Hi, I was googling Viktoria Karpenko (she's competing for Bulgaria at Worlds!) and came across an IG Interview from some while ago with her new Bulgarian coach, Georgy Videnov. You know, he used to be the Bulgarians men's coach until the 2000 Olympics. He tells IG about the differences, between coaching mens and womens: [quote]IG: How do you like coaching women's gymnastics? GV: It is a new challenge for me. It is harder to work with girls than with boys. It is very different. The girls stick with their assignment firmly and don't want it to be changed. The girls emphasize quantity while the men emphasize quality. The girls do more repetitions, whereas the men practice less but their work is of higher quality. [/quote] In a few years, maybe he'll say it's easier coaching girls that boys, lol :-) Well, at least my coach says it's easier lol! I don't have any attachment to sticking with one plan and not changing it (though the women coaches do seem to have that trait!), and Georgy is also right in general about the practices -- just in general though! -- in lots of gyms the girls have more practice hours, and do more reps. and the boys have less practice, and less reps., and still they can get great results. It is a diff. coaching styles in these programs too. Some girls programs include these games for beam and floor......boys don't do that kind of stuff.

Hey leah! I don't think in Bulgaria and Europe they do those kind of games on floor and beam, but I know what you're talking about! Maybe the girls do more reps. than the boys cuz they listen more to the coaches and the coaches can get them to do more reps., vs. the boys don't....so I mean diff. coaching style. Can you post the link to the whole article? Thanks!

sure, it's: http://www.intlgymnast.com/interview/videnov_georgy.html

No, the elite men do practice long hours, perhaps -- maybe -- a bit less than the women. Take for example this article from last week, on Alexander Artemev, a.k.a. Sasha, called "Artemev impresses with work ethic Dedication drives 21-year-old back from injury" : URL: http://www.wcsn.com/article/news.jsp?ymd=20060912&content_id=5828&vkey=gymnastics_news&id=34012&dpre= . It's right there in the title lol :wink: According to the article, he practices 7-10 am and 2-6 M-F. Weekends he's off, girlfriend and other fun stuff. Ok, so yes, the women do practice on weekends too, I know lol. He's coached by his dad Vladimir, btw.

Well, anyways, the boys do like to use our girls equipment! During open gym, there's at least a couple of boys on the beam or uneven bars! The boys programs are, at least in our gym, more relaxed than the girls. Maybe it's because the boys teams are run by men and they run it differently.

All the caoches at my gym dread coaching boys b/c they never listen to you, but our boys program is getting restarted. (this is the fourth year since quite a while ago)