Charlie Davis is much like your typical enthusiastic and happy-go-lucky eight-year-old, except he does flips on a trampoline that would get most neighborhood kids grounded for attempting them and can do back handsprings the entire length of a gym.
While most kids his age went on vacation over the summer, Davis went to Phoenix and returned with a first-place finish at the USA Gymnastics Stars & Stripes National Championship Event. As one of the youngest members of the Black Diamond Gymnastics programs, his love of tumbling and trampoline began when he saw red.
Red Rocks, that is.
“We took him to see the Utah Women’s Gymnastics team,” said Jessica Davis. “When he saw them compete, he knew that’s what he wanted to do.”
Despite Utah being one of the biggest producers of competitive gymnastic athletes — with a constant presence on both the World Championship and Olympic stages — finding a local training program that prepares young athletes to compete is hard.
Fortunately, the Trampoline and Tumbling program at Black Diamond Gymnastics & Sports Center fits the bill.
Gen Smith has been coaching since 2003. She joined Black Diamond Gymnastics in 2019 and is now the program director and head coach for the Trampoline and Tumbling program.
Coach Gen, who holds national coaching certifications from Canada in the sport of Trampoline and Tumbling, explained that kids are drawn to this program because they are interested in doing more than just a recreational program.
“What’s nice about Black Diamond Gymnastics is that it offers nationally competitive opportunities for young people that don’t have to travel far or practice 20 hours per week to compete,” Smith said.
Training sessions are typically two hours long. Depending on the level, athletes will train twice per week and increase to four times per week as their athletic level rises. Training includes warmup, time on each individual apparatus, drills for skill progressions, conditioning stations, mental training, cool down and stretching.
The program is built around 10 levels of achievement and ability. Each participant’s progress is charted individually. “Because each athlete is so unique, we build routines that both show off their best aspects and also challenge them to create stronger portions of their routine,” Smith says. “So that as they go into the higher skills, it becomes easier for them to do the harder skills in more of a step-by-step progression.”
Since life habits outside of the gym often impact training, every athlete uses a journal to help track things like sleep patterns, diet, and routines they are working on at the gym.
“We check things like ‘What was your attitude before you got to the gym? Were you excited? Were you tired or stressed?’ Then we have them track their training. For example, how many back handspring passes did they do today and how many times did they stick the landing? If my day was bad before I got to the gym, my training might not look so great. So athletes learn they may want to sleep more or eat better,” says Smith.
Athletes whose focus is outside of the gymnastics arena also benefit from this routine. “Some of our athletes came from the urban and parkour arenas because they want to get a stronger technique,” Smith says. “I have a handful of figure skaters from the figure skating club because they see the connection that allows them to work on their strength. One of the head coaches there say that their athletes that come to us are stronger, and we find that our figure skating athletes know how to twist (spin) like nobody’s business.”
Smith added that their gym has soccer players who have developed their speed and quick-twitch muscles for faster agility on the field.
For the time they spend flying through the air, how they land makes a big difference in their conditioning.
“We really focus on trying to build strong bodies that know how to fall. It’s almost like prehab. We have athletes that are so powerful, they may over-rotate and land over their head and on their back. That’s part of learning, but they know how to do it safely because we’ve conditioned and stretched enough to strengthen those muscles to prevent injury.”
Much like Coach Gen, who competed in artistic gymnastics and power tumbling, all of the Trampoline and Tumbling coaches we have at Black Diamond Gymnastics have a T & T background, so they know how it felt for them. “Now they’re willing to learn the biomechanics to understand the technique in coaching it,” says Smith. “You can understand what it takes to create flip rotation instead of just doing it through force.”
“My goal, more than anything is to create well balance, good people, by teaching them how to accept feedback, be confident but learn how to accept failure and get up, shake it off, and try again – it’s all part of being a good teammate,” Smith says. “If I can help them learn those things in the gym, then they’ll be much more successful going out of the gym.”
Smith hopes to be doing this for many years to come. “Three years from now, I hope I’m continuing to grow athletes. And I hope at that point in time we’re at an elite level and that we’re taking kids to higher places. Whether it’s on a national platform or the international platform, I hope we can continue to inspire and push them along to be able to get to the places that they want to go.”
As for Charlie, he’s focused on expanding his skills and constantly working toward the next level. “I’d really like to work on my whip,” he said. Like him and the other athletes, who are literally reaching for the stars, Coach Gen and her staff will help them get there while ensuring their feet are firmly (and safely) positioned on solid ground.