How many routines leading up to competition?

[NGL780309]

I'm sure there are so many ways out there, but I'm curious what you do as a coach and what parents have experienced. I started thinking about this because some parents at DD's gym were talking about gyms they had left and the mom said they did too many routines. Then another mom said they left their gym because they didn't do enough routines leading up to competition.

Since we are talking about Level 4 here and not elite, how many routines do you typically have your team do leading up to competition? What's you method or schedule?

 

[Ingwe]

I am not a coach but I can tell you how our gym does things.

Starting in Ocotober they only work routines (with some uptraining tossed in) all they way through meet season. Our meet season starts in Jan. and runs into April for both Compulsory and Optionals.

 

[Megley]

At our gym, it depends how close we are to a meet. Beginning a couple weeks prior to any meet, the girls will start working intensively on routines. In between, they still do routines (maybe one or two beam and one floor) each practice, but spend more time uptraining. The week before a meet, they have started having sort of mock competitions where the girls will warm up as though they are at a meet (i.e., timed warm up) and they all sit and watch each other "compete" each event.

For comupulsories, I think gyms have different philosophies. Ours likes to concentrate more on uptraining and a bit less on perfection in the compulsory routines. Other gyms will abandon all uptraining for exclusive focus on routines.

 

[Ingwe]

they have started having sort of mock competitions where the girls will warm up as though they are at a meet (i.e., timed warm up) and they all sit and watch each other "compete" each event.

Our Gym does this with the optionals every Tuesday. It started the 1st week of November and will run through meet season. Morgan hates it. LOL!! Then of course it ends with them getting assigned their "punishment" for falling, missing routines etc. I don't think a week has gone by that she hasn't had 5 passes of Frog Jumps on Wednesday due to a fall during Mock Meet Tuesday.

 

[Megley]

Not to hijack the thread, but I think it helps them get used to the short warm up and then compete scenario that they face at meets. I hear you on the punishment, though. Our girls get that too.

 

[10.0]

We really don't uptrain much (weird I know) so when move up's happen we spend most of the time learning the new required tricks, once the kids are close to having them or do have them we put them together into routines.

How often they do full routines depends on level, the 2's do them every practice as bars and vault are short and they are usually little and have a hard time remembering routines especially beam and floor so they are drilled in. The 3's and 4's are the same except more tumbling and seperate dance skills are drilled on floor and beam rather than full routines until closer to meets. The 5's tend to do a lot of just skills. The 6-10's follow are more normal path and train and uptrain skills and now with meet season starting in 2 months they are now doing full routines every practice.

 

[NGL780309]

So for Level 4 girls a month away from competition as a coach is there a certain number of routines you would want them to do per practice to feel confident that they would be fully prepared for competition, but not burnt out on doing routines?

I'm just curious. At DD's old gym I really felt like they didn't do enough routines and it showed at the competition. Especially on bars. They might do one routine per day (3 days) max. Floor they usually did one routine per day also, but to me the key was not how many floor routines they did, but the lack of correction on the one attempt they did get. The same went for beam. They might be told to go through their routine 2 times, but nobody was correcting anything they were doing.

In comparison to what I saw at DD's old gym, another mom was telling me they were expected to do 5 bar routines and beam routines per practice before moving to the next event. And that was 5 hit routines, not just 5 routines.

 

[gymmomof1]

Same as Megley, week or so before a meet they start timed warm-ups and take turns like at a meet and do the pre meet warm-up. Other than that its skills and up training At least once during the meet season our "specialist" comes in to tune the girls up on beam and floor. Compulsories she does as a group and the optional she has 1:1 sessions with.

 

[bookworm]

Every practice my daughter does 10 beam routines, 2 floor routines, and 5 bar routines and she vaults about 15 times...doesn't matter when a meet is or is not, that is the practice...

 

[gym law mom]

What I've seen done is the week of a meet, the girls pretty much stick with routine run throughs or working certain sections/skills in the routines. If they get done, then they might throw in a little uptraining. If there is no meet that weekend then its common around here for the coaches to back down, do some more conditioning, some uptraining and routines. That tends to give the girls some "down" time from just running routines.

Sometimes it depends on the team(talking more about compulsory here)make up. A team of younger girls with little comp experience may need more run throughs than girls that are older and have done that level already.

 

[Optionals United]

Right now we have been doing like 5 front pass and then 2 routines. Depending on the day if it is back or front. So today we have front tumbling so 5 of each front pass and 2 routines with watered down back tumbling. Tuesday is the same thing will back tumbling. Then we have combination so 5 each pass 2 full real routines. and then saturday is work on your worst skill and about 3 ful routines.

Beam we also have diffefrent days,seires, dance, combo. So on seires its usall 3 different beams 2 series each way so a toal of 12 seires. sometimes with a routine with no dance thrown in. Dance day is just lots of dance and dance throughs. Then combo is like 6 full routines 2 on 3 different beam. And lots of dismounts each day.

Bars is mmonday 5 first half 5 second half. tueday 5 mini routines(full routines with no dismount but 5 giants at the end. friday is 5 full routines and ssaturday is work your worst skills. Always dismounts and some uptraining when you are done.
Most of the time when you finish you assignment you work up training or touble spots. This is just as of right now, htings are going to change around mid december to be more focused for competition.

 

[gymnastbeth]

Every week at practice, we have lists, which are basically what they sound. For each event, it says exactly what we need to do. Helps our coach, for some reason. Then she can focus on coaching, and not telling us what to do, perhaps. They have varying things on them in the summer, and even every week they are a little different. An average one would go like this:

(There are also specific skills to work, I'm just saying the amount of routines on the lists)

BARS
2 low bar routines
missed or worst skill, 5 times in a row or 10 times
2 high bar routines
missed skill or worst skill, 5 times in a row or 10 times
2 full routines
(There are also specific skills to work, I'm just saying the amount of routines)

BEAM
3 times first half of routine
7 times missed or wobbled skill
3 times last half without dismount
7 times missed or wobbled skill
10 dismounts, at least half have to be without mats/pads over the beam for roundoffs.

