Insane amount of hours!

[gymgurl]

As you may know i am from Australia and if you know the system there are 3 streams - State, National and International.

State - least competitive & least hours - for late starters (pretty equal in skills just less bonuses)
National - between state and international - equivalent to usag i guess - the normal
International - Most competitive, really talented, high level training facilities, intense hours. These kids are only in high performance training facilities - i guess like fast tracks

Our gym offers state and national levels and i am in state and train 10 hrs/wk and i think that is a fair amount of hrs for what we are doing (i would love to be in the gym more though) we get everything we need done and it is all we need.

The kids in the national levels train up to 20.5 hrs/wk level 4 and aren't heaps better than us - sure they are a bit better but surely if they are placed in that stream they should be even with equal hrs.

My question is do you think that 20.5hrs/wk in lvl 4 is too much and unnecessary??
What do you think about the hrs for state stream? are they normal in other countries?
How many hrs do lvl 4s in other countries train????

Just thought this would be interesting

 

[bogwoppit]

Our regional girls, like your state, can train 9 hours or less a week. For the Provincial stream, like your national, they can train any number of hours they like.

SO my oldest who is 13 and has L6/7 skills cannot train more that 9 hours, but there are younger girls in the gym with less skills who can train as many hours as they wish.

Not about fair, just about what is. Though I know is Aus the streams are quite rigid and it is hard to move about. My oldest can move back into Provincial tomorrow if she wanted.

 

[gymgurl]

I know the system and i LOVE IT!!! it allows me to have a social life and go to parties (i am sensible don't worry) and all that and as a teenager a social life is quite important!

My question isn't about fairness it is about whether a lvl 4 training 20.5hrs a week is normal or excessive??
And how many hrs do lvl 4's in other countries train??

 

[livelifetumble8dx]

i'd say its a little exsessive. the girls at my gym, who are level 4s train about 4/3 times a week, for 2 hours a day. so.. they train either 12 or 6 hours a week in the gym, and they still manage to bring home medals & get the skills they need in that amount of time. ( although, its a small gym with a small budget i suppose. i believe elite training areas may push somewhere near those hours for level 4s.)
( usa )

 

[gymgurl]

funny thing is we are not an elite training centre in fact our highest level gymnasts are 6 because the gym had to close for a while and the higher levelled gymnasts moved to a nearby club. so we have a gap from where they left.

 

[sportyspice]

Gymgurl, level 4 in Australia is much more advanced than level 4 in the US. One of our coaches suggested our level 4 as being similar to level 6 in US, so therefore a comparison of training hours might be difficult. Our level 4s train between 9 and 15 hours.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

elite athletes train upwards of 25 hours a week no matter what country you're in. not considered excessive, just necessary.

 

[Bobby]

I remember AussieCoach posting something similar to SportySpice - that Aussie levels are equivalent to higher USAG levels by 2-3 levels - so I think SportySpice is right about bearing in mind a direct comparison.
You may be right about the National level 4's not being much better - but I wonder if they are younger (having more conditioning to catch up on) and maybe progress more quickly through the levels as a result of the extra training they do??
I understand that the girls you're talking about aren't elite, but I think I'd judge what hours were excessive or not based on age and the individual's enjoyment at that level. I know for me personally 10 mins a week exercise is more than enough.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

Hey if a parent wants to pay for 20 hours of gymnastics for their twelve year old level four, good on them. What a great way to provide enough hours for all your gym staff. I do wonder if this sort of situation has also contributed to the quantity and quality of senior gymnasts deteriorating.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

probably to some degree. responsible planning must go into the micro/macro stages of training all along the way to provide the longevity you're speaking of.

 

[lil_gymnast_alanna]

Just a heads up: The state girls have a limited amout of hours they are alowed to train. 10 hours from levels 4-8 and 12 from 9-10. I know this rule because I got caught out not realising there was a limit and couldn't compete at State champs...

 

[Aussie_coach]

Hi, I am from Australia too.

Yes, for state levels there is generally a maximum number of hours an athlete can train. This varies from state to state and not all states even have state levels, 10 hours is the max allowed for level 4-6 in most states.

