Will form and tightness improve with age?

[kasmom]

My daughter is a 7 year old level 4 gymnast. She can do almost any skill you ask her to the first time she tries it. She is very strong, but she does not stay tight and does not always point her toes. Will this improve as she gets older? This has been a problem since she was a level 1. She scored well at meets last year and placed first all around several times, but I watch other girls who may not be able to do all the skills that she can who have beautiful form. I just think she could be so much better if her form improved. She is very skinny and has knobby knees and that does not help.

 

[nettyinpa]

I think that it will improve as she matures. My dd's just the opposite. She's always had pointed toes, straight legs, the highest releve' on beam. But her skills kind of come later. I've seen a lot of girls start off level 4 with frog-legs on their BHS just to come out a year or so later with straight legs. As she learns different skills through the levels her form should improve.

 

[kasmom]

Thanks... I hope your right. She actually has a really good back handspring. Her legs are always straight and together. Most of the girls had to really work on their back handspring for this years routine, but my daughter has been able to do hers for 2 or 3 years. But, most of them do pretty good on their jumps, and my daughter has to really work to make hers look good. Her form is not really an issue when she's tumbling. It's when she's doing anything else. The little stuff is what gets her.

 

[NGL780309]

I have often wondered the same thing myself. Form is not DD's strong point. When she is reminded her form is actually really pretty, but she needs to be reminded alot. I've noticed some gymnasts just don't have pretty lines because of their body type. The shorter, bulkier looking body type. DD can look really good and she has an excellent toe point when she uses it.

She is a 5yo L4 and like your DD she usually seems to pick up skills pretty quickly. I think it's partly her age. She just doesn't do it automatically yet. I also think it's partly the coaches. They don't make her do it. Other coaches refuse to accept a skill that looks sloppy. She'll do her ROBHS with slightly bent legs, not froggy style, but not perfect. They'll say "good job, do 2 BHS now". If they would just remind her to do it right, she will. Her dad worked a lot this summer on making her do it right and she came back to her gym and they don't seem to care. I remind her and her response was that her coaches don't say anything. To steal from another thread, that's the one thing I would change about her gym.

 

[CoachAngela]

I would say it improves more wih age because when kins get a little more mature, they start to understand the important of form, clean lines, etc.

 

[gymmom14]

I definitely think there is hope! My dd is now 13 and has always had sloppy feet, flexed feet etc. She also has a super flexible back which causes her posture to be off. They were always telling her belly in etc. Over the last year, her body totally changed and now she looks tight, especially on floor. It is a very noticible change.

 

[LizzieLac]

I think younger kids don't usually have the body awareness to perform with long straight lines, tight limbs and pointed toes. Some do it naturally.

My DD has always had the best pointed toes. Her ROBHS has always been pretty good - not perfect but usually legs together and straight. Now that she is moving into harder skills (ROBHSBHS) keeping those legs gets harder becuase there is more going on. I think some good drills can fix those problems, so that is where coaching comes in. And, with experience the body awareness will kick in. Put the two together and you get pretty form.

 

[3stars]

Great thread, my daughter has the same problem. I try to remind her, but obviously I am not in the practice with her. Just keep crossing my fingers that one day she gets that muscle memory to just do it.

 

[Optionals United]

I think it will as she learns more body awareness amd as she matures.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yes...........................................

 

[kasmom]

yes...........................................

Thanks... That's what I wanted to hear. I've heard some people say that it comes natural for some, but some will never have good form.

 

[drivingmom]

Sound just like my DD. She stated L4 at 7. She did not have body awarness and still really doesn't now at 9. She does not look like a pretty gymnast, but she is one of the one's to get her skills first and very strong, she just doesn't have great lines.

Because she does do her skills well she does score at the top of the pack, if not winning. She just doesn't look pretty doing it. I hope it will come.

Time will tell for both of our girls.

 

[cher062]

I think it does but not because they are more physically mature but more because they are more mentally mature. When they are young kids don't have a long attention span and can be easily distracted. As they progress through the sport they become more focused more mature and start setting goals beyond that one practice and figuring out a way to get that. At 6, 7, 8 years old (grammer school) they need alot of guidance to go through that process. It really just a kid being a kid when they aren't consistant at that age (and some time even into the teen years).

Most of those "young kid" issues disappear just because they aren't 7yo anymore.

 

[NGL780309]

I think younger kids don't usually have the body awareness to perform with long straight lines, tight limbs and pointed toes. Some do it naturally.

My DD has always had the best pointed toes. Her ROBHS has always been pretty good - not perfect but usually legs together and straight. Now that she is moving into harder skills (ROBHSBHS) keeping those legs gets harder becuase there is more going on. I think some good drills can fix those problems, so that is where coaching comes in. And, with experience the body awareness will kick in. Put the two together and you get pretty form.

