Gymnastics, like other sports, requires an unfathomable amount of time and effort to master skills: training on four different events along with warmup, conditioning, and drills peppered throughout each practice. Naturally, the training is tough... and often, practices can drag on. Weeks can get long. Athletes can get drained.

Sometimes, the fire that burns inside a driven gymnast is enough to keep them pushing through long and difficult training sessions. If intrinsic motivation begins to wane, sometimes even one great practice or learning a new skill or combo can boost the spirit of a struggling gymnast.

But with so many long hours and often monotonous training days, burnout is all too common in our sport. While many young gymnasts reach a certain age and simply decide they want to pursue other activities, from my personal knowledge, far too many run out their tanks too soon. It's no longer fun; it's just not worth it anymore.
 
So how do we avoid unnecessary burnout? How do we keep gymnastics fun while also achieving exemplary success?

Always Play

Most gymnasts compete for only four months throughout the year. During the offseason, there is time to play with new skills and combinations that you've always wanted to try. Make up games in training, even just between you and your teammates to keep practice light. It IS possible to work your tail off, learn new skills, improve your old ones, and have a blast while doing it.

During the offseason, it's a little easier to "play" because you're not solely focused on perfecting routines and you don't have the pressure of competition. But adding variety to your routines can make a big difference when the season comes along. Change up your floor dance and put in poses that you love. Learn a new beam mount (get inspiration here!), try a new dance combo, or switch up some choreography.

Be OK With Failing 

When you take risks, like trying new skills that you're not good at (yet), you're stretching yourself in a way that might be uncomfortable. Gymnasts are usually such perfectionists -- we're always striving to make our skills flawless and earn higher scores -- but this often makes failure hard to endure. In order to keep the sport fun and interesting, we have to be okay with trying new skills and FALLING ON OUR FACES. Then we get back up and try again.

Adding new skills to your routine can be a huge challenge, but they can also make practice and competitions much more exciting -- not to mention boosting your scores if you hit them.

Even when you don't reach perfection (not too many gymnasts ever score that 10.0!), you never give up working hard and improving.

Remember Why You Started

When you feel like you're burning out and just straight up over it, sometimes it can help to think back to why you started the sport in the first place. What did you love about it when you were a little girl? What made you want to throw on your leo every day and flip around -- even when you didn't have practice?

There will always be days when you're just not feeling it. (You know those days that are just like... I. Can't. Flip. My. Body. Today.) On these days, perhaps watching some old videos of yourself doing gymnastics while growing up will do the trick. You'll see the joy in your little face as you prance around the floor. You'll hear your family cheering for you as you make it over the vault table, and most of all, you'll see how incredibly far you've come.

Burnout is so prevalent, but there are so many ways to prevent it. If you truly feel like it's time for you to move on and pursue other activities, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Before you decide to just be done, try some of these things to see if you can find your jive. Don't give up on what you love until you're sure you don't love it anymore.


Related:
Mounting In Style: Creative & Unique Ways To Start Your Beam Routine