WAG Are NCAA women gymnasts getting taller?

[Deleted member 18037]

I believe height only holds a gymnast back.

Not a fan of expressions like hold a gymnast back or they are behind.

Their trajectory is their own.

A kid who gets injured and is out for a bit is not now behind, their trajectory has taken a pause.

A growth spurt happens, even short gymnasts can have a growth spurt. It just put them “behind” or hold them “back”. They just ave a period of adjustment.

 

[sce]

Not a fan of expressions like hold a gymnast back or they are behind.

Their trajectory is their own.

A kid who gets injured and is out for a bit is not now behind, their trajectory has taken a pause.

A growth spurt happens, even short gymnasts can have a growth spurt. It just put them “behind” or hold them “back”. They just ave a period of adjustment.

Tell that to my kid who had multiple growth spurts a year and watched all her peers move easily from level to level. She definitely felt behind even if no one else said it to her.

 

[NewtoGym]

About height holding a gymnast back...

I agree. It's coaches with this attitude that holds gymnasts back. Coaches who know how to coach all body types to maximize the gymnast's potential is what makes successful gymnasts.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Tell that to my kid who had multiple growth spurts a year and watched all her peers move easily from level to level. She definitely felt behind even if no one else said it to her.

I’m sorry your daughter felt that way.

We can’t control how others feel, even our own kids. And I can’t speak to your specific situation.

And that doesn’t change my opinion that we, the global grown up we need to check that kind of thinking.

Can only speak to my gym/kid. Through various situations. The amount of hours, a couple injuries, not an official growth spurt yet but a center of gravity shift. I’ve had to have conversations with her coaches about the choice of wording regarding “behind”. Not to go into specifics I tried to be subtle the first couple of times. But the last conversation was I need you to stop saying she is behind. I get you want to help move her along. Say she ready to do xyz, it’s time to do xyz, she needs to do xyz but you need to stop with the behind stuff. It finally got through. They might still think it, but I haven’t heard it in almost 3 years.

Last year some of the kids she started with headed to L7, she headed to L5/6 with rest of them. This year, she has had a big jump in skills, is competing 7 with the kids who are still competing 7. She got some 8 skills. Some of the other 7s do as well some don’t. The kid who had the earliest growth spurt didn’t have the best L5 season seems to have adjusted and is with the L6s this year and is currently getting a bunch of new skills.

They are getting to where they are supposed to be. And it’s not a just my kid thing. I have this conversation with other parents and gymmies as they stress “being behind”. Very few things in life are a straight steep linear line up.

The chatter they hear becomes self talk. Again I’m sorry your gymmie had to feel behind because she needed to adjust. That makes me sad.

 

[Lunde]

Isn't 5' 7'' Kyla Ross the reigning NCAA bars and beam champion?

 

[profmom]

I don't want to speak for Sce, but growth spurts affect different kids in different ways, and the spurts themselves happen differently. Some go fairly steadily over 3-4 years, some bounce up 2 inches practically overnight and then stall for a while and then restart, and some gain more than 4" in less than a year. Regardless of how supportive and appropriate the coaching is, the kid who experiences growth spurts in a way that not only stops forward progress but actually causes skill loss is going to have a tougher row to hoe than the one whose forward trajectory is just slowed a bit. This has nothing to do with the ultimate height that the child achieves. I think it's also particularly challenging if the growth spurt that throws a kid off and causes skill loss coincides with a developmentally challenging age for the kid. All of mine had emotionally difficult years as nine year olds and as eleven year olds, but fortunately for them, puberty was still far off into the distance.

I am currently buckling my seatbelt, as my son has grown 1.25" since his pediatric visit last June. I figure he's probably ultimately good for somewhere between 5'8 and 5'10", but he's not within spitting distance of that ballpark yet, so we have a ways to go.

 

[Along4theRide]

Yup... Growth spurts and emotional changes pummeled my dd last season. 4+ inches over the course of the year. She was frustrated, but we tried to help her remember we are proud of her no matter what happens. She worked through it. Then so many of her skills clicked into place in rapid succession over the summer. And she has regained her confidence. Each journey is unique, for sure!

 

[Sasha]

Lets not forget 2016 Olympic Uneven Bars Bronze medalist Sophie Scheder at 5'6"

 

[KipNurse]

Correct as football requires you to be pretty large or you will get hurt, seriously hurt.

Clearly if you are jockey, small and light gives you an advantage.
In swimming, wingspan and shoulders, height matter.

And fitting into an adult extra small leo should not be a requirement to do gymnastics. You actually can be taller than 5ft and wear a larger size leo and do gymnastics and even do it well.



"Americans" are not offended by weight and how it relates to health. We all get that being overweight is a health issue.

Americans are offended by the judgement attached to a specific number or size. To the point of causing of eating disorders.

We are offended to be dismissed by preconceived notions of what body type can to what sport. Especially when it comes to women.

As someone who has spent the last year losing weight with a girl on the cusp of puberty in a sport where weight focus is common (not in our gym, one of the reasons it is our gym). We don't ever focus on words like skinny or fat. We focus on health, being physically fit. I was not comfortable or fit, now I am................

This...I like. Thank you.

 

[KipNurse]

Isn't 5' 7'' Kyla Ross the reigning NCAA bars and beam champion?

Yes! And Oklahoma is one of the best or are they THE best this past year? Some pretty "tall" girls on their roster.

