Women Significant uptraining between levels 7 and 8?

[superflipgirl]

I've been watching youtube videos of gymnastics for a really long time, and recently realized something. There are many gymnasts who do very hard skills at level 8. I'm mainly thinking of 5 or so years ago when gymnasts were still allowed to do unlimited c's at level 8(then they changed it so you couldn't do c's in level 8 anymore and then when the new levels came out last year they made it so you could do one c in level 8). Back then, there were a good amount of level 8's doing skills such as back tucks on beam, double twists on floor, double backs on bars, etc. Even though an unlimited amount of these skills aren't allowed in level 8 anymore, you still see some pretty hard skills. Anyway, whenever I watched these gymnasts in level 7, I would have expected that their level 7 skills would have also been pretty hard compared to most level 7's, maybe doing some twisting on floor, etc. but it doesn't seem that way. It seems like their skills are pretty basic for level 7, which surprises me. For example, I've seen gymnasts do a front layout-front tuck series on floor in level 8, and I would assume that, considering how hard that series is, they would have been able to do(or at least been training) a front tuck-front tuck series or the like in level 7, yet I still see them competing the classic fhs-ft series. I wonder why this is. Do gymnasts tend to do a lot of uptraining between levels 7 and 8, or can they do a lot of harder skills in level 7 but decide to keep their routines simple? If so, why do they choose to keep their routines so simple for level 7 but then at the higher levels do a significant amount of harder skills in their routines? I know that c's aren't allowed at level 7, but I still think there's some harder skills that some gymnasts could be doing that are b's. Just wondering!

 

[raenndrops]

I know our coach prefers for them to compete CLEAN at Level 7... they may be training harder skills, but they compete lower. We have a gymnast that WAS going to go to Level 8 this year, but has decided to repeat L7 and put some of her upgrades in... that way, when she moves to L8, her routines will already meet the MINIMUM requirements.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Was there any benefit to doing harder skills at level 7? Or was it the same difficulty score if you did more basic skills? If there was no benefit score wise it would not make sense to do the harder skills and risk more dedication. My guess is that the kids could to many harder skills but the coaches chose to save them until it would give some type of benefit to their score.

 

[Natasha]

Level 7 has no scoring benefits to doing harder skills. There are no composition deductions at L7 so no "not up to competitive level" deductions to take, therefore it is best to do easier clean routines as far as scoring. Composition deductions do not start until L8. Also, it is not uncommon to see more than one year at L7 or L8 since the jump to L9 is difficult, so you may see 2nd year L7s or L8s adding in the harder skills.

 

[Fliptwisttumble]

Our L7s do the minimum (mostly) unless they have something DOWN. L8, the same but almost all of our girls do the C, plus additional dance Cs if they can, because as said above, the jump to L9 is tough.

At L7 there's just no upside and only downside to competing someThing other than clean.

Ad these girls should be working away on their L8 skills outside of meets as you've said.

eg. She competed L8 this past year but trains waaaaay up..... Coaches don't stop them if they can do it . It will be a while before she competes a BHS BLO BLO combo on the beam (18 months plus) but she still trains it.

 

[my4buffaloes]

It has always seemed to me that there is not a lot of variation in the types of skills done at level 7. Almost everyone did the same things on each event. Once you move to level 8 though you can have a huge range of difficulty. I saw girls compete with no giants on bars and girls doing bails and double backs. On beam I saw the BHS/BHS series as well as the CW/RO series. On floor I saw a lot of twisting, but not everyone twisted and they still scored well. There is just so much more to work on at level 8. At level 7 there is no composition deduction, but at level 8 there is, so if a gymnast can do the harder stuff it makes sense to do it.

 

[Pea'sMom]

Interesting thread. Pea will be (hopefully) doing 7 this year. I have to assume that they will compete what is the 'cleanest' option. I know they have been uptraining now, but not sure I would see any of those in their routines. We do have a level gap at our gym (Pea's group was L5 last year and our optional group were all L9) so we don't have much to go off of. I'm really excited to get to some meets and see what's out there (and not listen to the same music over, and over, and over...)