WAG Where are the parents?

[tomtnt]

Few gymnastics injuries get treated in the ER. 4.8 injuries per 1,000 per year is laughable and meaningless. Competitive JO gymnastics injuries per year that limits kids training say for more than one week per year.. Umm that number is probably at least 15 percent of JO competitive gymnasts per year which is 150 not 5!! If you know any gyms in the Midwest with a lower number than 15% please share the names, I know a lot of parents who would LOVE that information!

not many baseball, basketball, and football players get treated in the ED either.. obviously, this relates to major traumatic injuries.

 

[gymgal]

Few gymnastics injuries get treated in the ER. 4.8 injuries per 1,000 per year is laughable and meaningless. Competitive JO gymnastics injuries per year that limits kids training say for more than one week per year.. Umm that number is probably at least 15 percent of JO competitive gymnasts per year which is 150 not 5!! If you know any gyms in the Midwest with a lower number than 15% please share the names, I know a lot of parents who would LOVE that information!

You are not taking that into account that very few injuries from other sports are treated at the ER either. I also think the difference between other sports and gymnastics in that many injuries can be worked around in other sports, particularly overuse injuries, which are more difficult to ignore in gymnastics. So while they may have an injury, their "off the lineup" rate will be less.

 

[Midwestmommy]

I do not believe gymnastics does not have a much higher rate of injury—the apparatus height, the impact on joints from flipping and twisting and landing..

It ain’t rocket science. Just like the abuse in this sport, there is such a “heads in the sand” attitude.

You can’t work on improving what you chose not to see.

 

[John]

I want to comment here on a few things so please give me a little leeway.

I used to wrestle in high school. The need to lose weight was part of the sport, maybe it shouldn't have been but in my time it was. My method was to sleep with my door closed and my window wide open no covers on shivering through the night. It is a very effective method. My parents were aware and ask that I not do it, I just waited till they had gone to bed and opened the window again. My point is when someone wants something badly they will go to extremes to obtain it, even ignoring parents requests and surely not sharing the hardship they are going through. Our children's love of gymnastics places us in a very complicated situation.

As for injuries in youth sports. When youth sports are played above a recreational level I believe that the injury levels are high no matter the sport. As parents, we must decide if the danger associated with the chosen sport is acceptable. If your child plays baseball at club level by 14 its unavoidable that opponents will be throwing the fastball at high velocity and the bats are always hard and dangerous. In football, by high school middle school in some states, it is unavoidable that size discrepancy of teammates and opponents will vary widely, hugely increasing the chance of serious injury. Gymnastics it seems logical as the level of difficulty rises the chance of serious injury also increases. Overuse and overtraining injuries are present in all sports. This can be controlled by quality coaching.

As a parent I decided to let my Daughter chase her dreams, accepting the danger, I had the option to help her find a new dream but did not take it. I am now trying to educate myself on optional gymnastics. I did my best to pick a gym that understands the dangers and takes precautions to keep my girl safe. I believe the gym does its best not to pound her body but instead uses tumble track and rod floor whenever possible. I watch practice whenever I want and As many CBers have stated I now hold my breath hoping the phone does not ring and hoping to see a smiling face every day after practice. I can not blame the sport for the danger I accepted that danger by allowing her to participate.

 

[GymMom4]

Really? Can you hear what the coach says to your daughter all the time?
I had a coach once who would say the most belittling and horrible things with the calmest demeanor and a smile on his face. I would call that abuse.

My daughter also had a coach like that and he was on his "best behavior" when the owners were in the gym. They never believed it when parents said he was verbally and emotionally abusive toward many of the kids.

 

[profmom]

I do not believe gymnastics does not have a much higher rate of injury—the apparatus height, the impact on joints from flipping and twisting and landing..

It ain’t rocket science. Just like the abuse in this sport, there is such a “heads in the sand” attitude.

You can’t work on improving what you chose not to see.

No, it is not rocket science. It's statistics.

You can say that gymnastics has a high rate or an unacceptably high rate of injury in your opinion, and no one will argue with you, because that is your opinion.

