When you visit the website featuring the stretches, click on the name of the stretch to get a more detailed description of how to perform the stretch. If you need some new yoga poses, no worries – Kermit has them covered, too! Kermit does Yoga Sun Salutations.

Happy Stretching!!

Mary Lee Tracy, coach of numerous National Team members and Olympic gymnasts Amanda Border, Jaycie Phelps and Morgan White, uses Kettlebells in the conditioning of her gymnasts. At the most recent USA Gymnastics Congress she demonstrated a variety of Kettlebell exercises and drills. In this GymSmarts Gymnastics Minute video, Mary Lee shows how her gymnasts use Kettlebell training to improve their standing salto techniques.

How do you get started with Kettlebells and using them to add variety to your own or your athletes’ training? Kettleworx offers a series of video workouts that will give you a good foundation to work with. Start with the 5 lb. Kettlebell – especially for your youth athletes – and build from there. The KettleWorx Essentials video series includes 3 20-minute workout DVDs – the Core, Cardio and Resistance workouts, plus the 10 Min. Fast Abs workouts and 10. Min. Fast Fat Burn Workouts. Each of the 20 minute videos contain 6 different workouts (meant to be used over 6 weeks) and the 10 min. fast burn workouts have 3 different workouts per DVD. The Fast Abs workout is my favorite (although I really like all of them).

The KettleWorx workouts are a great way to keep your athletes’ workouts varied, interesting and more fun.

If you are looking for a power packed workout that works on cardio and toning at the same time, kickboxing may be for you. A study released by the ACE, American Council on Exercise, stated that kickboxing can burn anywhere from 350 to 450 calories in an hour. It has also been proven to relieve stress, and help build confidence. It also helps to improve balance, flexibility, endurance, and coordination.

One form of kickboxing that has recently become popular is Cardio Kickboxing. This is usually taught in a class. This type of kickboxing does not involve physical contact with others. It is a combination of controlled punches and kicks usually performed to upbeat music. Some of the popular moves used in these classes are; the side kick, the front kick, and the roundhouse kick. Most of these classes start with a 10-15 minute warm-up, followed by a 30 minute kickboxing session, and ending with a 5 minute cool down and 10 minutes of stretching.

Things to Remember

Know your fitness level. This class may be a little challenging for a beginner, so do not try to rush. When you are starting out, concentrate on learning to perform all of the moves properly. You may also need to work on building your endurance; these classes are power packed and require a lot of energy. Do not be afraid to stop for a moment if you feel the need.

Do not overdo it.

If you push yourself too far too fast, you may end up with an injury. Allow yourself to be a beginner until you feel comfortable enough to move up.

Dress comfortably.

Loose, comfortable clothes that allow your arms and legs to move, work best. You want to avoid being too constricted because you will be moving in all directions very quickly.

Stay hydrated. Drink plenty of water before, during, and after class.

The great thing about kickboxing is that once you learn the moves, you can do them at home to your favorite music, and still have an amazing workout.

About the Author:
Alyssa is passionate about combining the aspects of sports and fitness into one. She feels that if you keep your workouts fresh and fun you will continue to work out. If you are looking for an intense home work out that has been used to train professional athletes she suggests trying out the Insanity Workout by Shaun T, or the P90X Workout

Our local bowling alley participated in the Spring Break version of this promotion. The kids each invited one friend and it made for a fun outing. It allowed the kids to be active, be social and even brought out the competitive spirit in a few of them.

Check the KidsBowlFree website for complete details and to find a participating Bowling Alley near you!

With that being said, why as parents (and sometimes athletes) do we have such a hard time dealing with our athlete missing one competition or for that matter having a less than stellar performance at one competition? How about an entire season? In my opinion, it is so easy to get caught up in the hype of it all.

Sure it is disappointing to have your athlete miss the big game, but tomorrow is a new day in the journey your athlete will take. Think back to your own childhood – was there any one event that was so critical that it redefined you as a person? Probably not.

Imagine the disappointment some of the Olympians felt this summer when they had to scratch from the biggest meet of their lives or didn’t have the performance they spent all these years training for. Hard to deal with at the moment – sure – but in the end did it change who they were? No – because we all know Alicia Sacramone is still one of the best vaulters in the world and she will go on to have a very successful adult life thanks to all the life skills she learned from her journey in sports.

Enjoy this journey your athlete is taking – remembering it is a marathon and not a sprint.

Photo source

Hiking is a great way to get some fresh air, have fun and do some interesting cross training for just about any sport.

Pick a nice day, pack a lunch and head out to a local state park (or if you happen to be close to one of these 16 Amazing National Parks).  Take the family or take the team and take in the fresh air.

