While it often seems that coaches have an inflated sense of the effects of their training system on the physical aspects of the sport and gymnasts, there often seems to be total disregard for the effect of their negative comments on the success of their gymnast and their team.

Most Coaches Aren’t Positive – Most Coaches Aren’t Successful - What Does That Tell You?
It is a rare coach and gym in which we find predominantly positive coaching commentary and a positive psychological environment for gymnasts.  For some reason, coaches don’t relate this to the approximately equal lack of serious success national and international success of their program.

Too Many Negative Coaching Role Models
Worse, too many coaches champion negative coaching pointing to the success of Eastern European and Asian coaches known for being negative to the point of yelling, screaming (Bela who?) and verbal abuse. 

There Are Other Reasons for Thir Success
They (and those coaches) fail to understand that sometimes gymnasts succeed in spite of coach’s methods instead of because of them.  Or there were other factors in place that were the reason for whatever success those coaches had, like successful recruiting and a systematic training system.  And if basically all of the high level programs are primarily negative coaching/psychological environments, who would know if the positive approach works or not.

How Many Burned Out Gymnasts Did It Cost To Find One Who Was Coach-Proof?
Similarly they fail to calculate what even greater level of success and how many more successful gymnasts would have been created in a positive coaching environment.  There is certainly tremendous empirical data to suggest that many gymnasts are “burned out” by high level negative programs.

Who Says Positive Coaching is Best – Sports Scientists
So if the programs that have been successful internationally are the negative programs, who is to say that is not the method all coaches should adopt.  Sports scientists are the ones to say.  Science says clearly that a positive environment, especially for girls, is far more productive and even more than that positive coaching is critical to the production of successful, confident athletes.

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