I’d like to thank WENDY BRUCE MARTIN for contributing this article. Wendy, a former US Olympian, is now working as a Sports Psychology Expert at Peaksports.com and Get Psyched. She has a great blog, Get Me Psyched, as well.
Life After Gymnastics
There are numerous articles, books, videos, camps, and conventions that focus on educating coaches and gym owners all the skills, drills, and secrets to having successful athletes. As a coach, we want to make sure we are on the cutting edge of training, conditioning, and skill development and we do everything in our power to make sure that we offer our gymnasts the best training experience. But what can we do to help our gymnasts prepare for life after their gymnastics career is over?
A typical gymnast’s life starts around the age of five. They usually start off training once a week for an hour. Then every time they move up a le
vel they add hours and days to their training schedule. By the time the gymnast is a level 6, they are training twenty hours a week. If the gymnast keeps moving up to level 10 and stays in gymnastics until the age of eighteen, they will have devoted over 10,000 (even more if they compete in college) hours of their youth to the sport of gymnastics. For those 10,000 plus hours they are told what to do, when they need to do it, how to do it, and why they need to do it. Every aspect of their career is dictated by the sport of gymnastics. They do their schooling around their gymnastics schedule. Their family takes vacations around their gymnastics schedule. Even their eating and sleeping schedule is at the mercy of their gymnastics life. And if you ask the gymnast, they wouldn’t want it any other way.
A gymnast is proud of their muscles, rips, calloused hands, and washboard abs. They take comfort in knowing that they have found a sport that they found their true friends and family. They have a sense of security knowing that their lives will pretty much follow the same schedule until they graduate high school. And they are honored to be called a gymnast. But what happens when a gymnast reaches the end of their career? What happens when their rips and calloused hands turn soft? What happens then they lose their gymnastics friends and family? What happens when for the first time in their lives they have no one telling them what to do, when to do it, how they should do it, and why they should do it? What happens when they are no longer a gymnast?
Many former gymnasts say that they had a hard time adjusting to life after gymnastics. One gymnast said this “It felt like I had spent my entire life being coached on how to be a successful gymnast and then one day it was over and I was left to fend for myself. Everyone around me expected me to just move on in life, but for me, I felt empty inside. I felt like something inside me had died. I had to deal with the loss of gymnastics, the loss of my gymnastics family, and even the loss of my dream of making the Olympics. I felt like I had climbed Mt. Everest and I was standing on the peak admiring the pinnacle of my career and I looked back on my amazing journey with only great memories. But then I felt like I was left to figure out my own way home and everyone that had helped up to that peak had disappeared. Everything I had known my entire childhood was gone in one day.”
Numerous athletes tell me similar stories and how the loss of gymnastics was devastating. Like any loss in life, gymnasts may feel depressed, angry, confused, bitter, or empty. I have seen many gymnasts feel like they were failures in their sport because they didn’t live up to their expectations. Others who had to quit because of injury may feel robbed of their dream and have resentment to the sport. Some gymnasts lose their identity and struggle to find their self-worth without gymnastics. And still there is a select group that remains angry and bitter to a sport that they gave their childhood to and then abandoned them when they grew up. These stories of gymnasts that grieve over the loss of gymnastics are very real. But they need to know that they are not alone. It is OK to grieve over the loss of their gymnastics. They may feel many emotions from anger to bitterness. All of these emotions are natural and healthy. Gymnastics is one of most difficult sports in the world and it will be hard to find another sport that can compare to the training regimen of that of gymnastics. A gymnast needs to know that they can take all the wonderful skills both mental and physical that they learned in gymnastics and apply them to the rest of their lives.
It is also imperative for coaches and gym owners to understand that it is very important for gymnasts to feel that they are not lost and forgotten after they leave gymnastics. Gyms can create an alumni program: with gymnasts’ dinners, invite them to team banquets and have them sit at the alumni table, design boot camps to challenge their fitness, invite them to competitions and mock meets, have open communication with the athletes so they can know that the gym still cares, and have the gym owner and coach continue to help the gymnast set new life goals. These little things can make a big difference with a gymnast and hopefully help them transfer from a gymnastics life into life after gymnastics a little smoother.
