Women WDYT? Does "cheating" catch up with them?

[josie55]

Random question and I'm curious for others' opinions on this. For simplicity's sake, let's say that there are two types of gymnasts:

Type 1: Never cheats on conditioning, no matter how hard it is. With skills, always does the full # of reps assigned.

Type 2: Regularly cheats on conditioning. Says that she's done X reps of a skill when she's only done Y, etc.

So now imagine that your kid sometimes comes home frustrated saying she's Type 1, but someone else in the group is Type 2. You give the typical parental response along the lines of "just focus on what you are doing and don't worry about others, etc."

But here is where my question comes in: some might say: "Oh, it will catch up with her eventually, just wait." But I am actually not sure that it does. Imagine that this Type 2 kid does really well in competitions, better than some of the Type 1 kids. For those of you who have been around the sport longer, I'm curious: does there come a point (e.g. a certain level, etc.) where the "cheaters" can no longer get away with it? Or are some kids just lucky, and don't need as many reps? I tend to think it's the latter, but I am curious. What do you guys think? What have you seen?

And full disclosure: I know that it doesn't matter and that my kid's journey is her own, etc. etc. etc. I am procrastinating on something so decided to post this. But in the spirit of "life lessons are a huge part of why we are doing this" I'm curious about the life lesson in this one.

 

[Flyaway]

When it comes to conditioning, I do think it eventually catches up to them. A gymnast who routinely short cuts crunches or leg lifts is going to find themselves lacking in core strength eventually. And beyond that, it's a state of mind. If a gymnast short cuts putting in the work and for awhile gets away with it because gymnastics comes easy to them or they're naturally strong, what happens when they hit a road block? They haven't developed the work ethic to see it through. I've seen this happen with several gymnasts at dd's gym.

 

[MILgymFAM]

Everyone says there is a point but there isn't, always. There is a kid like that at my girls gym and it hasn't caught up, all the way through elite. Kid will skip, cheat, or whine about every bit of conditioning and serious practice and straight up turn it on like a light switch at comps. The very definition of natural talent. It just is what it is. *My* kids don't have it like that, so they know they need to put in all the hard work for whatever the best result is for them... it's not 1+1=2, unfortunately.

 

[ayyyrial]

I want to agree with Flyaway, above, but I was definitely pretty frustrated when I was in optionals and found my teammates who routinely skipped conditioning (coming late to practice), or messed around and didn't complete conditioning, outperformed me all the time on strength testing - and were better gymnasts overall.

I think the question of whether gymnasts like that will succeed partly comes down to why they act like that. Some of the girls I knew who were like that just didn't really want to be there anymore, and quit soon after. Some of them loved gymnastics but didn't have the self-discipline to force themselves to condition, and their brains didn't put together "do strength" with "get better at gymnastics". If you're slacking because you're not into it, you're probably going to quit or fall behind in other ways. But if you're slacking for another reason, and you have the natural talent and body type, then you could still do quite well. Not sure if there's a point eventually where it does catch up to you.

I've heard of some recent Olympians who were supposedly back-talkers/do-whatever-she-wants types when they were junior elites.

 

[ladybird]

I guess the life lesson is do the right thing even when no one is watching.

I think lots of gyms go through this. What bothers me/dd is that the kids who cheat get praised for getting done early and those who don't are admonished for "taking too long" to get an assignment done.

Come to think of it, the cheaters I am thinking of at our gym have all quit. Lesson learned!

 

[bookworm]

I think for some cheaters, no...they always get lucky and do well, or do well enough, to justify why they do less. There's that old saying " better to be lucky than good" and that seems to apply to this ilk of athletes.

 

[blue_5678]

I guess the life lesson is do the right thing even when no one is watching.

I think lots of gyms go through this. What bothers me/dd is that the kids who cheat get praised for getting done early and those who don't are admonished for "taking too long" to get an assignment done.

Come to think of it, the cheaters I am thinking of at our gym have all quit. Lesson learned!

That really bugs me as well... It happens quite frequently at my gym where the kids done early in conditioning (who skipped some reps or rushed through things as opposed to doing them properly) get praised while the others are told they didn't work hard enough/fast enough.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

This is a fact of life. Much like there are kids who don't have to study and can pull As.

But I also think that that it catches up to them later in life when they get to something that doesn't come easy and then they have no discipline and work ethic. But it might not happen in gym.

 

[GymBeeMom]

I was told hard work trumps talent....haven't seen that to be true at the highest levels...and the coaches don't enforce the work ethic evenly. If they can perform when it counts, they overlook the bad work ethic...rules are different for each kid at the higher levels. BUT, that being said, if they can produce the scores consistently then maybe they really don't need to work as hard as others. Just a fact of life. Mine has to work hard and does...but she likely won't reach the highest peek with her very talented friend and teammate who picks and chooses when she feels like putting her best foot forward. It's just how it pans out sometimes.

 

[kayjaybe]

This is a fact of life. Much like there are kids who don't have to study and can pull As.

But I also think that that it catches up to them later in life when they get to something that doesn't come easy and then they have no discipline and work ethic. But it might not happen in gym.

I was just going to say the same thing. My kid's performance suffers if she cheats on practice or conditioning, but in school, she can get away with shortcuts on homework and studying and still pull straight As.

If a child can perfect a skill with 5 reps per day, is there a reason she should do 10? It simply increases the chance of injury from a fall or overuse. Just like if a child can get a perfect score on a test without doing the practice homework, why should she be forced to do that repetition?

 

[duyetanh]

This is a fact of life. Much like there are kids who don't have to study and can pull As.

