Kids Fitness – Making a Plan 12/27/14

It’s no surprise to most that children are facing an overwhelming health concern – obesity. More than 9 million children, in fact, are already facing health issues connected to their body weight. While many kids play seasonal sports, there’s often lots of down time between seasons. Gym classes are being cut in schools nationwide, which is often the only form of regularly occurring exercise for some kids. Did you know only ONE in TEN public schools meet the federal requirements for gym classes? To me, that’s outrageous. Developing physical fitness, especially at a young age, is just as important as developing mental health & education. Health problems that develop early in life no doubt will follow them through to adulthood. That’s why it is so important to get kids involved in fun, engaging, and challenging fitness as soon as possible!

Kids are surrounded by adult influences all day every day, and those influences can have negative effects on how they perceive fitness. For most adults, fitness is an afterthought, a chore, something to be done if you have free time. Fitness should be a top priority! Take a few minutes once a week to help your kids, or your students, create a plan. This should include short-term goals, for instance; “Do one perfect pushup” or “Run 3 laps without stopping”. In a martial arts setting, this could include working on individual techniques or introducing new ones. These goals should be relatively easy to achieve, with the right amount of work and effort, for the age of the child. For older kids, their fitness plan should include more detailed information, such as how many sets and reps they’ll be doing, or what area they are going to focus on for a specific work out. Having a structured plan and schedule is a stress reliever for adults – parents and coaches – but it also gives kids a visible timeline. By giving a timeline to stretching, warm ups, instruction and work time, and a cool down provides mile posts and guidelines to insure a complete & engaging session. The goal of a workout should always be to build the child UP; a little bit of sweat and a smile are definite signs of a good work out!

-Senpai Victoria