Weekly practice time for young skaters

[Abbyar]

My dd is 8 and will be taking her Preliminary MIF test in 2 weeks. She's landed her single jumps and her axel is on it's way, and her coach said she will start introducing double jumps later this year.

She enjoys skating, and has slowly built her time on ice to ~4 hours/ week. At this point, the only way to (easily) increase her on-ice time would be to turn 1 hour on ice into 2. For the last week she has skated 2 hours Saturday, 1 Sunday, 2 hours Tuesday (with off ice) and will skate 1 hour Friday, bringing her total ice time to 6. She has requested to skate 2 hours on each session going forward, putting her weekly total at 7-8 hours per week, which would include ~2 hours of lessons.

I know I've seen other threads on here about *appropriate* skating time, and based on the formulas I've seen 8 hours is ok, but for those who jumped up to this much time, is it too much? I wouldn't do it if she didn't request it, and I was rather surprised when she did. She had a few weeks this fall where she seemed indifferent - when working on her axel was difficult. Her coach said she's now getting into more *fun* things - jump sequences, new spins, her program for the spring is more polished, so that's likely why she's excited about more ice time. I did notice that she particularly loved the 2nd hour of the Saturday session as some of her school mates skate the same hour and were rather impressed at her program.

Any advice? I do have to say from a mom perspective, when she went home yesterday after 30 minutes off-ice and 2 hours skating, she was BEAT. She took a hot bath and did not complain at all about going right to bed. Very exciting for the mom of a child who has always seemed to have inexhaustible energy.

[riley876]

I'm not young,  but I do skate 10-12 hours/week, plus a couple of hours total of off-ice strength/flexibility training.   It took a while to work up to this amount.   And it took changing my eating habits to be able to maintain it (notably more protein).   And for a while, when I was slightly sick, it was definitely too much.  I got into a loop of overtraining where I kept myself sick.

I suspect for a young skater, psychological factors will be the limiting factor (e.g. getting bored or not being able to spend time with friends or watching fav TV or whatever).

[nicklaszlo]

Go for the two hour sessions.  Enjoy the tiredness while it lasts.  She will be used to the longer sessions in a few weeks.

Make sure she gets plenty of rest ~ 3 days before the test though.  Test time is not the time to increase your practice schedule.  Moves tests are much more of an endurance challenge than one might think.

[rd350]

It depends on what she's doing on the ice too.  I suggest not spending much of that extra hour each sessions on jumps, at her age.  Maybe moves.... I would keep it low impact, especially in the beginning, but really at her age, you have to take young joints into account.  Don't want to pound those joints or she may be prone to injury earlier on in her life.

[nicklaszlo]

It's essential to limit the number of jumps per day for skaters doing quads, but I'm skeptical that this is important for a skater doing single jumps.

[rd350]

Yes, at 8 it is.

[twinskaters]

I agree with limiting jumps for kids this young. I actually haven't thought about that for my kids, but they aren't working hard on jumps to the point that they're just relentlessly jumping in any one practice session.

To me, 7-8 hours sounds like a ton of time (my kids are doing 3ish plus synchro lately), but if she wants to be there and is using her time productively on the ice and having fun, I would have a hard time saying no. But I would keep an eye on balance, making sure she has downtime, and isn't just doing school, HW, skating, because that will wear her down even if the skating is her choice.

[Abbyar]

Thanks everyone.  She does have several other activities, thanks to the school district (they have activities provided by the aftercare - chess and art once a week) and she dances once a week. So she has two days of no specific physical activity a week and one day of complete downtime. 8 hours a week seems like a lot, but she still watches tv and has the occasional play date. I'll worry once she's older and has more substantial homework.

I am worried about her doing too many jumps/ spins. I will monitor and count. Her coach gave her a list of things to work on, and she noted that each jump should only be done 2x per hour - much more of the emphasis of her practice is on her program (although it has jumps as well) and MIF. I'm also concerned about the spins, however hers are neither very fast nor do the have more than 8 rotations. It's funny be she's progressed so much, and yet she's still a little girl without the speed or strength of a very advanced skater. It makes me a little afraid of what happens next.

I will mention taking the day off before her test. It would be nice to sleep past 6 on a Saturday.

[twinskaters]

It sounds to me like she will be just fine, mostly because he has a mom who is paying attention and watching out for her!