Coaches Strength games to play with the little ones?

[hncook12]

Hey y'all! I have recently started coaching our pre-team classes (girls ages 5-9), but I'm struggling to make strength fun. We do races all the time for cardio, and some competitions for strength, but I can't think of anything else. I'm looking for some games or new ideas to make strength fun. Anything? Anything at all?

 

[Natasha]

Our team coach made a board game out of tagboard with various conditioning assignments written in squares around the outside. Each pair of gymnasts have a clothespin to clip on as a game piece. They roll the dice and have to do whatever conditioning assignments they land on. You can give a small reward for each time they make it around the board, or the team that makes it the farthest.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Relay races with push ups and v snaps and things in it. Competitions like who can do the ,out V snaps, legs lifts or chin ups in 30 seconds. Who can do the most steps in handstand walking, who can do the highest vertical jump (over their height).

use props, hollow and tight arch holds with bean bag in feet. Or bean bag in feet for leg lifts, chin ups etc.

Strength circuits.

 

[All Chalked Up]

We play 10 In The Pot.

You pick a skill starting with straight jump. For every good skill, one or more conditioning thing goes in the pot. If the skill is done with major errors or the landing is not stuck, they will do that number.

Example: for every good cartwheel, 5 v-sit go in the pot. 3 gymnasts do correct cartwheels. The fourth shuffles her feet. That gymnast will do 15 v-sits.

I always loved that game!

 

[Deleted member D3987]

i lurve rope! fastest 1 up 3 times gets "gets out of conditioning". get it?

 

[BlairBob]

"Torture the Teacher"

They, one at a time or in a group, do reps of an exercise. The coach will then do all the combined reps in one set or set per set. My kids loved it, especially whenever one kid would finish and I might finally fail or barely eek it out. It goes faster if you match them set per set (and it gives you breaks).

It's all about the kids vs the coaches rather than pitting them against each other. The kids know who is stronger than each other except for those kids who might be stronger in one regard than another or are tied.

Just be mindful of what kind of exercises you use. Like squat jumps, don't do squat jumps. I did once and didn't walk right for 2 weeks.

I also like the circle up and we either substitute the number of letters in a kid's age for repetition numbers or the day of the month (5, or 17, etc). This is good for circle conditioning as a group when you don't want to spread out amongst the apparatus.

 

[hncook12]

These are some great ideas! I'm not so sure about "Torture the Teacher", though. I'd be afraid that we'd discover they're stronger than me... Haha

 

[BlairBob]

It was a good game to play with the girls, moreso when I was in my 20's.

In recent years, I would have gotten schooled with my guys. Erik would have probably beat me every single time except maybe in Muscle-Ups and Hanging LegLifts, his weak points.

Even at my peak strength in my early 20's, I would have lost eventually to my little guys when I had a few little guys who could do 15-20 dips or pullups besides the rest who were good for 5-10.

 

[twisting007bigflip]

i lurve rope! fastest 1 up 3 times gets "gets out of conditioning". get it?

I do this all the time. It's my all time favorite way to get kids to work hard and push themselves during conditioning. We don't have a rope in our gym (man do I wish we did!), but I always put together a crossfit-like bodyweight exercises workout that usually takes about 20 minutes. I'll give them a circuit like 5 chin-up pullovers, 8 burpees, and 5 wall walks. I'll set it up for 3 five minute rounds and then the kid who makes it through the most rounds collectively can have free time while the others make up the difference between their number and the winner's number. Sometimes I'll "reward" them with half of conditioning for the next day...or I'll let them make up the next day's conditioning circuit....

 

[BlairBob]

^^^ Yep, I sometimes do similar circuits and if they get done, they have more free time. Thing is with S&C, it's usually the same kids who win which may discourage some of the other kids. So it's something I would do sparingly, if at all.

Ideally, we would finish our S&C and cool off bouncing on some trampoline before stretching out. Ideally...

 

[Liv...]

We use props to deliver the exercises. Eg. They pull exercises out of a bag or flip over cards with strength/conditioning written on them. If they want to be competitive they can see who gets through them all first obviously observing that they are performing them all correctly. Also if I am going to do contests I put girls in teams or partners to even out their abilities where possible.