WAG Question about bar settings?

[Curlyfry7]

Hopefully this is a quick question.....in the lower levels, do girls usually have different settings specific to them personally? Or is the goal to get all the girls on the same setting? Specifically Xcel Gold, if that matters....
Thank you!

 

[coachmolly]

I try to condense into as few bar settings as possible, bar time is at a premium and adjusting bars, while not super time consuming, can really add up if I'm moving them after every other kid. It's pretty easy if the kids are all about the same size and doing similar skills, it gets trickier with more variety in a group.
We have 2 sets of bars so I try to limit to 2 settings- high bar is the same on both, typically I'll have one with a slightly lower low bar and closer spread and another that has a higher low bar and bars farther apart. At Gold/Platinum that has been plenty. And I have a few kids who can work on either setting. If I had a kid who really didn't fit into either group I would figure out a way to make things work, I just haven't had it happen yet.

 

[suebee]

Dd’s entire level does bars on the same setting so coaches don’t need to change them during practice or meets. Dd is the shortest and the tallest kid is probably more than a foot taller than her.

She likes the bar settings because she says she doesn’t have to pike to avoid the low bar while doing giants like all the other girls.

 

[Sk8ermaiden]

Once they started jumping to high bar in silver/gold, they started using two settings: tall girl and short girl.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Once they started jumping to high bar in silver/gold, they started using two settings: tall girl and short girl.

That’s us as well. 2 settings, you are on one or the other.

 

[JBS]

We use 2 settings... FIG and Big. Due to the simple routines that we use for Xcel Gold... all athletes compete at FIG for that level in our club. They do train at the setting that is better for them though. We just don't move to two settings until Xcel Platinum / JO Level 7 and above. All athletes below these levels compete on FIG... again... they may be training upper level skills on the big setting at practice though.

 

[Curlyfry7]

From what I am understanding, at our gym we have 3 settings....they call them “wide open”, “2 below 5” and “FIG”...no idea what that all means!! But anyhow, the 13-14 y/o’s use the wide open, the other golds use 2 below 5, and my DD, who is quite a bit shorter and lighter than the rest, uses FIG. These are their settings, from what I understand. Tonight, my DD started bawling when she got into the car, told me the coach would not put the bars onto her settings (told the other girls to stop when they started to change them for DD) and were making her use the next larger setting. Then when she was missing jumping to the high bar, the coach sent her to climb the rope as a punishment. She did not refuse to try, she just couldn’t make it.

This didn’t seem right to me, and DD was extremely upset, but I wasn’t sure if perhaps they were supposed to be on a certain setting? Could this be a safety issue? DD told me that when she tries at the higher setting, her legs go all over the place and the coach told her when their legs go all over, they have a higher chance of peeling off.....so I think she was scaring herself a bit too, as she isn’t usually one to cry about practice stuff.

 

[JBS]

We actually try to keep our athletes on FIG as long as possible... forever if possible. Bar transfers are typically easier to learn on bars that are closer together.

Depending on if the actual rail heights change on your "2 below 5" setting... it could be a significant difference... or not much at all.

Bar settings are like a foreign language. For example... for our big setting we call all the settings "2 up... 3 up... F... and all the way down". FIG we call the settings "1 up all around... all the way up... and 2 below 4".

 

[Curlyfry7]

We actually try to keep our athletes on FIG as long as possible... forever if possible. Bar transfers are typically easier to learn on bars that are closer together.

Depending on if the actual rail heights change on your "2 below 5" setting... it could be a significant difference... or not much at all.

Bar settings are like a foreign language. For example... for our big setting we call all the settings "2 up... 3 up... F... and all the way down". FIG we call the settings "1 up all around... all the way up... and 2 below 4".

From what my DD has described, there are 6 divisions between FIG and 2 below 5, and each division is roughly 2 inches....so it is a difference of a foot, if she is accurate. All the other girls on the 2 levels that work together are 6 inches or more taller than she is, other than possibly 1 other girl, who might be only 4 inches taller. And other than the next shortest girl, who I don’t know, there is at least 20 lbs between my DD and the rest. So although I completely confess that I have no actual knowledge about this, it SEEMS legit that my DD might truly need the lower bar setting.

So based on this and if what my DD has said is accurate, I am displeased that:
1) the coach just didn’t want to take the time to change to her setting, thus preventing her from being able to truly practice her skills and possibly increasing the risk of injury, and
2) punishing her for being unable to perform a skill on a higher setting that she should have been on. Not my DD refusing to do it, but being unable to do it.

I am trying to decide if this warrants a discussion with the owner......sadly there tends to be a tendency to take any perceived complaints by the parents out on the girls...the owner took a good 15-20 minutes tonight to basically b!tc& to the girls about parents b!tc&ing in the lobby, and that parents shouldn’t be telling the gymnasts what to do, and if they think they know how to coach they need to fill out an application and see if they are qualified.

 

[JBS]

From what my DD has described, there are 6 divisions between FIG and 2 below 5, and each division is roughly 2 inches....so it is a difference of a foot, if she is accurate.

This isn't really the way it works.

 

[coachmolly]

Other than jumping to the high bar, Golds do very little once they are up there to merit a super wide setting- maybe a kip or pullover, a back hip, a tap swing or 2. So unless you have pretty gain Golds, I would feel like FIG would be a pretty reasonable setting for all of the kids. All of my Golds (and compulsory kiddos) use FIG and those kids range from around about 4'2 to 5'5. It's a pretty happy medium. Once my taller girls start doing giants I'm sure the bars will need to be wider, but for just tap swings it's totally fine. And my tiny ones can get to the high bar just fine, I even offered to put them closer one day and after one jump to the high bar they said no way.
My Golds practice with upper level Xcel so I do have a short/tall setting and most of them (except the smallest) can and do train on both, but they compete on FIG. If for some reason we only had one set of bars and they were set wide and I could not/would not move them, I would have my littles only do low bar skills and either pit/strap bar. I just don't see a reason to have the bars set so wide for that skill level. But obviously your coaches do. I don't know that it's necessarily a safety issue as I imagine her coaches know she can do it, thus the reason they pushed it, but I tend to be overly cautious when it comes to jumping to the high bar. It sounds like they felt it was something she should be able to do and are perhaps trying to condense to 2 bar settings to make bar rotations run more smoothly, it just so happens your daughter is the one who they are wanting to change. I think maybe I would ask about it if she was that upset. Though it doesn't sound like it will be well received.
I disagree with rope climbs as punishment in general but I know coaches who swear by it.

 

[sfts]

In the gym I was at formerly, there were two bar settings - FIG & "big" (all the way out & all the way up). I have judged some squads where every single gymnast, no matter their size, uses one setting and I have judged an eight person squad (all XG from one gym) and every single one a different bar setting. While I don't think that one size necessarily fits all, resetting the bar for each person was very time consuming and I can't imagine doing that every practice.

As an Xcel Gold who did a kip-cast-layout flyaway, I was glad I did not have to do it on FIG because it was much easier with the bars spread.