Parents "Unbalanced" uptraining?

[Really]

The bars coach at DD's gym offers extra bar clinics almost each weekend, and he has level 4 girls doing giants and other upper level skills, which naturally the gymnasts (and parents) find very exciting and motivating. None of the other coaches offer additional clinics, at least not to the same extent, so there's no opportunity for that kind of uptraining of skills in other events. So my question is: is there any point to uptraining on bars like this, besides for the fun of it? I guess I'm confused about the bars' coach's motivations for all the extra clinics. It's not like the gymnasts will be able to move up levels faster. They simply don't have the skills to on the other 3 events. DD has been invited to the bar clinics and has expressed a recent mild interest in attending one, but I've heard some negative things about extra clinics and burn out, so I wanted to hear from more experienced parents and hopefully coaches (!) what your thoughts are on this. I will say that he does seem to know what he's doing, and the girls who attend his clinic have some of the highest scores on bars.

 

[bookworm]

Well he could be making a lot of money with his clinics, so that could be a motivator, especially if he does it every weekend...

 

[duyetanh]

Seeing as bars are the elephant in the room for many (including my dd, lol), I would think it would be awesome. The way I look at it, any uptraining is better than nothing.

 

[2G1B]

From what I have seen, it is VERY common for girls to have "everything except bars". For most girls it just seems to be the slower event to come. So, it totally makes sense to me to go ahead and uptrain bars. I think that once a girl has a RO/BHS/BHS it isn't that much to swap a BT in instead of that last BHS. For beam, the BWO doesn't seem hard to get unless there is a fear. Vault is the same. But, getting the fly away, drop kip, free hip, and casting above horizontal can all take time.

 

[gymdog]

Yeah, I agree with the previous posters, if you're going to do it on anything, bars seems like a good idea. Beam, floor, and vault incorporate more similar skills to each other, so extra practice on bars helps that event catch up.

 

[raenndrops]

I agree with the others... Bars are what often hold gymnasts back, so up training bars is good.
I actually know of a gym that had some of their OLD Level 3 girls work giants on the strap bar. These girls were getting ready to move up and went from Old 3 to Old 4, then Old 5 in one year PLUS score out of Old 6 that summer ahead of the great level switch.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Yes, yes, yes there is very good reason to up train on bars.

Bars is generally the apparatus that kids struggle with the most, it takes an incredible level of strength and a lot of hours to get those skills progressing.

Kids should be training skills like giants as early as possible, it is much easier to teach these skills while the girls are still small and have them adjust themselves as they grow than it is to safely teach them to older, taller gymnasts.

This sort of up training is a sign of a good coach.

 

[Faith]

yep, bars is the "odd man out" so kids often struggle. Beam, Floor and Vault all cross over- train your BHS to BT on floor, and it's also training for beam (floor on a straight line) and vault (floor with a vault in the way). You can't teach bars on floor, beam or vault, the crossover skills are far fewer.

I had a DD that found bars easy. She was way ahead of her group. The other kids stuck on bar skills, with only 1/4 of training time on bars. DD had 3/4 of training time working tumbling skills for floor, beam and vault, so caught up and steamed ahead fairly quickly,

 

[Kcanflip]

I wish my kiddo had the opportunity to learn Giants earlier. Now she's 13 and 5'3 and fearful. I'd take advantage! Even if the other events take time to catch up! They are easier to catch up on than bars in my opinion.

 

[Tigtimes]

Well he could be making a lot of money with his clinics, so that could be a motivator, especially if he does it every weekend...

Yup could be factor....but....if I was going to have to pay for uptraining than bars is the place.

 

[GymMom4]

I agree with the above posters and would jump at the chance for extra help on bars for both of my DD. It is wheee they have always been behind compared to the other events.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Bars are the hardest.

 

[vbdb]

Bars are the one event I'd spend extra money and happily take extra training for my DD on. As everyone else has mentioned, the other skills are much easier to acquire until they start needing to twist on floor and flip vaults.

 

[e'smum]

we don't have a specific bars coach or any clinics like that but our gym trains bars the most. so much so that as a level 4 last year, our kids barely touched vault and it showed in their scores but our HC didn't seem to mind. it was very noticeable that they were on bars a lot. after reading this thread, i can see why now. my dd got over her fear of the lvl5/6 bars skills at the friday night open gyms. one reason was the ability to work on the pit bar that is hard to get time on during her regular practice b/c the upper level girls use it to work on release moves. she got a lot of skills during those open gyms which translate into her doing very well on bars and it helps to up her AA score when she doesn't do as well on other events. so if you can attend the speciality clinic, i saw go for it. it all depends on how expensive it is though. IMO, one clinic isn't going to do a whole lot so if you can afford multiple ones that would be best.

 

[cadybearsmommy]

Bars is something a lot of gymnasts struggle with so definitely a good place for uptraining. It also helps a lot for them to start uptraining a lot of these skills before they are old enough to be fearful bc the higher level bars skills are quite frankly scary and the fear holds a lot of girls back as they get older.

 

[Really]

Thanks for the input, CB peeps! I'll be signing DD up for a few of these in the future, it seems.

 

[duyetanh]

Thanks for the input, CB peeps! I'll be signing DD up for a few of these in the future, it seems.

OOH....can we come too? Pleeeeease?

 

[mariposa]

I'd take some of that unbalanced up training any day. You can never have too much up training on bars in my opinion.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

The bars coach at DD's gym offers extra bar clinics almost each weekend, and he has level 4 girls doing giants and other upper level skills, which naturally the gymnasts (and parents) find very exciting and motivating. None of the other coaches offer additional clinics, at least not to the same extent, so there's no opportunity for that kind of uptraining of skills in other events. So my question is: is there any point to uptraining on bars like this, besides for the fun of it? I guess I'm confused about the bars' coach's motivations for all the extra clinics. It's not like the gymnasts will be able to move up levels faster. They simply don't have the skills to on the other 3 events. DD has been invited to the bar clinics and has expressed a recent mild interest in attending one, but I've heard some negative things about extra clinics and burn out, so I wanted to hear from more experienced parents and hopefully coaches (!) what your thoughts are on this. I will say that he does seem to know what he's doing, and the girls who attend his clinic have some of the highest scores on bars.

My 2 cents is, nothing wrong with it and it's nice that he is doing it. But up training should be done during normal workout times as well. Otherwise it looks a bit suspicious and bias. That being said, bars is the slowest developing event and often it's bars that holds kids back.