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.

 

[Anonymous (c6df)]

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.

I am planning to only work 3 hours during the school year (compared to 7 last year), so I hope it helps a bit

 

[Anonymous (c6df)]

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.

I am not sure if this is meant to be a negative tone (like I am reading it as, apologies if I took this the wrong way), but I am not breaking down at the thought of conditioning (unlike how a year ago, I would have to create a specific routine to do before practice to force myself to go without suffering a panic attack). While I am definelty not as commited as I possibly could be, it's definetly a start.

 

[Anonymous (6aac)]

It's considered reasonable and acceptable in my daughter's gym, once upper high school gymnasts get to the point where they are juggling work and the final years of school with training. The all-or-nothing approach excludes girls from a sport they might otherwise stay in.

Her coach says it's better to get to training and do what you can than to miss training altogether because you're too tired, or to do all the hours but be too exhausted to do things with proper form etc.

Her requirements are that girls who can't train all the hours accept that this will affect their progress and results at competition, and understand that there may be things they won't be allowed to do because they're not putting in the hours to do them safely.

My daughter is currently in this sort of holding pattern - she's keeping her skills and strength up, and learning new skills very, very slowly, but the plan is to just stay in the game until she finishes high school and then pick up the intensity again for her gap year.

 

[Anonymous (5ea6)]

I understand what the naysayers are saying BUT sleep is important. While 7 hours of sleep might be the norm for many teens it really isn’t enough sleep and I see nothing wrong with honoring what your body needs. With that said, conditioning is important and missing that regularly may cause your progression to slow down. Also, the culture in many gyms would frown upon athletes leaving early. If you are happy with where you are and if the coaches don’t have a problem, then carry on. If not, maybe you can figure out a way to prioritize conditioning. Also, if you feel like you are more tired that someone your age should be it might be worth talking to your doctor to make sure there’s not a medical reason for your tiredness.

 

[Anonymous (5396)]

I think you have some great advice here!

I will add that you need to be honest with yourself and this is not a criticism. We don't all love/ enjoy hard work.

Many aspects of gymnastics are not enjoyable and sometimes acknowledging and accepting that fact makes it easier to get the necessary work done to succeed at the aspects we do enjoy.

Ask yourself (we don't need the answer) if your favourite event was last, would you still leave early?