Gymnastics is a popular Olympic sport. Not only does this activity promote healthy exercise, but it also helps your child in school. If your daughter has expressed interest in this sport, you may wonder what’s involved. To help you learn more about it and understand its benefits, here’s a guide to a few of the common practices in gymnastics and how they’ll help your little one in life.

A Guide to the Basics of Girls’ Gymnastics

Floor Exercises

Gymnasts typically begin with floor exercises. For this, they will perform dance routines on mats made of carpeting, padded foam, and springs. You'll typically find athletes doing tumbling passes, lunges, and jumps to get accustomed to the springy mats. Your daughter will learn how to express herself creatively in dance, which will help her think for herself and solve problems by thinking outside of the box. 

Vault

Gymnasts have physical strength, flexibility, dexterity, agility, coordination, and balance. To get these skills, they use the vault to train their bodies to balance their weight in midair. This requires intense focus. Your daughter will learn to concentrate for this, which will help her when she needs to focus on academics and other tasks outside of the training center.

Balance Beams

These exercises are choreographed routines on padded wooden beams. Gymnasts use the posts to perform various flips and tricks for 90 seconds at a time. Like with uneven bars, it takes a tremendous amount of upper body strength to complete all the tricks for the routine within the strict time limit. This means your daughter will develop the dedication it takes to perform under stress and time constraints.

Uneven Bars

It takes courage and upper body strength to tackle uneven bars. You'll typically find gymnasts performing swings and pirouettes while grasping and re-grasping the pole. To perform correctly, your daughter will develop core body strength and discipline. This will help her stay healthy and handle the challenges life may throw her way.

If you want to enroll your daughter in a high-quality gymnastics program, turn to Top Flight Gymnastics in Columbia, MD. Their instructors are certified in training by the USA Gymnastics organization. They offer both recreational classes and competitive teams for children ranging in age from 18 months to 13 years old. Learn more about their classes online or call (404) 992-1600 to schedule an appointment.