Warm ups and strength training - new ideas needed!

[pihlajat]

Hi! I have watched a lot of videos in Youtube, but I haven't seen very many videos of warming up or strength training. I love watching warm up videos because it's always great when you get some new ideas.. I think we always do the same things and the girls are getting bored. They even know what we are going to next even if don't say anything and it tells me that we need something new to do! There is one video that I like a lot. Click here and watch it.

One day I just thought that maybe there is some gym parents that stay at the gym during their kids are warming up..? And maybe someone of them could take the best parts of the warm up to the video? Or maybe you just want to tell what your DD and her team did at the beginning of their last practice.

Of course I would love to hear from other coaches which are their favorite games, drills and tips for warming ups and strength training. My gymnasts are 7-11 years-olds (and if they would live in US they may be in level 3 or 4).

Thank you!

 

[gymnastjess]

for warm ups go around the circle and get them each to say their favourite food, when everyone is done get them to hold their hands out and grab two handfulls of their favourite food and put it in the blender (grasp both hands together) and mix it all about (roll the wrists). To warm up their necks tell them to eat the food off their sholder, then the other sholder, then their stomach, then the roof, then tell them to wipe off the leftovers off of their shoulders and stomach and roof. for the straddle (warm up of the legs) get them to put their hands behind their back and go in a semi circle eating their favourite foods. These exercises are great because it teaches you more about the gymnast (their favourite food) and also makes it fun to warm up. As for games get them all to stand on the beam in a line and hold hands, give one of the end gymnasts a hoop and they have to get it to the other side without letting go, increase the difficulty with a hoop on each end (two hoops) and gradually add up more, it gets dificult because they need to remember what colours they started with in order to cross over and go the right way. Also get the gymnasts to stand up on the beam and you throw them a ball and they have to catch (try pretending to throw it to another person to trick them), if they fall they are out, it teaches them balance too which is why most games are good to be played on the beams, add in a clap before catching the ball etc. Get all the kids to lie underneath the high beams and you say ready, set, GO and when you say go they have to jump up an get on the beam as quick as they can, last person up is the next person to say ready, set, GO, try and trick them play STICK IT along the tumble trak/long tramp or even floor, you say a skill say roundoff and if they don't stic their roundoff they get an S and then once everyone has done a roundoff each give the next skill say a jump full turn, if they dont stick it give them a T (only if they already didn't stick their roundoff, if they did stick the round-off they get an S) last person to get the word STICK IT wins pit runs its a race between two teams to run across the pit to the end touch the wall and run back, for conditioning we have a foam block used as a dice each kid gets a chance to roll it say if sally is first and rolls a 10 she gets to choose that they must do 10 situps or pushups or whatever she chooses it could even be things like dish or plank holidng for 10 seconds. Things that challenge them to work harder like seeing how long you can hold your chin-up position, whoever gets to 'X' amount of seconds gets a sticker, lollie, award... we do things like caterpillar or camel walks across the floor, or suicide runs (run to the first line and run back, run to next line and run back), running races, who can do the highest cast etc. goodluck