WAG Coach to gymnast ratio

[JBS]

5 or 6 coaches depending on grouping

 

[Aussie_coach]

There is no ideal answer.

There are many factors to consider - experience of the coaches, ability of the coaches, availability of facilities, age of the gymnasts, and so on.

An excellent coach can give more individual attention to a group of 12 than an average coach can to a group of 8.

 

[xxStumpyxx]

The maximum seems to be 8:1 at our gym, my youngest daughters group the ratio is 7:2 at the moment but that is due with the age and qualifications of one of the coaches, under 18 and not or should not coach a group alone until she is a level 2 qualified coach and the coach needs to be 18 to take her level 2 coaching exam (a year away). It works out great though as we have a qualified male coach and a level 1 qualified female coach who is really good at what she does.

 

[MILgymFAM]

My DDs group is currently 7 girls for one coach. Most of her group is moving on to the L6/7 group (she isn't) so who knows what her new group size will be. The optionals groups at her gym are bigger though than the 5/6 group. There seems to be about 15-20 girls in optionals and one coach at the moment (they lost a coach recently). Hopefully that's rectified soon though.

 

[Pea'sMom]

Wow seems like we are on the higher end of coach-gymnast ratio...the lowest Pea ever got was 10:1... Our 13 optionals train together with only one coach.

 

[twinmomma]

Idle time was one of my biggest peeves with our old gym. New gym there's almost no such thing. If they aren't on the bars doing their routine they are doing drills on a different bar. If they aren't running the floor routine they are running, literally. Vault there's like four different stations. Beam we have 8 high beams and like 4 low so we never have more than 2 on a beam. It's so nice to see DD get more than one shot at each apparatus during a practice.

 

[Lynn]

Yes! The better word for what I'm thinking is efficient. This word was used in a post for which I tried to quote to comment on a couple things. My phone wouldn't allow. Anyways!

With regards to conditioning being on there own. The girls do their typical warm up first thing. Then off to events. They are somewhat split up but still larger groups. Event rotation until the last hour. At which point the girls are handed their conditioning list for the day. Soon they will all have it memorized from what I see. I think between this and the standing waiting your turn is why I asked my question. Just wasn't sure if this was "typical" or what exactly with such a large group.

Again, thank you all.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

These things, in my opinion at least, are less than favorable.
Lastly, the fact that girls are standing in line frequently is worrisome to me. I always try to prevent this from happening. It's almost like a phobia of mine, having idle time, hahaha! It basically boils down to not being as efficient as is possible during a practice. It is my belief that practices should run like well oiled machines, with a smooth and steady workflow and goals in place. Honestly, sometimes it is impossible to have everyone on a station, or sometimes there is going to be a line for a certain station. In these situations, have them do something productive. Anything, really! While they wait, they can do pirouettes, handstands, jumps, stomach vacuums for their abs, stand in relevé, various stretches, etc. I bought a wooden dowel at Lowe's and had it cut into thirds. They are slightly smaller than the 4 centimeter diameter of the actual women's rail, and I sometimes have them do wrist stretches while they wait in line for strap bar. They grab the dowel with the other hand and pull the wrist back to the side; this is great preparation for eagle grip skills they may need in the future, and also acts as some prehab. I throw in some rice bucket exercises too from time to time.

Idle time is wasted time.

Our old gym had more hours but lots of kids staring at each other.

Our current gym, they don't sit around. Rotations have conditioning built in so no one is waiting. They are doing, even if it is not directly on the equipment. Love it.

 

[raenndrops]

Our entire team has been roughly 40-50 for the last 4 or so years.
HC has to staff the rec classes first if we are short staffed. She will try to call in coaches if she knows in advance someone won't be there. During the summer, we try to have 8-10 coaches in the gym... and there are no more than 4 rec classes going on at once, so that leaves 4-6 coaches for team.
In this scenario, L3 gets at least 2 coaches. L4-5 gets at least 1 coach. L6-8 and Xcel Gold-Platinum gets at least 1 coach.
If we have fewer than 4 coaches left for team, L3 goes down to 1 coach... and Optionals are sometimes basically on their own with drills and skills they know. I am there to "babysit" them and keep them on task. We also do a lot more conditioning on those days

 

[LinnieC]

There are 10-13 girls in my daughter's training group with only one coach. I couldn't imagine 36 with only 2!

 

[z2akids]

Our entire team has been roughly 40-50 for the last 4 or so years.
HC has to staff the rec classes first if we are short staffed. She will try to call in coaches if she knows in advance someone won't be there. During the summer, we try to have 8-10 coaches in the gym... and there are no more than 4 rec classes going on at once, so that leaves 4-6 coaches for team.
In this scenario, L3 gets at least 2 coaches. L4-5 gets at least 1 coach. L6-8 and Xcel Gold-Platinum gets at least 1 coach.
If we have fewer than 4 coaches left for team, L3 goes down to 1 coach... and Optionals are sometimes basically on their own with drills and skills they know. I am there to "babysit" them and keep them on task. We also do a lot more conditioning on those days

Do your teams not have specific coaches assigned to them?

Our levels each have a head and at least 1 assistant coach. Most of those coaches are part time and, when coaches go on vacation, they will have one of the team coaches from another level fill in. Our rec coaches are a separate set of coaches.

 

[profmom]

Idle time isn't just wasted -- it comes to be occupied by stupid behavior. Especially if granted to certain combinations of age and gender <cough cough>.

The other thing that happens a lot in my kids' gym in the summer is that kids switch groups to even out the numbers. The schedule is set up so that, even for the boys, there are three days where all the L6+ guys are in the gym at the same time, so it's fine to throw a guy or two in one direction or the other (with the entire group that competed L6 last season or with the optionals). Honestly, if priorities have to be set for distributing coaching resources (which would only happen on the boys' side), the optionals generally take priority, because all of them need upgrades for next season that can only be taught by a high level coach, and the head coach feels he has no time to waste. However, someone else can watch them for strength rotations.

 

[Deleted member 17723]

my gym has 1 or 2 coaches with each group. We typically have 7-10 kids per group, sometimes more, sometimes less. We often split optionals+5s in one group, either 4s in one or two groups, and level 3 ideally has 2 groups if there are enough coaches. Most practice we have 3-5 coaches.

 

[raenndrops]

Do your teams not have specific coaches assigned to them?

Our levels each have a head and at least 1 assistant coach. Most of those coaches are part time and, when coaches go on vacation, they will have one of the team coaches from another level fill in. Our rec coaches are a separate set of coaches.

Last year, HC tried doing level coaches... it didn't work so well. Everyone is part time and has other jobs. We have coaches assigned to rec, but if they don't show, another coach has to fill in. Our rec program directly leads to team. All of the team coaches started with coaching rec and even HC teaches rec classes as needed. All classes and team meet in a 15 hour a week time frame.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

During my dd training time there are 4 groups. Two groups of 6 and 2 groups of 8. There are 4 coaches. There is a specific coach for vault and bars, and another for beam and floor. One of the younger groups has a coach just for them, and there is a rotating coach that is an all around coach.

My dd group is mainly trained by the event specific coaches.