If you are claiming that the rate of injury in gymnastics is statistically significantly higher than that experienced by athletes in other sports, that is no longer an opinion. It is a fact-based claim. That claim cannot be supported by you saying repeatedly that you think it is true, no matter what you have seen in your personal experience and no matter how many times you say that you think it is true. The claim itself would also need to be specified. Here are just a few things you'd want to consider:

• injury rate per participant
• injury rate per child-hour spent practicing or competing
• relative severity of modal injury based on amount of time off, long-term or permanent consequences, or other possible measures
• injury rate by type of program (I'd start with rec versus team and possibly incorporate additional divisions pulling out sanctioned, JO, XCel, etc. and matching with different level of club and high school programs to conduct the comparison)

You may be right. You may be wrong. One would need to do the study in order to know the answer. I am guessing someone has and that there are a good number of articles available on Pubmed. But we can't arbitrate this debate by telling stories about how many kids we know who have or haven't been hurt doing this or that activity. I can tell you an equally compelling story for why almost any sport would have an unreasonably high, outlier-type injury rate, but that doesn't make it a story that's actually supported when we look at the large-scale data.

 

[MILgymFAM]

Where were the parents is both a loaded and complicated question. Likely they were right there, thinking they were doing the best they could for their kids.

I know that there is this feeling of naiveté when a parent says their kids tell them everything, but in my case I believe that to be a literal statement. My DD tells me everything- and she’s 16, so not likely to stop any moment. At this point our relationship is what it is. That didn’t stop her from being emotionally abused. I have no interest in my kids competing in any sport- I’m the least competitive person I know. I am definitely not living through my kids. That didn’t stop my DD from being emotionally abused either. My DD isn’t elite, isn’t a tiny young phenom, and has absolutely no “big” goals in gymnastics. She wasn’t at a top, high-performing gym. That didn’t prevent the abuse either. So then, how did my DD end up at an abusive gym for nearly a year?

That kind of abuse is insidious. It leeches into the athlete’s consciousness slowly. Even more slowly than it began to peek around the edges of mine. My teen began to understand how toxic her gym was- with prodding from me- but firmly believed that short of physical or sexual abuse, this was just the way gymnastics was done. This is what JO is like. We are both babies still in terms of gym, but that basic conditioning that you just shut up and deal comes swift and it comes hard. Her coach actually berated ME to tears once, let alone the buckets shed by my DD. He made us both question ourselves and our commitment. He made us think we were crazy- he actually pushed my daughter into displaying signs of ocd. The funny thing was, as first me and then my DD realized what a disaster this training environment was, the HC was so good at manipulating people that my husband didn’t even believe us- he thought we were exaggerated, that my DD was too sensitive, that if she really wanted her shot she had to “man up” and take it.

I recently posted about the guilt that I carry about allowing her to stay as long as I did, but in the end she continues to tell me everything, we both learned that strength can also be walking away, and we learned to trust ourselves and each other. So where the parents are is probably standing behind their kids, trying their damndest to do right by them, even after they know they’ve made mistakes.

 

[Midwestmommy]

I didn’t say “unacceptably high in my opinion” - you did.

USAG does not track these statistics, do they? Hmmmm, why not? I know what I have seen with my own eyes and THEY NEED TO BE TRACKED. There are lots and lots and lots of injuries in this sport. And some gyms need to adopt best practices of gyms with a better safety record. I am dang sick of this “we don’t know so you can’t prove it, queu heads in sand.” We can and should do better.

Wrists and ankles and knees aren’t built to be pounded by so much force, open your eyes. Parents deserve to know the numbers and what gyms do to minimize the risk—and which ones don’t care,

I am sick and tired of this same approach by USAG and the attitude of keeping parents in the dark.

In a moment where it is painfully obvious USAG failed miserably in their safeguarding of kids, it’s time for more honesty and transparency.

 

[gymnastmom05]

I didn’t say “unacceptably high in my opinion” - you did.

USAG does not track these statistics, do they? Hmmmm, why not? I know what I have seen with my own eyes and THEY NEED TO BE TRACKED. There are lots and lots and lots of injuries in this sport. And some gyms need to adopt best practices of gyms with a better safety record. I am dang sick of this “we don’t know so you can’t prove it, queu heads in sand.” We can and should do better.

