Body type for mens artistic gymnastics? Is my son too tall?

[Blairbob]

Our system uses September and it varies on what level a boy can compete. At 6, he can compete in L4; 7 -L5 and so on. It's not necessarily done by grades. So you could have a 12yo L4 and a 6yo L4. L8 is a step to L9/10 which is consider Junior Olympic Elite as it uses the FIG system but is modified a bit. All the routines from L4-L7 are compulsory, so they do not make their own routines but they have option for certain bonus skills (except on vault).

4'5 69lbs isn't overly big. One of my L4's was about that size and age. While he was nearly as tall as his 10yo brother, I didn't get the impression he was overly big for his age.

[gymdadUK]

In the UK, the Grades (I think they are in May) which I have mentioned are set programs. Level 1 is o8/u9, level 2 is 09/u10, level 3 is 010/u11 etc. I understand the boys compete only in their age group.

In the British championships which were in October / November this year, the gymnasts compete optional programs. The boys are U12 I think, then youths, juniors and seniors.

This year one of my sons training partners who was 12 qualified for the British and his coach was constantly tweaking the routines to get a better start value. If you have a truly exceptional gymnast like a boy called Brinn Bevan (I think he is now 13) I think he was the top rated boy gymnast in this U12 section in the UK for three years running...he beat the best 12 year olds in the UK as a nine year old..amazing!

The U10 4 piece competition which my son competed last month was an optional program, and the only one he has ever done.

[gymdadUK]

It's good to hear you say 4'5'' and 69lb isn't huge for an 8y old gymnast though both his mum and me probably were relatively bigger after puberty than before.

Maybe his current coach just prefers to select smaller boys as gymnasts to train seriously. All the others seem in the bottom 20% for height in their age group and four of them are the smallest in their school classes, and have smaller parents etc.. My son was nearly two inches taller than the training partners who were 2y2m and 2y6m older, is less than 2 inches shorter than one who is 4y older, and is a lot taller than the younger ones. Perhaps I've worried about something needlessly because of seeing a small sample size at close quarters and not seeing the wider gymnastic population

My son does tends to be one of the taller one's in the lineups in competitions of kids his own age, not necessarily the tallest.

In your coaching experience say of having two gymnasts of the same age and ability at say 8, who are trained by the same coach, and work equally hard, will the smaller, lighter one tend to be better overall at say 12 or is it to do with other factors? Now we are going to let him try National elite even if it means a few more training hours a week, if a coach will take him on, but its worth getting a feel if the odds are against him

[Blairbob]

so many factors, hard to tell.

[gymdadUK]

For the sake of completeness I thought I should update this forum.

My son has found a new gym which he's really excited about. After a going along to a trial lasting a couple of hours last week to assess his general flexibility and strength, he was offered 12h a week coaching starting after Xmas (which would not be enough to do national elite..those boys train 20h per week). I haven't met or talked to whoever will be his new coach, and so I don't know what they will train him towards. Its in the nearest big city, is very well equipped, with highly qualified coaches, and has turned out good gymnasts, so hopefully if he works hard he'll do well there. I guess the new gym will need to have a much longer look at him to assess his long-term suitability (height or anything else) before they think about upping his training which is of course fair enough.

My only concern is that after two years with his current coach, he's just picking up skills so well at the moment, and the change of gym/coach possibly means he may stop training the new moves he has just picked up, and lose these skills. For example, in last week he has successfully done sets of 10 inward loops on full size floor pommel, sets of 8-10 giants in gloves and loops on HB (without any help, until last week he needed assistance in the cast to handstand at beginning), dislos followed by straight back somersaults from rings, and consistently landing a handspring on tumble track off just a hop-step (I was surprised and really pleased to see this as his tumbling is relatively weak and is one of the few moves he couldn't do for national elite. My son might not show all he can do while he's acclimatising to his new training environment, but I guess an experienced new coach should be able to work out where he should be soon enough. I had thought about writing a list of the moves he has been training to give as a help to the new coach, but decided against it....I figure its better for the new coach to be allowed to make their own judgement, and coach the moves they think are important, than have another pushy parent? The new gym seems to keep parents more at arms length anyway so I won't really know what he's training in the future.

Thanks again for everyone's comments. It's helped me through a worrying process.

[Michael Traynor]

Thanks for the update, it sounds like an exciting time

Keep keeping us posted!

[Blairbob]

12 hours. Hmm.

Bare in mind, should he have extra time and the inclination, he can still be practicing handstands and presses, ring work, much of the GB oriented stuff or you can make a set of rings and pommel.

[gymdadUK]

Blairbob

Hmmm....You sound rather doubtful about him going down from 14 to 12 hours? I was too, and it would have been nice for someone new to believe in him sufficiently to offer him national elite training on the spot. However, given the commitment of the new coach required too, I can see where the new gym is coming from too.

In the trial which I couldn't watch, the new gym didn't get him to work on HB (so they won't know yet that he can do giants..his old coach thought it was more important to learn these than to learn to tumble better), he only did dips on PB (my son said they stopped him at 8 and they said that enough when he can do 30-40, so they don't know that he can swing to handstand say 8 times in a row, do upstarts, back uprises, go from half lever and press through straddle to handstand etc), he did nothings on rings so they don't know he can swing so well, and do inlos and dislos so well yet, on floor they didn't ask him to do any press handstands, russian lever or straddle planche etc. I suspect they have not seen those areas in which he is better yet necessarily. He just did what they asked him to do in the trial. They seem to stress tumbling more and looked at him on a trampoline (which his old coach never trained him on) which in a way is good because thats where he's weakest. If he wants to excel at gym (which he really does at moment) then I guess the ball is in his court to show them what he can do and move him to the 20h per week elite group (that seems an awful lot anyway when you are only 8y6m old....the youngest boy in that group is 10months older and is ahead of my son). The counter argument is that the new gym are better qualified than me to know if it's worth his while in the long term for him to aim so high in gymnastics. They know exactly what they are looking for, and I'm hoping they quickly realised in the trial that the strength and swinging elements were not going to be a problem compared to other elite boys his age, but his tumbling might be!).

