Parents Do your kids do all 4 events each practice?

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gymmom14

Proud Parent
I was just wondering if your kids (especially those doing level 5 and up) train on each event at each practice? We seem to only do three at a practice plus conditioning/tramp etc. We seem to do bars the least and my dd struggles on it.

Does you gym have a way of helping gymnasts who struggle on one event and excel at the other three?
 
Our gym usually does 3 events at each practice, plus conditioning. They seem to do everything equally, although the first rotation is always the longest.
 
The girls usually train all 3. My youngest is a good all rounder, but the oldest has been really struggling with vault, injuries have been partly to blame, but I do see she just doesn't get it. For my DD privates wouldn't help as she cannot really put more strain on her heels. But, maybe a couple for your DD might help.

Did you talk to her coaches? Sadly level 6 bars is quite a bit more advanced than level five. Hopefully her coaches are aware and have a plan for her.
 
My dd is training Level 5 and they do all four events plus strength. It's a four hour practice so there is time. They do work different skills on floor and beam each practice so that they might work on tumbling one day and leaps and jumps another day.

Meg
 
No, they almost never cover all four events in a single practice. One apparatus will get a significant share of the time (like 2 hours), and a second gets a smaller cut. Sometimes they finish up on a third, but it'd be pretty focused--working flight skills on beam for the last 20 minutes for instance. However, no apparatus gets slighted. If Monday is "big bars" day, then Tuesday is "floor" day.

Chances are, every athlete in they gym has an event she'll struggle with. It might not be so noticable at level 5, but will become more obvious as you watch those girls who continue with the sport.

Your last question is kind of hard to answer because even girls who are excelling are paying for and deserve equal attention from the coach, even if they're perfecting rather than learning. And there can be resentment if it appears the coach spends all her vault time, for example, with one or two kids. "Helping" the struggler can only be done to the point where the other girls aren't cheated out of training.

What I used to see was that the coach would be standing next to dd2 on the beam (cuz dd2 had the worst BWOs--BT, no problem, but those walkovers were awful) so she could give her more spots, and calling out corrections to the other girls. However, she could only stay near dd2 for so long. Bars were more difficult. We had a lvl 7 who never did get her giant, but the coach needed to be closer to the girls doing release moves for safety reasons, and couldn't spend the majority of bar time close the struggling 7. In those instances, when a skill or apparatus was really an issue, it was an option for the parent to schedule and pay for a private. If it's summer time, camps might also be an option.

Sorry if that wasn't very helpful.
 
Sounds like most of us have similar training programs. Right now, the girls have 5 hour practices--1st hour is conditioning and then they usually work on 3 events. Depending on what the coach wants to cover, some days it may only be 2. As Livinat said, if they don't do beam 1 day, then they do alot of it the next. Of course, in the summer the focus is primarly new skills for the optionals while the compulsory girls are perfecting skills and routines for the comp season which starts in Sept for us.

About helping those that are struggling on an event. Its hard to do 1:1 for more than a few minutes during a team practice. What our coaches do(I don't know if this is done for the compulsory girls) is write out their "assignments" on a white board. Then they wander around watching each girl while they do the assignment and will have some work more on a certain drill if they're struggling or let a girl who is ahead work on something else that may be more challenging once the original assignment is done.
 
At all the gyms we have been to, very rarely were all 4 events worked on. Usually the focus is on 2 or 3 and then alternate events the next practice. Right before meets they will practice routines on everything, but not on a regular basis.
 
We do 2-3 events plus conditioning. If someone is struggling with an event, more often than not it takes for the parent to bring it to the coaches' attention before something is done (whether it is a private or some other arrangement). Bars and vault were getting the least attention but we now have a new training schedule where they train in "Olympic order" (per my oldest DD) where day 1 they do vault, bars, beam and the next day, bars, beam, floor and the 3rd day beam, fx, vault, etc.
 
Most of the time our optional girls do train all 4 events a day. On occasion, mainly Fridays, they will do 3 events then focus more dance.

They start with stretch then do conditioning. Then go one to the events. Due to the smaller size of our gym and the fact that the lower levels needs to get ample time on equipment, the girls only get 45 minutes on each event. then they have to move on or someone else doesnt get their turn.

For your other question, that is a tough one. My DD stuggles on Vault and bars.. more repetitions is what she needs for improvement, so a private would be the way to get those. other times it is just focusing one girls on a skill that she is stuck on when the other girls maybe have moved on to a different skill, finally - sometimes girls have to stay after class (Depending on the day). Our gym is all about repetitions.. they need to do x amount of 'stuck routines' a night during meet season (three on Mondays, 5 - 10 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and one On Fridays ) If you dont hit your routines - you stay late to finish or have to roll those routines over to the next day. Let me tell you last year when my DD couldnt get her squat on.. we spent extra hours in practice.. but now her body knows what to do....