FLOOR (We have a VERY hard floor, it's bouncy, but very tough on the ankles)
1 routine with tuck jumps across the floor for each pass
1 routine with RO BHS Back layout for each pass
1 routine with full tumbling (We stop the music for each pass to go to the tumble strip into mats stacked in the pit, which is a lot softer than the floor)

VAULT
sometimes we do drills, but usually it's just...
10 vaults
if you stick all 10, you can go do trampoline drills. If not, you have to do 5 more (Which usually takes up the remainder of vault time. Great incentive to stick!)

Also, the practice before meets, we play "the meet game" where we divide into teams, and get points for showing our routines to the whole gym. It's a lot of fun!

The lists work out well for our team. Granted, the younger girls can't be trusted with them, because they have been known to cheat on the numbers. Level 8's and up use the lists. The conditioning for each event is also on the list.

Phew! I'm a little long winded today, apparently! Sorry about that!!!

 

[MissBear]

I coach in the UK where our structure means I tend to prepare individually for each meet, rather than a season. However, with a similar ability level (assuming 3 days per week) I would be working something like this:

4 weeks before: Beam: 3 1st halves, 3 2nd halves 2xweek, 5 routines 1xweek
Any falls or not counts (like leap angles etc) repeat 5 to stick
Bars: 3 spotted 1st halves for amplitude, 3 routines (every day)
Floor: 2 back to back routines 2xweek, plus 1 dance through, 2 routines 1xweek
Vault: 2xweek practice 2 warm ups and 'competition' vaults, then all days vault until the end of the rotation.

After the routine work I would always work upgrades and uptraining until 1 week before.

1 week before looks like this:
Beam: First session of the week: Timed warm up, 'compete' routine, 3 routines with 5 sticks of each fall. The rest of the week timed warm up, 5 routines with correction work (about 5 of a skill) between.
Bars: First session of the week: Timed warm up, 'compete' routine, 3 1st half, 3 2nd half. The rest of the week 5 routines, last one everybody watches each other.
Floor: 2 routines per day, 1st day after timed warm up
Vault: Again, just vault the whole rotation, with 'competition' vaults after warm up numbers.

I'm sure you realise this will vary widely from gym to gym, and will also vary where in the season you are - first meet versus states, but if you were looking for an example there's a rough guide.

Thinking again about level 4, this might be more aimed at 5/6 - perhaps more bar routines, more floor routines, and not the back-to-back endurance work. Any US coaches like to pitch in here?

 

[gymdog]

For level 4...roughly...

Floor: obviously limited by time and space. I try do a lot of the passes multiple times, but 2 at a time, in lines (no RO BHS, too close together). So parts of the routine. Then full routine with music 1x. I would love them to go two at a time but due to space constraints it's not possible. If they could go two at a time (possible even with one floor if you have the whole thing, for L4), two routines.

Vault: they probably do about 10 turns (full run), but not all are the full unspotted vault. I always work on the run and board approach separately. Then from full run they usually do about three jump ons, three spotted turns, two on their own, then they go one at a time doing their two vaults like in a meet. So we might get one or two rounds of that, usually just one though. It seems plenty to me, even when we don't get that much. Some days we do less and do more detailed drills.

Bars: about three-five routines depending on the focus of the day. It might be routines, it might be parts. Sometimes I give a harder assignment like two or three routines in a row with no falls or major mistakes. In that case they do more routines if they aren't hitting their routines, obviously.

Beam: Similar to above as above. Sometimes the assignment is "in a row" with no falls. I try again to have them do the parts. On average I'd say we do at least two routines. Right now they still need a lot of guidance so it's more likely they are working on parts or something (or watching each other) while they do routines one at a time, so we can only get two rounds in.

There's sort of the quality/quantity issue. They need to get confidence. But on the other hand unrealistic numbers can be kind of defeating. I'd rather have them do two rounds with me watching for quality than five with less guidance, at this point. Otherwise they're just practicing it wrong or whatever, and I don't see how more is better in that case.

 

[nevertooold]

So for Level 4 girls a month away from competition as a coach is there a certain number of routines you would want them to do per practice to feel confident that they would be fully prepared for competition, but not burnt out on doing routines?

A month out my 4's probably would still not know the entire beam and floor routine in order. In my experience the sooner they start doing full routines, esp. w/ music the sooner they stop fixing the details. We work primarily skills, conditioning and uptraining during the summer then in fall about 3 mo. out we start working parts but only if the individual skills are ready. We work small parts until about 1 mo. out and then we start putting it together into 1/3 or 1/2's and don't start FULL routines until maybe 3 weeks out. Meet warm-up is introduced about 3 weeks out too. 2 weeks out we are still doing mostly 1/3's with 1-2 full routines watched by the coach. Last week before a meet would be more routines but probably never more than 3 on beam and floor.

Bars we are doing full routines as soon as they have all the skills. But not necessarily every practice and not for numbers. One day might be warm-up 2 routines and then show coach the 3rd. One day might be work on sticking dismount on one bar, squat ons on another bar, full routine on a 3rd bar, then front hip circle to shoot through at coaches bar. Other days no full routines just skills or parts.

For level 4 and 5 I have gotten better results by making sure the girls work the skills and parts to the point of confidence and competence then stringing the pieces together to make a full routine is not difficult and they maintain the attention to detail learned by doing it slowly. JMO.

 

[Shelovesthebars]

Level 4 and up, pretty much the same as nevertooold.