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Gymnastics is a sport and a recreational activity at the same time.

Plenty of kids start in a preschool tumbling class and move on to other things; plenty of others stay and chase a competitive career. Either way they walk out with strength, coordination, flexibility, and body awareness that transfers everywhere.

USA Gymnastics is the national governing body for the sport, and its Women's Development Program is the level system most American gyms work from.

It runs from Level 1 through Level 10, with Elite above it, and each level has skills an athlete needs before moving up.

A tiered structure exists so nobody trains a skill their body isn't ready for. It keeps athletes safe, and it gives you a straight answer when a parent asks why their kid hasn't moved up yet.

You'll be asked. Probably this week.

This guide walks the gymnastics skills by level, from the building blocks through Level 10 and Elite, and tells you what each level actually requires.

Every age, score, and requirement below was checked against the current USA Gymnastics rulebooks in August 2026.

Gymnastics Basics: Where Beginners Start

Before any of the named skills, a beginner spends time on shapes and landings. A parent watching week three sees a kid falling over a lot. You see whether that kid can land.

That's also the answer to what most parents are really asking when they search for beginner gymnastics skills: what will my kid do in the first few months, and how will I know it's working.

A first class, start to finish

A beginner class usually opens with a warm-up and some running, skipping, and hopping.

Then a rotation through stations. Floor, a low beam, bars set at chest height, and a soft mat or wedge.

You're watching for two things at this stage. Can the athlete hold a shape, and can the athlete land without collapsing.

Nothing about a first class involves flipping.

If a program has beginners going upside down in week one without matting and a spot, ask questions.

Gymnastic skills for beginners

The order varies by gym, but the early list is fairly consistent: a straddle sit, a hop landed on soft knees, a forward roll, a backward roll, a bridge, and holding a handstand against a wall or with a spot.

Each of those is defined in the next section.

The progression here is the women's artistic pathway, which is what the level system below covers. Boys and girls usually train together this early.

The split comes later, because men and women compete on different apparatus.

For younger athletes, the starting age for gymnastics depends more on attention span than physical readiness. A four-year-old who can follow two-step instructions gets more out of a class than a six-year-old who can't.

Worth setting expectations early: USA Gymnastics sets a minimum age of the fourth birthday to compete Level 1 and the fifth birthday for Level 2.

A three-year-old can absolutely take class. She can't compete.

Building Blocks of Gymnastics Skills

The building blocks are the eleven shapes, landings, and rolls that every gymnastics skill is assembled from: straddle sit, two-foot jump, multiple jumps, single-leg balance, half-turn jump, tuck jump, log roll, bridge, tripod, forward roll, and backward roll.

Some of them look painfully simple. Resist the urge to rush past them.

Yes, one of them is sitting on the floor.

Shapes, landings, and balance

Everything here is about holding a position or absorbing a landing. Nothing rotates yet, which makes this the least photogenic stretch of training your gym will ever run.

Straddle sit: Sitting on the ground, toes pointed, legs moving outward until the athlete reaches a position that's comfortable but stretching. The same shape shows up as a jump on the floor, during bar routines, and on the trampoline.

Two-foot jump and landing: The landing is the part that matters. Athletes jump on a flat surface off both feet and land with soft knees. Progression runs from higher surfaces down to lower ones, then onto small platforms.

In the Code of Points a jump is two feet to two feet, a hop is one foot to the same foot, and a leap is one foot to the other. Worth knowing before you read the routine text at Level 2.

Multiple jumps: Once a landing is safe, athletes practice jumping consecutively. Each landing is on soft knees to absorb the impact, and the athlete springs straight back up into another jump. That builds the reactive power tumbling runs on later.

Standing on one foot: Dozens of harder movements come apart if an athlete can't stand still on one foot. Start with a steady single-leg hold. That balance is what makes beam and floor routines look controlled.

Jumps that lead to flips

These jumps teach the body what a salto will ask of it later. Neither one looks like a flip, and that's fine.

Half-turn jump: Many complex movements ask a gymnast to jump or flip and land facing backward. The half-turn jump is the simplest version. Athletes jump from a standstill and rotate 180 degrees before landing.

