Coaches Team Size and Practices

[PalmTree]

After reading the thread about team sizes (and realizing that mine is pretty small, as I had assumed), I'm super curious about how your gyms FIT all these kids into the gym at the hours they need to go.

My team has about 15 JO kids Levels 2-6 and 20 Xcel kids Bronze-Platinum. On days when all the JO kids are here, it's hectic. On days when we have JO and Xcel on the same day (even without all of them there), it's super hectic. Not to mention rec classes! And I barely have enough coaches for team, so some days I'm coaching Levels 2-6 all together by myself. I've become very creative.

Is it just necessary to get a second gym?? How in the world do gyms with 60 kids on team have them all get their hours in? My Level 6s already come 5 days a week. Kids don't get out of school until 3:30 and then some drive an hour to the gym, so I can't start practice much earlier than 4:30.

We basically have enough equipment for one group (around 10 kids) to be on an event at a time. Our gym isn't tiny.

 

[titanic]

We have about 20 level two, 10 level three, 12 level four, 5 level fives, and 3 level sevens currently in our gym that come on the same day, so about 50 kids total in our competition levels.

We typically do two events a day, which alleviates some of the pain of working around each other. Level two, level three, and level four are in groups by themselves, and then our level 5 and 7s are together. That allows everyone to be on our good competition equipment with access to all the drills we set up at one time.

We also have about 10 beams, 6 bar sets, two floors, two level 3 vault systems and one table vault, so we can typically have two levels on an event at one time. This way we are not fighting with our level 1 and developmental teams to get access to wherever they need to go as well.

But we have still thought about getting a second gym. Or expanding. Our worst problem isn't sharing with the other girls teams since we have a good schedule worked out, but sharing with our boys team whenever they are on floor or vault. Our boys team is really big too, about the same as our girls team due to the recent success they have had (two state championship team titles in the past two years).

 

[Deleted member 14190]

Different start / end times. Double up groups on conditioning , follow a schedule .

 

[raenndrops]

Our gym is divided into Zones... it started back when we were still in the "old" building" and had roughly 3/4 of a gymnasium. Now, we have a full gymnasium PLUS space upstairs (holds the air track, 2 high beams, 3 low beams, a L3 vault table with short runway - perfect for younger and beginner classes, a padded floor area, 2 junior bars, and boys equipment. The Advanced rec class does come down to use the full length vault runway and the uneven bars.
We also overlap. Currently:
Middle school team (22ish girls) come in at 4:30 - 6pm M-F... rec 1 & 2 classes start at 5:00 or 6:00 and go an hour M, T, W, or R. Rec 3 classes start at 5:00 and go 2 hours on T &/or R. HC also offers an additional Rec 3 class on F if needed. Boys gym and tumbling both meet on W - when there are a lot fewer things going on. Baby and toddler classes start at 5:15 or 6:15 and go 45 min M or T. Team comes in at 5:30-8pm M, T, R. Middle school is done with floor by then, so team (approx 25-30 since some are on the MS team too) can warm up and stretch on floor. When MS finishes up, the team girls join in or keep working where they were until they have to rotate.

 

[PalmTree]

Thanks for the advice, all! It has helped me this past week to have a VERY detailed schedule and stick to it. I also decided to just do basics for the one day I have the whole team together, and it actually has turned out to be a great thing! I think sometimes I want to skip basics in favor of doing routines, but this forces me to take time on it. And then as coachp suggested, doubling up my groups on conditioning.