Hope that helps
 
We do 45 minutes of conditioning and then three events (each at 45 minutes) each night. Our coach does olympic rotation, so on Monday it is Floor, Vault, Bars...Tuesday it is Beam, Floor, Vault..Wednesday it is Bars, Beam, Floor, yada yada...So every event gets about the same time each week.
 
Our gym also does 45min rotations.They do all events plus conditioning.Sometimes they do have dance too.They start on different events.During the summer they can also do cross training.
 
We do all 4 events everyday - same schedule everyday = boring for the gymnast at some point IMO. Its great to hear that some programs mix it up.

a real sore spot for me has been that if the girls want to condition they now have to come into class early :eek: ... as if 20 + hours a week is not enough to condition more then once a week!
 
Dd is there 4 hrs a session and they training all events and condition. The girls basically do about 40 minutes on each event, including conditioning. Conditioning is treated as a rotation. The girls do change up their order each day - HC/O says where each group goes, but where ever they start they then move in Olympic order with conditioning following floor. This works great for me because if I see what rotation they start with I know what they finish with since I don't stay the whole time I can guage when I want to come see.

It seems on Sat that instead of conditioning, the girls do dance.

This is for Level 6 & up. Our 4s & 5s are at the gym's other location.
 
Bars honestly for most developmental and compulsory levels can be tough for some girls due to lack of strength. This has to be hammered in with proper conditioning and specific bars conditioning. Some gyms may not have enough bars or stations. There is a also a fear factor in some bars skills of course, especially when they start jumping to high bar or during flyaways. Even the " strongest " girls on some teams are lacking at where their strength should be when it comes to bars in some levels.

Most compulsories will do 3 events besides conditioning a day. Some gyms might cut time down to 4 events due to time on event. Some gyms have seperate dance training besides their compulsory/optional schedule.

Optionals tend to do all events more often than compulsories. It also depends on season.

Many developmental levels ( 1-3/pre 4 ) will only do 2 to 3 events per day due to time or focus.

Generally Floor is the #1 event, Bars is the second, Beam is third, and vault is commonly called the 4th/other/last event. Vault and floor have some crossover as do floor and beam. Conditioning/Stretch/Warmup and tramp ( with some gyms do more as preparatory towards optional gymnastics ) and dance have to figure in somewhere as well.
 
Not quite sure how things will work this summer, but during the year DD's group would go two times a week for 3 hours a night. On Wednesdays they stretch, condition, work on handstands, move to vault, may tumble some, then finish on bars. Fridays they stretch, condition, tumble, work beam, and then one hour of tops conditioning. DD also went Mondays with the level 5/6 and on that night she would stretch, condition, may or may not tumble, work beam and then bars.

Barb
 
Wow...this is interesting.

I've studied under some great coaches, and they have always agreed that girls need to to floor, beam and bars every day no matter what. They also need to do conditioning/flexibility every day (1/2 of the days at the beginning of workout/ 1/2 at the end of workout)

Vault should be done opposite dance training, and plyometrics should be done on non-vault/heavy tumbling days.

We stick with that, and it seems to work. I would be amazed by a team that didn't workout on bars and beam every day and was successful on those events!

The big question would be, what if one of the kids missed her "bar day"? What if "beam day" fell on Christmas? I just don't see how a team could train that way...
 
Wow...this is interesting.

I've studied under some great coaches, and they have always agreed that girls need to to floor, beam and bars every day no matter what. They also need to do conditioning/flexibility every day (1/2 of the days at the beginning of workout/ 1/2 at the end of workout)

Vault should be done opposite dance training, and plyometrics should be done on non-vault/heavy tumbling days.

We stick with that, and it seems to work. I would be amazed by a team that didn't workout on bars and beam every day and was successful on those events!

The big question would be, what if one of the kids missed her "bar day"? What if "beam day" fell on Christmas? I just don't see how a team could train that way...

My daughter's team works three events per practice and they do very well on bars and beam. Out of seven meets this season, DD placed 1st on bars five times, including taking the state bars title. On beam she placed 1st three times and was always top five. She placed 3rd at state.
 
Emily's(level 5) new gym does practice all her events plus dance, conditioning and stretching. Her practices are 2(4.5 hour practices) and one 5 hour practice.

Madison (level 3) does not do all her event. They usually do 3 plus conditioning. She only goes 2 days a week for 2 hours each time.
 

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