Hours & Training: Quality or Quantity? Which is better? Or is it a good mix of Both?

[MdGymMom01]

I have taken Bog's suggestion and started a new thread . There has been some discussion on schedules and how many hours gymnasts train and there has been a wide variety in the amount of hours. I am guessing that there is no set magic number of how many training hours is "best" because each individual gymnast is different and learns differently. Some need a lot of repetition and learn better when they are in the gym a lot, and others can make corrections quickly and hold those corrections in their head during the next practice and apply them at the next practice with many days off inbetween. Any other thoughts?

 

[gymmomtoo]

I think you are correct--it really depends on the gymnast as to what works best for them. But I do think some coaches (not the good ones ;-) ) think having more hours will make better gymnasts--when in reality it's what you do with the hours you have that makes the difference. The gymnasts could be practicing 25+ hours a week, but if a good portion of that time is spent standing around waiting for a turn, that's pointless!

Of course my daughter's gym practices fewer hours--deliberately (the HC/owner has talked about it at parent meetings), with the feeling that if they are working hard the entire time, they don't need more hours.

 

[MdGymMom01]

I agree gymmomtoo. My dd's gym is going to be changing the practice hours in a few weeks. They will still be training 10 hours a week, but it will be broken up over 3 days instead of 2. Saturdays were really long days--8am-2pm (6hrs) and to be honest the girls were fried by 12pm. They got a 30-40 min lunch break but I think that did more harm than good because it just wound up the kids and they had a hard time focusing for those last two hours. The new schedule will be:

Tue 5:30-8:30pm
Thur 5:30-8:30pm
Sat 8:00-12:00pm

It will be interesting to see if there are any positive differences that come about from this change. Since they will be starting at 5:30pm, they won't get a lengthy "snack break" so as to cut down on having to refocus the kids after the break.

 

[flipper's fan]

I sat in on a Q&A with Shawn Johnson a month or two after the Olympics. She told the girls she "only" practiced 4 hours a day, six days a week, but the important thing was to make every turn count, to make sure that everything she did was her best effort.

I think she was saying that if you work hard every hour, you will succeed with a manageable schedule. I've noticed with my dd over the years that sometimes there are too many girls in a group to get the maximum time on a piece of equipment, that due to age and development there was going to be some goofing off and fooling around, and that it can be very difficult to maximize the time in training for most of our kids compared to a focused young woman with maybe close to an ideal training situation.

Everything is a balance.

 

[notjustgym]

My DD's (Level 9) Gym just reduced their hours. Optional now train 16 hours a week, this is down from almost 20 over the summer and 18 last year. DD is in a smaller gym, and they concentrate on the amount of "reps" each gymnast does on each skill or how many routines each gymnast does in a day/week. For instance once Competition season gets closer DD will have to hit 3 routines in a practice.

It is nice because DD gets home in time to do homework and spend family time.

on the flip side, there is not a lot of time during the competition season for uptraining.

 

[Tumblequeensmom]

My DD has been to gyms that just push the hours (the owners can charge more $$ and brag about how hard dtheir gymnasts work), as well as the "train smarter, not harder" gym. The one w/the most hours was extremely disorganized, coaches pulled from station to station and so much goofing off it was crazy! It was horrible... I always felt like I NEEDED to stay for practice just to witness the mess myself! Anyway, the girls' teams did not do well at all at their meets, but yet parents could say they worked out 20 (or whatever) hours per week!!! YUCK!!! Also, nobody's score made that improvement over the season you'd expect to see. OH, and it is still that way over there... some girls actually working out for 30 hours per week... yet they are NOT scoring in the top places at meets... more like middle of the road....

Then DD went to a very well organized gym that trained for "only" 16 hours per week for optionals (all levels). The girls did a fantastic job and scores increased as the season wore on.

As I have mentioned before, one of our most highly regarded gyms in the area trains their L10s for a max of 25 hours per week. The training hours are reduced for each level below that. Almost all of their L10's for the past several years ... well, as long as I've been keeping count... receive college scholarships to Div 1 schools.

This is a really tough sport... the constant pounding on bodies is hard enough w/o crazy hours... just my opinion!

 

[sally]

Just wondering how many girls are in her squad when she trains 4 hrs a day.

I sat in on a Q&A with Shawn Johnson a month or two after the Olympics. She told the girls she "only" practiced 4 hours a day, six days a week, but the important thing was to make every turn count, to make sure that everything she did was her best effort.

