Concerned by lack of prep

[Shaf]

My daughter is a level 3 gymnast (she's 7) and had a meet this weekend. I noticed that her and her teammates were much less prepared and polished than the team whom visited.

At the next higher level (5-6 I think) the girls from our gym were riddled with injuries (4 out of 7 girls wore braces or tape on their wrists or ankles). None of the similar level girls from the other team were braced or taped.

This gym has experienced some downturn, and has lost a former Romanian olympian whom had coached there for years recently and also their level 3-4 coach, whom left to continue her education. This deficit in coaching has not been remedied.

I am concerned about potential injuries down the road for my daughter. The coaches are not very approachable. The owner of the gym is also elderly (this gym is one of the oldest continually operated gyms in the state) and doesn't like any kind of change or adaptation at all, which is impacting the gym economically. On the other hand, my daughter has attended this gym for over 5 years now, and is comfortable there and has friends who train there.

Can anyone point me to some resources for joint prep work for a level 3-4 girl? Also, I'm interested in the training guidelines for this level of gymnast (as in length and frequency of sessions, etc)

[Philip Chubb]

Well the wraps on the other girls wrist and ankles can be a bit of a giveaway about what the gym isn't doing. A lot of gyms don't take joint prep as seriously as Coach which is a huge mistake. Ido wrote something about conditioning for tumblers. Basically, strong ankles in all directions and strong knees. The wrist work might also be helpful since she'll probably be doing press handstands on beam. And if she is doing those, shoulder work to balance the shoulder girdle would be neccessary.

[Neal Winkler]

Why not leave?

[Shaf]

It may come down to that. Right now it's as much for the social aspect as it is for the conditioning and developmental aspect, and she enjoys training with girls she knows.

[Ryan Libke]

What are the other training options in your area? Given what you have posted, and speaking as a parent, not an expert in gymnastics, I would look elsewhere. My training experience is mainly in martial arts, where there are all kinds of cultural prescriptions against changing schools, dojos, etc., and to being loyal, which sometimes just functioned to keep students attending poor schools. On the other hand, there is rarely a perfect school or gym, and being overly critical can be a great way of never training happily anywhere. I could be critical of many of previous teachers, and probably rightly so, but I still took much from their teaching. Coming back, though, it seems from what you are saying that you are not finding small faults, but a legitimate risk of injury, and a lack of concern. I would be hesitant to take my child to a place that will not listen and explain why more current conditioning and injury prevention protocals are not being undertaken.

[Shaf]

I actually have a lot of other options.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.

[Neal Winkler]

Shaf, we really don't know much about Coach Sommer's prehab except a bad video of the wrist series. You have to go to the seminar to find out or wait for Liquid Steel™ to come out.

[Blairbob]

Shaf, more than enough joint prep is on the forums and can be followed.

At your daughter's age, most kids don't have very strong wrists yet. And they also weigh nothing. As the kids get older and bigger, you will see more things getting wrapped. It's very common to just have the meat-grinder approach to rehab/prevention in the US and not to start implementing any until problems start showing up.

There really isn't anything gender specific at your daughter's age until her hips start growing out which messes with the whole pelvis and everything below it.

More than likely your gym's S&C programming is nil to something. It's very common in the US in WAG programs.

I need to leave right now but I should think of assembling all the forum material on GB WOD and joint series that has been released.