Regardless of when you started dreaming about being a college gymnast, whether you realized later in your high school years, or you have looked forward to being on one specific college team since you were 12, the time is finally here!
Approaching the last month of summer before the fall semester and preseason officially begins, there is so much to look forward to in this next chapter, but also a lot to say goodbye to. The perfect word to describe the transition from club gymnastics to the NCAA is bittersweet. There is so much joy surrounding the newness in this journey, from choosing dorm colors to selecting your first college classes and picking a freshman-year roommate who becomes your lifelong best friend. On the other hand, you are saying a really difficult ‘see you later’ to some of the places and people you have known for the first 18 years of your life.
You are leaving places and people that have been familiar to you your entire life, and arriving at a place where you feel like a stranger. While this may sound overwhelming or intimidating, how exciting it is to make new memories with people who will be a part of your life for the rest!
Speaking solely on the gymnastics aspect, for many gymnasts, you start at one club gym and you continue there for the majority of your career. Some athletes switch club gyms or have coaching changes, but most athletes I have encountered have been at the same club gym with the same coaches who have watched them grow up from a little kid afraid to jump to the high bar to an athlete going to live out what they have all worked so hard for together.
There is so much to learn during this transitional period, and even more you will continue to learn over the next four years. While there is a lot to take in and leaving your club gym for the final time is difficult, everything you have done in these early years of your career has prepared you for these next moments.
Starting at the very beginning, one of the biggest differences in making the jump from club to NCAA is simply just in the way you train. Hours are much shorter in the NCAA when it comes to limitations on training, but the time spent in the gym is more intentional. Doing rep after rep in club gymnastics is standard, where a ten-routine assignment on beam might just be a normal Tuesday. Making the transition to the NCAA, there are a select few, if any, times there would ever be a day when you are asked to do more than five vaults onto a hard surface.
Not having the opportunity to do as much, especially if you are a person who always feels like they need ‘one more’ is a shock to the system, specifically the mental game of gymnastics. While preseason is the time to do more, play around with new skills, and construct new routines, ultimately, you are doing fewer numbers than you would have been used to in club, but it is all part of the bigger picture.
The biggest difference I learned, especially in my last three seasons, was learning how to preserve my body, and I can honestly say, I don’t know if I ever fully grasped that concept. I would always push to do more to get that ‘perfect’ last series or stuck dismount, but, in reality, my body knew what it was doing and I just had to learn to trust it.
With these lower rep, more intentional and focused workouts, there was also a lot more conditioning and strength training to ensure we could sustain the long season ahead. In my own experience, I had never picked up weights before going to school, and I didn’t until my junior year at Temple. Doing two days of heavy lifting and two days of intense functional strength training on top of gymnastics was something my body was not used to, so learning how to manage a different type of soreness, figuring out how to pace myself throughout the week and still feel, mentally and physically like I was prepared was something I had to learn and an aspect each athlete will approach differently.
The adjustment to college wasn’t just physical. Part of the mental aspect of making this transition is trying to come to terms with the fact that every day, every practice cannot be perfect. Gymnasts in general, no matter at the club or NCAA level, put so much emphasis on perfection, and this mentality is even more amplified when you are trying to constantly impress. There is such pressure to impress, and this feeling can take away from your first-year experience with the amount of stress athletes are under if you allow it to. Looking back, perfection is not expected; effort is. One of my college coaches would always tell us, “If you only have 50% today, give 100% of that 50%.” No one expects perfection, and while it is a great goal to aspire for, no one expects you to be a 10 every day in the gym. Effort, putting in the numbers, and giving your all each day goes farther than coming in and being ‘perfect.’
Adaptability is one of the biggest aspects of college gymnastics, and that starts in preseason. Coming from club, you are competing for yourself, and now, you are competing for 20 other people. That being said, you have to learn how to adapt if there is a mistake, use pressure as positive energy, and show you can mentally handle tough situations, and all this starts in the gym. If you come in ‘perfect’ and never have an off day, you never learn how to grow from these challenges. Knowing how to approach an obstacle when it comes up during a competition comes from learning how to be adaptable and fix mistakes in real time.
As you start to settle and get into a new routine, make new friends, and get more comfortable being on your own, everything starts to change again. When it comes time for season, this is when I really felt the biggest difference from club gymnastics to college, specifically trying to sustain my body for the months to come. Typically in club, you would compete five to seven meets in a season with invitationals, states, regionals, and nationals if you were lucky to get that far throughout the year. Now, you’re competing week in and week out, and learning how to listen to your body in the early months of your college career is essential to sustain the back half.
I can recall my freshman year being so excited to put on a new leotard every weekend and compete, but I quickly realized that being competition-ready ready every five days was very difficult. Competing double the meets you are used to in a much shorter amount of time is a big adjustment, and finding a balance that works for you is something each athlete has to figure out. In club, you are used to having the next day off after a meet, going home after a competition, taking a shower, sleeping in your own bed, eating the foods that help your body recover and being able to overall feel fresh when it is time to go back into the gym.
In college, it’s very likely that a couple of weekends of the year, you could have a meet 48 hours after you just finished the last. You sleep on the bus after a competition, use several makeup wipes to even feel remotely clean, and do rehab in a hotel conference room the next day. Honestly though, these are some of my favorite memories from college. It’s just a big adjustment, but it’s so worth it.
There is so much change to get used to coming from the club, and there will be for the next four years to come. As you go through your collegiate career, this lifestyle gets more manageable, but there will always be things you have to learn to adapt to. Finally, one of the biggest pieces of advice I can give to an athlete entering their first year is to learn how to advocate for yourself. Coming from club where people have most likely known you for the majority of your life, they know what makes you comfortable at competitions, what you need to do to prepare, and how to reassure you if you are having an off day. However, coming to this new environment, no one knows any of those things. Speaking up for yourself, learning you do have a voice, no matter if you are a first or fifth year, and learning how to be your biggest advocate is one of my biggest takeaways from my first season.
You are going to grow so much in just this first year, and you will look back and be so proud of yourself that you did this hard, scary thing. While there are bittersweet endings in this chapter, there are even more joyful opportunities, memories to make, and life long friends to meet that make this transition so worth it.
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Article by Julianna Roland
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