Women Phasing out compulsories?

[Winterbuzz]

I was talking to a head coach recently about why her gym dropped developmental levels 1-5. She said the national trend is to focus on Xcel because there is less attrition in that program. Among many reasons, he said it's more like optionals because of the focus on individual strengths. She claimed that the national governing body is encouraging this shift because they see it as the inevitable future of gymnastics training. Do any other coaches out there know if this is accurate? Have you heard anything like this coming from USAG? Thanks

 

[Coach Kate]

I hope not. I still miss elite compulsories

 

[ORgymmom]

To me, it seems less like a strategic effort on a national level than a workaround by some gyms and coaches. The coaches I know at higher levels really believe in compulsory progressions and look down on gyms and coaches that are bypassing with xcel. It has been said in many places before, but I think the fact that many gyms are cheating the system, not doing 4 and 5 score outs, and bringing former under-12 xcel athletes into level 6 is going to eventually be a big, loud problem. The volume of gyms and coaches cheating this system is what will eventually force some kind of different process. Everyone knows it’s happening but few gyms or states have the resources to call it out or police it. I also think the gyms that are prepping athletes well for upper optionals with xcel instead of compulsories are rare; many are using it to rush young athletes into optionals and it comes back to bite them when they try to get past level 8 and they’ve sidestepped key progressions.

 

[3rd_time_around]

I was talking to a head coach recently about why her gym dropped developmental levels 1-5. She said the national trend is to focus on Xcel because there is less attrition in that program. Among many reasons, he said it's more like optionals because of the focus on individual strengths. She claimed that the national governing body is encouraging this shift because they see it as the inevitable future of gymnastics training. Do any other coaches out there know if this is accurate? Have you heard anything like this coming from USAG? Thanks

This is not true, she made this up. Compulsories are not being phased out, and they are actually attempting to get more participation in compulsories going forward, not less. The National Governing body did not create Xcel to replace compulsories, but to supplement all levels; to be used as a level for those not wanting to put in the hours or money, as an in-between level to compete (fall for compulsories and spring for Xcel), or for gymnasts not ready for the next DP level but may have some higher skills than the level just competed. THAT is what Xcel was created for.

It is the gyms that have started using it as a replacement for compulsories (in my opinion because its easier to coach than compulsories because they don't have to focus on minute details) and making the training for it as rigorous as DP. Gyms are also using Xcel to win titles by keeping girls on levels for 2-3 years each instead of moving them up, because they can compete higher skills in Xcel, making it easy to sell to parents and gymnasts that their girl should stay in an Xcel level for multiple years.

I'm not downing Xcel, I actually like it, but it has been used and abused in ways it was not meant to be by many gyms across the country, with owners like your gym's telling people that Xcel is replacing compulsories. I like compulsories--they make very strong gymnasts who learn to pay attention to detail and proper technique, and gain solid core skills. Often Xcel misses training needed core skills in order to train to a gymnast's strengths only so that they can score high in their level. (I'm seeing this in the gym, where we have several girls transferred from a very successful Xcel gym, where they did the same level for multiple years and averaging 38 AA every meet. They have weak core skills, cannot kip, cannot do free hips, cannot vault with good form --Xcel does not judge angle of repulsion, height, and has lower deductions for form).

 

[estamey21]

My understanding is that USAG has designed Xcel and DP to be standalone programs that serve different gymnastics goals. Gyms that use Xcel to skip some DP compulsory levels are not necessarily doing anything wrong (assuming they are following the rules). But the whole point of compulsories is to introduce kids to the highly precise nature of competitive gymnastics and to learn a baseline set of skills that can be built upon in optionals. The Xcel code of points does not enforce these standards.

In my opinion, gyms who use Xcel to skip compulsories should at least commit to the spirit of compulsories in their training programs. But often (as @3rd_time_around mentioned), you’ll see gyms developing their athletes around the flexibility of the Xcel code of points and then send them to optionals “half baked.”

With all that said, if USAG is actually committed to keeping these competitive tracks separate, its on them to enforce their mobility rules (and maybe make compulsories slightly more palatable.)

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I can see advantages both ways, but these days were it left to me I'd lean more towards compulsories at the low levels (at least, if the goal is to train upper-level athletes).

In the abstract, xcel gives coaches and athletes a lot more room to adapt to any particular athlete's strengths and weaknesses, and with a very disciplined approach it can be at least as effective as compulsories with a much wider range of athletes.

But developmentally, there are certain skills that are really really really beneficial to long-term development. The current compulsory routines do a pretty excellent job of covering these skills, and they provide freedom for variation in a way that they didn't in the past, with some events having multiple choices of skills and approaches.

If I'm doing compulsories, it's real easy to tell a kid or parent "she needs skill X because it's in the routine." But with xcel, often it's more along the lines of "she needs skill X to prepare her for three levels ahead, even though right now she's struggling and losing points and there's other girls at the same level beating her without even doing that skill." That's a much harder sell to athletes and parents.