Our feet do a lot for us everyday, but how often do we spend trying to keep them fit and healthy? The human foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. That is one complex structure! Every person who has feet, will have different feet than you. They are very unique to your stride, balance and locomotion. Each person will have a slightly different arch position, width, length, ankle stability, toe spread etc. All of these attributes have been developed over the years of living and even before you were born. Today I am going to share some great injury prevention exercises with you all to keep you on your feet for as long as possible! TOE EXERCISES: Stand with your feet a comfortable distance apart from each other. Try to lift just your big toe's off the floor, leaving all other toes firmly on the ground. Next, try to lift all your little toes and keep your big toes firmly on the ground. Swap between these as many times as you can. This might take some practice as this is a bit of an unusual movement pattern. People who pronate, or roll to the inner arch, have a hard time lifting the big toes and most people who supinate, or roll on to the outer edges of the foot, have a hard time lifting the other toes. HEEL RAISES: This is an exercise most of us are familiar with and have likely attempted before. However you most likely only thought about it strengthening your calves. When this exercise is slowed right down and a lot of the intention is focused onto the feet, you get a lot of benefits through the gradual articulation of the ligaments. Stand with your feet close together. You can use an object to help stabilize yourself, but not to hold your body weight. Gradually rise through the ball of your foot and lift your heels off the ground, as slow as possible until you reach releve or full height. Reverse this process until your heel is placed back onto the ground. Be aware of your feet through out the entire exercise and make sure you are not rolling in or outwards over your ankle, and that your weight is distributed evenly over all of your toes. SOFT SURFACE BALANCES: We are constantly walking on hard ground all day and our ankles rarely get the opportunity to stabilize you on uneven and soft surfaces. A bosu ball is a piece of equipment often used for this exercise however if you don't have one you can substitute this exercise by standing on pool noodles, a pillow, blanket, sand, crash mat or a sturdy rounded object. Simply balance on one foot at a time on the soft surface and really consider all the engagement required by those muscles to keep your ankle in alignment. If you find this too simple, you can change it up by trying to do heel raises or balancing on one leg and trying to touch the floor with your hands while balancing or one legged squats. TheraBand Exercises: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a video to explain this one instead. There are numerous ways you can prevent injury or recover from an injury through consistent and comprehensive exercises. These are just a few that I like and find to be exceptionally helpful.
It's never too late to start taking care of your body! Which exercise was your favorite in today's blog? Which do you think you will try first? Leave a comment below to discuss any ideas! Signing off for now, Coach Maygan.
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"A chair-based exercise program from British Gymnastics sees remarkable results." - British Gymnastics Foundation Manager, Patrick Bonner.
In 2015 British Gymnastics received funding for a new program to aid in the health and fitness of older individuals, especially those living with dementia. With over 150 participants in their program at the time and close research conducted by Age UK, it was shown that there could be great improvements to an individuals physical, mental and cognitive abilities. Those involved in the British Gymnastics program reported better posture, movement and memory recall. The older participants really appeared to benefit the most from the program. "Improvements ranged from participants being able to use their hands again to feed themselves, do crafts and play bingo as well as socializing with friends and family. One woman has now regained her independence and moved back in to her own home." - Patrick Bonner In 2018, there was an estimated 436, 366 Australians living with dementia. It is important to continue to look after our health as we age. Once we reach middle age we tend to ease off our physical fitness due to aches and pains. In doing this we could be allowing ourselves to become more susceptible to illnesses which can result in the decline of our motor function. By staying active mentally and physically can we can prevent ourselves from struggling as we get older. In 2019 FCGC will be introducing a Move for Life 50+ program. We are so excited to be offering this program, and we really believe it will offer invaluable health benefits to all participants. Our program has been lovingly created to be introductory, adaptive and progressive. Participants will be able to use the gym equipment in new ways to aid in the strengthening of their joints, ligaments and muscles over the course of the program. All elements of the program can be adapted to work for any individual so everybody will get the MOST out of their time. There is zero experience needed and no physical requirements. The only thing required is your willingness to improve your overall health! Best of all, Tuition for Move For Life is currently FREE! So why not gather some friends, or tell a beloved family member about our program. And we will see you in the Gym! Signing off for now, Coach Maygan. Looking for something else? Move for Life 55+ information can be found here. Sport England Article can be found here. Anybody who has any experience with toddlers and young children knows that they can be beautifully melodramatic at the best/worst of times. To us, their behavioral "outburst" can seem so pointless and unreasonable... but the irony behind that is that it is ENTIRELY purposeful.
