I recently read this article from the Daily Illini on Coaches face ups and downs of summer communication. The article discusses how for many sports once May arrives, not only is their competition season over but their training sessions end as college athletes “are not allowed to meet with their coach during summer months in which they are not competing”. Excuse my ignorance as I am not American – but why is this so? Is it for insurance reasons? It explains in the article that exceptions are made for gymnastics,swimming and diving because in these sports there is a “high risk of injury: gymnasts need a coach to spot them, and swimmers and divers run the risk of drowning”. Obviously I can see this, but why can’t other sports continue summer training? Rather than athletes taking the summer off then starting college again in Autumn and becoming injured from the long break from the sport. Would it not be beneficial for coaches to use the summer to try out different tactics, skills, improve fitness by spending a lot of time on conditioning etc? I understand that most students wouldn’t necessarily stay on campus during the summer. I’ll put my hand up and admit that I don’t know much about how the US College gymnastics system works – any explanations are very welcome!!

Further down in the article Bob Starkell, Illinois head gymnastics coach, says he sees himself as more of a supervisor over the summer.

“I’m just there to open up the gym for them and to make sure that nobody gets hurt,” Starkell said. “Summer is the time for them to do their own thing more; they need a chance to recover. They are able to decide what they do, for example they have been doing a lot of the Insanity workout videos, which is basically like P90X but more structured for women.”

“I focus more on business things and recruiting over the summer,” he added.

I find I enjoy our summer training a lot more than normal competition season training. We are currently about mid way through our summer training, we’ll take 2 – 3 weeks off at the end of July so that everyone can have a short break – coaches, parents and gymnasts. Our Recreation gymnasts finished their classes in May so it is only our Competitive gymnasts who do summer training. As the gymnasts are at an age and experience level which requires a set routine for all of their pieces – we spend our summer working on new moves and to ensure that they can move up a level for the next competition season. We spend extra time working on conditioning, strength and fitness in class because we are not in so much of a rush between competitions. The competition calender can be exceptionally busy having one competition this Saturday and Sunday, the same the following weekend and then the Finals of the first competition on in three weeks time, so often training is disrupted with gymnasts and coaches missing training to go off and compete, coach or judge at competitions.

Last season, my girls competed at a close to mid way level. They were able to do all of the moves in their floor, bars and beam routines but not quite yet ready to do a higher vault. The moves required in the floor routines are simple enough – no back flips, no somersaults, no handsprings but handstand forward rolls, backward roll through handstands, split leaps etc – moves that require good flexibility, great technique and strength. That’s how the judges pick the winner, there must be perfect execution of these basic moves. Sure my girls can do back  flips and flyaways but we try to keep it safe, we want to protect them, not enter them in a level where they are doing upstarts with bent arms, loose flyaways and dead flips – scoring consistently low won’t be good for their confidence. During the year I saw so many girls entered at a particular level that required a flyaway as a dismount, coaches didn’t stand in when they should have and gymnasts landed on their necks, backs, bums and fronts. I like to think if you can do the move safely, with the right technique,unassisted then you can perform it at competition, if not, it’s not worth risking injury.

The girls are working on somersaults at the moment but won’t be ready to enter a level which has somersaults in it. Equally they are working on a half on prep vault but will still only do a straight forward full handspring vault come November. We’re spending the summer time working on our conditioning and overall fitness, trying new ways to learn moves and trying out some new conditioning to see what works best for us.

How do you use your time in the summer?

How is training different for you?

Do you have a couple of months off or no time off at all?