Wrists and ankles and knees aren’t built to be pounded by so much force, open your eyes. Parents deserve to know the numbers and what gyms do to minimize the risk—and which ones don’t care,

I am sick and tired of this same approach by USAG and the attitude of keeping parents in the dark.

In a moment where it is painfully obvious USAG failed miserably in their safeguarding of kids, it’s time for more honesty and transparency.

Do you have a kid competing in gymnastics since you have such a strong feeling that it's physically detrimental to their well being? I might have missed something where you're speaking from past experience and you've pulled your child from gymnastics. Your opinion of the the physical harm from gym reminds me a lot of my opinion about elementary kids and tackle football. My son would love to play BUT he isn't because I don't believe it's a good choice for him (or any child but they aren't mine to parent). Not trying to be snarky just truly wondering based on your strong opinion.

 

[B&M's mom]

Something to be considered when talking about injuries, what is truly a gymnastics injury? I know that sounds strange but not all injuries result from a fall or overuse. In my DD's case, she suffered from injuries related to gymnastics (torn hamstring, buckle fracture from hitting the bar) and some over use/growth injuries (Sever's) but she has also suffered from the fact that her knee caps are not tracking properly. Not a gymnastics injury, rather genetic but it impacted her gymnastics career and contributed to her leaving the sport. So someone seeing her at the gym on crutches might assume that it's a gymnastics injury when in fact it was really caused by genetics.

Not sure how you quantify the injuries to establish how many were caused by overuse vs. accidents vs. other causes like genetics.

 

[Taxidriver]

Something to be considered when talking about injuries, what is truly a gymnastics injury? I know that sounds strange but not all injuries result from a fall or overuse. In my DD's case, she suffered from injuries related to gymnastics (torn hamstring, buckle fracture from hitting the bar) and some over use/growth injuries (Sever's) but she has also suffered from the fact that her knee caps are not tracking properly. Not a gymnastics injury, rather genetic but it impacted her gymnastics career and contributed to her leaving the sport. So someone seeing her at the gym on crutches might assume that it's a gymnastics injury when in fact it was really caused by genetics.

Not sure how you quantify the injuries to establish how many were caused by overuse vs. accidents vs. other causes like genetics.

Also one of the nastiest injuries I have personally seen at gym was from a gymnast tripping over her own feet and head butting the end of the beam, the swelling and the resulting bruising looked awful (I think they even fractured their jaw) if you didn’t know you would of assumed (and I’m sure many recreational parents did) she must of fallen from a piece of apparatus, so whilst that occurred in gym it wasn’t truly a gymnastics injury.

 

[skschlag]

I didn’t say “unacceptably high in my opinion” - you did.

USAG does not track these statistics, do they? Hmmmm, why not? I know what I have seen with my own eyes and THEY NEED TO BE TRACKED. There are lots and lots and lots of injuries in this sport. And some gyms need to adopt best practices of gyms with a better safety record. I am dang sick of this “we don’t know so you can’t prove it, queu heads in sand.” We can and should do better.

Wrists and ankles and knees aren’t built to be pounded by so much force, open your eyes. Parents deserve to know the numbers and what gyms do to minimize the risk—and which ones don’t care,

I am sick and tired of this same approach by USAG and the attitude of keeping parents in the dark.

In a moment where it is painfully obvious USAG failed miserably in their safeguarding of kids, it’s time for more honesty and transparency.

USAG does not have an approach that causes lots of pounding by force. This is the nature of the sport, and how much is done is individual gym/coach driven. I am not sure how many sports do keep those statistics, nor how you would do it. My son was out of gym for 2 months for a shoulder injury from picking up a cooler wrong. His teammate was out for 3 after breaking his ankle at a trampoline park. But if you looked at our gym you would just see them out.....not gymnastics related at all.

 

[Midwestmommy]

Well I am actually a football fan. For privacy reasons, I need to be careful to not reveal too much identifying information. I can say, that no I didn’t pull my daughter from gymnastics due to injury nor do I think kids shouldn’t di gymnastics!

“physically detrimentL” - your words not mine. More statistics, more transparency is needed.

If it happens in the gym, it’s a gymnastics injury. If it’s an overuse and they are in the gym 20 hours a week, it’s a gymnastics injury. If your kid is more susceptible to knee injury due to genetics and it happens in the gym, it’s a still gymnastics injury. If they slip on the ice in your driveway and break an arm, it’s not a gymnastics injury.