My DD oddly enough has the opposite problem. She bends her legs on her ROBHS, but she has much better form on her ROBHSBHS. I pointed it out to her and she told me that if she's not really tight on her first BHS she can't do two. Um hello? Why not just practice your first BHS with tight form too? It's kind of like how when they warm-up roundoffs she does them sloppy, but her roundoff is totally different when she knows she's connecting it. I don't get it, but I guess that's a kid for you. She does the same thing on beam. She almost never falls on the high beam, but stick her on the low beam and she falls on everything. It drives me nuts!

 

[mariposa]

I think that it definitely can improve. At 7, it is usually an age thing. Sure, there are some amazing young kids that always have good form, but not the majority of them. My DD just turned 8. Her first year of level 4 as a 6 year old she struggled with form, but that was also because she had barely gotten the skills. Her 2nd year of level 4, form was much improved, but it is ALWAYS a struggle for her. She has to be reminded of it all the time. And she has those knobby knees, too, which makes the poor form stand out even more. Love her heart though, she loves gymnastics and the smile always says it all.

I always laugh at open gyms. Some kids you can just tell from their form that they are gymnasts. Not my kid. Bent legs, bent arms, etc. LOL. You would never guess she was the same kid as when she is on the competition floor and focusing on form.

And I think some kids just always struggle with it, but it will improve slightly.

 

[MyBoysFlip]

It will improve with age! When I used to coach - there were years when a gymnast would change overnight and suddenly have great form. Sometimes it just takes longer for it all to come together. At our house - my younger son (5) has always had near perfect form and my older son (6) has the power but crazy legs & lots more crashes!

 

[triptwister]

Muscle Coordination is a complicated subject. Indubitably yes, coordination improves with age. Not just with age but also with practice and experience. If this were not so then kids would not learn to crawl, later stand up, later fall and get back up, later take steps, later fall taking steps and get back up, later walk and not fall.

As the brain matures its ability to organize information improves. The older a child becomes then the easier it becomes to process information and translate information from the brain into better or improved motor skills. First attempts at motor skills become successful more often and repeated attempts become lower in number before achieving success.

Muscle memory and brain to muscle communication plays a significant role in learning coordination. When a person is learning a skill for the first time they may have no preconceived ideas about the skill. Or they may have preconceived information in their minds. It could be a visual memory, instructions they have read about, coaching, hearsay, etc. Upon the first attempt the subject gains a mechanical feel for the skill as the muscles and brain work together to create a memory of what the skill feels like. On subsequent attempts the subject is able to refine the muscle groups so that they react more accurately to the demands of the skill. What happens is that the use of muscle groups are brought into better and more targeted use. The larger muscle groups which may have taken too much control at the beginning allow the other muscles to increase their roles. Or the muscle groups that are being used are adjusted with better calibrations. Hence more coordination. If the large muscle groups do all the work or overcompensate then the skill may look clumsy, careless, sloppy, ugly, and repulsive. Its like driving an automobile that without the small steering adjustments needed to compensate for road conditions then the automobile would weave sporadically on the road with large overcompensated adjustments. Yes the automobile can get from point A to point B without the small steering adjustments but if they are not made then the ride may be inefficient or spastic. The muscles and their communication with the brain learn to make those small adjustments to where it soon becomes an unconscious skill. At that point you are free to learn to do other things at the same time that you are driving. You become much more coordinated at driving both physically and mentally. Once the main parts of skills are memorized into the muscles and brain then the gymnast can thereafter consciously refine the skill and use other muscles or the same muscles with better timing to do more things or better things to improve the skill.

A coach will break a complicated skill down into easier parts using drills. Once the gymnast has motor and mentally memorized and refined a part of a skill and reached its level of competency unconsciously, then the gymnast can proceed to concentrate on the next part of the progression without worrying about the previous step. In other words the gymnast is not forced to learn a complicated skill all at once which may be impossible to learn it that way to perfection.

 

[NotAMom]

My two cents worth as an observer:

Unless a child is a natural (as in the body just does what the sport calls for without having to think), aside from good coaching, good form comes from both body awareness and muscle memory (Trip beat me to this one). We talk about body awareness a lot in gymnastics but muscle memory has little mention.

A child start out with little body awareness but it will without a doubt mature over time. One just has to know what he/she is looking for at a particular moment. But, it requires quick thinking.

OTOH, only repetitions through training and practice could yield muscle memory. In a fast paced sport, one cannot think fast enough to react to everything (especially in other sports where a bunch of things have to be executed perfectly and simultaneously). So, we count on our muscles (via our brain of course) to react to what they "know". Even thought it's learned over time, muscle memory is instinctive for the most part.