As for your level 4 girls training 20 hours a week. That is excessive even for Australia. The average number of hours trained per week by a national level 4 is about 14. These kids are NOT elite gymnasts and will never be elite gymnasts. Australia has a system which means by the time they are national level 4 it is pretty much too late to go elite. Only those at international level will.

Australian level 4 is not the equivalent to the USA level 6. Aussie level 4 is in fact about the exact equivalent of US level 4. The only difference is that our girls can do bonus skills at level 4 which are usually about level 5 standard (there used to be some level 6 standard bonus skills but they have been removed this year).

This is one of the reasons why Australia has so few level 7-10 gymnasts and so few teenagers staying in gymnastics. If they are doing 20 hours at level 4 there is really no where to go from there. Remembering that these kids do not have a chance to ever do college gymnastics (it does not exist here) or ever go elite. We burn them out before they reach level 7.

 

[CoachTodd]

I've seen gyms here in North Carolina that work out level 4 for up to 30 hours per week and the kids home school at the gym. Our girls that worked out 9 hours per week competed just as well as these over worked kids. From what I've observed is that same team's level 5 group is about 1/2 the size of the level 4 group. Level 6 is about 1/3 the size of the level 5 group and it tapers off quickly from there. I've seen these same gyms at level 8 state meets with a hand full of 8 and 9 year olds that scored quite well. They also all had some sort of brace on either their knees, ankles, wrists or backs due to over work and injury.

I'd say more that 3 hours a work out and more than 3 work outs per week is a bit much.

 

[gymgurl]

ok so it doesn't seem super excessive it just made me wonder because i know (according to interviews) that Shawn Johnson trains 25hrs a week this is only 5hrs extra realistically and she is an olympic gymnast so it just got me thinking.

Aussie Coach thats interesting that we burn off our gymnasts early i thought it was just our gym because we had a short closure and they all swapped gyms.

Do you or anyone think it would be better to limit hrs training at earlier levels to create longevity in the sport?

 

[cathiann]

Given the post that your level 4 is about our level 6--our 6s go 4 days a week, 3.5 hrs a day--so about 14 hrs a week. That's fairly typical for our area, I think. It doesn't increase too much from there--our level 10s only go 20 hrs a week.

 

[socko]

Pineapple Lump...I think you are correct that overtraining has contributed to the deteriorating of the Seniors in this country...the body can only take so much and especially when injured, it needs a rest (but to the powers that be, that never happens..) Think about all the decent Sr. that weren't even ready for Worlds this year (Shapiro, Larson to name a few) and what a shame that is.. Even Jordyn Weiber (probably one of the best Jrs in a while) is reported to be still nursing a bad hamstring injury and unable to compete still...I think the Marta system needs a re-eval because the "long term" isn't turning out to be very long anymore....

 

[gymgurl]

our level 4 is equal to your level 6 it is almost exactly equal to usag level 4. and judging by level 10s going 20hrs a week i think at such an amount at a low level is unnecessary and just burning them out.

 

[ZJsMom]

Pineapple Lump...I think you are correct that overtraining has contributed to the deteriorating of the Seniors in this country...the body can only take so much and especially when injured, it needs a rest (but to the powers that be, that never happens..) Think about all the decent Sr. that weren't even ready for Worlds this year (Shapiro, Larson to name a few) and what a shame that is.. Even Jordyn Weiber (probably one of the best Jrs in a while) is reported to be still nursing a bad hamstring injury and unable to compete still...I think the Marta system needs a re-eval because the "long term" isn't turning out to be very long anymore....

Not only that, but think of the broken/ burnt out juniors who never even got to senior-- Bianca Flohr, Tessa Pama, Monica Shoji.

 

[bookworm]

Touche on that one! Far too many juniors have left the sport because of the insane hours and more insane expectations of them....

 

[coachinkal]

Hey if a parent wants to pay for 20 hours of gymnastics for their twelve year old level four, good on them. What a great way to provide enough hours for all your gym staff.

I like your sense of humour