Advice Needed For a Coaching Career in Gymnastics

First off, a big THANK YOU to Coach Sommer and all of the GB community! Over the last 2 years I have learned a wealth of information here - the book and website continue to be truly amazing resources for me. Thanks again and again!

Now regarding my specific post - I am hoping to turn my love for bodyweight training into a coaching career and am hopeful that any of you with such experience (and perhaps even Coach Sommer?) can offer some practical advice on preparing for a career in gymnastics.

Here's some basic background information: I am 26 years old, male, Canadian, am currently working as an ESL Teacher, have degrees in Psychology and Architecture, and am otherwise a "beginner" gymnast. I have been involved with strength training for some 10 years but only recently discovered gymnastic a few years ago - it completely and permanently changed my outlook on bodyweight training. I have been following GBs independently for 2 years and recently began tumbling classes where I have seen rapid gains - my Coach says I have great potential. I currently have little formal training/education in gymnastics (or sports science), but am highly capable and willing to learn.

I am at a turning point in my life now where I want a (major) career change where I can finally follow my passion. I realize that it will be difficult and probably even impractical to begin pursuing this career at my age, but I am here asking you for constructive criticism and your help with guiding me from point A to point B (or in my case, more like points A to Z!).

So where do I begin? It is obvious that I first need to improve my own personal gymnastics skill/strength levels (I have no expectation of reaching an elite level, but a solid foundation I can only assume is necessary for effective teaching). I also imagine that I will need to get a series of qualifications/certifications - can you comment on what is typically involved for the "education" component of a coach? And I will also need to begin to build experience - where is a good start for this?

These 3 points are just my own speculations. I imagine there are many others that I have failed to consider! So if you can offer me ANY information on how to proceed with this dream, it will be hugely appreciated!

Thanks in advance for all your help and I really look forward to hearing your input!

All the best,

A.J.

Alright so here's what I'm thinking. Since getting an education over there requires one to have won the lottery multiple times, this is my idea.

Read up on:

anatomy and physiology

neurophysiology and control of movement

Biomechanics

then you can go into specifics such as the book list here on the site.

Take these courses

Gymnasticbodies

You may also benefit from the PICP courses for strength training.

Besides this you will need education on technique. I'm sure there's some sort of certification program 'over there' you can take. Besides that "you don't become a good coach till you count a million reps". So get out there and practice alongside other coaches.

So thats the strength part of things, and also biomechanics to help understand the techniques.

I'm not a gymnastics coach, rather a yoga teacher, but i imagine career wise there are similarities.

I have seen lots of people get into teaching way too soon, in yoga i believe its fairly well corrupted the industry, driving the value of good experienced teachers down.

Of course gymnastics isn't being taught ten times a day at every corner air conditioned gym like yoga, but as i understand, there is a good deal of competition for the available slots, and the pay is nothing to write home about.

When students come to me asking how to become a yoga teacher, i want to tell them DON'T! Its a hard life with lots of sacrifices and little financial reward. Its the kind of thing you should do for one reason and one reason only, you are truly 100% passionate about it.

Keep some doors open, make sure that Coaching is your passion, is so - go for it!

Hopefully BlairBob and others with Gymnastics coaching experience will provide their specific insights as well.

Well one thing about Canada is you must be certified by the State to coach. They also run more thorough background checks than in the US and most of the gyms are state owned non profits.

http://www.abgym.ab.ca/resources/

http://gymnasticscoaching.com/new/?s=canada+certification

Here in the States, USAG has recently come up with a certifications program though GymCert has been around awhile as well. Nevertheless, I would say that 95-98% of those gyms are not big with certifying in either program.

So besides finding a good gym to coach at, you'll basically have to study and pass the educational requirements. So quite possibly, it could be easier for you to break into coaching in Canada than the US. However, I would imagine there is less demand for coaches possibly.

Thanks a bunch for your advice so far - it's greatly appreciated!