Have you ever been speaking and been interrupted by a wide-eyed eager child who just HAS to tell you that they went to a birthday party two months ago? As coaches this is something that we experience often. It only takes one child to start talking about their experience and it almost becomes a free for all story time for everybody who has also been to a birthday party recently. This is because they are all developing right on Que. They have now entered "The Egocentric Stage." This means that they believe everybody thinks, feels and see's exactly like they do. This isn't a bad thing! This is just how they will learn. They need to experience the world through themselves first, before they can process other peoples feelings. Egocentricity is unavoidable and fighting against it will prove fruitless. Instead expecting it and having educational tactics ahead of time to redirect the behavior will prepare you all for success! During this stage children have not yet grasped the concept of "intentions". To them everything is deliberate. If you comfort a child by saying it was "an accident", that means essentially nothing to them. They don't understand yet what that means. If an action happened to them... it was supposed to happen, because it has effected them and nobody else. At least according to them. Instead redirecting their response to one of their own PERSONAL experiences can facilitate them in understanding. If a class mate has accidentally hit them on the head passing by, relating this to a time they accidentally knocked something or someone can be a great way to redirect and calm them. Another common scenario is when children have some form of disagreement about who is playing with what. You will most likely have one of them come running over to you telling you that they WON'T let THEM play with THEIR toy. As easy as it would be to sort the situation out for yourself, this is a very important lesson opportunity in communication, bargaining and object possession. Instead, think about how you might be able to direct both children to a resolution. Do they need to use their words explaining what they want? Should they come to the conclusion of taking it in turns themselves or can you guide them to it? Do they understand that maybe the toy doesn't belong to them? It might take longer and it might feel like you are talking in circles... but trust me it will be worth it in the long run! Being egocentric doesn't mean the child is unkind or selfish. It is literally the purest form of personal discovery and personal development. Once they have learnt all their is to know about themselves, they will have the skill set to learn about those around them. Just remember what is logical to us... is not for them. Not yet. But with your patience and guidance it will be one day. Do you have any children that are currently going through this? Let me know what you think in the comments below. Signing off for now, Coach Maygan Would you like to read more about the developmental stages? Here are some good reading resources: "My Grandma's Dog Died - How ego-centrism shows up in preschool classes." "Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive Development" We all know that gymnastics is great, and we love it! We also know that it teaches lots of physical skills to all those involved. A gymnast who has discovered new movement patterns, pathways and more can leave the gym feeling like they have learnt something. But what about the more important stuff? The skills that will stay with you for the rest of your life? By that I don't mean can you still put your foot on your head in 30 years time. All though that would be incredibly impressive.
