MAG Training hours for 9 year old

[Treptow]

Hi MAG folks,

I wanted to ask about training hours for 9 year olds. My son started on the team at 8 yrs, the youngest age for competing in my country at Level 1 and his competition season went very well for him, he loved it. He started at 9 hours and quickly went up to 12 to get ready for this past competition season. Now he is 9 and the gym would like to increase this to 16 hours, so 4 hour practices 4x/week. This will mean practices ending at 8:30pm and getting home close to 9pm. School timings will also mean going straight from school to the gym with no down time because of logistics, but a bit of time to eat a meal at the gym before practice. Is this a recipe for burnout? He loves, loves gymnastics and was excited when I told him he could be doing 4 hours practices soon. Not sure the reality of going straight from school to gym has sunk in though, with no time for homework afterwards. Level 1 for us is *I think* similar to 4 or 5ish in the USA system. There is another gym that would be something like a 45 minute commute one way in traffic (20 mins back home) but which might offer tamer hours overall on school nights (I'm going to be having discussions with them soon and do some math). What might you consider in this situation? Appreciate any insight!

 

[HopefulGymnast]

with no time for homework afterwards

Just a small question for extra info: do 9 year olds get homework in your country? Am I understanding that correctly, or are you already worrying about when he'll have homework when he's older?

 

[Treptow]

Just a small question for extra info: do 9 year olds get homework in your country? Am I understanding that correctly, or are you already worrying about when he'll have homework when he's older?

Yes, it's normal to have homework most days after school here. The amount depends on the teacher, they have a fair bit of autonomy on how they structure things.

 

[Blythe24]

Similar schedule here. My younger son was at 16 h/week the year he turned 9, then moved up to 20 h/week the year he turned 11. Most days during the week he comes home from school, eats something quickly, and heads to gym. When he gets back home ~9 pm, he has another meal and then goes straight to bed.

Burnout hasn’t been an issue for us, but we have had times that it was necessary to get up early to do homework (projects). However, my kids don’t routinely get homework each day (they usually get their work done in class). For projects, pre-planning how the work will get done around the gym schedule has worked so far.

Every so often, he will get exhausted / overwhelmed, and will skip a practice. I consider this a mental health break, and necessary.

Personally, I’d stick with a gym close to home. But traffic in my area is nuts, so I’m highly biased that way.

 

[Treptow]

Similar schedule here. My younger son was at 16 h/week the year he turned 9, then moved up to 20 h/week the year he turned 11. Most days during the week he comes home from school, eats something quickly, and heads to gym. When he gets back home ~9 pm, he has another meal and then goes straight to bed.

Burnout hasn’t been an issue for us, but we have had times that it was necessary to get up early to do homework (projects). However, my kids don’t routinely get homework each day (they usually get their work done in class). For projects, pre-planning how the work will get done around the gym schedule has worked so far.

Every so often, he will get exhausted / overwhelmed, and will skip a practice. I consider this a mental health break, and necessary.

Personally, I’d stick with a gym close to home. But traffic in my area is nuts, so I’m highly biased that way.

Thanks, I really appreciate that feedback. I think we'll make a go of it and see how things work out.

 

[Dahlialover]

My 8-year-old trains 16 hours. It’s about the maximum that he can do. We tried it when he was 7.5 and it was too much so he switched back to 12 hours. He’s trying it again now and again I suspect that it is still too much for him because he wants to take days off every week or two to spend time with the family. He is home-schooled, so he still gets plenty of time to relax but he misses his brother who attends public school. His best friend is 9-years-old and he also trains 16 hours. He goes to public school and does fine going to gym afterwards. He is happy.

Our gym has two 8-year-olds who train 20 hours. They have a different coach who is not fun and they are both appear deeply unhappy. Skill-wise they are being passed by kids in the 12 hour group who are less tired and more motivated.

The moral of the story is that you need to watch practices and monitor your child’s well-being. Be open to reducing hours if your child is not doing well with the schedule.

 

[skschlag]

Please be careful with too many hours too soon. The boys may love it and want more, but it can cause overuse issues later. It is important that they have time to do other things, outside of gymnastics. They may not see it now, but overuse and burnout are very real as they get older.

At 9 years old, my son did 9 hours a week most of the time. Sometimes they would add a Saturday open gym style practice, but 9 was plenty!

 

[Treptow]

My 8-year-old trains 16 hours. It’s about the maximum that he can do. We tried it when he was 7.5 and it was too much so he switched back to 12 hours. He’s trying it again now and again I suspect that it is still too much for him because he wants to take days off every week or two to spend time with the family. He is home-schooled, so he still gets plenty of time to relax but he misses his brother who attends public school. His best friend is 9-years-old and he also trains 16 hours. He goes to public school and does fine going to gym afterwards. He is happy.

Our gym has two 8-year-olds who train 20 hours. They have a different coach who is not fun and they are both appear deeply unhappy. Skill-wise they are being passed by kids in the 12 hour group who are less tired and more motivated.

The moral of the story is that you need to watch practices and monitor your child’s well-being. Be open to reducing hours if your child is not doing well with the schedule.

Thank you this is great advice, I will definitely monitor and make sure he is happy and not burning out. If things go sideways I won't hesitate to change the hours. It's interesting to read about the variety of training situations you've observed and how different kids respond differently, there is no one size fits all really is there... thank you again.

 

[Treptow]

Please be careful with too many hours too soon. The boys may love it and want more, but it can cause overuse issues later. It is important that they have time to do other things, outside of gymnastics. They may not see it now, but overuse and burnout are very real as they get older.

At 9 years old, my son did 9 hours a week most of the time. Sometimes they would add a Saturday open gym style practice, but 9 was plenty!

This is a real concern as well, over-use injuries. I do worry about it. Best case scenario is I would catch it before it got out of hand but to be honest I don't know how to identify the early signs, if there are any obvious ones.

 

[skschlag]

This is a real concern as well, over-use injuries. I do worry about it. Best case scenario is I would catch it before it got out of hand but to be honest I don't know how to identify the early signs, if there are any obvious ones.

It depends on your child. It was hard in my son for sure, but I would notice subtle things...shaking his hands out after a pommel turn was the main one. But most gymnasts will push through a certain level of pain to keep going. My son is just now learning to not push through the pain and treat it.

 

[Blythe24]

It depends on your child. It was hard in my son for sure, but I would notice subtle things...shaking his hands out after a pommel turn was the main one. But most gymnasts will push through a certain level of pain to keep going. My son is just now learning to not push through the pain and treat it.

It really does depend on the kid. We have one son who got an overuse injury when he increased to 16 h, and another who was fine at 16 h but started to get issues at 20 h. Some of their teammates had similar issues crop up as hours have increased, but some haven’t ever had any type of overuse injury.

Both of my kids are very good at taking it easy at the first sign of pain, and the coaches are also fine if they skip training some events for a while. There’s no “push through the pain” mentality at their gym.

But… it did take them getting that first injury to learn how to listen to their bodies. Luckily for us, it wasn’t anything serious (temporary growth plate pain for each).