WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- Gymnastics is hard – really hard. Ask almost any competitive gymnast and they will tell you that gymnastics often takes the place of almost anything else in their lives, sometimes even public school. However, they will also tell you that the dedication, hard work, financial aspects, and sacrifices made are all worth it because of the various benefits that gymnastics offers students of the sport.

Owner and coach at Spirit Express, Nicole Gelbach, said that for gymnasts to be competitive, they must make a decision early in their lives if they want to live a life dedicated to the sport.

Kaylee Vanblarcum, 13, is one of the more experienced gymnasts at Spirit Express, and spends many of her hours outside of school at the gym. (Photo by Dustin Freund)

"Gymnastics is a sport that if you don't start when you are young, the likelihood of you ever really doing the sport is pretty slim,” Gelbach said. “You can't at 14 years old decide that you want to be a gymnast. A lot of gyms won't even take you into their program because you are too old.”

Gelbach said that the oldest child to start the Spirit Express gymnastics program was just 10 years old. Spirit Express begins teaching classes to gymnasts as young as 2 years old with their Mommy and Me program.

“They start on all apparatuses if they are in gymnastics,” Gelbach said. “Even 2 year olds in Mommy and Me practice walking on the beam, so that fear doesn’t build up, and they get used to it.”

About 75 percent of a gymnasts training is spent in conditioning, according to Gelbach. The conditioning aspect of gymnastics also begins at a very young age.

“We will start conditioning at 4 years old with pushups, pull-ups, forward and backward rolls, handstands, and we will have them walk back and forth on the beam, and teach them how to fall safely,” Gelbach said.

Once a gymnast makes it through his or her childhood and still has the desire to seriously compete in gymnastics, the gymnast may find pieces of their social lives begin to slip away, as well as other hobbies.

“It's definitely a decision you have to make,” Gelbach said. “When I was a gymnast I had to make a decision because you are not going to have a normal life. Even as much as people try to say ‘I'm like any other person,’ you're not. Later on, when I was highly competitive, I wouldn't get to go to friends' birthday parties, I didn't get to go to the skating rink, and I didn't get to go to the movies, because you're in training all of the time.

Nicole Gelbach teaches gymnasts as young as 2 years old. In gymnastics, the sooner one starts, the better the chance of his or her success in the sport. (Photo by Dustin Freund)

"You go from school, to the road, to practice, to road, to bed, and that's all you have time for."

While Spirit Express may not have any Olympic-goaled gymnasts, it does have its share of dedicated gymnasts. One of Spirit Express’ older gymnasts, Kaylee Vanblarcum, 13, said that she can be found at Spirit Express almost daily, either training or working.

“My life is Spirit Express, I'm here all of the time,” Vanblarcum said. “I’m here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, for usually about 14 hours a week.”

Vanblarcum has been in tumbling since she was 4 years old, and in gymnastics since fourth grade. She hopes to become a level 7 gymnast (out of 10 and then elite) to prepare her for high school cheerleading. She also wants to eventually be part of Spirit Express Cheer, and remain involved in the program "forever."

Vanblarcum may be one of the more experienced gymnasts at Spirit Express, and 14 hours per week is plenty for a young girl, but a gymnast with higher aspirations than Vanblarcum can expect to see many more hours spent at the gym than even a lofty 14.

According to Gelbach, a training regiment for someone with Olympic aspirations is staggering.

“Basically they train every day, all day,” Gelbach said. “They are always home schooled with the exception of very few. They train at least eight hours a day, six days a week, and it’s more than a 40-hour a week job. To obtain the skill level is outrageous work. That's what is hard about the sport; we lose a lot of kids between the levels 6 and 7.”

While young gymnasts may see much of their free time disappear when accepting a life of gymnastics, the parents also bear a heavy burden as well.

Classes at Spirit Express cost $45 monthly for a one-hour class per week, with the cost per hour decreasing as the hours increase. A serious gymnast is likely to enroll in more than just one hour of classes, so some families may simply not be able to support their child gymnast financially. When also factoring in competition fees, traveling fees, gas money, hotel and food expenditures, gymnastics can end up being one of the most expensive sports around.

“Gymnastics is year-round, unlike other sports,” Gelbach said. “You train all year; there is no break or off-season. Little league teams of other sports, or high school, is generally free for athletes. For gymnasts, you have to pay for the competition fees, and more.”

Mary Carr, 13, shows off just one of the many skills she has learned while being enrolled at Spirit Express. (Photo by Dustin Freund)

Gelbach knows that not many families can afford the money and the time to compete in competitions around the country, so Spirit Express' competitions are usually held close by.

“We try to do a lot of local stuff,” Gelbach said. “We try to keep stuff as cost effective as possible for this community, but not all gyms are like that. They go all over the place. We try to stay in the state of Missouri just because once you get into the really big time, it is very pricy to do.”

Spirit Express holds fundraisers and looks for sponsorships and donations to help students and their families overcome financial difficulties associated with the sport.

Another financial aspect of gymnastics is the lack of any sort of big payday for gymnasts once they achieve elite status. Gelbach said that the only ways a gymnast gets paid financially for their hard work is through a college scholarship or through endorsements. Endorsements are usually only paid to those who see Olympic action.

Young boys looking to get involved into gymnastics also may have difficulties managing their time and finances, maybe even more so than girls.

“Not a lot of gyms around here have all of the boys equipment, so when we go to competitions a lot of them only compete on three events because it is just so expensive,” Gelbach said. “What you are going to spend on purchasing equipment, you are never going to make off of the number of boys that you have. Out of 250 kids, you may have 10 boys. A set of parallel bars may be $3,000 grand, plus the matting to go under it might be another $2,000. You aren’t going to make that back off of 10 boys.”

Factoring in all of the implications gymnastics may have on one’s life, why do they subject themselves to the sport? One reason is that gymnastics is the perfect way to begin a blossoming career in other sports.

“Even if you do gymnastics for five years and decide, ‘I’m going to be a volleyball player,’ or ‘I’m going to be softball player,’ you are going to be very good at those sports because of the stuff you got out of the years when you were a gymnast,” Gelbach said.

Gelbach said that fathers of hopeful athletes are beginning to understand the benefits of gymnastics.

“That is what I think people are starting to see, because we are getting more and more young boys,” Gelbach said. “Dads may say, ‘I don’t want my son in gymnastics.’ But then when they come to the classes, and they see we aren’t dancing around, we aren’t prancing all over the place, but they see the body control, the muscle, the strengthening, the conditioning and just the overall physical fitness, they are just wowed.”

Then there are those who are involved in gymnastics because they simply love the sport. They understand the dedication the sport requires and the other parts of their young lives that they may miss out on. But to them, it is all worth it.

“It teaches so many life lessons,” Gelbach said. “Almost all gymnasts you meet are very career-oriented, goal-oriented, very critical, very attentive to detail, very motivated, self-motivated, organized, will probably be very good at time management, and will be very focused. I think it teaches you so much about life, life lessons in general that you carry with you forever. When you fall you get back up; you don’t give up, you keep trying. They are lessons I got when I was (younger). As an adult I carry those with me, and that has made me who I am. I just think gymnastics teaches you a lot of really good things.”