But I also think that that it catches up to them later in life when they get to something that doesn't come easy and then they have no discipline and work ethic. But it might not happen in gym.

Bingo. Life is not as a rule easy.

 

[Aussie_coach]

It depends of the kid. Some kids are so naturally strong, fast and aware of where they are in space. They build strength easily and learn new skills easily, many of these kids can cheat through their whole gymnastics careers and still stay ahead.

But this can be the question of what comes first the chicken of the egg. The talented kids might get skills easily and not nessesarily see the benefits of working hard in conditioning because they pick up skills anyway. The weaker kids are more likely to see the benefits of conditioning as they won't get the skills without it, so it can motivate them more to work hard in conditioning.

Then you have those naturally strong kids who also work hard, we love coaches those ones!

 

[RTT2]

Maybe some kids are so naturally strong/talented that it doesn't catch up with them in gymnastics, and maybe performance in gymnastics isn't necessarily analogous to what a kid will do in other areas, but my experiences in school, sports, and career have always shown that in the long run it's the hard workers who are far more successful than the naturally talented. Ideally, the naturally talented also work hard, and those people can go really far, but I have seen many examples in life of those who had things come easily early on and sputtered out as things became more challenging. I want to see my kids working hard and never skipping out or cheating on the work.

 

[my4buffaloes]

I have seen it catch up to many kids. Because kids that cheat on conditioning, typically cheat on other assignments as well. And at some point for pretty much every gymnast - there will come a point when if you aren't putting in the reps in the gym it will not happen in the meet. And eventually if you aren't doing the reps in the gym then you won't move up because you don't have the skills yet. The kids my dd has complained about cheating over the years, it has all caught up to them and they have struggled.

 

[raenndrops]

If a child can perfect a skill with 5 reps per day, is there a reason she should do 10? It simply increases the chance of injury from a fall or overuse. Just like if a child can get a perfect score on a test without doing the practice homework, why should she be forced to do that repetition?

This... It is like in school when they used to assign 50 math problems of the same thing... Which is a waste. If you knew it, you could prove in in much fewer than 50. Actually if you didn't know it, you were reinforcing bad habits by doing it wrong.

All that being said, my gymmies are at the mercy of their stepmom as to whether or not they can even go to practice. Therefore, they miss practice a lot. They missed basically 3 out of 5 weeks before the most recent meet - they did go all 3 days the last week before the meet. They both did surprisingly well... YG placed on Floor and Vault and OG placed on Beam.
Tonight, HC commented to me "just think how well they could be doing if they came to practice more." Well... With more practice, YG could have placed on everything (missed on bars by 0.5 and on beam by 0.325. AA, she missed by 0.875). OG missed out on Vault by 0.05 and Floor by 0.125. More practice could a helped them both.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

Sadly some kids it not only catches up on them but they are suffering already. But some kids are just naturally strong and can cheat, but imagine how good they would be if they didn't.

 

[duyetanh]

Sadly some kids it not only catches up on them but they are suffering already. But some kids are just naturally strong and can cheat, but imagine how good they would be if they didn't.

This!!! Wow is there a talented kid at my girl's gym....who does as little as she can. It drives my kid crazy, but not because of jealousy...but for the reason listed above. She thinks the girl could be incredible if she put in the time. I told her who knows!

 

[hawaii_gymnast]

The hard worker who never cheats may never catch up to or out score the talented cheater but the gymnast who is cheating is not working up to their full potential, they are happy with good enough. I can't imagine that cutting it in elite though, I don't care how talented you are you are not surviving it you do not put the work in.

 

[mariposa]

I was told hard work trumps talent....haven't seen that to be true at the highest levels...and the coaches don't enforce the work ethic evenly. If they can perform when it counts, they overlook the bad work ethic...rules are different for each kid at the higher levels. BUT, that being said, if they can produce the scores consistently then maybe they really don't need to work as hard as others. Just a fact of life. Mine has to work hard and does...but she likely won't reach the highest peek with her very talented friend and teammate who picks and chooses when she feels like putting her best foot forward. It's just how it pans out sometimes.

Yes, this. And many times the coaches don't care as long as the kid does well at meets. My kid works her butt off and has teammates that are way more naturally talented that cheat at conditioning, etc, and still get the skills, outscore her at meets, etc. It's one of those things gymnastics teaches very well...Life is not fair. And it doesn't always catch up to them.

 

[azara]

At the lower levels, I don't think it makes much of a difference if the kids cheat a bit. I could absolutely see that at higher levels, skipping on conditioning would make a difference to gymnastics performance; but at those levels, more of the gymnasts are genuinely driven, passionate, and are willing to put in the tough conditioning (plus they are older, so they have more self-control and understanding of why it's important).

In my old rec class, we had gymnasts from 9 to 18. Naturally, everybody had very different ability levels. Some of the younger, smaller, and admittedly fitter girls managed to get through all of the conditioning without problems. I routinely "cheated" because I knew that if I finished it, I would probably be too tired to keep doing actual gymnastics skills. Still, I usually got close (and was really good in some areas!). Am I proud that I often didn't finish the conditioning? No. But it can be embarrassing to admit that you find something too difficult, when others can do it easily, so I just quietly "modified" my workout, lol. I suspect the coaches knew...but they also knew others were doing the same. They let that slip by, and only called out the people who just weren't trying.

I doubt this is the situation with the cheating younger kids. In a team setting, strength and ability levels are probably are lot closer than in a teen rec class, where skill levels are dispersed. That said, there is one, less negative explanation for why cheating might happen.