Tuck jump: Preparation for forward and backward tuck flips. The athlete drives the knees to the chest and opens to land. Coaches often have athletes grab the shins in drills to teach the tight tuck shape a salto needs, though the competed jump keeps the arms in the routine position.

If a gymnast can't hold a tight tuck in the air, they aren't ready for a somersault in the air.

Bending back and going upside down

Here the athlete stops looking where they're going.

Bridge: Sometimes called a backbend or back bridge. Athletes lie on their backs, place their hands palm-down beside the head, and press out until the body forms an arch. It's the entry point for bending backward under speed and load.

Shoulder and wrist gymnastics flexibility matter here more than strength does.

Tripod: Crouch, hands down, then the front of the forehead on the mat in front of the hands, so head and hands make a triangle. Lean forward and balance the knees on the elbows.

Keep that contact on the forehead. Putting the crown of the head down loads the neck straight through the spine.

The three rolls

Rolling is how a gymnast gets out of a skill that has gone wrong, which is why it gets taught early.

Log roll: Lying in a hollow body position, with arms, head, and legs slightly elevated off the mat, the athlete uses the hips to rotate face down. Head, arms, and legs stay off the mat for the whole movement.

Forward roll: Children pick this one up quickly. Knowing how to somersault lets an athlete bail safely out of a handstand. The athlete crouches, places the hands on the mat, tucks the chin, and shifts weight forward, then sits and stands to finish.

Backward roll: Starts from a squat, back to the direction of travel. The athlete turns the palms up at the shoulders, sits, and rolls back with knees close to the chest. Once the shoulders reach the mat, the hands push the legs over to finish standing.

That hand push is what keeps load off the neck, which is why the skill gets taught on a downhill wedge before it's taught flat.

A ten-minute circuit of these at the start of every beginner class does two jobs at once. It builds the muscle memory, and it shows you exactly who's ready for what.

Basic Gymnastic Skills

The basic gymnastic skills are the handstand, the cartwheel and roundoff, the splits, the turn on one foot, front and back handsprings, and the cast on bars. Athletes get to them at different rates.

Some need extra time on the foundations, some move quickly, and many work both sets at once.

Parents will ask you which week the cartwheel arrives, and there's no good way to answer that.

Shapes every event borrows

These four turn up on floor, beam, and vault, and a weakness in any of them shows on all three.

Handstand: The most recognizable movement in the sport. An athlete stands on their hands with legs in the air. Almost everything past this point assumes the athlete can hold one comfortably, without walking the hands or piking at the hips.

Cartwheel and roundoff: For floor, beam, and vault, cartwheels and roundoffs are mandatory equipment. A cartwheel places one hand down, then the other, swings the legs overhead, and lands one foot at a time facing the opposite direction. A roundoff follows the same path, but both feet land together with a quarter-turn snap.

Roundoffs start most tumbling combinations.

Splits: Hitting positions cleanly at higher levels takes this range and there's no way around it. The athlete should be able to place the legs to the side, or one forward and one back, completely flat.

Turn on one foot: Also called a pirouette. It sounds simple and it isn't. Rotating 360 degrees on one foot without drifting off line takes real balance, and it appears in beam and floor routines from the optional levels onward.

Where tumbling and bar work begin

The first skills that carry a real prerequisite, and the first place rushing an athlete costs something.

Front and back handspring: Along with the roundoff, handsprings are the most common movements in tumbling, and the two run differently.

A back handspring takes off from two feet, throws backward with both hands landing together, and snaps to two feet. A front handspring hurdles into a lunge, takes off from one foot, and lands on two feet or steps out on one.

Multiple handsprings string together into a pass.

Before an athlete drills back handsprings alone, they need a solid backbend kickover and a comfortable standing bridge.

Coaches generally treat those as the gate, because a back handspring drilled without them lands badly on the hands. Our injury prevention guide goes deeper on that.

Cast: A gymnast on a bar pushing their body away from it. The athlete holds the bar with straight arms, bar near the hips, and pushes away while keeping the arms straight. A basic cast pushes the hips off the bar; the advanced version goes all the way to a handstand.

Advanced Gymnastics Skills

The advanced gymnastic skills are the competitive-level elements: multi-salto tumbling, bar release-and-regrasp moves, connected acro series on beam, named vaults, twisting dismounts, and full floor routines.