I’m sick of the excuses and the lack of transparency. See how people attribute words to me that I didn’t say because I dare to question why there are so many injuries, want transparency, and want more sharing of information?

Time to get out of the dark ages and do better for our kids. I’m glad that some of you are at gyms that apparently don’t have an issue with injuries and you don’t want/need to know more—maybe you could somehow figure out a way to share name of those gyms with great safety records and what processes and equipment they have in place—that could be helpful for other parents in your area.

 

[Midwestmommy]

And it’s no badge of honor, but the approximate amount of money we spent over the years on medical deductibles and out of pocket amounts for gymnastics injuries? $9,000 more or less. The annual deductible on my health plan before anything is reimbursed at all is $2,500.

 

[John]

Time to get out of the dark ages and do better for our kids. I’m glad that some of you are at gyms that apparently don’t have an issue with injuries and you don’t want/need to know more—maybe you could somehow figure out a way to share name of those gyms with great safety records and what processes and equipment they have in place—that could be helpful for other parents in your area.

This makes me think, maybe someone should start a new thread and parents could list gym habits that they think are good and ones that they believe are determinantal. Possibly coaches could chime in and lend their expertise, maybe something could be learned by all.

 

[profmom]

I disagree, just do. The amount of injuries in competitive gymnastics is very very high, much higher than soccer or hockey.

Competitive gymnastics has a very high rate injury, I have zero doubt we would see that if there were good statistics (there aren’t).

I asked our orthopedist once and he said most dangerous 1. Trampoline party places, 2. Gymnastics (although the amount of competitive athletes is much lower than other sports so overall they are not the highest numbers through the door) 3. Football and soccer concussion and other issues.

Few gymnastics injuries get treated in the ER. 4.8 injuries per 1,000 per year is laughable and meaningless. Competitive JO gymnastics injuries per year that limits kids training say for more than one week per year.. Umm that number is probably at least 15 percent of JO competitive gymnasts per year which is 150 not 5!! If you know any gyms in the Midwest with a lower number than 15% please share the names, I know a lot of parents who would LOVE that information!

I do not believe gymnastics does not have a much higher rate of injury—the apparatus height, the impact on joints from flipping and twisting and landing..

These are your words, not mine. Do you care to clarify what it is that you are actually arguing? Are you or are you not claiming that gymnastics has a much higher injury rate than other sports? Sure looks to me like you are. Perhaps you could tell us the sport that does provide comprehensive statistics on all injuries, including subclinical ones, so that we could design a comparative study that would ASK and ANSWER a legitimate question using data rather than speculation. I get that you want more information and transparency, but you are jumping to conclusions without good evidence to back them up simply based on what you see in front of your nose.

I do think there are reasons to be concerned about the high injury rate in gymnastics, but simply asserting that it is out of line with all other sports does nothing to advance either that argument or a solution to the problem.

And if you're in a gym where something like 20% of your team is seriously injured every year, may I modestly suggest a gym switch.

 

[Midwestmommy]

Profmom, nice attack tactic to relist all my posts, aggressiveness however does not make you right. And I don’t ever cower when I get bullied. I do try to listen, trying to figure out what why you are being so defensive.

1 track gymnastics injury statistics
2 share said information with parents trying to make informed choices
3 a better system for teaching parents what to look for
4 gyms with poor safety records don’t get to hide the numbers
5 gyms with great safety equipment and practices recognized, share with others

More transparency?

Profmom what are you advocating for?

Don’t track statistics?
Keep parents in the dark?
Don’t look here, look over there?

Why would you be anti transparency? What is your horse in this race?

 

[mommyof1]

Re. injury rates, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

The ER stats are data.

 

[Midwestmommy]

also I do see your reommendation that if a gym has a 20 percent injury rate in a year a gymnast should consider switching gyms.

Parents how many of your kids are on USAG teams where less than 4 in 20 miss or modify training for an injury for a week or more each year? I think the gyms under 4 in 20 in my area don’t have the capacity, unfortunately.

 

[Midwestmommy]

Re. injury rates, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

The ER stats are data.

However, they aren’t meaningful. Not in our metro area anyway.