Blairbob (or others), do you know if certification requirements are the same at the University/College level as well? This would be me dream job, if I could attain it. Are there any other key assets (besides luck) that may be valuable at that level?

Thanks again

University level. Well, you'll need to start somewhere as an assistant. Several of the assistants at Cal in the women's program were club coaches with a lot of experience. A lot of the time they are former competitors for said team after they retire.

In our case, we would have to spend many years as a club coaching working our way up to the top, proving ourselves and then see about it in a collegiate system. It's very different though developing a gymnast from scratch rather than working with one that may have already peaked as isn't training as much for 4 years and is well an adult. This is a bit different for the guy's however, as they may not be all worn out and retired from high level/elite competition and could actually be trying to train for the national/elite circuit.

University coaches are usually people with a lot of coaching experience as well as having shown that they have a track record for producing results and are familiar with coaching higher level skills (you can coach levels 4-8 your whole life but that wouldn't mean much since colleges are 10 and elite). Not sure but I would assume that most of them also hold some kind of degree as colleges are more likely to pick those candidates.

I don't know much about Canada but in the US you just start working under more experienced coaches and build your knowledge, normally you would have been a former competitor or somehow involved in the sport but there are exceptions. For example, one of the coaches I met who coaches girl's levels 8-10 (floor, bars, vault) is a former cheerleader who started out coaching tumbling and slowly learned all the other events.

I started in a very similar manner, a gym needed a tumbling coach (I use to be a tumbler) and they offered to train me on the other events when they needed more team coaches so I went to clinics and spent/spend a lot of time learning technique on events.

I have heard you need a degree.

Honestly, I think a lot of collegiate coaches got their start from becoming assistant coaches after they retired and eventually taking over or being hired on elsewhere.

Blairbob said:

I have heard you need a degree.

Honestly, I think a lot of collegiate coaches got their start from becoming assistant coaches after they retired and eventually taking over or being hired on elsewhere.

I only know two colleges coaches so this doesn't mean much but one was an olympian, coached in Russia for a while then came over here and got a coaching position at a university (no idea if he holds a degree or not). Another ran a very successful gym then sold it and became a college coach (this is all over a span of 30+ years) but I don't think that this guy did an assistant position as he was being requested at clinics on a regular bases and coached many successful athletes (one of them an olympian as I remember).

I would assume that the way you described is the most common though.

Thanks so much for all of your input everyone! It definitely sounds like it would be a long journey to get to the collegiate level, but that was pretty much the expected response. One step at a time though, right? My main interest would be in working with adults and/or higher level athletes, so this is why a College/University level position would be my ideal. I am also interested in Cirque training too

As far as marketability goes in an industry with an extremely small number of available positions, are there any other skills that might be particularly appealing to an employer? Yes, specific gymnastics education and coaching experience is a given, but beyond this - perhaps rehab/prehab or massage knowledge, general strength and conditioning knowledge (eg. Olympic lifting/etc.), research knowledge, etc...???

Again, I really appreciate all of your help!

"The journey of 1000 miles began with the first step!"

Cheers,

A.J.

A.J. said:

Thanks so much for all of your input everyone! It definitely sounds like it would be a long journey to get to the collegiate level, but that was pretty much the expected response. One step at a time though, right? My main interest would be in working with adults and/or higher level athletes, so this is why a College/University level position would be my ideal. I am also interested in Cirque training too

As far as marketability goes in an industry with an extremely small number of available positions, are there any other skills that might be particularly appealing to an employer? Yes, specific gymnastics education and coaching experience is a given, but beyond this - perhaps rehab/prehab or massage knowledge, general strength and conditioning knowledge (eg. Olympic lifting/etc.), research knowledge, etc...???

Again, I really appreciate all of your help!

"The journey of 1000 miles began with the first step!"

Cheers,

A.J.

