Gymnastics Coaches- Do you ever feel like there aren’t enough practice hours in the week to get to everything your gymnasts need? 🤸♂️ ⏳
With the limited weekly hours for developmental gymnastics programs, it is important to make every minute count during practice. Although programs can train similar hours, efficiency can help set your program apart. Here are 4 questions to ask yourself to increase efficiency during practice.
1. Are your gymnasts constantly standing in line waiting for their turn?
If one station is holding up the group, consider adjusting the number of turns taken before moving on to the next drill. If your athletes are standing around, do you have an appropriate amount of side stations set up? Observe the flow of your practice to pinpoint those problem areas and be able to adjust on the fly.
2. When you walk into the gym, do you know exactly what you want to set up on every event?
If you aren’t lesson planning, it often takes time to think about and articulate to your gymnasts exactly what you want to set up on each event. When you lesson plan, you can even start pulling the appropriate mats over to your events to aid in a quicker setup and get your gymnasts started.
3. Is your training program consistent?
With the amount of new, fun drills shared on Instagram, it can be tempting to want to try every drill you see on your feed, but in reality, it can be more time efficient and beneficial to the athletes to stick with a consistent training circuit. When you are constantly switching up your drill circuit, not only are you having to take the time to go over and teach new drills, the athletes are not allowed to truly master and familiarize themselves with a program.
4. Is the benefit of a drill worth the time spent setting it up?
Let’s face it, some drills, no matter how beneficial they are for the athletes, are a pain to set up, especially with younger athletes who struggle to move bigger pieces of equipment like the whale mat. It is important to weigh the potential benefit of the drill with the amount of practice time used to set it up. If your vault circuit takes 10 minutes and every mat in the gym to set up and you only have 30 minutes on vault, it might be time to reevaluate and see if there is a different way to practice the same movement that takes half the amount of set up.
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