Parents Making own gymnastic equipment...

[SurpriseGymMom]

Oh my...! Those videos.... Insane.

I made dd a floor beam to practice her dismount primarily and she doesn't use it much anymore.... She also has a jr bar that she got about 3yrs ago because she wanted to practice her pullover. She used it a lot actually for about a year or so, then briefly resurrected it this spring to work on some drills for her front hip circle. Because she's now doing stuff on the uneven bars, truly this bar is useless for anything see but basic drills (straight arm jump ups etc) but she's not ready to get rid of it quite yet. It does take up a lot of room, we have a dance studio space in our garage where we keep the bar also, no room for it in the house. In our old house there was a perfectly sized niche in the office that worked but not here so in the garage it is. She was always supervised using it and the only thing I ever worked with her on it was pullovers, which I teach my students and am qualified to spot. Everything above that I always tell her I can't help her with because although I teach gymnastics I don't teach kids on her level, my oldest students are 6!
We do have a door pull up bar thing, but it was not purchase for her. She does use it every now and then to do leg lifts, but not often.
I should add that dd was 6 1/2 when she got the bar and I just made her the beam this spring when she joined the team.

 

[Natasha]

After I saw a little kid doing giants in her basement, badly, on a home bar on youtube I realised just how bad a home bar can be when you have crazy parents who think they can coach anything.

And if you check out her u-tube channel she has multiple videos from 2010 of "7 year old Rachel" doing all sorts of crazy optional level skills and competing L6. Then she drops off the face of the earth...the next video is from summer of 2013 of her completing her 1st ROBHBT after no tumbling in over 2 years (on a mat in the back yard so who knows if she is even back in a gym) ....I assume she was either injured or burned out.... It is sad because it looked like she probably had some talent, but now she is 9/10 years old and back to L5 skills.

 

[bogwoppit]

Well we see it a lot on here. Some amazing phenoms with all kinds of talent get pushed by parents and coaches and either quit due to burnout or end up with bad backs and are forced to stop. She wasn't the first and will not be the last.

Kids with great potential have to be carefully paced and managed in the gym. Just because they "can" do anything, doesn't mean they should.

Very easy to go full hog when you see that your kid can do amazing things, but when they are waiting their turn for surgery on their spine it sure isn't so exciting. Just sayin'.

Home equipment is FUN!!! But it is very easy to end up pushing them a little further and encouraging them to try new things that they really shouldn't be trying.

 

[skschlag]

"My ds has wanted rings for years. We have refused! "

I don't want to speak for anyone here, but what I understood Skschlag to be saying was not about the rings specifically, but more to point out that all kids wants things, but we don't have to let them have them... Most if not all of our kids have begged us for gym equipment for the home and there's a lot of wisdom on here about what is sensible and what is not - both from a coaching point of view and from a parental 'waste of money point of view'. It might be worth reading through old threads to get a sense of what people have said, as there is a lot of consensus nad that doesn't happen often on here!

Exactly. My son still asks for just about every piece of gym equipment he can. He wants it all, all the time. BUt I just don't feel that it is safe to encourage. As a younger child, yes, you can. But once they start learning skills at gym, it becomes more and more of a battle to keep them out of the home. If you do buy/make equipment, just be prepared to be the bad guy in telling your child what she can/can't do at home.

Our coach also discourages anything but a mushroom, paralletes, and chin up bar. He thinks gym should be mostly at gym. And he says the development of bad habits becomes nearly impossible to correct.

Enjoy this time! It is so fun to see them find their passion.

 

[Ariana's_Mommy]

LOL...good thing we were just getting one for practicing the balance on the beam...nothing crazy... the bar...holy crap people are stupid to even think to let their children do that in the house! I wanted one for chin ups, lift her feet up to the bar (she needs to get the strength) and to do the simple flip once she gets her feet up there...you know like all kids do on a swingset and at parks..neither of those we have...we live in the middle of the country. Swingset is on the list to get, but haven't gotten there yet. I'm not a crazy parent and wouldn't even try to coach her, because that's just ignorant and I don't need her in the hospital due to my stupidity.

 

[Ariana's_Mommy]

Exactly. My son still asks for just about every piece of gym equipment he can. He wants it all, all the time. BUt I just don't feel that it is safe to encourage. As a younger child, yes, you can. But once they start learning skills at gym, it becomes more and more of a battle to keep them out of the home. If you do buy/make equipment, just be prepared to be the bad guy in telling your child what she can/can't do at home.

Our coach also discourages anything but a mushroom, paralletes, and chin up bar. He thinks gym should be mostly at gym. And he says the development of bad habits becomes nearly impossible to correct.

Enjoy this time! It is so fun to see them find their passion.

What is a mushroom?

 

[iwannacoach]

Seriously?! A 7 year old with a high beam in a bedroom!! I wonder where these kids are today?

 

[skschlag]

a mushroom is a piece of equipment boys use before they can do everything on the pommel.

I know for now that she will just use the bar for those things. BUt, as she gets bigger, sees more stuff, she will try it on the bar at home. It is just what kids do! we have had a trampoline forever, but I am always the bad guy that says..NO DOUBLES! Even though he does multiple every day at gym. Same with twists...no double fulls. He gets mad. But I have to do that.

I am just saying to be prepared to say no to stuff, even if she can do it at the gym!

 

[dani4]

My kids like climbing trees (see profile pic). No need for bars, although they ask for them all the time. We are going to get a pull-up bar in the garage soon, for the grownups to use. It will probably be too high for them, though I know they will ask for me to put them up there. I don't think I will, that cement floor is pretty hard.