In a sense, anyway it really is the only gym which has both the qualified coaches and world class equipment that is both close enough for us to reach and able to train him to an elite level, without us moving house! His existing gym has lost the coach so although they would be happy to train him a new coach would have no experience and would have to take the required courses etc. I guess its a problem in the UK, there seem many more coaches of women's artistic gymnastics or general gymnastics than men's artistic gymnastics

In terms of doing extra conditioning at home, I agree completely. He has a few things at home. A chin bar, a set of rings which I just hang from the chin bar, a total trainer, and I built him a mushroom for practising circles and even the odd stockli, and some floor bars, and some gym mats etc. He's been happy to do extra conditioning at home and he can supplement what he's doing with GB stuff. The positive way to look at this, is that if he wants to succeed, he'll need to show more commitment. He's had a coach who has motivated him brilliantly for 2years, now it will have to come from within!

[Newguy]

Not only from within, you can give motivation as well!

[Blairbob]

Ahh, thanks for clearing that up, Gymdad. I thought he was dropping from 20h/week to 12. 14 to 12 isn't too drastic, nothing you can't make up at home with just works on the basics. It sounds like he has all the basic equipment I recommend which is nice to have.

I also forgot he wasn't 9 yet.

I think eventually I would like to give one of my old gymnasts a floor buck with pommels or a single pommel mushroom but he isn't ready for that really. Some long parallettes can be useful for working HS pirouettes.

Eventually they should see the rest of his skillset and perhaps treat him appropriately. Dunno their program. In all honesty, not every gymnast is going to be an All Arounder though they seem way more pre-occupied on tumbling. It is the basics of all gymnastics but not the end all be all, imo.

[gymdadUK]

Newguy

Yes you're right or course, I'll try to encourage him too

Blairbob

Thanks for the reply. He can only do 1 circle on a mushroom using a pommel handle comnpared with about 25 max (and typically about 10) using standard mushroom, though his existing coach is trying to make him get to two. He also finds outward loops much harder than inward loops on floor pommel.

Existing coach worked roundoff flick tucks on a tumble track with him for first time too, "standing in" for the tuck of course. Only three more sessions so I doubt he'll get them before Xmas completely on his own, ready for new gym.

In terms of handstand pirouettes ..on the floor its one of his "party pieces" and I've seen him do 7 full rotations. However he can't do HS pirouettes on p-bars or floor bars. He has home made floor bars / long parallets and holding handstand when he's holding both bars is easy for him (I've seen him hold it over a minute) however he can't really hold the handstand at all with both hands on the same bar.

[gymdadUK]

I thought I would update the forum on my son again a people have been so positive

He is enjoying his new gym and training for 12h per week. The coaches as a whole seem impressed with him. One of the the Head coaches sat me down and chatted with me to discuss their plans for him...I was told they think he has a lot of potential long term. With regards to the subject of this thread, this coach told me don't worry about his height because as he is flexible it shouldn't be a problem. This coach told me although he is not the typical somatotype, the fact he has long arms for his height will make pommel easier, and told me to look at Shatilov on youtube who's 6'1''. They have encouraged him to maintain that flexibility. I was also told that don't worry about the fact his tumbling is less advanced than say his PB, HB or pommel, that will be straightforward to teach him.

They told me however, that my son won't do national elite grades this summer, although he has the potential to do them, because its the club's policy not to push too hard at his age. They have seen gymnasts pushed too hard when too young, burn out and give up the sport. They stress a lot of conditioning and doing the basics with perfect form rather than learning new skills. The skills will come very quickly, I am told when his body is ready. They are looking for him to peak in his teens. In a sense I see the point because the next step is doing 20h a week and that seems a lot at 8 yrs old. The only thing I have a slight worry for him, is that he has spent time learning some good skills and he probably won't get a chance to practice them at either at his new gym or at home. Things like doing the harder press handstands are no problem for doing at home of course, but you can't train giants at home and he's not allowed to do them at his new gym.

For my son, its a little frustrating because he knows he can already do all the moves required for all the national elite routines, and he's actually practiced the national elite grade routines on p-bars, rings and floor, and thinks he can do them well. Those who are parents or coaches know how hard it is fro an 8 yr old to have patience and the long-term view! A couple of months ago, he couldn't land properly a handspring off a hop step on floor, and hold a russian lever then swing and hold towards manna on p-bars, and now he can do them. However the new gym has a good reputation and very experienced coaches so it makes sense to trust their judgement on this.

I'll try to dig out the routines for both levels of grades. It would be interesting to compare with what US gymnastics require for their 8/9 year old gymnasts.

[Blairbob]

Rear loops can be more difficult than front loops.

Single rail HS is way more difficult than PB or floor HS. Especially when it comes to pirouettes. It has to do with how much space you have to balance on.

I'd love to see the routines they do. I wonder if they are similar to our junior elite track routines.