Past the basics the work gets harder in a specific way. It asks for more strength and much better air awareness, and every one of these extends a foundation the athlete already has.

Take the handstand. Advancing it means moving a leg, adding a turn, or pressing into a pirouette while staying balanced.

Where these skills become required is set by the level system, which is the next section down.

Floor and tumbling

Floor is where the crowd looks, so floor is where the difficulty tends to go.

Advanced tumbling: Dynamic sequences of flips and twists, and the backbone of a competitive floor routine. Past the roundoff back handspring, the vocabulary opens up: back layout, full-twisting layout, double back tuck, and the Arabian, which is a half turn into a front flip.

Full floor routines: Advanced floor blends tumbling passes with dance elements. The transitions between them get forgotten in training and noticed in competition. Judges see it when a gymnast sprints from one corner to the next with nothing in between.

Bars and vault

Two events with the same demand underneath them. At some point the athlete has to let go of something.

Release and regrasp: High-level bar routines involve letting go of the bar and catching it again. Named skills here include the Gienger, the Tkatchev, and the Pak salto, which transitions from the high bar to the low bar. All of them demand upper-body strength, which is why supplemental conditioning matters so much at these levels.

Precision vaulting: Named vaults like the Yurchenko, which enters with a round-off onto the springboard, and the Tsukahara, which enters with a quarter to half twist onto the table, appear as allowable entries from Level 6. Each vault in the code carries its own start value.

Beam

Beam is four inches wide, and every skill below has to land on it.

Acrobatic beam combinations: Gymnasts connect back handsprings, aerials, and layout step-outs into series on a four-inch surface. Acro series are a standing feature of the optional beam charts, and they tighten as the level rises.

Level 6 takes a non-flight series or a single flight element. Level 9 wants a series carrying at least two directly connected flight elements.

Twisting beam dismounts: Adding twist to a dismount piles spatial demand on top of an already narrow apparatus. Dismount work gets neglected constantly, and judges score the landing they actually see.

USA Gymnastics Levels

Most American gyms run the USA Gymnastics levels.

Some run the Amateur Athletic Union or something close to it, but USA Gymnastics publishes the rulebooks every sanctioned meet is judged against, and the Women's Development Program is the ladder this guide follows.

Which is the long way of saying that when a parent quotes a rule at you, this is the book it came from.

The three segments

The program splits into three segments:

• Levels 1 through 3 are developmental. A gym can run them as a non-competitive pre-team program or as an introductory competitive one.
• Levels 4 and 5 are compulsory. Every gymnast performs the same predetermined routine.
• Levels 6 through 10 are optional. Athletes and coaches build their own routines within the rules.

Above all ten sits Elite, a separate program with its own qualification path.

Athletes advance one level at a time, with two chartered exceptions covered below. Anyone arriving from another system enters at Level 4 or below.

Two rulebooks, two cycles

The levels also run on two rulebooks, and right now those rulebooks are on different cycles.

Levels 6 through 10 moved to the 2026–30 Development Program Optional Code of Points, released in April 2026. Levels 1 through 5 stay on the 2021–2029 Compulsory book, most recently amended with replacement pages in July 2026.

So if someone tells you the whole system just changed, they're half right.

The Xcel track

USA Gymnastics also runs the Xcel program, a separate competitive track for athletes who want to compete without the training load of the development pathway.

Six divisions, each with its own age floor and its own entry point from the Development Program:

The skill progressions below cover women's artistic gymnastics in the Development Program.

All age minimums, prerequisite scores, and mobility scores are taken from the 2026–2027 Rules & Policies, Chapter 9.

Gymnastics Skills by Level

Gymnastics skills are organized into ten USA Gymnastics levels plus Elite: Levels 1 through 3 developmental, Levels 4 and 5 compulsory, Levels 6 through 10 optional. Each level carries its own age minimum and its own score for moving up.

What follows is the full list by level, one section per level, with the requirements for each.

Two rules govern movement through that list, and both get misunderstood constantly.

First, an athlete must reach the minimum age before competing, including in qualifying meets, not by the end of the season.