Hey, I ran over this post as I typed in “what happens after gymnastics” on google and it lead me to this. Its very hard adjusting to life after gymnastics. I have been out of it for almost a year and it kills me everyday to know I’ll never do it again. I’ve been in gymnastics since I was 5 and like you said one day it was just gone. I decided not to go to college for gymnastics because I wanted to go to a christian school that had my major and as you probably know most christian schools don’t offer gymnastics. I thought working at a gym would sooth my pain and hunger for more gymnastics but it didn’t really. Now that a lot of my muscle is gone I find myself hurting more often. Like my bones feel more fragile or something. I try to work out as much and I did track because I’ve done that for years too, but nothing helps. I have felt this empty void of love of gymnastics and its hard to make it go away, cause everything I do I want gymnastics more. I don’t know if you are going to get this but its nice to know someone out there knows exactly what I am going through.
Emily
Why not just find a career in Gymnastics? That’s where your heart truly is, clearly. Stop the aching, the longing, and, fill the void with a career in the sport of Gymnastics!
All the best!
Bruce Wilson, Jr
10 years later I still miss it a lot! It never really goes away. Watching gymnastics championships on tv helps me. But if I had a time machine I would go back to my gymnastic days anytime!
I started gymnastics at 5, did it up until I was 11 or 12, once I moved up to level 8 things started getting so difficultl. The frustration I had with gym, the stress at competitions and even just training. The coaches constantly yelling but for your own good. the gym was my second home and the coaches were like my family. When you spend over 20 hours a week at the gym it really becomes a seccond home to you. now I’m 16 and I would do anything to go back! I regret quitting the sport I loved but I think the frustration, stress and the commitment was too much for me and overwhelming. it’s just sucks when you feel like youre unsatisfied with the way you ended your gym career.. I always feel like I had so much potential now that I look back at it, and my coaches would tell me that too! I just wish I didn’t give up my gymnastics careers so early even if I didn’t have the potential to make it to the olympics just doing the sport and competing was the best feeling and experience. I’m still trying to move on from gymnastics but it’s very hard I feel like i have no friends anymore because gymnastics was really all I did and thought about. Yesterday I went back to my old gym to handout a resume so I could coach. it was so nice seeing some of my old coaches and all the new faces in the gym!! man I miss gymnastics.
I miss training and competing EVERYDAY! It is something only another “retired gymnast” will understand. Put your passion into coaching! It helped me
Tony, I’ve been away from Gymnastics for 31 years, and, I STILL feel that ache, and, longing. How does that happen? How does a sport just take your soul, and, not give it back? I was an 18 year old high school senior when I prematurely stopped competing after the high school season. And, at 24 I was permanently sidelined after dislocating both my wrists in a fall from a Rings’ dismount. I since moved on, and, became a performer, singer & musician after college. But, that is a joy of a different kind, and, has never quite filled that ever present void left by Gymnastics. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite because I just advised Emily to embark on a career in Gymnastics outside of being a competitive gymnast when I’ve felt the same emotional loss as she, and, I’ve done little about it. After 31 years, I’ve started researching ways to in some way get back involved in the sport. I might even consider coaching, but, so much has changed, clearly, in 31 years. Any suggestions on the direction one can take?
Sincerely, Bruce
Find a club near by. A handstand is a handstand. Even 31 years later. Become a judge. There are so many great reasons to continue. It is passion like yours that fuel our sport.
Tony
Unlike most other sports, gymnastics is age restricted. My story is like so many others. I started at age 5, went from tumbling to gymnastics. The community was fantastic! My life was spent at lessons, free gyms, training sessions. i had to stop at age 16. I am now 27 and there isn’t a day goes by when i wish i could go back. I am comforted that i am not alone.