I'm talking about those fantastic SKILLS FOR LIFE, that we pride ourselves on teaching. The emotional and mental developmental skills our gymnasts might not even realize they are learning. Those skills! I have asked a few of our amazing coaches to share what they have learnt through Gymnastics. So I thought I would share them with you also! "Coaches, what is one thing you have learnt from being a part of gymnastics?" Coach Saskia - Resilience. I have learnt how to take my time. People might get a skill before me, and that's ok. You need to wait and keep trying. "You're on a different time schedule to everybody else (when it comes to skills)". Coach Judy - "That I can do things if i set my mind to it!" Coach Toby - "How to adapt to different situations." Flexibility in all aspects of life. Emotional flexibility, physical and mental. Especially being flexible when it comes to time management. Being able to change things in the moment to be extra beneficial. Coach Thomas - "How to fall with style!" Being able to get up from a fall both physically and metaphorically. Coach Kelesa - Discipline. Growing up in gymnastics taught me I had to be there for my teammates. I had to get up early on the weekends, and train really hard. I had people counting on me. "Coming from an Acro background I couldn't miss any training session because all my teammates would be there and it would be bad for them." We all have things that we will take away from our gymnastics experience. They will become individual to us and only we will be able to have that particular experience. This is why sharing our knowledge and applying it to our coaching is vital for us. We really want to help our gymnasts along in their own personal journeys. Who know's what they might learn!? Did you want to see more blog posts like this? Do YOU have any questions you would like to ask the coaches? Let me know in the comments and I will be sure to make a blog post about it in the future! Signing off for now, Coach Maygan. Gymnastics is an incredibly social sport. Without communication, the sport just wouldn't be the same. If you are going to compare gymnastics to other sports, you will almost certainly find it difficult. Gymnastics requires you to focus and listen to every part of your body, as well as everything your coach is saying. Not only that... everything your team mates are saying, the cheers from the spectators, the feedback from the judges and the encouragement from your family.
You wouldn't necessarily imagine that by going in to train, you are really going in to have a personal conversation with your body and all its little muscles, nerves and neuron pathways... but you will be! You might not consider you will be learning by observing others attempt skills of their own... but you will be! On top of all that, you will have endless opportunities to talk to your coach. Your coach will have a treasure trove of knowledge for you. Open communication about how you are progressing with a skill or drill will only help you to IMPROVE your over all gymnastics. The coach is the "eyes" so to speak, and the gymnast can't always "see" what their body is doing in a skill. A coach will be able to guide and help a gymnast who is willing to adapt, learn and listen to help them achieve their goals. We all love having a good catch up with our friends, even if we only just saw them yesterday! The more you enjoy who you are training with, the more likely you are to feel motivated. Get to know ALL of your team mates. I know that can sound scary, but trust me it will do everybody involved a whole world of good. We've all had that uneasy feeling before, when our best friend isn't at class for the day... and you feel lost and uneasy. That can really impact your progress, motivation and enjoyment of gymnastics. Unfortunately we can't always guarantee we will have the same training partner every session. The more you speak to all your gymnast friends and enjoy what each of them has to offer... the more cohesive the class will feel! Remember that everybody is there for the same reason: The enjoyment of Gymnastics. No matter a gymnasts own personal motivations, it all can be simplified to the very basic foundation that is, ENJOYMENT for what they do. What do you think of this weeks blog post, do you agree? Leave a comment to let me know of any positives to SOCIAL sports I may have left out! Signing off for now, Coach Maygan. Are you running out of ideas for the kids over the summer school holidays? Not sure how a school holiday program works, or how your kids would enjoy it? Did you know we run an extensive school holiday program right here at FCGC?! Trying to keep the kids entertained and active over the holiday period can be a challenge, especially if you have to return to work before the youngsters go back to school. We all want to keep our kids happy, healthy and engaged! One of the best ways we can initiate this, is to allow them personal time to develop and explore in a safe environment. Allowing a child to participate in a school holiday program, can boost a child's learning capacity in nearly all aspects of the social, personal, physical and emotional development. A child participating in our program will develop communication skills with others, leadership skills, group interaction skills, safe play skills as well as confidence and many more important skills for life! FCGC's school holiday program has been created with an array of participants in mind. We truly believe we offer a unique program for all those involved. Each day of FCGC's school holiday program has been designed so all children will get the most out of their experience. Our weekday programs offer multiple different themes, all with new exciting activities! From arts & crafts, to science experiments, food creations, brain teasers and more. Each individual experience should be special, fun and over all educational in many ways. The best part is, they will be having so much fun they will hardly notice they are learning as they play and create! Our gym time and free play sessions will also allow them plenty of time to get all their sillies out - so to speak! Movement is the biggest facilitator for learning, for all gymnasts big or small, new or experienced. Rest assured your little gymnast will have plenty of opportunities to practise new and old skills, run, jump, climb and more! Does this sound like the perfect program for you? I think it does too! Check out our School Holidays Program tab on our website or click HERE for more info. We can't wait to see you over the holidays!
