Gymnastics: An investment, who knew?

Gymnastics: your child’s health, fitness and life skills foundation.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. Really Julie? Life skills? Let’s spend a few moments breaking it down.

First, I believe sports of any kind are critical for child development. Gymnastics however is special. Gymnastics engages both sides of the brain in crossover activity. No wonder many pediatricians recommend gymnastics to the parents of ADHD, ADD and Autistic children. Gymnastic coaches will tell you these children make noticeable improvements in attention span, interest, and social skills, with continued gymnastics training. Parents over the years have reported an association of improved grades when their child is involved with gym.

Health and Fitness: This one’s easy; gymnastics uses major muscle groups simultaneously. Even at the early levels children are balancing, strengthening and stretching at the same time. Curriculum is designed for constant motion. Weight bearing through the upper extremities is rare in other sports. Core strengthening is built in to the normal gymnastic movements such as: handstand progression, cartwheel, and somersaults. This foundational fitness develops muscles in a way few other sports can.

Life Skills: Okay here we go. We live in a society that promotes instant gratification. I want, I get. Gymnastics requires an amazing amount a repetition. This training in repetition teaches the concept of "earned by effort". Trust me when I say this is foreign concept to a large population of our society. I have experienced many, many, parents who pull their child from the sport because they were not progressing fast enough. One parent stands out having pulled his 5 year old, because she wasn’t demonstrating “any tricks” after three months of lessons. Another parent of a high school cheerleader asked me: “How much does it cost to give my daughter a back-handspring?” The cheerleader could not even do a handstand. When I explained the process of progressions needed for strength, and safety, the parent replied: “that sounds like it takes too long, she needs it by next week.” Work ethic. Gymnastics promotes a healthy respect for working at something (sometimes, over and over and over). Valuable life skill.

Total body development: Show me a competitive gymnast and I will show you an all around athlete. It is not uncommon to have a child leave gym at 14 or 15, and walk onto varsity level ball sports, track (pole vault especially) diving, cheer-leading and dance; having never participated in these sports before.

Gymnastics is an investment that will pay off for your child in many ways. Where else can you get superior physical development, brain development and life skills in a one hour class?

See you in the gym!