Parents Moving to Illinois

[gymmom*]

Looking for information on new gyms in Northwest Suburbs of Chicago. DD is level 8. Wants to continue club but also I was wondering about high school gymnastics. love to hear from anyone!

 

[QueenBee]

There are a lot of great gyms in Illinois. The 'Northwest Suburbs' is a pretty wide area and traffic will be a real concern so keep that in mind. I would suggest google mapping any gym you are looking at with the location you will be living in for a good idea of how long your commute might be. My best advice is to try as many gyms as you think is reasonable to find the right one for your gymnast. Only you know what kind of program you are looking for, and what your gymnast's personal goals are for gymnastics.

If you are willing to drive 40-75 mins each direction (depending on traffic and your start point) because all the gyms below are West suburb gyms, some of the best known gyms in Illinois are:

Aerial Gymnastics (Downers Grove)
Balance Institute of Gymnastics (Burr Ridge)
GymNasti (Carol Stream)
Illinois Gymnastic Institute (Westmont)
Legacy Elite Gymnastics (Carol Stream)
Phenom Gymnastics (Oswego)
Premier (Downers Grove)
Premier West (Oswego)

If staying in the Northwest Suburbs is really important and the drive will be an issue:

Buffalo Grove Gym Center (Buffalo Grove)
Libertyville Gymnastics Academy (Libertyville)
Midwest Elite Gymnastics Academy (Elgin)
Ultimate Gymnastics of Gurnee (Gurnee)

There are lots more gyms, the ones above are just some of the well known gyms/gyms that had gymnasts do very well at State this past season.

As for high school teams, below is the Illinois school gymnastics website which has a directory. I have heard from other parents that there are quite a lot of high school gymnastics teams and I know the 2018 State meet for Women's high school gymnastics is being held at Palatine High School which is in the Northwest Suburbs.

https://www.ihsa.org/Schools/SchoolDirectory.aspx?url=/data/school/a.htm.

Hopes this helps, good luck with your move!

 

[notthatmom]

Agreed with what @QueenBee said. Depending on where you are, the traffic can be horrible and the commute becomes impossible. Luckily Illinois has a huge number of great gyms! Let us know if you have any other questions. And welcome to Illinois!

 

[gymmom*]

We will be out towards crystal lake and barrington area. We currently have a 40 minute commute and it's been ok but I'm concerned about balancing high school academics and gym. We won't move till Spring so she will finish 8th grade here. Plus she is 8th grade and will either repeat 8 or move to 9...... I thought it would help her adjusting to have school friends that also go to same gym. Right now she doesn't have that and middle school has been hard for her.

 

[SMH]

Good luck and welcome to Illinois! I live in the 'other' non Chicagoland part of Illinois with all the corn

 

[notthatmom]

Good luck and welcome to Illinois! I live in the 'other' non Chicagoland part of Illinois with all the corn

lol, surprisingly, we have a number of random patches of corn in the Chicagoland area too. Just when you're driving thru a regular suburb...you're reminded that you're in the midwest with a completely out of place corn field lol!

I often find myself in the car exclaiming "oh crap, there's some corn!......and now here we are at Starbucks"

 

[oplei]

Welcome to Illinois! It sounds like you will be pretty far North up there in Barrington/Crystal Lake. There are a lot of choices for gyms and excellent schools up there. As the mom of a high school age kids I can tell you that high school is more intense than middle/grade school. I know that sounds obvious but I was surprised by how noticeable the jump from middle school to high school was for my daughter (school, friends, academics). I would start with the close gyms and work your way out you have great choices and with traffic it could easily take you a couple of hours to get to Chicago with rush hour traffic.

BTW I now live in the corn area for Illinois. The poster who has both corn and Starbucks is lucky. I just have corn.

 

[mls529]

Welcome to Illinois! While I don't live on the northwest side, I am near some of the gyms that were recommended above. Perhaps this is true in other states as well, but IHSA regulates how many hours a high school gymnast can train in a private gym outside of their high school training. In our gym, it was only Xcel girls who competed for high school, and I believe they were limited to something like 1 hour per week they could train with coaches outside of the gym during the season. Girls at level 8, 9 and 10 were strictly club gymnasts -- our gym had a rule that they could not compete for the local high school and remain on the club team. In general, it seems that around here upper level optional girls are aiming for college gym, while Xcel girls are aiming for high school and typically compete at levels 5-8. My daughter is aiming for high school gym, and there are many great high school teams in Illinois. Just something to ask about as you are checking out local gyms. Best of luck!

 

[esor]

We will be out towards crystal lake and barrington area. We currently have a 40 minute commute and it's been ok but I'm concerned about balancing high school academics and gym. We won't move till Spring so she will finish 8th grade here. Plus she is 8th grade and will either repeat 8 or move to 9...... I thought it would help her adjusting to have school friends that also go to same gym. Right now she doesn't have that and middle school has been hard for her.

Look at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake - and CLGTC (Crystal Lake Gymnastics Training Center). Prairie Ridge girls Gymnastics have been the Illinois state HS champs for the past couple of years - it is a COOP so if you attend one of the 3 Crystal lake high schools or Cary-Grove you can be eligible for the HS girls gymnastics team. They train out of CLGTC and have the same coaches for club and high school, and work out the schedules appropriately and within the rules of IHSA. And CLGTC also does get girls gymnastics NCAA scholarships.