Headstands & other preschool skills

[flpflp7]

I was wondering how many gyms out there do headstands & what age they start their gymnasts doing them. What other skills do you do with 3-5 year olds? We don't do headstands because our director thinks it's harmful for young kids' necks. What do you think? What about bridges? Since it's not good to do these before 5 what other skills do you do instead to get them ready for bridge type skills when they are old enough?

[hammy]

I do table tops (Crab walk position) with my little ones. I also work on bear crawl and basically building their strength through fun activities. Sometimes, depending on the children in the class, I will do a back handspring over a small barrel (in other words, i just have them lay on the barrel and roll over backwards, then bring their feet to the ground)--I spot them on this. It's a fun activity and it helps them get used to putting weight on their hands/arms and being upside down.

[gymbabisMom]

I remember at congress they told us in the preschool class that headstands, backbends and neckrolling are no-nos till about age 5. There is too much risk of injury because of their bones not being solid yet. I don't teach the minis anymore, but when I did we did a lot of basic movement stuff, skipping, hopping, clapping front to back, ball throwing and catching, log rolling etc.. there are lots of little obstacle courses and games you can make up to make it so much fun they don't even realize they are actually learning something..lol

[Laura]

the gym I coach at has a really good kindergym program. I don't actually coach them but i have seen what they do. They do lots of obstacle type courses: jumping over boxes, crawling through tunnels, walking on ladders etc. they do swinging on (low) bars, jumping off mini tramps, walking on the beam, stepping over beanbags etc on the beam, hanging on the rings, bouncing on the trampoline, forward rolls, bunny hops. They also have wheelie boards that they can sit or lie on to push themselves around on, a mini flying fox, boards with holes to throw bean bags through and other fun things like that. They also play games and have songs etc.

[Laura]

... forgot to add... I never teach headstands! well, i do teach the boys as a progression for headsprings, but that is a little different and not till they are much older! for girls I never teach them :-)

[flpflp7]

By neckrolling do you mean forward & backward rolls?

[flpflp7]

Thank you all for your ideas & input! It's greatly appreciated espcially since we are putting together new lesson plans.

[gymbabisMom]

By neck rolling I meant rolling the head around touching the ears to the shoulders. supposedly this can cause neuralogical problems. Can't remember the exact details though.

[Gymnasticsgirl521]

Hi I am new here but my DD started gymnastics a few months after her 2nd Birthday. She started to do bridges, headstands at age 3. She is now 4.5 and is doing crab walks, backbends, headstands press to hand stand. I didn't know these things could be dangerous for her. She is on Pre-team currently so I know she is working some skills that are for older girls.

[mariposamama]

my DD started gymnastics right when she did 4. they never did headstands (though she did them all the time by herself at home) and they did do bridges, but it was never for any amount of time, just up to a bridge then down. this was at 2 different gyms.

they mostly did obstacle courses and jumped on the trampoline a lot at her first gym. at her second gym they did about the same, with the addition of more bar work. there was no repetition at all at either gym. it took her 10 months to learn to do a cartwheel (at both places.) but, she did have A LOT of fun and once the cartwheel clicked, she started advancing faster.

that led us to moving gyms (at a few months past 5 years old) and after a month there, she moved to a devo/pre-team class and she will be moving to team in march. now they do tons of bridges, backbends, kickovers and she just started doing back walkovers, and also back handsprings. all the girls in the class are 5-7, though one girl started a month or 2 before she turned 5 (she is now 5). my daughter is the next youngest at exactly 5 1/2 right now.

i imagine that there is danger, but with some kids, i think they would be doing it anyway. like my DD with headstands. i certainly didn't teach her and neither did they. she just would do them.

my DD didn't start doing back extension of any considerable amount until she was already 5 and she only goes to gym 3 hours a week right now.