USA Gymnastics publishes a worked example: a gymnast who turns six on November 28 can't compete the November 17 Level 3 qualifier, so she can't reach that season's Level 3 State Championships at all.

Second, moving up requires a mobility score, which is an all-around total hit at a sanctioned meet.

Levels 1 through 3 have none. From Level 4 up every level has one, and there's now an individual-event route as well: an 8.5 IES score, earned as an Individual Event Specialist competing three events or fewer, satisfies mobility out of Levels 7, 8, and 9.

Here's the full chart, straight from the current rulebook.

For the optional levels, the difficulty requirement is what separates one level from the next.

Same chart, one row per level:

Value parts are worth 0.10 for an A, 0.30 for a B, and 0.50 for a C. The counts hold across bars, beam, and floor.

The chart also allows mobility back and forth between Levels 5 and 6.

That note sits on the Level 5 row and nowhere else.

Athletes arriving from any other program—including USA Gymnastics Xcel—enter the Development Program at Level 4 or below.

One thing to flag before the level-by-level run.

USA Gymnastics sells the compulsory book for $75 and puts only the replacement pages online for free, so for Levels 1 through 5 there are apparatus where the actual routine text isn't public at all.

Where that happens below, this guide says so and points you at the book. It doesn't fill the gap with a skill list that sounds about right.

Level 1 gymnastics skills

Level 1, sometimes written level one, requires a stretch jump and handstand on vault, a back hip pullover mount through a cast to straddle-on with a sole circle or underswing dismount on bars, and a jump to front support mount with a needle leg kick on beam.

It's the introductory level, open to athletes who have reached their fourth birthday.

It's developmental too, so a gym can run it as a non-competitive pre-team program or as an introductory competitive one, and there's no mobility score to leave it.

You're teaching shapes, landings, and the first apparatus contact. Strength and flexibility work runs underneath all of it.

What the compulsory book requires at Level 1, confirmed against the current replacement pages:

• Vault: a stretch jump onto a minimum of 16 inches of matting, then a handstand and fall to a straight-lying position
• Uneven bars: a back hip pullover mount, a cast, a back hip circle, a cast to straddle-on, and a dismount that is either a sole circle or an underswing
• Balance beam: a jump to front support mount, a needle leg kick, and a relevé balance "lock" stand, inside a 35-second time limit

One gap worth naming: the free replacement pages don't carry the Level 1 floor routine.

That one lives only in the compulsory book itself.

That bar dismount is a choice, which gives you somewhere to go. Two athletes can both compete Level 1 correctly and dismount differently, which gives you somewhere to go when one of them has the sole circle and the other doesn't.

Beyond the required routines, Level 1 athletes are typically also drilling cartwheels, backward rolls, arabesques, and stretch jumps on beam. That's what the training looks like.

The routine text in the book is what the judge scores.

Thirty-five seconds isn't long. A beam is also four inches wide, and most four- and five-year-olds have never balanced on anything that narrow. Expect this to be the event that takes the longest.

Level 2 gymnastics skills

Level 2 requires a jump to handstand on vault, a nine-element floor routine built around the heel-snap turn, and a jump to front support mount with a single leg kick-up on beam.

It's a developmental level with no mobility score required to leave it, open to athletes who have reached their fifth birthday.

Some gyms compete it, many run it in-gym.

The jump from Level 1 is real but narrow. Same apparatus, same shapes, slightly more demanding versions of each.

Confirmed Level 2 requirements from the current compulsory pages:

• Vault: a jump to handstand onto a raised mat surface of at least 16 inches, then a fall to a straight-lying position on the back
• Floor: a cartwheel, a backward roll to push-up position, a 180-degree turn in forward passé (the heel-snap turn), a forward chassé, a straight leg leap at 60 degrees, a split jump at 60 degrees, a handstand held for one second, a candlestick, and a bridge with back kick-over
• Balance beam: a jump to front support mount and a single leg kick-up to stand

The Level 2 floor routine is the most detailed thing a gymnast has met so far, and most of the level's difficulty sits there.

The heel-snap turn is a technique skill. Its deduction is written specifically for failing to use heel-snap technique, so a gymnast who muscles through it loses points even when the turn completes.

