and if we hadn’t had such a horrible experience, I wouldn’t be so angry about this. But literally it is repetition upon repetition of level 2 and 3, and anyone willing to pay and get permission to check out of school can do it. The coach mistreated a lot of young kids and clearly has not learned one thing from it. Level 2&3 really should be somewhat fun and not high pressure.

 

[Flippingwith2]

Oh it was real!! She had a level 2 and a level 4 both training 25 hours a week. I couldn’t believe it.

Those are actually my girls you are talking about. What seemed to fly over everyone’s head on that post is that their summer hours at their gym are like camp. They both spend time with friends with some gymnastics training thrown in. They do ballet, yoga(different stretching stuff they introduced), and have just announced a foam rolling session they are encouraging parents to attend. Contrary to popular belief I don’t have them in these hours “for the ‘gram” as they say. It didn’t seem like a big deal because they enjoyed their time at the gym. There are other hours that were offered (from 5 hours up) where when those gymnasts show up its usually when actual gymnastics training is taking place. Once school starts their hours are going to be drastically cut back to something much more reasonable where I know they can attend school and practice while still having time to do HW and be kids. For those that worry the level 2 will more than likely be back at her 5.5 hours a week.

 

[LJL07]

Those are actually my girls you are talking about. What seemed to fly over everyone’s head on that post is that their summer hours at their gym are like camp. They both spend time with friends with some gymnastics training thrown in. They do ballet, yoga(different stretching stuff they introduced), and have just announced a foam rolling session they are encouraging parents to attend. Contrary to popular belief I don’t have them in these hours “for the ‘gram” as they say. It didn’t seem like a big deal because they enjoyed their time at the gym. There are other hours that were offered (from 5 hours up) where when those gymnasts show up its usually when actual gymnastics training is taking place. Once school starts their hours are going to be drastically cut back to something much more reasonable where I know they can attend school and practice while still having time to do HW and be kids. For those that worry the level 2 will more than likely be back at her 5.5 hours a week.

Right. Just chiming in to say that summer hours are usually a lot higher. I mentioned a gym upthread that has the girls going crazy hours during the school year too and checking out of school--for levels 2-4. This lady also has the kids attend additional "choreography camps" that she charges for, they all do privates, and lots of extra nonsense. If you are going 15-20 hours/week for level 2 and 3, then you should not need a choreography camp or private lessons. Ever. The whole thing is a racket. When my older daughter did level 2 (not at this gym), she only went about 5 1/2 hours a week and did just fine. And you might not have your girls in it for Instagram, but good grief, the number of tiny tot Instagram gymnast accounts is through the roof. It gets crazier and worse by the day.

 

[Aero]

At ENA the weekly practice hours for our Level 10s cap at twenty. Even during the summer it remains twenty hours per week. Four hour practices five times per week and we do just fine.

 

[txgymfan]

At ENA the weekly practice hours for our Level 10s cap at twenty. Even during the summer it remains twenty hours per week. Four hour practices five times per week and we do just fine.

Awesome! So nice to “see” you again. Sounds like your new gig is working out great!

 

[Aero]

Awesome! So nice to “see” you again. Sounds like your new gig is working out great!

My new job is absolutely fantastic! I am learning so much every single day. It is exciting and enlightening, and I look forward to going to the gym everyday.

In other news, I admit I haven’t been around at all lately, and that’s because I’ve just been super busy. However, I aim to change that. I miss contributing to the ChalkBucket community!!!

 

[SMH]

And I just saw a post on one of the Facebook groups where a mom was wondering if she should move her (just turned) 4 year old to pre-team, pre-team that practices 10 hours a week. I can’t imagine the hours a level 3 or 4 must do at that gym, if a 4 yr old on pre team is doing 10.

 

[amiandjim]

And I just saw a post on one of the Facebook groups where a mom was wondering if she should move her (just turned) 4 year old to pre-team, pre-team that practices 10 hours a week. I can’t imagine the hours a level 3 or 4 must do at that gym, if a 4 yr old on pre team is doing 10.

I really cannot deal with that group anymore...it’s like everyone has lost their minds lately! And she didn’t really want advice (since she argued with everyone who posted), so it’s really just a humble brag

 

[FlippinLilysMom]

And I just saw a post on one of the Facebook groups where a mom was wondering if she should move her (just turned) 4 year old to pre-team, pre-team that practices 10 hours a week. I can’t imagine the hours a level 3 or 4 must do at that gym, if a 4 yr old on pre team is doing 10.

I saw that too....and the mom isn't concerned at all about the 10 hours per week of training, shes concerned with how her 4 year old will be accepted by the "older" girls (the 5 and 6 year olds)

 

[SMH]

I really cannot deal with that group anymore...it’s like everyone has lost their minds lately! And she didn’t really want advice (since she argued with everyone who posted), so it’s really just a humble brag

Absolutely. She didn’t really want an answer, she wanted everyone to know how awesome her 4 yr old is. Her kid may well be awesome, but 10 hours at 4 years old is insane. I have a just turned 4 yr old and I cannot imagine putting her in the gym for an hour longer then her 9 yr old sister currently is!
Sometimes I respond but more and more I just have to roll my eyes and scroll on because these people don’t want common sense or advice anyways, they just want affirmation that they are right.

 

[MuggleMom]

I joined one of those groups for giggles and at first I enjoyed it more than expected and liked hearing what people were doing etc but the longer I am in the group the more I think I need to leave cause people be cray cray. I get tired of hearing about a 4 year olds "journey" and a level 1s mental blocks. It shoudnt be that hard that soon I just dont get it. And they are putting thier kids in like 3 rec classes to get thier hours up no wonder they move to preteam so quickly but that doesnt mean they are the next Simone or that its a good idea. They all say thier kid would be there 24/7 so its ok but someone made a great analogy my kids would eat icecream for every meal and snack but that doesnt mean as a parent I am going to let them

 

[RTT2]

I'm at the point where most of those FB group posts drive me nuts. There is a whole category that really shouldn't annoy me, but does: it's those "she does gymnastics every where!" posts. The first type are photos of a girl doing a handstand in the middle of a supermarket or something, and all I can think is "Tell her not to do that. It's not an appropriate place for gymnastics...", the second type is "This is how a gymnast eats cookies/watches tv/does homework" etc. with a picture of a girl in a split or whatever while she's doing the activity. They are completely harmless posts, but the "my kid is so dedicated to gymnastics she never stops!" bit gets to me.
Of course, I should probably just leave that FB group!

 

[amiandjim]

I'm at the point where most of those FB group posts drive me nuts. There is a whole category that really shouldn't annoy me, but does: it's those "she does gymnastics every where!" posts. The first type are photos of a girl doing a handstand in the middle of a supermarket or something, and all I can think is "Tell her not to do that. It's not an appropriate place for gymnastics...", the second type is "This is how a gymnast eats cookies/watches tv/does homework" etc. with a picture of a girl in a split or whatever while she's doing the activity. They are completely harmless posts, but the "my kid is so dedicated to gymnastics she never stops!" bit gets to me.
Of course, I should probably just leave that FB group!

I thought I was the only one who got annoyed by those!!!