I think she was saying that if you work hard every hour, you will succeed with a manageable schedule. I've noticed with my dd over the years that sometimes there are too many girls in a group to get the maximum time on a piece of equipment, that due to age and development there was going to be some goofing off and fooling around, and that it can be very difficult to maximize the time in training for most of our kids compared to a focused young woman with maybe close to an ideal training situation.

Everything is a balance.

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

One thing I really like about my gym is that you can choose how many hours per week you go. If you go less than 16 hrs/week from level 6 and up, they might yell at you a bit, but from that minimum you can go up to more than 25 hrs/week. A lot of that extra practice time is self-motivated and less intense than a traditional practice - basically to catch up on skills you're not so confident about or work on extra stuff for future levels. In the summer the range is from 20 to 30.

I think this is really nice because if you have a lot of homework or something, you might be able to leave practice early and make it up another time. The high school girls with friends, boyfriends, football games to be a fan at, etc, often miss sometimes and make it up (or not). However, if you're really motivated (especially for the younger kids with less challenging academics) you can push yourself.

 

[flipper's fan]

Just wondering how many girls are in her squad when she trains 4 hrs a day.

Maybe just one- probably fewer than five or six. That's one of the things I was thinking in labeling it ideal training conditions in addition to enough equipment, good equipment.

 

[All Chalked Up]

I'm a strong believer in quality, not quantity.

In our gym, no matter what level you are the maximum you can train is 11 hours a week, which I do. Tuesdays & Thursdays- 3hrs, Sundays- 5 hrs. I also coach every Wednesday and Friday from 4:00-8:00, an occasional 6-hour day on Saturdays and a coaching seminar once every month on a Saturday plus my meets, I spend a lot of time in the gym. Add that to school, social stuff and wrestling, I don't have a lot of free time- or any really! That's why I don't mind the low hours, but I work my butt off during training. And it works for me!

I don't goof off, I condition well, I work hard and I don't wait around for a turn. If all of the beams are taken, I practice my acro series or my routine- even do spilts if I have to. I always do something! If the bars are taken, I'm chalking up and asking myself what I can improve on.

That's why so little training hours work for me- you just have to be serious about it!

 

[coachmolly]

I think it depends on a ton of factors. Size of the gym/how many stations can be set up at a time, number of qualified coaches to be staffing stations or splitting the kids into groups, number of kids, level and age of kids, how many other people are in the gym (classes, cheer), so many variables. I think it also depends on how wide the skill range of the kids is. If you have a group of kids in a similar skill level, all very driven and with a good coach at the upper levels, I think you can get away with fewer hours. But unfortunately it's hard to get ideal situations in some gyms- those with smaller spaces, less coaches, you get the idea. But these are all important things to think about when developing a team schedule, and I can see why some coaches encourage day-time practices for upper level girls so they have full use of the gym without having to share with other classes.

 

[sally]

I reckon she is the only one training. I know with tennis training we use to do between 4-5 hrs a day 6 days a week, but it is private. Having private coaching you can do less hours as you get that one on one attention.

Maybe just one- probably fewer than five or six. That's one of the things I was thinking in labeling it ideal training conditions in addition to enough equipment, good equipment.

 

[Granny Smith]

Everyone always wants quality, quantity means nothing without quality.

Know that this thread started from another thread, it made me think of things for a few angles…. Ok, here we go!

Compulsory levels – doing 20+ or 30+ hours for Compulsory levels, yeah I would think that they kids would be stand outs or should be standouts. They are competing against a majority of gyms who only train 9-16 hrs, depending on the level (obviously gaining more hrs as the child goes up in levels). As a parent, I would be highly disappointed if my 20+ hrs child was only middle of the pack, knowing that most of the other gyms are training less hours. Then again, there are probably several parents that don’t realize that several other gyms train less hours but are performing just as well as the 20+ hr girls.

Optional levels – the playing field evens out. All Optional gyms training on average 20 hrs. There are some that train less and some that train more, but most gyms who’s gymnast attend brick & mortar schools train on average 20 hours. Now you see who the consistent gyms are. Yes every now and then a blind squirrel will find a nut and a phenom gymnast will come out of a blah gym, but consistently who are the performing gyms. You can see it by looking at the State results year-to-year.

 

[flippin out]

Granny Smith -- After seeing this thread yesterday, I gave it some thought and was signing on here to post.....only to find that you beat me to it . I couldn't say it any better. I know that there are several gyms that train crazy hours for compulsory and of coarse they usually win. But, when you take a Level 4 who is training 25+ hrs a week and compare them to a Level 4 who trains 9 hrs a week (and this really is the norm for L4) I would expect them to be on top. They don't always win though.

