Fitness Foundations
It’s only really been the past 10 or so years that fitness has really become an integral part of my life, in fact as a kid I was very much like Miss Isabelle, I hated it all because unlike my brother who could pick up any sport and become a National rep within months, I wasn’t genetically gifted in all things sporty and his prowess only magnified how “average” I was.
Which I guess is one reason that I really wanted to share crossfit with my kids. I didn’t want their fitness endeavors to be about winning or losing, I wanted it to be more than trying to win a trophy (although I guess there will come a stage in their lives when winning a trophy will become important to them).
As a Mum, what I wanted most was for both of my kids to have the confidence in their abilities to handle real life situations (like getting stuck up a tree), to be able to move safely through a full range of motion and perhaps more importantly to make fitness fun even for those who proclaim themselves to be non sport loving princesses.
This age (5 and 7) is the perfect opportunity to build a solid functional fitness foundation because they usually;
- Like to show off and
- Like to please people
Take my baby for example, although I took him crossfit classes as soon as he turned five he wasn’t quite mature enough to be able to follow directions for an entire hour so I held him back and we returned to “normal programming” last night. He’s one of the younger kids in class and still has the attention span of a gnat when he gets tired so I kept an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t hanging himself with his skipping rope when he got frustrated with learning how to spin it with his wrists (as opposed to his entire windmilling arm).
I was impressed – he watched, he listened and he tried his very best to mimic his coach exactly even when he knew he could skip way better with his windmilling arms than he could whilst skipping correctly. Near the end of the session the time came for the kids to do their daily WOD, which was an 8 minute AMRAP that included a tricky foot combination on the ladder.
All the kids followed closely behind their Coach and watched his demonstration of each station. They all then copied him before moving on, repeating this process till they had completed the course. Then everyone headed to the start line for the 3-2-1 go!
At go it was chaos with kids running amok, going around (or through) hurdles instead of over, then leaping across the ladders to get to the next set of hurdles to get back to the finish line. And then there was my baby .. at the back of the pack getting his feet just right on the ladder then sprinting over the hurdles to make up time. I’ve honestly never been so proud.
“You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation.”
On the way home I was praising him on his good form and exclaiming how proud his Dad would be when we show him the videos we took. I then said “you were hands down the best in the whole class on the ladder today baby” to which he replied rather matter of factly “I was the best at everything Mumma”.
I’ll never worry about “bro reps” with that kid, fitting his head through the door on the other hand … 😉
Till next time
