WAG Practice Hours?

[SuperMama]

Just turned 6 and L2 - 4 hrs

L3 when competition starts is 12 hrs for our gym

 

[Flyaway]

Level 4/5 (my on the bubble kid ) will train 16 hours in the summer. Will probably stay that for the school year (4x4).

 

[sppd]

All optional girls train 22.5 hours during competition season (August - March), 18 hours post state (April - mid-June), and 30 hours during summer (mid-June - July).

 

[CuriousCate]

ODD lvl 4 - 16 hrs/week for summer then 13 school year
YDD lvl 2 (competes bronze) - 7.5 hrs/week

 

[lindsaygymnast7]

I'm a 15 year old level 8 and go 20 hours a week year round.

 

[crystallions]

Level 3/4 training 15 hours per week.

 

[flippingtogether]

Experienced parents know this, but for younger parents please understand, more hours does not necessarily = better.
There are some amazing programs that do a LOT of hours.
There are some amazing programs that do fewer hours.
There are some crummy programs that do a LOT of hours. (and vice versa)

There are tradeoffs to higher hours vs. lower hours, and the key is finding the right program for your kid. You want a enough hours where it is enough to help them progress along, BUT beware of too many hours leading to burnout for some (very talented) kids. I've seen it happen.....and the long term goal for many is to enjoy the sport and progress at whatever speed is appropriate for the the kid for years to come.

To answer the OPs question, we are at the second type of program - a fantastic program with fewer hours - the time is used very wisely in the gym. (No, no homeschoolers here! No elites! But we get many kids into D1 programs to compete!)
School year - 17 hours a week for all optionals
10.5 hours/week for L5
7.5 hours/ week for L4
6ish hours/week for L3

In the summer I can speak for the optionals - hours increase to around 22-23 hours a week.

 

[RTT2]

What is usually done differently in higher vs. lower hours gyms? DD is in a high hours gym and they do a lot of conditioning. Do gyms with lower hours generally focus more on skill progression and less on conditioning?

 

[CoachTodd]

It always disheartens me to see some of these times in the gym for small kids. NCAA caps at 20 hours a week.
Just sayin'

 

[Deleted member 18037]

What is usually done differently in higher vs. lower hours gyms? DD is in a high hours gym and they do a lot of conditioning. Do gyms with lower hours generally focus more on skill progression and less on conditioning?

Our gym does lower hours and plenty of conditioning.

 

[gymmomx2]

It always disheartens me to see some of these times in the gym for small kids. NCAA caps at 20 hours a week.
Just sayin'

The cap is for official training hours, my understanding is that teams have additional "optional" workouts in addition to those 20 hours....

 

[Deleted member 18037]

The cap is for official training hours, my understanding is that teams have additional "optional" workouts in addition to those 20 hours....

And they are adult college athletes not children.

 

[FlippinPrincess]

Our gym does lower hours and plenty of conditioning.

Ours is lower hours, too but plenty of conditioning. Especially when you consider all the time running and climbing at playgrounds and swimming, outside of gym!

 

[RTT2]

Our gym does lower hours and plenty of conditioning.

I definitely don't mean to put down a lower hours gym, or suggest one is better than the other- I'm sure it depends a lot on the kid and the philosophy of the gym. But I do wonder what the major differences are in how they train in a high hours program vs a lower hours program. If you can cover the same skills and achieve the same level of conditioning why such a wide variety in hours? Maybe some gyms are much more efficient? Just wondering.

 

[gymmomx2]

And they are adult college athletes not children.

I'm not sure what your point is? All I'm saying is that the cap is a bit of a joke seeing as most teams go beyond the 20 hours by having "optional" workouts.

 

[thefellowsmom]

Ok, when we switched gyms we actually went down hours for my training level 10. Just a few hours a week but I was concerned that it wouldn't be enough. I wouldn't call us a low hour gym, but they aren't doing 25-30 hours a week either.

But the new gym is a very high performing gym and the things I have noticed that they do differently are multi fold and from what I can see all for the better.

The biggest thing is that each kid is given personal feedback and a next step for each turn. This makes things very efficient and productive. Dd comes home every day actually making a step forward on her skills. In the past at previous gym I saw a lot of turns taken with little or no feedback and what next step they should take was hardly discussed, more like this is the drill or progression point we are working on today and your assignment is to do seven. Not that the latter didn't work, it totally did. I just think the way at new gym is more efficient and I think my dd would say more motivating and rewarding. Nothing like coming home saying "I dig his and this and this for the first time today" almost every day to motivate a kid.

