Women Levels and hours

[meggiibabes]

I've been at my current gym for about four years, competing for three, but I only do 4.5 hours a week split into two sessions. I'd tell you what level I was too, except we don't do levels. I can back and front tuck on floor, no problems with jumps/leaps. Vault: handspring, half on, half off. Bar: kip (upstart), squat on, learning flyaway (backaway). Beam: consistent cartwheel tuck back, learning roundoff. So what level would I be in, and what's the right amount of hours for that level because I don't feel like I'm doing much.

 

[bogwoppit]

You would be L5 training L6 at most US gyms. I would say the average hours for those levels are between 8 and 16 hours a week. It is very hard to compare really though as the US gym system is way different to the UK one and most regular gyms in the UK cannot offer those hours, therefore kids with elite potential in the UK end up at the bigger gyms and training centers early on. You are doing very well for that number of hours.

 

[DisMom]

I agree...sounds like you are doing really well for what the US considers very few hours in the gym. With your skills, you would be a Level 6 training Level 7 in our gym (more competitive gyms you might be a L5 training L6 like bog said above...but definitely a L6 at the gym where my DD goes.

Oh...and the Level 5s and 6s all practice 12 hours/week.

 

[meggiibabes]

aww I'd love to train for hours but thanks

 

[bogwoppit]

aww I'd love to train for hours but thanks

My girls were never at a gym with huge hours either. But pat yourself on the back for doing so well anyway.

 

[gymgurl]

You would be level 5 or 6 here and in my gym you would be training 14 hours a week. You are doing incredibly well for only 4.5 hours a week!

 

[gymnast98]

I am a level 6, training 7 and 8. we only do 5-6 hours a week. Yea I wish I could do more but we just don't. My coaches use the time wisely and we 99% of the time get 1st at meets.

 

[Aussie_coach]

If you don't have levels then I am assuming that you don't compete.

dont compare the hours that you do to others on this board who do similar skills because they go in competitions. A lot of the time they are in the gym is spent learning routines, practising routines and perfecting routines. This takes many hours every week. They also will spend a lot of hours on in between type skills that aren't nessesary if you aren't competing.

if you are doing gymnastics recreationally 4.5 hours is great for the skill level that you are at. A good coach will make sure you progress well in that time.

 

[bogwoppit]

If you don't have levels then I am assuming that you don't compete.

dont compare the hours that you do to others on this board who do similar skills because they go in competitions. A lot of the time they are in the gym is spent learning routines, practising routines and perfecting routines. This takes many hours every week. They also will spend a lot of hours on in between type skills that aren't nessesary if you aren't competing.

if you are doing gymnastics recreationally 4.5 hours is great for the skill level that you are at. A good coach will make sure you progress well in that time.

The OP says she has been competing for three years, doing gym for four. I know this is very common in small gyms here in Canada and the UK.

 

[OzZee]

I took as she doesn't do levels meaning she is in the UK and they don't do levels 1-10, they have grades for club and national levels 5-1 (or whatever it is) for international route. So she is wondering what level (in a US system) she would be and what sort of hours kids in that level would be training.

Compared to Australia I'd say around a level 5, training some 6, and 14+ hours a week.

 

[Aussie_coach]

It is relative to the number of hours others who she is competing against are training rather than what we are doing overseas. Here in Australia we tend to overtrain our kids to early. We have level 1's training 5-6 hours a week. Level 2's 6-8 hours, level 3's 9-12 hours. Level 4's 14-16 hours. Its not really necessary for kids at that level especially as these are not IDP kids, elite gymnastics is not in their future.

But our gymnasts need to train high hours because their competitors train high hours. If all the other levels 3's are training 12 hours a week the kids training 3 hours can't compete with them.

My point is the training hours we do don't necessarily reflect the hours that are actually needed.

 

[Faith]

In the uk it's not necessary to do grades or levels. They give gymnasts the opportunity to qualify and compete nationally at their level, but it's not the only competitive route.

each region also has its own competitions. Usually based on modified fig, so optional routines with skills tailored to the child. There are also floor and vault competitions. So it's more than possible to compete without having an assigned level. You can just add skills to your routines as you learn them.

Under that system the hours you do depend on you/your club . 4.5 hours are about right for many of our floor and vault kids, who want to compete, but don't want high hours or the conditioning etc associated with wag.

meggiibabes do you want to do more hours? Would your club let you?

 

[OzZee]

Aussiecoach - something I was wondering about the other day.
Do you think we have any advantages from the number of hours and time spent perfecting the lower levels?
I know the disadvantages - most kids quitting by level 6, burnout sooner. But do we gain anything?
From watching you tube videos US kids seem to get away with a lot poorer form than the girls around here. I've seen kids coming top 3 in a competition without a clean routine which wouldn't happen here. And people talk of going to comps in America without some of the skills (think I've seen that once - level 1 pre season comp (ie about 3 months before state trials) and there were a couple of girls on one team that needed a spot on the pullover, dd came home totally outraged, lol).
So we obviously spend many more hours perfecting every little bit of those basic skills/routines, does that aid us in anyway in form later, or is it really just a big waste of time.
I still can't get my head around all these 4/5 year olds doing robhs's, lol.

 

[Aussie_coach]

This has been my observation too, Australian kids are a far higher standard when it comes to perfection with their routines but usually at a lower standard for their age when it comes to skills.

