Why Gymnastics

WHY GYMNASTICS?
(taken from United States Elite Coaches Association)

1. Gymnastics like most sports, is anaerobic. While aerobic sports have many benefits, one of the primary assets of gymnastics is the wide variety of movements that gymnasts perform and the high levels of strength required.
2. Gymnasts are among the strongest, bound for pound, and the most flexible of all Olympic athletes. Regular stretching has been shown to be related to reduced injury potential.
3. Gymnasts are strong in “relative strength” – strength relative to their size and weight.
4. Gymnasts tend to be strong in the upper body which is usually neglected in other sports.
5. Gymnasts tend to exceptional at static and dynamic balance.
6. Gymnasts learn to fall safely and avoid injury.
7. Gymnastics is a reasonably safe sport. Gymnastics has led American sport in safety certification. All competitive gymnastics coaches must be safety certified.
8. Gymnasts tend to have the strongest bones of all athletes.
9. Gymnasts tend to do very well in school, as shown by All-Academic Teams and Academic All-Americans.
10. Gymnastics scholarships are available from a number of Division I and II universities. Many young gymnasts receive a scholarship award that pays for their entire college education.
11. Gymnasts achieve the old fashioned way – they earn it with hard work that requires months and years of dedicated effort. Long term dedication leads to outstanding character development and citizenship.
12. Gymnastics is a natural environment for teaching youngsters about everything from physics of angular momentum to the history of dance and music. Gymnasts are confronted with the reality of physics on every skill – there is no better laboratory.
13. Gymnastics is an ancient sport with long held traditions of mind and body integration.
14. Gymnastics shares with other sports the assets of helping young people learn about goal setting, how to make sound academic choices, how to budget time, and how to use personal discipline to achieve lofty goals.