Two elements carry the biggest deductions.

The backward roll to push-up position loses 0.30 if the hands touch the floor during the sit phase before the roll, and another 0.30 if it becomes a backward roll to handstand. A bridge with back kick-over loses 0.30 for every extra kick used to get inverted.

A handstand held for a full second is a genuine gate. Plenty of Level 2 athletes can kick to vertical; far fewer can stop there.

Bar work at Level 2 typically adds a glide swing on top of the Level 1 vocabulary. The free replacement pages don't carry a Level 2 bar routine at all, so treat the glide swing as standard training at this stage and check the compulsory book before you write it into a curriculum.

Level 3 gymnastics skills

Level 3 requires a handspring vault over at least 32 inches of matting, a floor routine built on 90-degree leaps and split jumps, and a beam routine containing a cross handstand. It's the last developmental level, open at the sixth birthday, and like Levels 1 and 2 it carries no mobility score.

The skills take a visible step up, and this is usually where you start to see who has a competitive future.

Confirmed Level 3 requirements:

• Vault: a handspring over a raised mat surface of at least 32 inches
• Floor: a handstand forward roll, a straight leg leap at 90 degrees, a stretch jump, a split jump at 90 degrees, and a handstand to bridge with back kick-over through 120 degrees
• Balance beam: the routine includes a cross handstand

Bars are missing from that list because the free replacement pages don't carry the Level 3 bar routine. It's in the compulsory book.

Level 3 bar work is where the kip shows up.

More kids get stuck on the kip than on anything else in the developmental range, and a weekly kip clinic is one of the cheapest program changes you can make. It gives athletes reps without holding up everyone else in the class.

Run the kip clinic. I'm begging you.

The leap and split-jump requirements go from 60 to 90 degrees here. That's a flexibility problem, and gyms tend to coach it as a skill problem.

Level 4 gymnastics skills

The vault table arrives at Level 4. The vault is a handspring over it, confirmed in the compulsory book's own table of penalties, and guides still saying Level 4 gymnasts don't use a table are out of date.

Level 4 is also the first compulsory level, open at the seventh birthday. Every gymnast competes an identical, predetermined routine, so judges are comparing execution across a field doing the same thing.

To move to Level 5, an athlete needs a 34.00 AA at Level 4. Two scores of 36.00 AA at Level 4 move her straight to Level 6, skipping Level 5 entirely.

Beyond the vault, Level 4 training typically covers casts toward horizontal on bars, split leaps on beam, and back walkovers. Those are the skills being built at this stage; the exact routine text lives in the compulsory book.

Level 5 gymnastics skills

Seven is still the age gate at Level 5, but now there's a score attached: a 34.00 AA at Level 4 to get in. It's the second and last compulsory level.

The vault is again a handspring over the vault table. The bar routine ends in a tap swing forward to flyaway dismount, and the flyaway may be tucked, piked, or stretched. All three are allowed, each with its own deductions.

That flyaway is the first time most gymnasts let go of a bar and rotate in the air with nothing under them but a landing mat.

Most of them can physically do it. Fewer want to.

To advance, an athlete needs a 32.00 AA at Level 5. Two things make Level 5 unusual. It can be skipped entirely with two 36.00 AA scores at Level 4, and the rulebook allows mobility back and forth between Levels 5 and 6.

Level 5 beam and floor work typically includes back walkovers, front tucks, and roundoff back handspring series. Confirm the specifics against the compulsory book before building a curriculum around them.

Level 6 gymnastics skills

The sport changes character at Level 6, the first optional level. Athletes and coaches build their own routines within the rules, which is the point at which a good coach starts to matter enormously.

Skills carry difficulty ratings, from A as the easiest through B, C, D, and E. Value parts are worth 0.10 for an A, 0.30 for a B, and 0.50 for a C.

A Level 6 routine must contain four A elements and two B elements on each apparatus, for a 10.0 start value. C elements are mostly restricted at this level; the ones that are allowed count only at B value, which is a deliberate brake on athletes who want to skip ahead.

On vault, Level 6 offers a choice of three entries, all with a 10.0 start value: a front handspring entry, a quarter-to-half twist on the table, which is the Tsukahara entry, or a round-off entry, which is the Yurchenko.

