Gymnastics: Working your mind and heart
We often associate Valentine’s Day with the heart and associate the heart with love. The shape, while not anatomically correct (a fact that devastated me in 4th grade), is used on apparel, decorations, and cards. Valentine’s Day, whose origins are not so lovely, is a holiday all about celebrating love, hearts, and candy (for me its all about the chocolate!). But I am here today to tell you about the wonders of gymnastics and the heart (the one in your body, not the shape!)
Stretching
Gymnastics and flexibility go hand in hand. Stretching comes with many advantages for your gymnast, but one of the greatest benefits to stretching is that the more flexible you are, the better your heart health. When you improve your flexibility by stretching, it helps to expand the arteries and helps them to work better. And in turn, your heart works better. At Mini Hops Gymnastics, all our classes have a 15-minute warmup involving stretching and blood-pumping games!
upside down
Gymnasts often go upside down, on the bars, on the trampoline, and even on the floor! Handstands, cartwheels, and flips all require you to go upside down. When gymnasts go upside down, they increase blood flow to their head and eyes, which gives your heart a break from pumping blood upwards.
Laughing
Everyone knows that laughter is the best medicine, and at Mini Hops we agree. Gymnastics is FUN and its hard not to laugh while were having a good time. I have only seen tears at MHG when gymnasts are leaving, and they do not want to or when someone falls and scrapes their knee or elbow (accidents rarely happen at MHG and we take great care to keep our injury rate down). Laughter also decreases our stress hormones, and stress restricts our blood vessels.
Strength
Some of our youngest gymnast are way stronger than me or the average adult! I can barely do 1 pull up and our gymnasts are pumping out hundreds of reps! The physical strength gymnasts gain is unbelievable. Building stronger muscles directly correlates to a stronger heart!
Signing your child (or even yourself, we do offer adult classes) is a great opportunity to keep your mind, body, and heart healthy and strong! At Mini Hops we believe that impacting kids of all abilities and their families with positive and powerful life lessons is the most effective way to develop better leaders and build stronger communities.
