Why Children Need Exercise by Coach Vip

When a few parents gather to talk about their children, one of the most frequently discussed topic is to compare the best tuition center available. This is not surprising as with the raise in education standard and high competitiveness in today studies, many parents are willing to spending more time and money on their children’s education. This can be understandable as all parents want their children to excel in their academic performance.

As technology becomes so advanced, the childhood experienced 10 to 15 years ago as compared to now is completely different. Those once familiar childhood games such as Pepsi Cola, five stones, hop scotch, zero point, police and thief, throwing marbles now seems so foreign to children nowadays. Nowadays, their childhood is probably filled with PSP, PS3, XBOX and other computer gaming. Their only favorite physical activities perhaps are fingers, eyes and mouth exercises (computer gaming and eating snacks while watching television). While in certain context, gaming does have its own benefits in training of the human reflex and reaction; children should not be spending too much of their time on computer gaming.

This is particularly worrying as children would have lost the opportunity to develop their fundamental and locomotive skills such as running, leaping, hopping, catching, throwing etc……which will hinder their physical literacy during their growth and developmental phase. Without these fundamental and locomotive skills, they would find difficulty when they engage in other sport games such as baseball or basketball and will feel inferior when their classmates are able to strike and dribble properly while they can’t. This might have a long term effect where the poor child lost interest in that particular sport when they grew up.

Both fundamental and locomotive skills do not develop automatically, it need to be given the opportunity and time to practice. Taking running for instance, children often like to run around more than walking when they were young, as compared to more specific locomotive skills such as striking, balancing, throwing, receiving which needs to be given time and opportunity to practice and develop.

Check back next week for more of this great coaching article.