 

[Bajanswife]

Ha ha, yes, my DD is a little monkey, loves climbing trees (or at least she did before she turned 10 and suddenly grew up ). Any tree limb that was horizontal was used as a bar. I still remember the rotten one that broke with her on it ..... good thing it wasn't very high off the ground!

 

[gymmommy123]

My husband made a nice floor beam and we bought a kit with for a "topper" for it that has a velcro back. Made from the same material as the real beams, and then you can pull the topper off the beam and put it right on the carpet, if they want to practice skills on the floor (like back walkover, etc.). It was much less expensive to make than buy, and we also made just an 8' length, not a full length. We also have a chin-up doorway bar, which really helped my dd learn her pullover when she was younger. Now, it's mainly used to do chin-ups, leg lifts, etc., as I don't want her practicing skills on it anymore. We have a 6', low tramp she practices jumps on (tuck, straight, straddle, split, etc.), mostly because we couldn't stand having the kids jumping on the furniture when they were younger ;-) She wants a couple mats to practice on, but that's as much as we plan to get for the house.

 

[Bess]

My DN has a new floor beam. She was doing a lovely L3 routine on it just the other day. Problem is she's a L2...barely even that as she doesn't turn 5 until Feb. Not sure she'll ever practice her own routine lol. She does have lots of fun in it though....

 

[mouey77]

And if you check out her u-tube channel she has multiple videos from 2010 of "7 year old Rachel" doing all sorts of crazy optional level skills and competing L6. Then she drops off the face of the earth...the next video is from summer of 2013 of her completing her 1st ROBHBT after no tumbling in over 2 years (on a mat in the back yard so who knows if she is even back in a gym) ....I assume she was either injured or burned out.... It is sad because it looked like she probably had some talent, but now she is 9/10 years old and back to L5 skills.

I just entertained myself by watching a few of Rachel's videos. She is clearly insanely good, but it seems a little cuckoo to turn one's home into a gymnasium. There is a high beam in the living room. Um, what? I picture her mother standing over her drilling her 24-7, and I feel kind of bad for her. Sorry to derail, but I was sort of stunned by the home gymnasium.

 

[3LittleGymmies]

My team daughter has a folding mat and a floor beam. We also made her paralette bars from PVC piping because they use them at gym for strength and she wanted to work on her strength at home, too. We have a pull-up bar, but it's just for pull-ups. She also has a couple of light hand weights. But that's it! I could see how a bar would help her pre-team sister with pull-up's, leg lifts, pull overs, learning how to cast, etc. I wouldn't have a problem with those things, but I don't think I would allow anything beyond that. Either way, we don't have one and I don't see us getting one. But our team daughter is beyond anything on bars that I would feel safe with her doing at home for sure! We have a very small (previously) unused bedroom that the girls call the "gymnastics room", but the stuff is only in there because I don't want the rest of the house looking like a gym.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

hmm, we have a floor beam and a mat, both litter my livingroom floor most of the time

 

[seoulmama]

Best mat we ever bought we made! We went to a discount store and bought mattress foam. Then I took a twin duvet cover and sewed it to fit the mat. They have these at my dd's gym-they call them mushy mats. They are much thicker than most panel-type mats you can buy. Of course, now that she is older, she doesn't use it as much as when she was little, but she does use it for aerials and back/front walkovers-more to show off than for any practicing. As they get older, her coaches have instilled a healthy fear of doing things at home that will a) develop bad habits and b) possibly hurt her. Or course, when they are little and doing stuff on/off the furntiture, it's better to be realistic and keep them safe!

 

[LIGYMMOM]

*Warning* about chin up bars. Got one for DD when she was about 3 or 4 because she's always been such a bar lover. In the process of installing it in a doorway, before we screwed the reinforcements into the wall (it was tightened very tight), she hopped up in a front support, it came away from the wall, and she fell on her face knocking her two front teeth loose and getting a concussion (yoga mat under the bar). We knew when she kept falling asleep and throwing up when she woke up that a trip to the ER was necessary. She turned out to be fine by the time we got her in, but pretty scary!
SO...if you get your DD or DS a chin up bar, please BE SURE IT IS INSTALLED PROPERLY!

 

[kaloss]

We have one of those jr kip bars, but it's strictly for practicing front hip circles, back hip circles and mill circles. We will not be "up training" on our own at home! My other two non-gymmie kiddos just play on it like a monkey bar. We have a twin mattress under it and it's in our empty guest bedroom

 

[GymBee97]

forget the home equipment other than some floor mats and maybe a chin-up bar and maybe a folding beam that sits on the floor to practice the dance moves. The kids are excited when they get the equipment but very quickly they become dust collectors and holders of clothes. At home conditioning exercises really is all she need. At home the professional coach isn't there to spot or correct mistakes. Leave the gym equipment at the gym and let the at home time be that break from the gym. They need that more. especially as they move up in the levels and spend more time at the gym.

 

[Guenhwyvar132]

We got my daughter 4 one of the jr. Kip bars because she was hanging off the stair rail. We don't train her on skills at home it's just for fun and she and her brothers hang on it all the time. I could work on her pullover with her at home because she's down to just a gentle hand/finger on her back spot in class but she's little and I figure she'll get it when she gets it no reason to be a drill sergeant at home . It's definitely well used though I could see that diminishing as she gets older.