Coaches What's happening to my gymnast??

[Gymishome]

So I've got this girl in our gym who has phenomenal natural talent. She started about a year and a half ago and she's already doing level 7 stuff. But unfortunately, one of the weirdest things has happened-she lost her kip! She got it in such a short amount of time that it's been consistent for about a year. All of a sudden it's like she can hardly do them! Her tumbling is starting to go too... What's happening?

 

[bogwoppit]

Has she grown recently?

 

[Gymishome]

Has she grown recently?

Already asked mom-said no growth since before she started gym.

 

[Faith]

How old is she? No way an under 16 doesn't grow in 18 months.

Willing to bet she's had or is in the middle if, or is about to have a growth spurt.

Otherwise is she eating, sleeping and recovering properly? Have you upped hours or conditioning?

 

[Gymishome]

How old is she? No way an under 16 doesn't grow in 18 months.

Willing to bet she's had or is in the middle if, or is about to have a growth spurt.

Otherwise is she eating, sleeping and recovering properly? Have you upped hours or conditioning?

Well that's the thing-she's about mid teens. Obviously a late starter. But anyway, we try and educate our gymnasts and parents as much as we can about nutrition. I asked mom what she eats and it's plenty of fruits and protein, no processed junk. We're tapering for meets so we haven't done much conditioning. As for hours, she comes as much as usual.

Maybe it's just a phase? A bad day? I've never seen anything like it.

 

[Redford]

Well that's the thing-she's about mid teens.

She started about a year and a half ago and she's already doing level 7 stuff.

We're tapering for meets

It's the stress.

 

[coachmolly]

I coach teens and weird things like this happen all the time. It can be any number of things- growth, hormones going haywire, stress, fatigue, starting to second guess themselves, or just being plain exhausted from everything going on in their lives as well as just in their own bodies.
I have one kid in particular who is going through something like this, a combination of the above as well as additional stress and pressure about competing for the first time with a lot of expectations (mostly ones she put on herself). Gymnastics has also come easily to her up to this point and she is just now running up against skills that are presenting a significant challenge, which I think could also be part of the frustrating fueled roadblock.
Just try to be patient and encouraging, she is probably getting frustrated with herself and if asked could probably not even begin to answer what's going on. It's very possible that she just "feels off," which is a completely legitimate reason in teens.

 

[iwannacoach]

Ask her....... Put together a list of possible explanations that cover the spectrum of physical,
emotional, social, and psychological issues. Present each one as a valid and reasonable issue that are normal possible problems....... just in case she knows what's wrong and doesn't know how to bring it up for discussion.

Having just one possible from each category will tell her you're ready to understand any issue from either category, and that you're willing to help her with whatever the problem may be.

About growth and age. Sure she may be growing so slowly that her mother can't see the changes and you may think she'd be able to adjust with such slow growth. The thing is, do kids grow evenly throughout their entire body, or does one body system (like arms) grow a bit with nothing else happening.

I really don't know if separate areas grow independently from others, but if her arms were to grow just 3/8 inches, nobody would notice and it could be enough to throw her off on kips and tumbling.

 

[gymjunkie]

Is she doing enough conditioning to maintain her strength? Is she secretly dieting?

 

[eucoach]

1.5 years is a really short amount of time to learn such advanced skills. It's impossible that she has automatized all these skills.

I was a late starter (13) too and picked up skills quickly. We never did any drills so I pretty much had to just go for a new skill or combination if I wanted to learn something. That worked out quite well until I developped blocks on several skills and combinations. In my mind it didn't make sense anymore why I would be able to do a certain skill. F. ex. I couldn't connect fhs-front tucks anymore after already doing layouts. I just did not know what to do anymore after the front handspring. I got over all of this after a while (in some cases 2-3 years). Now that I'm a coach, I'm pretty sure why I developped all these problems: I learned most skills through talent/instinct but had no proper technical training. So when something went wrong, I just did not know how to make corrections without messing up the whole skill. I had no basic technique to fall back on.

So this is my recommendation: Make her do lots of drills. Make her understand skills (she is old enough for that). Give her key words to tell herself when doing certain skills. Make her do lots of the same tumbling in a row. Although she is talented and learns fast, she needs to automatize skills otherwise she will keep losing them.

 

[Gymishome]

Thanks everybody. This was all very helpful.

Is she secretly dieting?

I talked to her about her eating, and it turns out she said she thinks she's getting about 1400 cals/day! She thought that was normal for someone her age..teenagers *sighs* So maybe this is the problem? We'll see what happens..

So this is my recommendation: Make her do lots of drills. Make her understand skills (she is old enough for that). Give her key words to tell herself when doing certain skills. Make her do lots of the same tumbling in a row. Although she is talented and learns fast, she needs to automatize skills otherwise she will keep losing them.

I will make sure to do this more often. Thanks for the insight

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Is she doing enough conditioning to maintain her strength? Is she secretly dieting?

very good! these are the first 2 things that came to my mind.