How often does your 5 year old train?

[kerryarron]

And what is the majority of their time spent doing at the gym? I read (on here I think) that between the ages of 5-7 most of the training is conditioning and not apparatus work, is that true?

 

[Faith]

Mine does 3hrs once a week. She's on the "development" squad. And yes, it's mainly conditioning, they appear to do very little in the way of actual skills.

The uk seems to take things much slower than the US, there seems to be a lot of little ones on here that train 4 or 5 times a week.

If yours is a sports acro club it might be different still.

 

[GymGirl's Mom]

When DD was 5 she did two days 2 hours each time- total 4 hours. That said, there were 5 year olds on the Level 3 team last year doing 7.5 hours a week. What kind of training 5 year olds are doing depends on the gym and program they participate in here in the US. Some gyms and programs it is all conditioning, some gyms its 50/50 skills and conditioning, and some it's conditioning, skills and learning routines.

 

[lhmom]

When my DD was 5, she was also on a pre-team. They had practice twice a week, 3 hours total. The pre-team did alot of conditioning, but worked on skill building as well. she was taught parts of the routine in her 2nd yr of pre-team, but the coaches really didn't concentrate on the whole routine until the girls moved up to team. We live in the U.S.

 

[jcs]

DD will be 5 at the end of October. She is on the first level of pre-team at our gym, currently doing 3 hrs a week (1.5 hr 2x a week). They seem to split up the apparatus between the two classes, but almost always do some bars each class to work on their pullovers, and conditioning etc. They also work on vaults, cartwheels, and beam....so I wouldn't say they are mostly conditioning...maybe 50/50? We are also in the US.

 

[cher062]

When my DD was 5you many moons ago she was in there on pre-team "gold" which they learned L3 skills then performed them at the end of the year at a fun meet for the pre-teams in the area - with ribbons etc. she used apparatus and did conditioning I would say it was 50/50. and was in there 3 days a week for 2 hours twice a week and 3 hours once a week total 7 hours. (m, w, f).

 

[kerryarron]

Thanks for the replies
One reason I asked is there has just been a boy leave our gym as he had been offered a place on a squad at an artistic centre, and I was wondering how far ahead the children were likely to be and how much of his skills would be transferable if that makes sense - I'm reading it back and it doesn't make sense to me so sorry! Also I'm keeping our options open, now we're happy where we are but if one day one of my children wanted to swap to artistic I wondered how easy that would be.

 

[ejgymmom]

My daughter is 5, turning 6 next month. She did 3 hours last year (1.5 hours twice a week) and is doing 4 hours this year (2 hours twice a week). I think it's about 50/50 for conditioning and skills work. We're in the US and she's doing level 3 and learning some level 4 skills.

 

[MyBoysFlip]

My son was moved to training team at 5 and went 1.5 hours 2x a week. Now he's 6 and going 6-9 hours a week as a Level 4. It was about 1/2 conditioning and 1/2 working on skills on training team.

 

[Faith]

Thanks for the replies
One reason I asked is there has just been a boy leave our gym as he had been offered a place on a squad at an artistic centre, and I was wondering how far ahead the children were likely to be and how much of his skills would be transferable if that makes sense - I'm reading it back and it doesn't make sense to me so sorry! Also I'm keeping our options open, now we're happy where we are but if one day one of my children wanted to swap to artistic I wondered how easy that would be.

There's many of the skills that would be transferable . Acro is pretty much the same to start, they're going to be learning strength, flexibility, and tumbling. The only things they'll be missing out on is apparatus specific stuff. WHich tbh I don't think is too much of a biggie- floor is fine, beam is just learning to do it all higher up, vault is tumbling over a table, which isn't unlike the tempo/dynamic skills in acro anyway. Bars may be a bit trickier but if a child is talented it can be learned.

As long as your club is of a high enough standard (which it is, or certainly used to be when I was coaching ) then they should be able to transfer easily enough with the basic strength, flexibility and tumbling skills. In fact I was reading the other day a paper which proposed focussing on tumbling in pre-pubescents, as it's easier to learn when they're small, then apparatus specific stuff comes later.

Your boys may have a harder time with six-piece as the apparatus require alot of swinging skills. But then, boys tend to progress more slowly so on the positive he has more time to learn. Your girl certainly has time yet, most research shows that a talented child just needs to be started in gymnastics before 7. I think from a progression through the ranks POV though, it may be worth discussing the idea before she's 8, but again that's if you want her on the elite track as they start Level 4 (UK) the year they turn 9. Although starting much later generally may make it difficult for her placing within a club squad as she'll have the floor skills, but will have some catching up to do on the other apparatus.

The other thing I will say that is worth considering though, is IMO it's much easier to move from artistic to acro at an older age- say 12-14, than the other way round.

Sorry, bit of a brain dump there In summary, they're fine where they are if everyone's happy. Keep an open mind, and I'm sure it'll become clear if and when they should move club.

 

[coachmolly]

The gyms I've coached at have had the 5 year olds coming in anywhere from 1-4 hours a week depending on skill level- this includes kids on artistic and tramp/tumbling tracks. Since I'm guessing your children are beyond the beginner level, I'll just talk about the 5 year old pre-team type programs.
For the artistic kids, the big focus was on basics on all events, body positions, flexibility, and basic strength. They worked towards level 4 skills, but lots of it was basic progressions. For the tumblers, there was more of an emphasis on learning the skills- perfecting round-offs and lots of work on bhs. There was a strength and flexibility component, but it wasn't a huge part of practice and how comprehensive it was greatly depended on who was teaching the class.
Faith did a pretty good job of explaining the differences between acro and artistic and my experiences working with kids transitioning from tumbling to artistic are generally the same. For girls, bars is generally the tough part, but many girls regardless of their background struggle somewhat on bars in the early years.

 

[kerryarron]

Thanks again for the replies
We're happy where we are but it's good to know that should they wish to do artistic in the future it could be possible. Actually, there is currently a very small artistic group at the gym so who knows, by the time mine are older they might have a full on artistic programme!
What a small world Faith, where are you coaching now?