 

[Vivianflips]

I think it’s awesome to see taller girls doing college gymnastics! My mom originally thought I was too tall to do gymnastics so she wouldn’t let me sign up for classes. Then when I was 12, I met a girl who was taller than me and did gymnastics. She was what finally convinced my mom to sign me up and the rest is history. I may not have been the best gymnast on the team but I sure accomplished more than I ever thought someone who was “too tall” for gymnastics could. (I’m 5’5”)

 

[Jazzjerz]

Not a fan of expressions like hold a gymnast back or they are behind.

Their trajectory is their own.

A kid who gets injured and is out for a bit is not now behind, their trajectory has taken a pause.

A growth spurt happens, even short gymnasts can have a growth spurt. It just put them “behind” or hold them “back”. They just ave a period of adjustment.

A growth spurt or injury may not permanently derail a gymnast's plans (but change them or pause them as you say), but if they have a specific goal, especially one with a deadline, it can most certainly put them "behind" where they need to be at that deadline.

For many gyms, there are specific requirements to move up levels, and specific levels they must be at by a certain age in order to continue along the path they are aiming for at that gym. If a growth spurt, injury, chronic absences, mental blocks, whatever slow their progress, then they can absolutely be behind in pursuit of their goals.

 

[wandrewsjr]

The tallest gymnast on the Oklahoma gymnastics team roster is the same height as the shortest player on the Oklahoma women's basketball roster. I wonder if that 5'7" basketball player is often referred to as "tall", lol. It's all relative.

 

[eucoach]

From my experience, height is not a real issue if the gymnast is trained well - which means they have very good technique and are very well conditioned. The ones who really stall once they grow taller usually have technical issues and never had good strength to weight ratio to begin with. They relied on their small size and low weight to do the skills instead of technique. Most of the time this is due to inadequate coaching, however sometimes it's also the gymnast that doesn't get the importance of doing drills and conditioning correctly and gets a brutal wake-up call once they grow.

Also, I would like to add that there are many coaches out there who verbalize towards the gymnast that they are or will be too tall. As a former tall gymnast myself, I know how awful it feels to be "critisized" for something that you have no control over. It soon makes you believe less in yourself because you believe you will have a harder time acquiring skills anyways. And as a result progress will slow down for other reasons than height.

 

[sce]

From my experience, height is not a real issue if the gymnast is trained well - which means they have very good technique and are very well conditioned. The ones who really stall once they grow taller usually have technical issues and never had good strength to weight ratio to begin with. They relied on their small size and low weight to do the skills instead of technique. Most of the time this is due to inadequate coaching, however sometimes it's also the gymnast that doesn't get the importance of doing drills and conditioning correctly and gets a brutal wake-up call once they grow.

Also, I would like to add that there are many coaches out there who verbalize towards the gymnast that they are or will be too tall. As a former tall gymnast myself, I know how awful it feels to be "critisized" for something that you have no control over. It soon makes you believe less in yourself because you believe you will have a harder time acquiring skills anyways. And as a result progress will slow down for other reasons than height.

So my kid understood the importance of drills. Not sure how great her overall training was, I am the mom not the coach. I do know that she was not told that she was too tall. But it was clear that every time she was actively growing that gymnastics was hard. Most kids have a growth spurt a year and the big growth spurt happens once in puberty. My kid grew every few months, and her big growth spurt took a couple of years. This is herd to catch up with, as you really do have to relearn some things when your center of gravity changes so often. I do agree she had a strength to weight ratio issue, and a weight to height ratio issue for a long time. She was long and thin, she ate constantly to keep up. (one year she grew 4 inches but only gained 3 pounds!) It's just how her body was.

 

[duyetanh]

From my experience, height is not a real issue if the gymnast is trained well - which means they have very good technique and are very well conditioned. The ones who really stall once they grow taller usually have technical issues and never had good strength to weight ratio to begin with. They relied on their small size and low weight to do the skills instead of technique. Most of the time this is due to inadequate coaching, however sometimes it's also the gymnast that doesn't get the importance of doing drills and conditioning correctly and gets a brutal wake-up call once they grow.

Also, I would like to add that there are many coaches out there who verbalize towards the gymnast that they are or will be too tall. As a former tall gymnast myself, I know how awful it feels to be "critisized" for something that you have no control over. It soon makes you believe less in yourself because you believe you will have a harder time acquiring skills anyways. And as a result progress will slow down for other reasons than height.

Bingo.

 

[sevenatenine2]

I think it doesn't hold them back extremely if they have the skills and then grow, but as an athlete who started late, right around puberty, and had probably an average strength to weight ratio, I was able to get to Level 8, but bars were always a struggle for me. I have coached athletes that have started late and gone on to be very good at bars, but they are the kids that are naturally strong anyway. It's harder for an "average" kid to do it, but not impossible.

 

[duyetanh]

Perhaps it is not that they are getting taller, but that coaches out there are learning more and helping their athletes maintain the strength to height/weight ration out there. And I think that's awesome.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Perhaps it is not that they are getting taller, but that coaches out there are learning more and helping their athletes maintain the strength to height/weight ration out there. And I think that's awesome.

Yes and throwing preconceived notions of what body type can and can not do gymnastics. And give little kids a shot. Because they usually start as little kids.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

About height holding a gymnast back...

I agree. It's coaches with this attitude that holds gymnasts back. Coaches who know how to coach all body types to maximize the gymnast's potential is what makes successful gymnasts.

actual reality, the best bar and high bar workers in the world are taller, ecto body types, long arms and legs no torso.