Gymnastics Is A Health – and Confidence – Building Sport Offered At The YMCA of South Florida

From toddler tumbling to Olympic routines, gymnastics is a globally celebrated sport and has been part of the YMCA’s health and wellness offering for over 100 years. Like most youth sports at the Y, it’s a sport for all ages and abilities and equally enjoyed by girls and boys. At the Y, children can start training at very early ages in our parents & tots classes while others begin in later years and even as teens. Whatever your child’s age, the YMCA has gymnastics classes and training options to fit.

Typically, children are first exposed to basic tumbling skills and then progress to jumps, round-off back handsprings, back and front tucks and other skills that comprise balance beam and floor exercises. Learning routines ads an artistic dimension to the physical exercise and gives children the chance to challenge themselves physically and mentally.

Overall, gymnastics is truly an activity for whole body and offers a multitude of wellness benefits:

• Builds healthy bones and muscle structure. Helps children built overall body strength – upper body, lower body and core.
• Improves flexibility. Helps children safely stretch growing tendons and ligaments. Flexibility gained at a young age often carries through to adulthood and can help improve posture and prevent injuries later on in life.
• Increases physical coordination. Children learn to test and improve the physical capabilities of their bodies through exercise that includes standing, running, and jumping. Both the general exercise and the specific formats of gymnastics routines help children gain physical coordination and become more comfortable with their growing bodies.
• Build cognitive skills. Learning gymnastics routines requires children to focus on the task and practice repetition. This employs right- and left-brain functions and helps improve spatial awareness and memory.
• Builds confidence. Through gymnastics, children learn to practice routines that build self-control and the sense of accomplishment that comes from practicing a skill and experiencing improvement.

In addition to health benefits, gymnastics is fun – way better and more rewarding than screen time! Children learn to work individually and in groups and to have positive interaction with other kids and coaches – the kind that make for lasting memories.

At the YMCA of South Florida, supporting health for kids and adults is core to our mission. And gymnastics is a big part of that. Our location in Hollywood, Florida – The Greater Hollywood YMCA Family Center – offers one of the top programs in South Florida. The program features parents + tots classes and beginner classes all the way up through Junior Olympics training. And the YMCA regularly hosts local, regional and national gymnastics tournaments.

You can learn more about gymnastics at the YMCA of South Florida by visiting our programs page here: https://ymcasouthflorida.org/program/gymnastics/.  Check it out!