gymnastics INJURY article - accurate or alarmist?

[GymBot]

The Orange County Register in 2004 researched an article on elite women’s artistic gymnastics. I’m suspicious of the questions posted. How the investigation was put togetherOver the past nine months, The Orange County Register was able to locate and attempted to contact 179 female gymnasts who competed for the U.S. national team from 1982 to [...]

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[Geoffrey Taucer]

Definitely some loaded questions there.

[JBS]

I could make any sport seem bad with that line of questions. Gymnastics has problems, but it's much better than it used to be.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Probably better than most other sports currently are, as well.

[Mac]

Can y'all go further into the "better than most" and "better than it used to be" comments? This topic is one that keeps parents up at night. We need to trust coaches, and yet we need to figure out when they cannot be trusted. Rhetorically, what's the right amount of training and what's too much?

Spoke with a friend with a girl at a big gym that gets impressive results. He said that some of the girls go home crying every night from the yelling. Parents turn away be/c it hurts to see their baby's being yelled at. Yet they put up with it for the results. Is that what it takes to have be championship caliber kids these days?

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Is that what it takes to get championship caliber kids these days? Who knows?

Personally, I don't care; I want my kids to have fun. Ideally I want them to have fun AND become champions, but if I have to choose between the two, enjoyment takes priority.

It may be that yelling and screaming and pushing kids beyond their limits is what it takes to get them to the highest levels of the sport (though my experience suggests that most kids do better when they are not being yelled at a lot). But to me, coaches that would do this are missing the point; gymnastics can be -- and should be -- more fun than any other sport in the world in my opinion. It also has the potential to make a kid so much stronger, both physically and psychologically; kids can benefit so much from gymnastics under the right conditions. If you're willing to sacrifice that just for medals, than in my opinion you're completely missing the point of the sport.

Obviously not all coaches agree with me.

[Mac]

Quote:
sacrifice that just for medals

It's a hard sport to figure out at times. The more people we meet and the more coaches we encounter and the more we get around and experience, the more confusing it gets. Right now we're trying to figure out if sacrifice and medals are an either-or situation. Well, not medals literally, be/c they aren't the goal...let's call it "accomplishment" or "quality" instead. How does one achieve quality? Some obviously think that intimidation, yelling, etc is necessary to achieve the highest quality. Who are the examples that show that's not necessary? Look at the recent articles about Romania, China, etc. Seems that accomplishment and extreme training conditions go hand-in-hand if one is to follow their lead.

So what about those of us not wanting to see our kids abused? Are we automatically placing limits on what they can accomplish in the sport?

Quote:
Ideally I want them to have fun AND become champions, but if I have to choose between the two, enjoyment takes priority.

Is it necessary to choose? I really don't know. I hope not.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac Is it necessary to choose? I really don't know. I hope not.

I don't know either; I've never coached a girl up to elite, so I can't say for sure. I will say, however, that in my experience, kids tend to work harder and get a lot more accomplished when they're having fun. Perhaps there's an upper limit on how far that can take you, but I suspect not.

I haven't really been coaching long enough to be able to give a definite answer to that question.

[littlegymchampsmom]

This article was terrifying to read from a parents perspective... especially a parent that has never had any formal connection with the sport until now. I do understand that to train to an elite level and "keep up w/the jones's" a gymnast would have to be coached hard, train hard etc.... I am sure that many of the current jr national & national gymnasts have had to endure so much to get to where they are today...

[Megley]

I agree with LGCM. When I finished reading this article, I was horrified. It is extremely frightening to imagine your child being left with a life long disability as a result of being a gymnast and yet I know this does happen. My BIL was a college gymnast in the 80s and now, 20 years later, suffers terribly from arthritis and pain in his wrist (broken during a high bar accident). I don't think men are immune, as the article seems to suggest. Injuries are bound to happen in a sport where kids are training many hours a week and doing high impact skills - what scared me was the cavalier approach of the coaches to those injuries and the willingness of everyone, gymnasts, parents and coaches, to overlook and make light of serious injuries - thereby leading to even worse problems down the road.

As for abusive coaches, I know this sort of thing goes on. I dislike that kind of coaching and I can't see why it would make better gymnasts. I was a college swimmer and my college coach was like that - constantly abusing us, both verbally and with killer workouts. I hated it and I don't think it made me perform any better. I would have quit if the HC hadn't been buffered by a really nice supportive AC who mostly coached us distance swimmers. I think if you get the kids to want to please you, you will do better than if they can't stand you. Just my 2 cents, though.

Meg