Which Muscles Does Gymnastics Strengthen?
One of my gymnast’s moms asked me what muscles gym strengthens. The answer I gave her was, of course, EVERYTHING!
for their kids. Gymnastics uses the whole body, at the same time… and it gives the mind a good workout too – it stimulates the same neural pathways used for literacy and numeracy in school.
There are a couple areas we focus on in particular – the first being the core muscles. This can be quite subtle. Some of the movements your children learn in class might appear to be simple, but don’t be fooled! Because we emphasise that all movements must be done with the correct technique, even the simplest movement – like standing up without using your hands – can be quite difficult if you haven’t developed the core muscles required to get yourself up off the floor with feet and knees together, and without using your hands.
The other obvious area we focus on is upper body strength. If you’ve come to watch your child on parent watching day, you would have noticed that we make your kids do a fair amount of conditioning – most of the time without them even knowing! Things like baboon runs, seal walks and bunny hops might look silly but the kids have fun doing them, and they are also a very effective way to develop upper body strength and make sure the kids are strong enough and well prepared to take their weight on their hands – a vital skill in gymnastics/tumbling!
Gym develops agility, balance, coordination and strength… and something else that is not often acquired from other sports: kinesthetic awareness. Gymnastics creates body and spatial awareness in a fun, natural way, and this benefits all other sports.
If you look at sports like Rugby, players have to move quickly and perform rapid changes of direction and powerful movements from an unbalanced state. In gymnastics, children learn how to handle their bodies safely in this way.