An athlete picks one. She does not perform all three.

Bars require a cast to at least 45 degrees above horizontal, a minimum of one bar change, one 360-degree clear circling element, and a salto dismount of at least A value.

Beam takes either a non-flight acro series or a single acro flight element, plus a leap or jump hitting a 180-degree split, a minimum 360-degree turn on one foot, and an aerial or salto dismount of at least A value.

Floor asks for two acro passes with different saltos, a dance passage carrying a 180-degree leap, and the same 360-degree turn. Floor has no dismount requirement, which surprises people every year.

Level 6 routines are not eligible for bonus or composition credit. Everything is start value and execution.

Level 7 gymnastics skills

Level 7 raises the difficulty requirement to four A elements and three B elements, still at a 10.0 start value. Selected C elements become available, and all C dance elements are allowed on beam and floor.

Athletes must have reached their seventh birthday and posted a 32.00 AA at Level 5 or 6. This is also the level athletes land on when they skip Level 6, which USA Gymnastics permits outright for anyone who scored 32.00 AA at Level 5.

Bars step up from a cast to 45 degrees to a full cast to handstand, plus two 360-degree clear circling elements.

Floor requires two acro passes, one with a backward salto and one with a forward salto, and one of the two saltos must be stretched with no twist and land on two feet.

Advancing needs a 32.00 AA at Level 7, or an 8.5 as an individual event specialist.

Level 8 gymnastics skills

The start value drops for the first time at Level 8, to 9.80, and routines require four A elements and four B elements. Athletes must have reached their eighth birthday and posted a 32.00 AA at Level 7.

This is also the first level where composition is evaluated, worth up to 0.20 in composition credit.

Judges start scoring the routine as a routine.

One restricted C element becomes allowable, counted in chronological order. Floor requires an acro pass with a minimum of two saltos and three different saltos across the routine, none of them aerials.

Level 8 is where the age range in a single session gets wide. An eight-year-old and a sixteen-year-old can both compete Level 8 legitimately.

You coach them the same skills. You don't talk to them the same way.

Advancing needs a 34.00 AA at Level 8, or an 8.5 IES.

Level 9 gymnastics skills

Level 9 requires three A elements, four B elements, and one C element, at a 9.50 start value.

The age gate here is the eighth birthday, along with a 34.00 AA at Level 8.

Eighth, not ninth. The number breaks the pattern and plenty of published guides get it wrong.

One restricted D or E element becomes allowable, counted in chronological order, and only the first D or E is eligible for difficulty bonus. Routines can earn up to 0.30 in connection value bonus, or 0.20 connection value plus 0.10 difficulty value.

Composition credit stays at 0.20, the same as Level 8.

Bars now require a minimum of two bar changes, two different flight elements, and a salto dismount of at least B value. Beam requires an acro series with a minimum of two directly connected flight elements.

Level 9 has a full competitive season: state, regional, and then Eastern or Western Championships, which require a minimum 34.00 AA to reach.

Advancing to Level 10 needs a 34.00 AA at Level 9, or an 8.5 IES.

Level 10 gymnastics skills

Every restriction comes off at Level 10. The chart reads no difficulty restrictions, so any element in the code is available.

Athletes must have reached their ninth birthday and posted a 34.00 AA at Level 9.

Routines require three A elements, three B elements, and two C elements, at a 9.20 start value. Composition credit rises to 0.30, and bonus is capped at 0.50.

The code adds an extra 0.10 bonus for a routine that meets every difficulty, special, and composition requirement, carries at least 0.60 in total bonus, and lands one high-difficulty element the code names for that event.

On beam and floor that element is an E acro skill. On bars it is a single-bar D release, or any E release.

Read the chart for your event before you count on the bonus.

That extra tenth is for a complete routine.

Level 10 culminates at the Development Program National Championships, reached through regional qualification with a minimum 35.00 AA.

It's also the level where college programs do most of their recruiting, and where athletes decide whether to chase Elite.

Elite level gymnastics

Elite sits outside the numbered levels entirely.

USA Gymnastics defines an Elite gymnast as an international-level athlete who starts her first optional event at a Classic competition, and once she does she's committed for the year. She can't drop back to the Development Program in the same competitive season.

