Many parents often want their kids to be athletic. Sometimes the kid does become athletic by themselves, however a lot of times the kid doesn’t. Many parents chalk this up to “nature” or “talent”. They believe that the kid either has it or not. On the other hand, based on my own personal experiences, I believe that nurture has a lot more to do with whether a kid becomes athletic or not. Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” states that practice is more important than talent. I can testify to this.
In first grade, I was not a very athletic kid. I was a bit uncoordinated and slow. At that time my favorite movie was “Karate Kid” and I wanted to become just like the main character in the movie. At my school, they were opening up a karate class for first graders. However this was a select class and they were holding tryouts for the select few who were going to get in. These tryouts, as far as I can remember, consisted of a series of tests, such as on flexibility, strength (for example how many pushups you can do), and speed (we had a race). I remember I didn’t do too well and one of the memories that I have from that era was racing in a short sprint against some of my friends and losing. I did not get into the class (and some of my friends did). I was very disappointed and had my mom go in very often to pester the coaches to get me in. There was another karate class at the school and my mom managed to get me into that one. It was mostly with kids a few grades above me. I can thank this class for giving me the tools necessary for my later athleticism.
In the class, we not only practiced karate, but also worked on our general fitness and movement skills. For example we used to run a lot and did all kinds of stretching exercises and different agility exercises. I was not very good at those at the beginning, however I was motivated enough and practiced these different exercises at home. This allowed me to learn them and excel at them, strengthening my body and also making it more agile and flexible.
If you want your kid to be athletic, you should get them to do sports as soon as possible. Here are some exercises to do in order to improve coordination, agility, strength, flexibility, and speed.
Jumping Jacks
Push Ups
Bodyweight Squat
Crab Walk
Sit Ups
Squat Jumps
Stretching Routine
Workout for Kids
If you set up a routing for your kids based on the exercises above and stick to it, they can become athletic in no time (even if they don’t seem so now). I know I did.
Credit: 1; Photo by Thao LEE on Unsplash