I do prefer the USA system because it is better suited to the mental developmental level of the child. Australian kids spend longer in the lower levels, do more hours doing simple skills are perfection is expected. For example level 4 kids in Australia are expected to do 180 degree split leaps, but in the US only a fraction of the split is required.

But the average level 4 kid in Australia is 10-11 years old. The average level 4 kid in the US is 6-7 years old.

the problem for us is that we leave it too late to teach the bigger skills. Most lower level gymnastics is not that scary and most kids can do it. By the time gymnasts reach level 4-6 they have to start doing skills that are a bit scary like back handsprings, front tucks off beam (this is not required in the US), lots of high bar work, walkovers on beam, handspring vaults and so on.

As the US kids are younger they learn these skills while they are still in the developmental phase where they think only in concrete terms. If they have not been hurt on a skill or have not seen someone else get hurt on a skill it doesn't really occur to them that they will get hurt. When a coach says they can do something they are still very trusting of adults and beleive they must be able to do it because the coach said so (this is in general not all kids are like this).

when a child hits 10, 11, 12 years of age they start to think in the abstract. They can now consider the consequences of their actions more and can ate more likely to sit there and imagine things going wrong that are not even likely. When a kid first develops this ability to imagine what might go wrong, as with any new skill they have difficulty controlling it. They can paralyse themselves with their own fear.

Some kids will work through this stage as an older teen and start to think like an adult in that they can imagine things going wrong but can rationalise that it is very unlikely. But some do not.

our kids start learning the scary skills at 10-12, while US kids are usually far past that level, they of course have new scary skills to learn but they are not being introduced to the idea of throwing themselves into skills like this for the first time.

Also for US kids the absolute unending perfection expectation can come a little later when they are old enough to understand it and appreciate it better. They are old enough to love and appreciate the sport and be prepared to put the time into the perfection.

but our kids are required to do this at a much younger age. They spend hours doing nothing but conditioning and perfecting the releve stand on beam. Sure this will make their progress easier later, but there won't be a later because these kids spend years doing nothing harder than a cartwheel, get bored, quit and teach themselves to flip on the trampoline in the back yard because its more fun.

but you will also see a difference in the kids who get awards at US comps because they break their divisions up much more than we do. In the US they may have something like 6 different age divisions of level 4's so the kids are going against far fewer kids. Where in many parts of Australia we have just 1-2 divisions.

 

[OzZee]

Yes I agree.
I do think though there must be some benefit in muscle memory from having to perfect all those basic skills as well as the extra conditioning but I don't think it outweighs the benefits of moving on and gaining skills. I think so many kids must lose interest, most of the clubs around here don't do any uptraining, just train the level you are on, then at the end of the season start training the next seasons skills. so therefore no chance of skipping levels, no chance of learning something exciting in the areas you are good in, and the added issue of kids learning the harder moves once they've lost that invincibility of childhood, and also for the coaches the much harder job of spotting much larger heavier girls.
I know the American system would have suited 2 out of 3 of my kids, the youngest one less so as she is the graceful one.

Without the push of college gymnastics, high school gymnastics, scholarships, olympic hopes etc it's no wonder we have very few higher level ndp gymnasts, they haven't gotten far enough before the other teenage interests kick in because they've been faffing around in levels 1-4 for 5-6 years.

And if there was more pushing skillwise at the lower ndp levels (and chances to skip levels if able to) I believe that more could test into idp later (as really it is a lottery of where you train and if you have the knowledge or proximity to an idp club as to whether you even have the chance to follow that path, never mind having to choose at 5 that that is what you want to do). Yes the skill set is different but it's not unheard of at idp 6 or so, and if there were more younger ndp gymnasts pushed to learn higher skills then I think many more could crossover.

And you are so right, the issue is yes you can compete those levels at far less hours but in Australia you can't 'compete' as everyone else is doing so much more.
I believe in the US also top 50% also get awards usually in the lower levels. Whilst often in senior age divisions here everyone gets awarded, lol, in the main, intermediate age group it's a small percent.

But at the same time I think physically it's better for the young gymnasts, some of the skills seem to be thrown by the young kids, most 4 year olds just can't do a good safe bhs - physiologically their heads are too heavy, their arms aren't strong enough, not enough back flexibility and they don't have the maturity to do these skills safely (ie not continually pushing for the skill if it's going badly)

 

[Aussie_coach]

I find that a bit strange, because I have never come across a gym in my area who does not do up training. Since in Australia we have the bonus skills this really lends itself towards uptraining.

And yes, our system does not encourage longevity in the sport. Why would a child continue to train until level 10, when they will be aspects to train around 25 hours a week, for no future goals what so ever, while dealimg with high school and usually also dealing with injury issue's by that level. US kids do it because for the, there are some lights at the end of the tunnel. College gymnastics, a possibility at a scholarship, elite.

in all likelihood their kids have no more chance of making elite than hours but they are not told at 7 they will never make it, it's always sitting there after level 10 as a real possibility.

 

[meggiibabes]

we have county (grades5-1) and other regional+ local competitions, with around 10 other different clubs, I have 6-8 competitions a year

 

[meggiibabes]

I would like more hours, however, that probably wouldn't be possible at my current club. I don'ty want to move though, so I've just got to stick with it.