Elite divides by age. Junior Elite is 11 to 15. Senior Elite is 16 and up.

The pathway runs through qualification scores at National Qualifiers, the Winter Cup, the American Classic, and the U.S. Classic, culminating at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships.

New International Elites must post a 35.00 compulsory score at a National Qualifier.

Optional qualifying scores to the Classics currently sit at 50.50 all-around for Senior and 48.50 all-around for Junior. Those marks sit where they do partly because the National Team carries up to 28 athletes, and the field is sized to fill it.

The Talent Opportunity Program, TOPs, gets sold as a shortcut to Elite.

It's early screening. TOPs identifies athletes aged 8, 9, and 10 through physical-abilities testing and fundamentals, and USA Gymnastics states plainly that Hopes and TOPs athletes are not classified as Elite athletes.

One more thing parents hear and repeat: an athlete doesn't have to complete all ten levels to get to Elite. Level 5 and Level 6 are both skippable under the current mobility rules.

Tips for Coaches and Gym Owners

Let's be honest, none of this is the part you got into gymnastics for. But running the program well matters as much as what happens on the mats. A few things separate gyms where families stay from gyms where they drift.

Structure classes by level

Group by skill level. A talented six-year-old working Level 3 skills is in a different place from an eight-year-old still learning to hold a bridge, and age alone won't tell you that.

A workable structure looks like this:

• Preschool classes, ages three to five
• Beginner classes covering Levels 1 and 2
• An intermediate group for Level 3 and early Level 4
• A competitive team track from Level 4 up
• An Xcel track for athletes who want to compete on a lighter schedule

Grouping by level keeps kids working at the right edge, and it gives parents a straight answer about where their kid actually is.

Staffing that properly is its own budget line.

Work out what gymnastics coaches earn before you commit to a structure you can't staff, and do the same for pricing your programs around it.

Track athlete progress systematically

Track which skills each athlete has mastered and which are still in progress.

Without that record you're guessing, and you'll guess in front of a parent. Give athletes a written list of the movements for their level to check off as they go, and they have something concrete to chase.

Clipboards work until they don't.

Once you're running multiple levels across multiple coaches, skill tracking on paper starts producing contradictory answers to simple questions.

That's where gymnastics gym management software earns its keep: skill progression, class rosters by level, evaluation scheduling, and parent updates in one place instead of four.

Families who can see the path forward stick around, which is most of gymnastics retention and a lot of how you build loyal gymnastics members.

Set clear advancement criteria

Write down exactly what an athlete has to demonstrate to move up, and hand it to parents at enrollment.

Documented checklists turn an awkward conversation into a factual one.

Pull up your current level sheet.

If a parent could read it and still not tell you what their kid needs next, it isn't doing its job.

Age minimums give you a hard floor to point at, which helps. A parent arguing that their five-year-old should be competing Level 3 is arguing with USA Gymnastics, not with you.

Plan lesson structure by level

Every level should have a curriculum outline coaches follow, so the Level 3 class runs the same way regardless of who's teaching it.

Include warm-ups, skill drills, conditioning, and cool-down stretches tuned to that level's requirements.

The lesson plan is also your onboarding document for new coaches. A gym without one trains every new hire from scratch.

Build the Program Around the Progression

The level system gives coach, athlete, parent, and judge a shared vocabulary, so that "she's ready for Level 4" means the same thing in every gym in the country. That's most of what the system is for.

Which means the fastest way to run a program badly is to treat the levels as a ladder to climb quickly.

Rush an athlete past a bridge kickover to get to a back handspring and you get a gymnast competing one level higher on a foundation that won't hold.

Drill the basics. Then write down what you actually require, and hand it to the parents before they ask.

And check the book, because it moves.

Levels 6 through 10 changed rulebooks in April 2026 and Levels 1 through 5 got replacement pages in July 2026, so a curriculum written two years ago has at least one thing wrong in it right now.

If you want the level placements, attendance, skill tracking, and family communication to live somewhere other than your evenings, that's what Gymdesk is for.

One place where you can answer "is she ready for Level 4" without three clipboards and a group text.