Provincials this weekend

Good luck at Provincials this weekend! Levels 3,4 & 5 compete tonight.

No training on Monday May 3rd

All competitive groups are off this Monday.

Good luck to all competitors at Provincials this weekend.

Being on Time

While we understand that all sorts of factors affect your ability to arrive at training on time, it is very important that you do.

Warm-up and conditioning are done at the beginning of the training and set the tone for that training session. In the case of younger gymnasts, we do not have to ability to run individual supervised warm-ups every 10 minutes. Your son will feel rushed and will not have had a thorough warm-up.

Regular conditioning is vital to acquiring new skills and allows the gymnast to maintain the required body tension to successfully perform not only individual skills, but to also have the endurance to perform a routine.

It doesn’t take long to lose the physical attributes of strength and flexibility. Doing the correct action with good form for the required number of repetitions regularly will lead to increased results and therefore better gymnastic with a reduction in injuries.

Attendance

Gymnastics is a very complex sport that requires many repetitions over many days, weeks, months, etc to solidify skills. Once these skills are ready to be put in combination with other skills, the combination of skills must also be repeated regularly over time. Several combinations strung together become a part of a routine which have to be be performed regularly until the timing, positions and endurance required to put these complex body actions together. When all goes well, a routine is born and it too must be repeated regularly to solidify the movement patterns and to build the endurance required for the demands of competition; training days, general and specific warm-ups all while performing the routine under stress at competition.

Gymnastics in not a simple sport. It is arguably the hardest sport on the planet. Most sports are extensions of natural movement; running, swimming, etc, and training is design to increase speed and / or endurance. Gymnasts must learn complex movement throughout their entire career and still squeeze in time for routines and competitions. After an extended layoff (winter), returning to biking, swimming, running , etc is not so much about remembering the movement, but enduring the pain.

Regular training / attendance is very important to improving a gymnast's skill repertoire, strength, flexibility, confidence and endurance. While it may seem that missing one practice is not a big deal, depending on where that practice falls in your son's training cycle, they may miss up to four days of training. Four days is a significant gap in the training cycle. They will have to work on getting their timing back, some strength will have been lost and, especially in the case of growing boys, they will have lost flexibility. If they were in the middle of learning a new skill, they will have to take a few steps back in order to go through some of the learning process again.

Please try to attend all trainings and communicate with your son's coach regarding any absences.

Provincials

The 2010 Provincial Championships are in less than a week. Not much different from the other Qualifiers as far as parental preparation goes. The benefits of having a local competition are that everyone will get to sleep in their own bed and if your son forgets something at the gym, it isn't that far out of the way.

Unlike the Qualifiers, the award categories will be by Level and Age Group only. The larger groups will not be separated into groups of 20.

Remember; the day of the competition is not the time to experiment with new pre-game meals, energy drinks, etc.

Also, this is not the time to shift the focus from a performance centred approach to a results based approach. Results cannot be controlled by the gymnast; there are too many variables. If the gymnast changes their focus to achieving a particular result, they will most likely err. They must be focused on their performance. If all of a sudden the gymnast, coach, and / or parent changes the focus to achieve a certain result, the gymnast will be distracted and not perform to their full potential.

As always; cheer them on, congratulate their performances, ask them if they had fun and go out for a treat afterwards.

Provincial Championships Schedule

Congratulations to all that qualified!

Durham Invitational Schedule