Anon Is leaving practice early justifiable?

[Anonymous (c6df)]

Hello, I am going into my jr year of high school and I am training xcel diamond.

For context, I live 30 minutes away from the gym (where I also work as well), and I have practice 9 hours a week (3 days for 3 hours each), and work 13 hours a week (4 times a week, 3 hours for 2 days, 4 hours for 2 days).

Starting last season during the school year, when I could drive myself to practice, I started occasionally leaving practice 30 minutes early, If I was tired (since practices either wouldn't end until 9 pm, or they would start at 8 am). However, it has spiraled into leaving 30 minutes early (somtimes an hour early) every single practice.

I tried to fix this habit over the summer, but I still can't seem to get myself to stay.

Most of the time I leave early, we have conditioning. I feel bad that I always leave during conditioning, but I also participate in my school's weight training club once a week, and sometimes do my own conditioning at home. (and honestly, coaching is conditioning for me lol)

I feel very overworked and tired all of the time, even though I make sure to sleep between 7-9 hours a day, and eat a little bit before practice. But, do you think that I have a good reasoning behind leaving practices early, or not.

Thank you

 

[Anonymous (b660)]

As a coach and former athlete that would not be a good enough reason to leave early regularly. While you may think that lifting once a week or working is the same as conditioning it is not the same and you are not doing yourself any favors skipping it.

That being said the sport is supposed to be fun and if you are breaking down by the thought of conditioning I guess you do you.

 

[Anonymous (7fff)]

I agree with what's said above. As a former coach and former athlete that wouldn't be a good enough reason. You are committed to a team, and you are expected to be there for the whole practice.

 

[Anonymous (2308)]

Perhaps this is what you need to stick with the sport through high school? If you are always missing conditioning can you flex your schedule to fit it in before you leave?

As someone who has coached Xcel Diamond for the past 6 or so years, what you are describing is not unusual, at least for our gym. For us, the Diamond group tends to be high school age with most if not all of the group also doing high school sports and coaching at the gym. It is not the ideal scenario that they leave early or come late, but we consider this to be a benefit of doing Diamond - there is room to do other sports and/or to work, and we are flexible. With that said, if a gymnast is repeatedly missing the same event, or conditioning, we will flex their schedule so they make up what they missed. In any event this approach works for us as generally our kids stick with it through high school and our Diamond team always finishes in the top three or so teams at the State meet.

 

[Dahlialover]

I feel very overworked and tired all of the time, even though I make sure to sleep between 7-9 hours a day, and eat a little bit before practice. l

Thank you

It sounds like you are over-scheduled and now it’s catching up to you. I would recommend reducing your commitments to a more sustainable level and then deciding to follow through with those commitments. If you want to work out an agreement with your coaches to leave practice early certain days, then you can do that but don’t just peace out whenever you feel like it. Make a realistic plan and do your best to follow through.