Learn how to spot some toxic coaching practices

Bad coaching tactics enabled doctor to abuse. Know if your gym uses them.

I’ve spent the past two weeks wondering whether I should pull my daughter from gymnastics.

I suspect thousands of other parents feel the same way, as the army of former gymnasts and others sexually abused by Larry Nassar marched into a Michigan courtroom and onto our news feeds. How could we hear their stories and not want to grab our children and run?

My crisis of conscience is more intense, more personal: I’m a gymnastics coach.

I only coach recreational gymnastics these days, and I haven’t coached athletes in USA Gymnastics’ Junior Olympic program at a meet since 2010. I am removed from the highest levels of the sport, where an authoritarian culture enabled Nassar to molest children and young women for more than two decades. And yet, I was familiar enough with that culture — and its susceptibility to physical and mental abuse in many forms — to not be surprised by the stories the women told.

When Bela and Martha Karolyi defected to the United States from Romania in 1981, they brought with them Eastern Bloc training techniques designed to push children to their physical and mental limits. Certainly, there were some U.S. coaches who employed these tactics before the Karolyis arrived. But this style of coaching was widely imitated after the Karolyis’ success with Mary Lou Retton in 1984. The Karolyis were influential in the U.S. women’s program for more than three decades, formally running it for about half that time.

But the majority of U.S. gyms do not use these toxic tactics. Many have healthy cultures that empower children. Gymnastics teaches children valuable gross motor skills as preschoolers. Gymnastics teaches children how to set goals, how to overcome fears, how to perform under pressure.

Looking for red flags about a gym’s culture, like these I outline, before a child commits to a competitive team can tip a parent off to potential problems that can be avoided.

1. Will I be allowed to watch my child practice once she joins the competitive team? Increasingly, parents of competitive gymnasts are forbidden from watching their children practice. These policies are sometimes defensible. I worked at a gym where a mother was attempting to coach her daughter from the gym’s viewing balcony. A problem with banning parents from practices is that one more safety net is gone: There are fewer eyes to spot abuse, or worse, a predator like Nassar.

2. Will my child be required to be homeschooled now or when she reaches a certain competitive level? Home-schooling is hot at some gyms, with children as young as age 7 taking courses online or studying with private tutors (sometimes employed by the gym) so they can spend more hours training. It’s not necessary, and the extra hours in the gym can fuel overuse injuries. Seven-time Olympic medalist Shannon Miller attended a public high school, as did four-time Olympic medalist Shawn Johnson East. Both gymnasts have said the balance that public school provided was a critical part of their success — there was a clear line between the gym and the rest of the world.

3. Will the coaches weigh my child? Weighing child gymnasts is an outdated tactic that continues to persist at some U.S. gyms. The practice stokes eating disorders and poor body image.

4. Will my child get a snack break during practice? Even compulsorylevel gymnasts practice for stretches of three, four or five hours. A snack break is imperative to maintain energy levels. Gymnasts need to feel comfortable eating in front of their coach. If they don’t, that is indicative of a toxic gym environment.

5. Will my child be punished with painful conditioning for mistakes made inside the gym? Conditioning should never be used as punishment — this tactic teaches children to associate exercise with something negative. Healthy gymnastics teaches children to embrace exercise as a critical life skill. These tactics work in the short term but erode the trust between coach and athlete. An athlete who is terrified of her coach is less likely to report problems and even abuse to her coach.

6. How will the coach respond if my child is afraid of a skill or bails on a skill? For many competitive gymnasts, the sport started off as easy. Kids who are fearless tend to find quick success in the sport. But eventually, a skill will rattle a gymnast. I have watched a coach punish athletes with endless laps of squat jumps for refusing to throw a backward tumbling pass. In toxic gyms, a gymnast has to make a devil of a choice: Which do I fear more — the skill or the coach?

7. What percentage of my child’s teammates suffer from overuse injuries? Overuse injuries are rampant in toxic gyms because of repeated pounding on joints.

8. Do my child’s teammates cry frequently at the gym? Some crying is normal and healthy — these are kids, after all. They have big feelings that they are still learning to manage. But crying can be indicative of a toxic environment if it’s occurring at almost every practice.