My eldest dd has developed a HUGE interest in Rhythmic Gymnastics. There is a club where I live but she is not allowed to start until she is almost 5. :(. So in the mean time what can I do to help her get prepared for gymnastics.
What flexiblilty excercises can I do with her?
How do I work on balance?
Anything else?
Apparantly she can do both artistic and rhythmic so any exercises relating to artistic gymnastics will be great!!!
DVDS books any resources will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Kimba
Des she have to wait until age 5 for artistic as well? That’s unusual usually they have a kinder gym program for under 5s. The skills from each are transferable to the other in the beginning.
For rhythmic it would be good to get some ball skills up and running. Catching, throwing up and catching, rolling. also get a hoola hoop and practice spinning it on all parts of the body.
Dancing to music with different tempos will be useful also.
Handstands, cartwheels and forward rolls are all in both artistic and rhythmic. Instructions are easy to find on the net.
For balance you definately will get your money’s worth from a beam. It would be top of my list for you. Practice walking, dip steps, stalk walk, running skipping and backwards movements on it. ( google if you don’t know what they are) I wish we had got the beam sorted earlier!
Flexibility is pretty standard across all sports. You want to work on muscles used to do the splits. That is both forward and side splits. Start with butterfly legs ( heals touching each other and close to your body) and gentry push down until knees touch the floor. For side and front splits on little kids stretch out one leg at a time while keeping one leg tucked under for balance control.
It would be a really great idea to go and watch a class and see what stretches they do at the beginning and end of each session! Or if you go to the gym yourself ask there also.