WAG Practice Sessions

[VBUBF]

From observing a few gyms practice sessions, I noticed such a wide and diverse range of ways practice sessions are conducted. I am assuming results at meets and/or success are directly related to practice sessions. With both gyms having same total number of practice hours, about 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, Gym A spends about 30 mins doing warm-up, stretching and some conditioning exercises and the 2 and 1/2 hours doing all 4 events everyday with a little more conditioning built in and all under coach watching. Gym B spends about 1 1/2 hours doing conditioning, stretching exercises by the gymnasts on their own and then 1 1/2 hours solely on events. Events are alternated and same events are never practiced back to back and sometimes two to three days in between. Gym B incorporates more TOPS/national team type warm ups. Gym A does no rope climbing holding handstands, presses (I mentioned this because I recall dunno say in a previous post rope climbing and some TOPS abilities testing is the foundation and paramount to gymnastics).

Coaches: which training do you think is a better training session? If neither, what do you feel is the ideal practice session? Parents and gymnasts: if your practice sessions are different from either of the above, can you share what your practice sessions are like and how successful is your team?

Lastly, which of the gyms listed above you feel is producing the stronger team? I know a lot more rides into developing a successful team. So just to keep it real Gym A coach is more hands on and less time wasted waiting around. Gym B coach offers less supervision and a little more waiting around. What is your guess?

 

[Aussie_coach]

If possible a little of both works well. So,e days we spend longer on conditioning and some days we spend less time. Somedays we do conditioning on its own and some days we mix it in with apparatus work. I think it is important to keep it mixed up especially if kids are training 3-6 days a week. If its always the same kids get relaxed into the routine and often don't push the,selves as hard as they can.

 

[cbone]

Our gym focusses a lot on conditioning and they typically work 3 events each practice. Coaches always supervise.

 

[LizzieLac]

Have to agree with Aussie_coach. Sometimes we follow Gym A and sometimes Gym B. Sometimes, a hybrid and sometimes neither - that would be the 1-2 practices right before a meet where we focus mostly on routines and fine-tuning choreography.

In fact, some days our gym's conditiioning might even look like "games" as sometimes that competitive approach where the girls are divided into teams and "earn" something for winning motivates them. There is always multiple coaches present at practice, as we have "event" coaches. However, some conditioning is supervised and some the girls do on their own.

I will say for the most part our gym will not do 1 1/2 hours of a 3 hour practice as strictly conditioning. More like 30-45 minutes of the 3 hour practice would be conditioning AND we might work some apparatus conditioning when working on that event. In my opinion, 1 1/2 hours of straight conditioning is going to tough for most younger girls. I think it will feel tedious. That is why I like including the appartus conditioning during the event training - the variety and mix of exercises challenges the body as well the mind. However, I am not a gymnastics coach, so my knowledge is limited.

 

[VBUBF]

Gym B had less successful results. Surprisingly, the gymnasts in Gym B appear to be weaker and inconsistent. That was my daughter's old gym. I was surprised when my daughter told me she was doing less conditioning/exercises at her new gym, Gym A. The gymnasts there were stronger and performed and scored better at meets. But they did not do ropes, hold handstands and the like. But I think when they do apparatus work, there is conditioning built in because they are constantly moving as in some kind of circuit training. She found her new gym's practices a lot more difficult. I guess as indicated above, the problem with her old gym is that they never or rarely switch things around. I was just a little puzzled that her new gym did not do TOPS/elite type training yet produced better gymnast than the gym that seemed to follow USAG warm-up training exercises.

 

[gymdog]

Less consistent at what level?

I agree a mix could be ideal, but a large proportion of upper level training is ultimately physical preparation (not just rope climbing but also basic exercises on each apparatus. Some teams don't win compulsories but manage to have upper level teams.

 

[Gymmommy71]

DDSs gym seems to have a single day w/ a lot of conditioning (like 1.5-2 hrs) out of a 3.5-4 hour practice, and then only 2 events that day...or maybe even 1. The other days are only about a .5 hr of conditioning at the beginning and then 3 or all 4 events w/ another .25-.5 of conditioning at the end. My DDs previous gym seemed to operate similarly from what she says - there was always a single practice day that had much rougher conditioning than the others.

 

[VBUBF]

Less consistent at what level?

I agree a mix could be ideal, but a large proportion of upper level training is ultimately physical preparation (not just rope climbing but also basic exercises on each apparatus. Some teams don't win compulsories but manage to have upper level teams.

thanks for making that distinction. I was looking into L9 and L10. I guess practices differ in compulsories and originals?

 

[gymdog]

thanks for making that distinction. I was looking into L9 and L10. I guess practices differ in compulsories and originals?

They do, but a gym might do better in optionals because they don't spend a lot of time on the compulsory routines, but rather on other skills and conditioning. But conditioning that is ineffective or poorly planned is a waste of time. Still I don't understand how a gym is using no rope climbing or presses exercises, but perhaps they're replacing with other similar exercises or they do it on beam which you don't see, or something.

 

[TGymnastics]

For us we condition at the bigger of class for a half an hour or so then we get around to do at leased 3 events if their isen't people on the one we need next we might spend more time doing something else

 

[Deleted member D3987]

as Aussie said, both ways can work well. it's a matter of style and not substance.

 

[thefellowsmom]

The fellows has three 4 hour practices a week. Usually the first hour is conditioning and warmup. The makeup of this time varies from day to day, although I am sure there is a very specific pattern and purpose that I am not there enough to observe. One day it might be lots of core and press work. Another day it might be lots of bar conditioning, leg lifts and rope climbs. Today it was warmup/standard conditioning and then lots of rolls of various sorts, dance, walkover and handstand work. Then the norm is three events and the last 20 minutes or so is stretching. Lots of splits and shoulders. Our gym does not compete TOPS.

I would call us an up and coming team. Every year our performances improve , the team grows and girls are going to college (which didn't used to be the case). We had many compulsory state champs last year and although we don't have a huge optional team yet all our optional girls qualified to the highest level possible for their level. At meets, there is a noticeable difference in the physiques of our gymnasts compared to the other teams. You can visibly see how conditioned they are.