You need to know how to sell yourself. That's the most important skill anyone can have. Know or learn how to talk yourself up and represent yourself with confidence, which will come from experience. Very few people have a large enough lack of moral fiber to be able to successfully present themselves as a competent professional without having the experience and skills to back up such a self-promotion. A fairly large part of this will be knowing that you can develop athletes by having done so. Your value will come from you yourself, not what training systems you know.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't learn other methods of performance enhancement but be smart: use this forum to your advantage by asking what different coaches are using outside of GB-style conditioning for their athletes. Know that you may need to have certain athletes working differently from the others if they respond well to certain styles of conditioning. Know that you may have limited equipment to work with, and be prepared to look for reasonable alternatives to what you would ideally LIKE to do.

Also, I think you should read this post:

Coach Sommer said:

I have found the following insights helpful when working with young developing male gymnasts. In essence it helps to remember that most young boys are warriors at heart who yearn for the opportunity to test, challenge and prove themselves.

- Boys love structure in everything; the stretch, the skill training, the conditioning, the consistency of the rules for behavior, etc. Once you set up your program leave it in place and give it time to mature before making changes. Constant restructuring may satisfy your emotional need for change and variety as a coach, but it will do so to the detriment of your athletes. I once went an entire year without making any changes whatsoever to my athletes' conditioning program. Interestingly we also won a National Championship that year.

- Boys love to be challenged; especially in a group environment. I always make a big deal of pointing out to the group when someone achieves a superior performance whether in practice, conditioning or competition. A caveat is necessary here however, my standards for excellence are completely predicated upon personal best effort. I am unimpressed by a national team member who "cruises" to a victory, but will go out of my way to publically recognize the efforts of a young 7 year old with relatively poor athletic ability who refuses to give me less than all he has.

- Boys will live up to whatever expectations you have of them; if you are firm, fair and consistent. It should be noted that they will also live down to your expectations if you set the bar too low.

- "Seniority" is a major component of retaining the attention of young men; especially in the 8-12 year bracket. I line these boys up for everything (attendance, warmup, skill training, conditioning, even water breaks) according to seniority. For my teams, seniority is measured exclusively by whether or not someone is giving me their best effort; not by their actual competitive results or the quality of gymnastics or conditioning they have achieved.

This is a very powerful tool for working with this age group. For example I once had an athlete who, at 8 years old, was performing quite poorly in warmups at his first national championships. I simply mentioned in passing to him that his team mates were going to be pumped to finally have the chance to be "senior" to him. He promptly forgot his nerves of being at nationals and began to focus solely on out performing his team mates at home. The result? He placed second.

- Always hold boys to the highest possible standards of excellence. For instance I rarely tell them that something was "good", but will usually restrict it to that was "better", or an "improvement", or "nice try". I am also not shy about letting them know when something is unacceptable; either technically or attitudinally. I am however always on the lookout for an opportunity to recognize best effort.

- I personally supervise and count every rep of every exercise that my lower level athletes perform. To facilitate this I will break the group into two and have one group perform the reps by my count while the other group rests and then switch. Poorly performed reps do not count and will be repeated by the entire group. If the group fails to achieve their minimum assigned reps that set does not count for that group. Groups that finish early may earn additional time in the pit or tramp while the other group finishes their assignment.

- I constantly provide concrete goals of excellence for the boys to chase. For example in conditioning the 6 year old boys are allowed to stop after 5 pullups, but I make a big deal of any athlete that attempts to do 10 pullups like the "big guys" (well big to them, the 8 year olds). However only athletes who have done an excellent job on their 5 reps are allowed the privilege of striving for 10.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

thankyou Sliz, for digging this out. I don't remember reading it at all!

Regarding other skills besides gymnastics knowledge, that would depend on country. In the states, something along the lines of sport psychology might be a boon or Childhood Education if you were going to work in a private club. Canada seems to have a thorough coaching indoctrination program while there is barely anything in the states, and thus credulity tends to be work or competitive experience.

Slizzardman, thanks for your post and also showing me another coach's teaching mantras - it's always interesting to read how other's go about motivating their athletes/students! And Blairbob, I have an undergrad in Psychology with some focus in Sports, so it's great to hear that this may hold some weight!

Cheers,

A.J.