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Trouty · Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 50 Location: Taupo, New Zealand

I can't find it....

I have 10 Level 2 girls in 'my' competitive squad. At least four are not really ready to compete. They'll do ok, but not great.

We train Mondays and Wednesdays. From 4.30 - 5.00pm is warm up and conditioning, then I WAS spending 45 minutes on bar and beam on Monday, and the same for vault and floor on Wednesdays. This covered all the apparatus and with 10 kids, it meant I had SOME time to actually coach and correct them.

Now the head coach has come up with a timetable. It looks like this:
Monday:
4.30 - 5.00 Warm up and conditioning
5.00 - 5.30 Floor
5.30 - 6.00 Bars
6.00 - 6.30 Beam

Wednesday:
4.30 - 5.00pm Warm up and conditioing
5.00 - 5.30pm Vault
5.30 - 6.00pm Beam
6.00 - 6.30pm Bars

It means we miss out on vault on Monday and floor on Wednesday. No biggie I guess...

What's better? 45 minutes (allowing 4.5 minutes coaching per kid) or 30 minutes (allowing 3 minutes per kid).
Neither really acceptable, but......

I have four options that I can see:
Train until 7pm each night
Start at 4.00pm
Train an extra day (although I've already asked for that and been told no)
Lose some kids.

Now what?

TipGuy · Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 6:24 pm Post subject:

Well if this is the schedule the coach has established, then that's what you'll have to do. 30 minutes/event with 10 kids including event transition time is not much at all. Organize stations. At first you'll be a little less efficient as the kids get used to it, but it will become much more efficient once they know what's going on. Get to your events quickly and get them into working drills right away. Then you can focus on a few kids/event each day and overall get in some good coaching time.

Now, is this USAG JO lvl 10? If so 2 days a week 2 hrs/day isn't anywhere near enough time to train lvl 10 sufficiently or safely.
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Trouty · Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 50 Location: Taupo, New Zealand

We use the Australian routines, so I'm not sure about the
USA stuff. It is pretty basic though.

Thanks for the input. The timetable apparently isn't "set in concrete" but there are other coaches (one with 9 kids, four with 10 kids - boys and one with 6 kids) to be aware of. I guess. I want to be a bit selfish with my kids and give them all I can.

AussieGirl · Joined: 06 Sep 2005 Posts: 207

They are level 2's (not 10's). I would go with the 45 minutes on each apparatus.

30 minutes is not a lot with 10 kids, and for Australian level 2 once a week for each apparatus isn't too bad. 45 minutes is proabably too much for level 2 vault though, so why not extend your florr time on your second day and reduce you vault time. The work you do on floor would benifit beam anyway.

I don't think 3 hours a week is too bad for level 2, but I think the trainings from 4-7 would be too much at that age. Can it be changed to just two hours, say 4:00-6:00. 4 hours a week would be plenty.

TipGuy · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 1:18 am Post subject:

Whoops, yeah misread 10 lvl 2... not lvl 10. Sorry.

Anyway, your desire to spend as much time as possible actually coaching is great. Keep that mindset. 30 minutes on an event is fine if you can organize well.
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AussieGirl · Joined: 06 Sep 2005 Posts: 207

Ooops I misread aswell, you have them for 4 hours a week. 2 days, 2 hours. I think that is plenty.

Trouty · Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 50 Location: Taupo, New Zealand

Thanks guys. I'm working on it..............

Coach Blair · Joined: 09 Jan 2003 Posts: 1492 Location: Bay area/Sacto

We use 30min per event for our short days of our L4/new L5. It feels a bit short but is fine for the 4s who just got moved up and the veteran 4s. With the 5s taking time to grip up besides event transition time it is not enough.
40 min used to be a lot better.
45 min for L2's sounds a bit much. In a way if it's anythin like the L2 in the US they would benefit from more frequency during the week ( same amount of time ) to learn basics. Especially on beam and floor and bars. 45 min on bar would make a lot of sense if you do a bit of bar conditioning. 30 min is not enough for the compulsory 5/6 groups + conditioning mixed in.
Seeing as L2 is mostly about basics I don't see much of a reason to do 45min per event. Except maybe floor as you can include dance in there as well and still not have enough time.

I agree as well with AussieGirl on L2 doing 6 hours a week. Well not so much 6 hours but 3 hours at a time for 2 days. Better 3 days@2 hours.

For L2, a lot of stations. I like to put them in pairs, but 5 stations is a lot at a time if it's skills they need. If you start them with 5 stations and go one round or 2 really fast rounds with basics, that sounds pretty good. Then get on to to the good stuff and finer points or a couple of skills, say 2 or 3. A lot of it depends on space ya can use and equipment.
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