Tips for a fun cross-training hiking workout:

• Start out by making sure everyone is dressed appropriately and has plenty of fluids, too.
• Find a grassy area to stretch and get warmed up.
• Pick your course by consulting the park guides or from experience.
• Set your watch for 5-10 minutes – set off on your hike keep a good pace.
• When you get to the time, stop and play a game of tag, do some calisthenics, or do sets of 30 second sprints.
• Repeat the intervals of hiking and then alternate activities throughout your hike.
• At the end of your hike, take the time to cool down, stretch, rehydrate and then of course, enjoy lunch.

Cross-training can be a fun way to get strong, mix up your regular training schedule and build confidence in other areas of fitness.

Development  And Growth For The Youth Athlete

The development of the total child needs a variety of experiences and opportunities to grow properly. Food, water, schooling, rest and relaxation all need to be dosed in balanced. To much of a good thing can turn into a bad thing very fast. Sports can be like this with out a check and balance system. To many times a child and his parents can become discouraged because the child isn’t the “star” of the team. Truly just look around most of us aren’t stars. Why do we place this unrealistic expectation on our children? What happened to fun and more fun in sports participation? Many children at an early age show promise and a measure success but as the other children grow and mature some of these children move to the middle of the pack making room for others to achieve higher levels of competiton.

We must remember, that children are growing as a result a child’s coordination becomes temporarily awkward. Many kids, in fact, become worse at sports during puberty before settling into their new bodies. Girls have in addition new bodies to grow use to.

Experts Weight In

Many youth sport experts agree that the youth athlete should not participate more than 15 hours/week for most sporting activities. They should change the sport or have a down time between sports. This means that a year round of any sport is to much for the majority of children and in the long run simply not in the child’s best interest.

With that said, far to many children ages 1-5th grade are not getting enough activity. Brain Grasso of IYCA believes that all children 3-5th grade should be involved in some organized sport per season. In addition some informal activity daily is important with family members and friends. This is just not happening. To many times the parents unfortunately are the leaders of inactivity and the ultimate abuse of sorts of their own children through no direction for proper eating or exercise.

Just give Um’ Some Balance

Almost all youth activities traditional sports as well as dancing, , chess, cheerleading to name a few, in the American youth life has the ability to become unbalanced and potentially hurtful for our youth athlete. Just as hurtful are the hours of TV and electronic games. Parents first need to gain perspective and then learn how to implement a healthy amount of exercise along with better food choices.

You can get more from TrackMom, Dr. Lorraine Johnson at her site, TrackMom.com.

Various studies and medical experts are now touting the benefits of gymnastics (and other sports) for building strong bones.

According to an Action Medical Research article,

Interestingly, whilst the calcium supplements had a beneficial effect on the bones of the school children there were no benefits in giving calcium supplements to the gymnasts.

The researchers believe this is because the gymnasts have already maximised their bone density potential with regular exercise.

That particular article also reiterates the importance of eating a healthy, well balanced diet, and removing carbonated drinks from kids’ daily diets.

Thanks to the Gymnast.com translation, another study concluded that female college artistic gymnasts maintained significantly higher aBMD (areal bone mineral density) than controls 24 years after retirement from gymnastics training and competition. They were at much less risk of Osteoporosis than their non-gymnast friends.

To find a gymnastics program in your area, visit USA Gymnastics’ club finder.

What you need:

• A group of kids of any age – the game can be played with 1-100 kids
• An adult or older child to act as the “caller”
• A large enough area for kids to move – obviously the larger the group the larger the space you need. Can be played outdoors, on a sports court, gymnastics floor or even in the pool.

How to play:

• Define your play space and then identify 3 landmarks (a tree, a cone, a tape line, or any other visual) – name them “Here”, “There” and “Everywhere”
• Start all the kids on “Here”
• Then the caller gets creative! Caller says “Go there” and all the kids go to the spot identified as “There” – anyone who goes to the wrong place is out. The next command gets called – “Skip everywhere” and anyone who goes to the wrong place is out. Keep repeating with new ways to get here, there and everywhere until you declare a winner or everyone has had enough.

Command ideas:

• Go here
• Skip there
• Sit everywhere
• Stand everywhere
• Jump here
• Hop there
• Swim everywhere
• Spin here
• Bounce there
• Crawl everywhere

This game is guaranteed to make kids move and have fun doing it.

Rick at Gymnastics Coaching recently posted about a great resource for games like this one – the book, called No Standing Around in My Gym, is by J.D. Hughes and features more than 70 games plus variations that will keep even large groups of kids moving and having fun.

I have a few more games that are popular with the kids at our gym. I will try to write them up soon and share them here.

Image details: Mother and daughter riding horses served by picapp.com

One of the activities my daughter wants to explore this summer is horseback riding. She loves animals and the outdoors which makes it a perfect summer activity.