Parents WAG/Xcel does your gym switch between?

[Dream]

Gym we started at had a program for preschoolers then at 6 years old girls some selected for WAG program and others are told they are not WAG material and sent out of the program. This gym says they NEVER move a girl from Xcel into WAG. Those selected go on to train massive amounts of hours with the idea being they will one day be headed to the Olympics.
Now have found gyms who have starter programs for girls up to 8 years old that will then feed into their WAG program and some of these gyms dont even have girls compete until they have Xcel silver skills and they absolutely move Xcel students into WAG. They feel that starting too many hours too young can lead to major injuries before even getting to higher levels of competition.
What are others peoples experiences?

 

[bestmommyever1234]

Gym we started at had a program for preschoolers then at 6 years old girls some selected for WAG program and others are told they are not WAG material and sent out of the program. This gym says they NEVER move a girl from Xcel into WAG. Those selected go on to train massive amounts of hours with the idea being they will one day be headed to the Olympics.
Now have found gyms who have starter programs for girls up to 8 years old that will then feed into their WAG program and some of these gyms dont even have girls compete until they have Xcel silver skills and they absolutely move Xcel students into WAG. They feel that starting too many hours too young can lead to major injuries before even getting to higher levels of competition.
What are others peoples experiences?

Why didn’t your gym move the Xcel kids into WAG?

 

[Dream]

Why didn’t your gym move the Xcel kids into WAG?

They made it sound like that would be impossible that it was decided at 6 if a child was cut out for WAG or not. Then the ones that were started training numerous hours with top coaches and the others would never be able to match that so we just believed that was how things were done in gymnastics but now we are hearing all this other information so it got me curious what other people had experienced.

 

[CluelessGymMom]

My daughter's gym does Xcel only until level 6. Once level 6 skills are reached, the coaches decide which path fits each gymnast best. The girls who transition out of Xcel (about 1/3) test out early in the season.

I personally think this path is wonderful! All girls get the same training through the lower levels, so there is no wondering "what if". I also like how they group during practice. Similar age groups practice at the same time, and they condition together, so they feel like one big team. Then they divide them into skill based groups at each rotation.

 

[Gymgirl84]

My daughter's gym does Xcel only until level 6. Once level 6 skills are reached, the coaches decide which path fits each gymnast best. The girls who transition out of Xcel (about 1/3) test out early in the season.

I personally think this path is wonderful! All girls get the same training through the lower levels, so there is no wondering "what if". I also like how they group during practice. Similar age groups practice at the same time, and they condition together, so they feel like one big team. Then they divide them into skill based groups at each rotation.

I quite like that approach, as we (different country and comp programs) find it really hard when some gymnasts don't progress at the pace we thought they would early on and we want to move them to a less demanding program, with that approach it would be much easier and the feelings wouldn't be so bad about it.

 

[Dahlialover]

WAG stands for “women’s artistic gymnastics”, which includes USAG Xcel and USAG Development program (DP) and all the other women’s gymnastics programs except T&T, acro, and rhythmic. Are meaning DP when you say WAG?

 

[Dream]

Oh maybe that is why the difference!

 

[Dream]

WAG stands for “women’s artistic gymnastics”, which includes USAG Xcel and USAG Development program (DP) and all the other women’s gymnastics programs except T&T, acro, and rhythmic. Are meaning DP when you say WAG?

That could be. They called it WAG but maybe it is their DP program?

 

[Dahlialover]

That could be. They called it WAG but maybe it is their DP program?

It sounds like what your gym is calling WAG is your gym’s own in-house elite training program. Everything about this option would be gym-specific. Only a small number of gyms in the country have programs like this and each one is run differently. This is not the same as DP. DP is the traditional USAG competitive program with levels 1-10. Elite gyms may have their pre-elite track gymnasts compete in DP competitions at certain levels, but they are not on the standard DP track.

At normal gyms that do not train elite, there are usually two tracks: DP and Xcel. Some gyms choose which track gymnasts start in based on ability and some let parents choose what they prefer. At most (but not an all) gyms, it is possible to transition from Xcel to DP. Some gyms have everyone start in Xcel and then they let gymnasts transition to DP once the gymnasts reach the upper levels.

Hopefully this clears things up a bit.

 

[Dream]

It sounds like what your gym is calling WAG is your gym’s own in-house elite training program.

Thank you Dahlialover that makes way more sense. Since it was our first gymnastics experience we believed that was how it was every where so were confused when we talked to some other gyms and they had completely different set up.

 

[XcelGirl]

My head coach at my gym says that she will never switch a kid from xcel to JO, because there is soooooo much work that has to be done.

 

[BusyMomof2]

My head coach at my gym says that she will never switch a kid from xcel to JO, because there is soooooo much work that has to be done.

It varies region to region, state to state...in our area, the large majority of girls start in Xcel and then decisions about path are made after Gold. In my daughter's current team of 20 girls, levels 6, 7 and 8 -- every single girl started in Xcel.

 

[NutterButter]

Gym we started at had a program for preschoolers then at 6 years old girls some selected for WAG program and others are told they are not WAG material and sent out of the program. This gym says they NEVER move a girl from Xcel into WAG. Those selected go on to train massive amounts of hours with the idea being they will one day be headed to the Olympics.
Now have found gyms who have starter programs for girls up to 8 years old that will then feed into their WAG program and some of these gyms dont even have girls compete until they have Xcel silver skills and they absolutely move Xcel students into WAG. They feel that starting too many hours too young can lead to major injuries before even getting to higher levels of competition.
What are others peoples experiences?

I hesitate to do this (cross referencing another post) but this kinda piggy backs on your question of larger vs smaller gyms. Of the two scenarios you posted, the second sounds much healthier. The idea of identifying talent at age 6 and whisking them away because they are potential Olympians is absolute cringe for me. Imagine the pressure for both the CHILD athlete and the family to be tapped at age 6 for being an Olympian?!? That's a very old school approach. I'm not trying to dismiss visible early talent. Many families have to consider a gym change once it becomes apparent their kid has the right stuff to go elite but telling a family that at age 6 is just dumb.

 

[Ncgymnastmom]

Gym we started at had a program for preschoolers then at 6 years old girls some selected for WAG program and others are told they are not WAG material and sent out of the program. This gym says they NEVER move a girl from Xcel into WAG. Those selected go on to train massive amounts of hours with the idea being they will one day be headed to the Olympics.
Now have found gyms who have starter programs for girls up to 8 years old that will then feed into their WAG program and some of these gyms dont even have girls compete until they have Xcel silver skills and they absolutely move Xcel students into WAG. They feel that starting too many hours too young can lead to major injuries before even getting to higher levels of competition.
What are others peoples experiences?

My daughter has been at two different gyms and both ran different.

Her original gym you could not switch from xcel to usag but you could go usag to xcel. My daughter was put in usag level 3 at the age of 6 and was moving too fast with too many hours and getting a lot of mental blocks on back tumbling by 9(they wanted her level 6) but didn’t want to go xcel at that gym since they wouldn’t move her back to usag.

Her current gym doesn’t do levels 2-5 and does xcel silver/gold instead and then kids go straight to level 6/7(they do have to test out of level 4/5). My daughter is finishing up her year of xcel gold(and finally over her mental blocks yay!) and will be level 6 or 7 for next season(she doesn’t have giants 100% yet if she gets them by June she will be 7 if not then 6).