Being a coach for now close to 25 years I believe that nothing is further from the truth. I sometimes jokingly say that I did things the wrong way round. As a young inexperienced coach I worked a lot with rowdy energetic boys and then later on I switched to older more experienced teenage girls.
But looking at the young generation a lot of things have to be different. A lot different. Young girls come into the gym usually wearing pretty leotards with their hair put up ready to listen to the coach and behaving nicely. These girls are usually patient and ready to repeat pretty little things making things perfect stretching and doing these things to perfection. Then they are ready to do some body work and then over to the apparatuses. They are ready to make everything perfect. Being a cute little gymnast is a cool choice for a young girl.
The boys on the other hand need totally different program and treatment. Not to say things have to be crazy and undiciplined. Picking gymnastics is not always the coolest things they can choose at least not in every area.
The program given to boys has to be much more fast paced and structured. Not spend to much time on each event or activity so in a session of 60 minutes there have to be 4 -6 different activities that they attack every session. There can be limited time between activities / events so there is no time to wander off and doing something disruptive to the other gymnasts training in the hall.
The coach has also to be very clever in tricking the boys into doing a lot of repetitions of the same or similar skill / combinations. The way to do this is to use the imagionation and change a few things that do not really matter but make the boys believe they are doing something totally different. Switching sides on circle work, not always starting in the same corner or going the other way doing pommel work in the beginning and middle of the workout.
The other important thing in boys training is getting them stronger this is something the boys like and most boys want to get stronger. Make that also into a game measure make records (personal and within the team). We used to make named "clubs" for the amount of circles they could do 15- 25 - 50 - 100. They get to write their name and date on the wall the day they make the allocated number of circles. This can be made in so many other ways with skills like back tucks, giants etc.
For the boys I feel it is also extremely important that in the end of every practice they have to be allowed to do something exciting. Something fun and different that they can tell their friends who do soccer, track and whatever other activities that are cool in their area. Not to mention if you do something exciting you are willing to come back not knowing which new and exciting things you get to try the next time you show up.
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