Avoid Thanksgiving Weight Gain With Gymnastics Classes

Thanksgiving is here—and on average, most Americans gain a couple of pounds during this holiday weekend alone. With the rest of the holiday season on the way, many let the pound or two gained at Thanksgiving spiral into holiday weight gain of up to 10 pounds! If you want to stave off the extra pounds and increase your calorie burn, why not try some gymnastic classes?

Gymnasts have some of the slimmest, most toned bodies in sports. But you don’t have to be an elite gymnast to reap the benefits of attending gymnastics school. Performing this challenging movement demands physical strength, power and flexibility—therefore, hour long gymnastics classes will result in some serious toning and calories burned. A person weighing between 150 and 160 pounds can burn nearly 300 calories by doing an hour of gymnastics.

There are other ways that attending a gymnastics school helps you lose weight. You’ll boost muscular endurance and flexibility, which helps increase your lean muscle. The more lean muscle our bodies have, the more fat we burn. This occurs because lean muscle revs your metabolism and makes your body work more efficiently, and therefore, burn more fat and calories.  By increasing flexibility, gymnastics elongates our muscles, which makes us appear more toned and longer.

Another of the benefits of gymnastics is that it’s a fun, social sport. When you have fun doing any kind of movement, it will feel less like a workout. An hour long gymnastics session will fly by much faster than spending an hour on the treadmill, Elliptical or Stairmaster. In addition, when you take gymnastics classes, you are surrounded by other people and can enjoy the social aspect. You may even make some friends, which will motivate you to keep coming back and be more enthusiastic about it overall.

image: newpittsburghcourieronline.com

Preparing for Success in Gymnastics Competitions

If you look at the performance of elite athletes in gymnastics competitions, you’ll notice that they all exude stellar control, power, strength and balance. While they may seem to do this effortlessly, we know that they spend years perfecting their skills at a gymnastic center or with a private coach. If you or your child wants to experience the same type of success, there are some other qualities that are essential for them to develop.

Other characteristics that are integral for achieving success in gymnastics competitions include focus, precision, ambition and a positive attitude. Maneuvers and routines should be as precise as possible during competitions, with specific emphasis on landings, as a perfect routine can be significantly docked due to a bad one. Judges also look for extra steps, wobbling and other obvious mistakes when scoring each routine. To perform with impeccable precision requires intense focus and concentration, which benefits other aspects of life as well, from schoolwork and other sports to career.

Most coaches and instructors at a gymnastics center like to prepare their students for performance and competitions by focusing on strength, flexibility and attitude. While coaches can help their students develop these traits to an extent, when it comes to attitude, parents need to do their share to promote a positive, ambitious attitude. To do this, they should help their children create a positive outlook while focusing on the importance of sportsmanship, discipline and perseverance.

Last but not least, most coaches and instructors agree that to become an elite gymnast and even just to do well in this sport, students also need to build their stamina and endurance, while constantly improving balance, coordination and agility. The good news is, by helping children to develop all of the traits that help boost gymnastics performance, they will have the characteristics that they need to have success in all other sports and physical activities, and every other endeavor in life.

image: universe.byu.edu