WAG Why don't other sports...

[Orangesoda]

...train as hard, long and young as gymnastics? Why hasn't someone created some kind of superstar soccer academy that trains 6hrs a week at 6yrs old?

I'm being serious.

 

[skschlag]

Because the career of gymnasts is so much shorter than other sports in reality. And as they (especially girls) get older, it becomes harder. Other sports can last longer and kids can keep playing well into their upper years

 

[Orangesoda]

It's a bummer the sport my dd excels at requires so much time at such a young age. If I were of a mind that life should be "fair" then I'd say it's not fair for sure! Good thing I know nothing's fair. Add us to the list of those cutting our losses.

 

[wandrewsjr]

The best female gymnast in the world is 18, the best female soccer player in the world is either 29 or 33(depending if you are a Brazil or USA fan). As skschlag said, gymnasts have a shorter time to get to that peak.

 

[Faith]

Some do . There other sports that are alearoy start, generally similar to gymnastics, like ice skating.

Thing with gymnastics etc you have a lot to learn before puberty, whereas most you need puberty to kick in for strength etc.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Gymnastics is what is called an early specialisation sport. Kids need to train seriously and specifically at a younger to make international selection. Many sports are late specialisation sports and they can be taken up at a later age. Or kids can do a number of sports to develop their physical abilities and then take that sport more exclusively when they get older.

Gymnastics is not the only early specialisation sport. Gymnastics tends to be the more extreme example but many young divers, dancers, swimmers, skaters and so on do just as many hours.

 

[gymratmom]

Kind of off topic but I always cringe when I read the articles about how early specialization for kids is horrible. I known there really isn't an alternative path for gymnasts as opposed to baseball, soccer, etc but I still feel guilty when I read them. And slightly embarrassed when other parents find out my kid is in the gym 16 hours a week in 5th grade

 

[raenndrops]

I know a kid that was doing soccer practice 4/5 days a week at the age of 6-8. He was on an "all-star" travel team. The funny thing is, he was also an all-star in baseball (parts of the seasons overlapped and he would go from one practice to the other. There were days that he was practicing 4 hours and other days, 3 hours. His mom said that between the 2 sports, he was at practice 16-18 hours a week. It went up when he was 9 because he moved up a level in soccer.

 

[B.Gold]

Just read an article about how the best and most successful child-athletes do multiple sports. So as I plotted in my head how to convince my dd to do another sport I continued reading and it said, except female gymnasts. Not even kidding.

Here's the link to the article.
To sum it up it states children shouldn't be specializing early... Except for female gymnastics

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/21/health/kids-youth-sports-parents/index.html

 

[wallinbl]

...train as hard, long and young as gymnastics? Why hasn't someone created some kind of superstar soccer academy that trains 6hrs a week at 6yrs old?

I'm being serious.

They have:
https://www.imgacademy.com/

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

Exactly what has already been said. This is one of the very few sports you peak in at a very early age and is usually DONE by age 20-21 for females.... I have had to explain this to parents in my developmental group many times when they ask why little Suzie can't take gymnastics team for a few months, then do soccer, then do swimming and then come back to gymnastics right where she was..!

 

[OrangeKangaroo]

Other sports do tend to catch up on hours when the kids get older. The biggest difference is it more hours at different sports instead of all the hours, year round at one sport, or playing the same sport but on more than one team or league which is possible and encouraged in other sports but not in gymnastics.

 

[gymmomtotwo]

In swimming in the 70s an 80s I was at 12 hours at age 7 and at or above 30 by high school. It was pretty elite stuff though. I swam on D1 scholarship and had high age group rankings growing up. We had 6 teammates make the 1980 boycotted Olympics. These are normal training hours for many swimmers with many doing 2 a days by age 12.
There was never any question that you had to specialize. It was all consuming.

 

[Orangesoda]

Do we all concede that the necessity for early specialization is unfortunate? I guess that's why excel exists.

 

[B.Gold]

Do we all concede that the necessity for early specialization is unfortunate? I guess that's why excel exists.

.....Agreed, 100% and at what cost or gain? I'm not really sure... There are so many other experiences out there other than gym.

 

[emorymom]

Well look. Arguably women's gymnastics is 4 sports spread over the hours involved. Or five: tumbling, dance, running fast at hard object, crazy hard narrow thing you fall off of, and bars. So at least it's not really specialization like being a baseball pitcher.

DS finally had to quit in L6 as his joints were not holding up. At 10. Ten? He was done being in pain but I didn't realize 8 months later he would still feel it in his wrists, elbow and knee. He has transitioned back to swimming and quickly dropped a great deal of time in 8 months.

 

[Musicmama]

I'm not sure it's unfortunate across the board that gymnasts specialize so early, but it's unfortunate from a financial standpoint, certainly. There are probably many potentially talented gymnasts whose families cannot afford to start their children out very young in an expensive sport.

 

[gymcoach1]

We have a level ten who also plays lacrosse on a really intense travel team. She's homeschooled though which I guess makes getting to practices easier. But still, I can't imagine playing two sports at such a high level!

 

[txgymfan]

On top of the physicality involved, I can't imagine getting the timing between practice and meets and games.

 

[gymgal]

Most other sports do not require the number of hours because their level of expertise is not nearly as high. You learn to throw, catch, and hit a ball. Sure, there are variations and of course you need to practice a lot to get good but once you learn the basics, it is just about perfecting them and getting stronger. Gymnastics is not like that. You are constantly learning new, harder skills - even at level 10. In order to perfect these skills and be strong enough to learn them, you need to be in the gym at increasingly higher hours.