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A coach we know starts every session by asking her group if anyone is carrying an injury, and how their bodies are feeli...
27/09/2026

A coach we know starts every session by asking her group if anyone is carrying an injury, and how their bodies are feeling. Nine to eleven year olds, Level 4 and 5. On one particular day recently every girl said she was fine.

Halfway through, one gymnast kept drifting to the back of the vault line. Letting others go ahead. Talking to her friends instead of taking her turn. The coach told her off in front of the group for messing around, and the gymnast burst into tears.

It turned out that she wasn't missing turns because she was distracted or lazy. Her body had been OK in warmup, but now her wrist was hurting and the idea of launching herself onto her hands at full speed was scary. She didn't say anything because at the time she was asked she felt fine. And now when it was hurting she didn't know how to bring it up. Avoidance seemed like the easier option.

Research shows that this not unusual and it's not because the coach was unapproachable or doing anything "wrong". In fact she is one of the most caring coaches you could hope to meet, and she did everything she had been taught to do.

Swipe through for what the research says about how often young athletes hide pain, the reasons they give, and the one change to the question that found ten times more problems.

The full piece has the rest of the questions, what to do with the answers, and the research behind all of it: gymnasticsonline.com/gymnastics-growth-injuries-hidden-pain (also in our bio).

GO is general parent education, not medical advice. Anything ongoing is worth a visit to your physio or doctor.

Send this to the gym parents in your team, so you know what to ask.

02/09/2026

Which bars skill is this drill prepping her for?

All three. But one more than the others.

That hollow-to-arch shape change, switching between a tight curved body and a long open arch, is one of the most fundamental movement patterns in bars gymnastics. It shows up in the glide kip, in the entry to a flyaway, and at the very heart of the giant.

In the glide kip, the change itself is what does the work. She travels out long and open, then switches to a tight hollow to bring her feet back in to the bar. That switch is what reverses her direction and carries her up onto it.

In a flyaway, the same change turns swing into rotation. She opens through the bottom of the swing and then closes again, and it is the closing that sends her up the back of the swing with enough height to let go safely.

The giant, however, is where this precise change from arch to dish matters most.

Think about pumping a playground swing. If you pump at the wrong moment, nothing happens. If you pump at exactly the right moment, at the bottom of the arc when momentum is already with you, the swing goes higher with almost no extra effort. The "tap" on bars works the same way. The shape change happens on the downswing, at precisely the right point in the arc, and that timing is what converts the motion into power. Too early, too late, or with any tension lost in the body, and the energy just disappears.

This is why gymnasts start working tap swing prep early, long before they start working on the skill itself. These shapes (hollow and arch, switching cleanly between them) can take years to master. The timing of when to switch takes even longer. And the body awareness required to stay connected and powerful through the whole swing, without going rigid, is genuinely one of the harder things in gymnastics to learn.

What looks like a simple back-and-forth on the high bar is actually the foundation for some of the most impressive skills in the sport.

*This is general gymnastics education for parents, not coaching or technique advice. Always follow your daughter's coach.*

Ever noticed how one coach can reach your daughter when another, just as qualified on paper, cannot? You are not imagini...
26/08/2026

Ever noticed how one coach can reach your daughter when another, just as qualified on paper, cannot? You are not imagining it, and you are not being disloyal by noticing.

Researchers have actually studied what separates a good gymnastics coach from a great one, and the answer is not the length of the CV. The most widely used definition of coaching effectiveness (Côté and Gilbert, adopted by the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee) says great coaching draws on three kinds of knowledge, not one: the sport itself, how to communicate it, and the coach's own self-reflection.

In that model a good coach builds four things in an athlete, competence, confidence, connection and character. Only one of those is the gymnastics. The single best-evidenced quality is autonomy support. Coaches who explain the why, offer real choices, and acknowledge how she feels tend to build motivation and resilience. Coaching that runs on pressure and fear tends to build anxiety, burnout and dropout.

The environment matters just as much. When a gym measures her against her own last month rather than the girl on the next beam, and feels safe on the hard days, motivation goes up and anxiety comes down. Researchers call it a mastery climate.

And one myth worth dropping: there is no sound evidence that children learn better when teaching is matched to a fixed "learning style". Great coaches teach it every way at once, showing, explaining, and letting her feel the shape. Great coaching is a skill set, not a personality. Knowing the sport gets a coach in the door. Communicating it, with your daughter, with you, and with the club, is the skill underneath the skill.

Save this for the next time you are weighing up a coach, and send it to a gym parent who has found one their daughter thrives with.

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