Conditioning is great as well. I'd say maybe more intense over the same amount of time dedicated to it. Our girls are on the upper end of fit if you stacked gyms up. I would also say at previous gyms they did more of similar conditioning on a regular basis where this gym feels a bit more diverse in their conditioning. They do tops/physical abilities training and use the elite compulsory routines as part of their training. They do national team warmup. They also do plyo circuits and train at the track in the summer and cross fit days and all kinds of different conditioning circuits. Not sure if mixing it up like this helps them get more results in less time, but my dd is definitely getting stronger so it is working.

They also uptrain year round, except for leading up to and through post season. They are all, through all the levels, working skills way above their level. I think this keeps the skill progression going and the pressure off of what level you are. Almost all kids move up each year.

We also have kids dabbling in the elite wold and have kids qualify to national tops testing. These kids do just a few extra hours a week, nothing crazy.

Anyway, I think all types of gyms have all types of philosophies and coaching and progressions and it mostly works for them. Kids progress and do well or dont. But I will say that as high performing a gym as ours is, i was surprised they could do it on fewer hours, but dd says regularly that she feels she gets way more accomplished in less time than before. So, it works but probably looks completely different in each and every gym you walk into.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

I'm not sure what your point is? All I'm saying is that the cap is a bit of a joke seeing as most teams go beyond the 20 hours by having "optional" workouts.

No actually I wasn't sure what your point is.

Someone commented about it being disheartening for children to spend so many hours in the gym and pointed out a cap on hours. To add they end up doing more in college, by making things "optional" really doesn't matter.

They are adult college athletes not children.

I wouldn't expect kids kids doing Pop Warner Football to be working out as long and as hard as Michigan State, Notre Dame, Alabama etc.....

Whats not to understand, children athletes shouldn't be working out/practicing more then their adult counterparts.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

I definitely don't mean to put down a lower hours gym, or suggest one is better than the other- I'm sure it depends a lot on the kid and the philosophy of the gym. But I do wonder what the major differences are in how they train in a high hours program vs a lower hours program. If you can cover the same skills and achieve the same level of conditioning why such a wide variety in hours? Maybe some gyms are much more efficient? Just wondering.

I didn't think you were.

All I can tell you is hours don't always equal more, better...... You questioned if conditioning was being sacrificed at a lower hour gym.

All I can tell is not at our gym. We changed gyms because I wanted less hours for my girl. I naively (at the time) thought all gyms pretty much trained the same. Silly me.

Old gym training time was double new gym. But those hours had a lot of standing around time, waiting aimlessly for a turn. Very little conditioning.

New gym, half the hours. But there is nearly no standing around time. Their event rotations, when they are not directly working with coach, has conditioning stations built in. And that is above the conditioning they do at the beginning of practice. Drills mean multiple drilling stations.

You vault, you rope climb, you plank, you drill something else, you vault again and round you go.

Bars 3 kids flipping around a low bar, take your turn on other bar, with coach, off to the other set of bars, off to press handstands, round to core work, back to bars.

My kid does more in one practice than she seemed to do in a week at her old gym.

So low hours doesn't mean you have to sacrifice conditioning.

 

[wallflower]

One thing to keep in mind regarding college gymnastics is that the girls aren't typically learning skills. That it not to say a college athlete doesn't ever add skills, but for the most part they have their skill set and they are polishing and preparing routines for competition. It's a bit different than a gymnast that is actively trying to move from level 9 to 10 and is learning skills.

Idw4mlo not everything is a personal attack on you and your choices. I read the question regarding what is lost with lower hours as a perfectly reasonable curiosity, not anyone saying anything negative about lower hour programs. It seems to be a common theme in every thread......

 

[gymmomx2]

No actually I wasn't sure what your point is.

Someone commented about it being disheartening for children to spend so many hours in the gym and pointed out a cap on hours. To add they end up doing more in college, by making things "optional" really doesn't matter.

They are adult college athletes not children.

I wouldn't expect kids kids doing Pop Warner Football to be working out as long and as hard as Michigan State, Notre Dame, Alabama etc.....

Whats not to understand, children athletes shouldn't be working out/practicing more then their adult counterparts.

My comment was only saying that the cap doesn't not accurately reflect reality insofar as the number of hours NCAA athletes actually train...just wanted to point that out for those who are not familiar with NCAA athletics and may want to compare their kids' training hours compared to the NCAA. It absolutely matters that college programs are getting around the rules by having voluntary workouts which are not voluntary at all - this makes the cap absolutely meaningless and is a travesty.