A Pathway to a Successful, Healthy and Comprehensive Gymnastics Program
Defining a Wellness Team
A healthy successful gymnastics competitive program should have a Wellness Team, or a group of stakeholders who engage in activities to support and promote the gym’s overall wellness program.
These professionals should be well-versed in sport, athlete protocols and have a deep desire to help in the child-athletes’ overall success, whatever level that may be.
By coordinating with other specialists and through good Technical Experts management skills, a Wellness Team will increase the standard of athlete care to an above-standard level. The expertise each specialist brings to the overall care of the child-athletes’ program will increase the athletes’ safety and healthy longevity in the sport.
Through the coordinated planning of all areas of an athletes’ needs, the Wellness Team creates a safety web of professionals that can only help in reducing ‘training mistakes’, injuries, mental and emotional health ‘dips’ by providing an environment conducive to safe and protective athlete training protocols.
As gymnastics professionals, our climate and gym culture has certainly changed. We need to desperately reset the foundation of trust. No longer is it possible to be a one-person training staff providing “it all” to the gymnasts in our care. We need the coordinated help and effort of many professionals honed in their abilities to provide a safe and healthy environment and arena for our gymnasts to train and compete in.
Masters of Sports is developing a “Wellness Team” manual outlining the purpose of each player, the importance of working with a team of professionals to train our athletes.
