Commercial Gymnastics Summer Camps?
Parents often wonder and ask about the benefits of going to summer gymnastics camps.  There are two main types of summer gymnastics camps – large commercial gymnastics camps and camps that are an extension of some type of a gymnastics program like a team or college program.  Parents want to know if it is worth the money to send their gymnasts to one or the other of these programs.

Participate In Your Own Gym First
First, we would like to emphasize that often it is best to make sure you are fully participating and paying for the summer program in your own gym.  Summer is often a very slow time in the gym business and they can use the business.  Before you decide to spend money outside of your own gym, you should seriously consider  spending it in your own gym first.

No One is Going to Be More Interested In Your Gymnast 
Than Your Own Coach
There are two reasons for this.  No one is going to be more interested and dedicated to training your gymnast than their own coaches in their own gym.  Coaches at gymnastics camps are usually either the coach of some other team or high school or college gymnasts.  They have their own gymnasts or career to think about that does not directly involve your child except in a financial way.

Your Coach is as Good as the Average Camp Coach
This is not to denigrate the staff at any camp, but it is very likely that the coaches that are going to be the most interested in the progress of your child are the coaches at your own gym.  Hopefully, the coaches at your gym are going to be at least as good as the coaches gymnasts will encounter at camp.  Thus it is likely that they will make more progress in your own gym.  If this is not true, then you have a more critical coaching problem that a week or so at a summer camp will not solve.
Want a camp with Olympic level coaches?

Year-Round Progress Won’t be Trumped By a Week at Camp
It is possible that a new coaching perspective can sometimes bump forward a gymnast’s progress, but one week or so is not likely to have lasting training value.  In essence, your gymnasts progress is going to depend on the training they receive from your own coaches on a year round basis, not on one week at a commercial summer camp.

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