Mas Watanabe

Have you experienced that your gymnast stops learning and no matter how hard you try to help she can not improve for a long time. She has hit a learning plateau.

When I start to give a gymnast the same correction over and over again, but nothing changes, I need to stop and think what is causing this situation.

As I analyze the problem I realize there are a few different reasons causing this plateau.

One is a subtle physical change (growing) taking place, but no one is aware of it. When a child is going through a growth spurt, suddenly the body starts moving slow and loses body tightness. Generally, power will be lost and sometimes she will lose the skill that she used to be able to do.

If you are periodically measuring the gymnast’s body size, you may be able to detect a growth spurt early. At least you will be aware of it at an early stage and you might be able to avoid some of the frustrations. However, this problem might take a while to go away before she starts improving again.

Another cause of a plateau is the lack of good basics (foundation) or lack of understanding a particular movement. When the gymnast is having a problem making a certain skill or sequence, I will point out her problems and she will work on the corrections. After a while she is able to fix her problems and she starts making the skill.

The problem is that the next day she starts off from where she started the day before instead of where she finished. She will go through the very same process before finally getting it by the end of the session.

If this pattern happens time after time you start to wonder whether she truly understands the skill or is willing to make the changes or just does not care to change.

But I also noticed a similar process is repeated by many gymnasts to some degree.

When a gymnast has very weak basics in a particular area, bad body positions and incorrect technique show up automatically. So, she has to go through the same process to get rid of all the bad technique before she is able to execute the skill with proper technique.

Similarly, she might have developed a bad habit by doing a skill a certain way. This may result in her reverting back to the old technique automatically without realizing it.

It is a frustrating process to fix this problem. However, in this case we need to keep trying over and over again until the proper technique becomes automatic and shows up in her first try the next time.

We need to be patient to work with this type of problem, because we don’t know when the proper technique becomes permanent. We just need to keep reminding the gymnasts over and over again.

Another cause for a plateau is the fear factor. Sometimes the gymnast may not truly be aware of her fear and she does not believe that the fear is causing the problem, even if you point it out to her. But conversely, she could be hiding her fear even though she is aware of it, but she doesn’t want to admit it.

The fear is also a hard one to deal with, but you might be able to solve this problem quickly by providing spotting or setting up a safer environment to do the skill.

The next cause of a plateau is the hardest one of all. That is the lack of interest in doing gymnastics, but she is hiding it within herself. Many times, she comes to the practice for a social reason or her parents expect her to go to the gym. In this case, she does not put any effort into anything she does.

She may not make any progress for a long time and does not care about it. Many times, she may disrupt the training of other team members by talking a lot, missing her turns and wasting her turn by making unnecessary mistakes.

When you observe this type of behavior, it is a time for a serious talk with the gymnast as well as with her parents.

Hopefully, none of the above is happening in your gym but we can’t avoid some of these problems. I just hope that we know the answers when we detect some of these problems.

Have fun coaching!