Why Gymnastics?

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Gymnastics is one of the greatest sports available to children and also one of the most physically and mentally challenging. It is also one of the few sports that address all FIVE of the fitness components:

Most of our children, and parents have specific “tumbling goals” in mind when they enter the program, such as learning cartwheels and round off back handsprings ; but when there are the same underlying issues of strength and flexibility that need to be addressed then those issues have to be addressed for gymnastic skill progression. For example: a child who struggles with upper body strength, unsurprisingly will struggle with bars and other skills that require them to support their body weight, and the same is true for flexibility, endurance, etc. In short, for gymnastics skill attainment, these fitness elements must also be attained and continue to progress to meet the increasing needs of the sport of gymnastics.

We live life “On The Go.” In a nutshell: “We eat too much”, “Ride too much”, and “Watch too much T.V.” (Children average three hours of television a day). The consequences of this “On The Go” lifestyle is larger body sizes and decreased physical fitness. And to add to that, all of life’s problems are solved in a thirty minute sitcom and if we don’t make time to exercise to lower our own blood pressure, blood cholesterol, etc., then we take a pill to fix the problem. (“Is it fixing the problem or simply putting a band-aid on the problem to fix it temporarily?).

The point is, no one knows exactly how long it will take your child to learn any specific skill whether it is gymnastics, karate, soccer skills, etc. even though we know about when on average we should be seeing a skill develop. The major concern is we are overweight and under fit, and this effects our rate of skill development.

However, what we do know is this:

The more practice and time you put into a sport, the more you benefit and the more skilled you become. A gymnast on T.V. makes the sport look so easy, but did you know they practice eight to ten hours a day, six days a week for many years? Even beginning competitive gymnasts in North Carolina practice an average of twelve hours a week and these are 6 to 10 year olds! For those students who would like to progress faster here are some suggestions:

Motor skills and sport skills are cumulative. The safest way to approach gymnastics is to teach in progressions, therefore building a more solid foundation of movement skills. However this also includes the components of fitness, especially strength and flexibility. Emotional and psychological needs of children also need to be met for learning to take place (i.e. appropriate peer groups and issues of comfort and fear addressed).

Here at Gymnastics of Ashe, we use a “standardized” warm-up for the school age children to address these fitness components and it includes: push- ups, hollow body holds, lunges, crunches, and more. This conditioning warm- up takes the first fifteen minutes of class each week. We try to keep this fun and moving along, but the innate desire to move and exercise also needs to be present for a child to enjoy this type of activity. The joy of movement needs to come from within and be encouraged whether they are “good” at it or not. We should move for our own enjoyment and our physical health (becoming an elite gymnast is secondary to these goals - but it’s the joy that gets them there).

Children who are encouraged and practice what they can at home progress faster. When parents put pressure on children “to perform”, children can have feelings of guilt and inadequacy. The same is true for coaches who push too hard. The key here is for parents to encourage and coaches to coach with balance; sometimes push, sometimes shake it up and sometimes back off!

From the gifted to the not so gifted, if you don’t use it you will lose it; and you cannot improve what you do not work on. The training principles of reversibility and specifity holds true in all sports: Reversibility - we lose 50% of our gains within 8 weeks of ceasing our training, this is why summer breaks are not encouraged. Three components determine how difficult it is to achieve the same level of fitness once you have stopped: Length of time since stopping, body weight gain, and injuries. It is however more easy to achieve a certain level of fitness after stopping than never beginning exercise at all. The word “Rusty” comes to mind here. Specifically, if you want to be more flexible, then you have to train for flexibility; same is true for upper body strength, running long distances, etc.

Choices and commitment to finish what you start and paid for! There are many programs available from which to choose, so how do you know what’s best?

Gymnastics is the foundation of all other sports, and it’s because it addresses the fitness components and skill components (power, agility, coordination, balance, speed, reaction-time) that are innately incorporated into the sport. Having a gymnastics foundation helps children progress in other sports, physical education (P.E), karate, the presidential fitness test, reading development and so on.

FUN!! As this is true for adults, it is especially true for children. When a sport is no longer fun to a child, they quit. And quitting accomplishes nothing and does nothing to improve our fitness or gymnastics skills.

Additional resources:

Books:
The New Dare to Discipline by Dr. James Dobson
Bringing Up Boys by Dr. James Dobson
The First Days of School by Harry K. Wong & Rosemary T. Wong
Gateways to Happiness by Mary Lou Retton

Videos:
Anything by Rodney Yea or Karen Voight

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