FAST FORWARD............The Optionals hit these kids who were training 25+ as L4-5, and now they are training 35+ hrs a week.......well, the ones who stuck in the sport that is. Several girls (and their families-this sport is a family commitment after all) at these big hours gyms have thrown in the towel and moved on to other sports by now. Maybe they stick it out for a year of L7for the fun of performing their own music......but they are burnt out and tired of all the hours by now. Maybe they left for another (less extreme) gym, or maybe they left the sport completely?? The kids that are left are very dedicated...but some of them....their bodies are tired and maybe they've been sidelined from injury. The girls that are healthy still do very well, don't get me wrong, but the gym is not the powerhouse that blows the entire field away like they are known for in L4,5.

In NO way am I saying that NO girl at any level should be in the gym more than 9 hours a week. I'm just saying that if you have a Quality gym with Quality coaching.....there is no reason that a girl should be in the gym for the extreme hours that some do.

As Granny Smith said.........Optionals is usually where the playing field levels out. I'm much more impressed with a gym that has phenomenal Optional results - they show staying power and that they TRAIN SMART - not just more.

As a disclaimer ----- every gym (any sports team for that matter) has a cycle. You have a phenomenal group of girls go through -then maybe a couple of rebuilding years - then back to the top again....that's natural. It's when the rollercoaster stays low at the Optional level that is concerning. And I'm in NO WAY saying that the gyms with the extreme amount of hours don't put out some great gymnasts....it's just that there were a lot of Good gymnasts that left along the way due to extreme hours/burn out. And I'm really not trying to start a debate on the issue.....just sharing some observances of my years in this sport.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

a mix of both with periodization schedules put in to place. micro and macro training implemented during different times/cycles of the training year.

 

[Deanna]

At DDs gym, the most anyone trains is 20hrs a week. (no more than 4 hrs a day). Generaly they dont like them to spend more time in the gym than their age. (So Kadee being 6 spends 6 hrs a week in the gym..even the older 16-17 yr olds spend on average 16hrs). There are exceptions to these rules. During summer break from school they will bump them all up a day. (This is were that extra 4 hrs will come in for some..making it 20 hrs in the gym). Also a couple of months before competition season starts they will bump them up an extra day again until they have the first couple meets under their belts. By the first of the year they are back down to their age in hours..lol.
There are only about 30ish girls on the team (give or take about 5). And there are 4 coaches. Only during those 5ish months out of the year (during summer and the two right before comp season) will you have a single day where ALL the girls are there at the same time. And even then the last hour of the "big girls" practice its just them, as the smaller ones (like Kadee) only puts in 3 hr days at a time The rest of the time it is scheduled where there are only 12-15 there at a time. Split that up between the 4 coaches. And they are in pretty small groups. They have 3 high beams (2 low), 3 sets of bars, 1 vault, and one floor. (but have a tumble track) So most of that time in each session is spent actually working on that event. If they have that extra person (if there are 15 girls that day). Then the extra one will work on event geared conditoning until it is her turn to use the beam/bars. Then the next girl will condition. So there really isnt much time for them to play around. They are pretty much working the whole time. Our state isnt really known for power house gyms. But within our state DDs gym is consistantly at the top at meets. And the girls do make it to regionals and such. So they arent "bad".
Like I said the gym just doesnt like to have them in there more hours than their age. (no matter what their age is). No one, under any circumstances spends more than 20 hrs a week in the gym. And they do not have practice on weekends. They say the weekends are for family and friends. This is what really works for our family. My DD loves it there...and I have never ran into anything coaching, owner..ect wise that has ever gave me second thoughts. (There has been a parent of two I wanted to hang from the ceiling a time or two though..lol)

 

[LizzieLac]

The extreme hours for the lower levels is simply a negative factor, in my opinion. Increases the risk of injury and burnout. One might argue that those kinds of hours are needed for the athlete of any age who wants to go elite. And, I know we have had that discussion on these boards before as well. Those kids, if they are really going elite, may need those hours, but most gymnasts will not be elite. In fact, it sounds like most gymnasts starting at level 4 probably won't make it past level 7..especially if they are in gym 20+ hours year after year. Quality over quantity for sure.

 

[AGM78910]

9-15 hours for Compulsory and 25 for Optional. The public school Optionals all go 25 hours. Private school girls go 29 hours and go twice a day.

 

[Gymmonkeymomma]

If the quality of coaching/workout is not there, the # of hours spent in the gym (and the amount you pay in tuition) is just a big waste!!

 

[bookworm]

We've been in this sport for over 10 years....quality, period.