Signing off for now, Coach Maygan. It’s already 2019, can you believe it?! A whole new year that is going to be filled with discovery, and what a year it is going to be for all of us at FCGC. We are all so excited for what’s in store for us all and all the new things we will learn along the way.
Around this time of year, we seem to be bombarded with expectations to have a New Year’s Resolution. Either from an advertisement, friends, family, class mates etc. even if it is only in fun and jest. The idea of placing one goal high up on a pedestal - which you will ultimately either complete or not – is not my cup of tea, so to speak. Instead of me discussing my own opinions, lets discuss the benefits of goal setting instead! If you are anything like me, having lots of little goals gives me a greater sense of achievement. I am more likely to successfully achieve these goals because of this. By having lots of little milestones to strive for, that will last over a longer duration of time, the more chances i have of feeling successful. Let’s be honest, lots of achievements are going to be more rewarding than just one big one, that’s if you do manage to keep your new years resolution in the first place! So how can you go about goal setting in a more achievable manner? Let's say you have decided you want to be "stronger" in 2019. That's a fantastic start. You now have a very generalised idea of what you would like to be able to do. So what can you do next? Have you thought about what being "stronger" means to you? Do you have a skill you would like to be able to demonstrate at the end of it? Maybe you've decided you want to be able to do 50 push-ups by the end of the year. Now comes the planning about how you can achieve this. You might like to set yourself a daily goal of doing as many push-ups as you possibly can. You may even like to set a goal of being able to do 20 push-ups by the end of February. Identifying ways to get you to your end goal is going to make all of this so much easier, and feel a lot more rewarding along the way! It seems most of the focus of a New Years Resolution tends to be put on drastically changing an element of yourself, instead of working on what you already possess. As individuals we all have qualities that nobody else possesses. Identifying what you already have and working on them can only improve and better yourselves, not only for 2019 but the remainder of your life. Taking this mentality and applying it gymnastics will only give everyone a chance to truly grow! From everybody here at FCGC to you, we wish you all a SAFE and Happy New Year! Signing off for now, Coach Maygan. As parent or guardian of a gymnast we all want to see them achieve their very best. We have put them into their classes hoping to see them flourish and grow into their full personal and gymnastics potential. While that is fantastic, the truth is, they are still people who will feel down on themselves every now and again. That’s when you become vital to their development, as they are still young people, they don’t yet have the full mental capacity to handle stressful situations on their own.
Coaches will try their best to build a gymnast’s spirits back up, no matter how long it takes. However, with your direct support by setting your child up for success before they even step into the gym will benefit everybody involved! Here’s how you could refocus and guide your gymnast: Listen to them. This might seem obvious. Yet how often do we find ourselves projecting our own opinions onto others? Encourage your gymnast to confide in you about how they are feeling, and what they might like to be done about it. Allowing a child to be involved in their decision making WITH you will only build a feeling of trust. The more they trust you, the more likely they are to open about their thoughts and feelings without the potential feeling of disappointment. Praise their efforts. We would like to think that we tell our children how proud we are of them often, but sometimes being specific about an action we are proud of can help build character for your child. If you simply tell them “good job” that feels rewarding in the moments. If you were to say, “good job on rings today, you had lots of tries even though you were tired”, your child is going to remember that for next time. Give them time to rest. Gymnastics is a physically and mentally demanding sport. It is to be expected that a gymnast of any age will need time to recover and rest. I would also go as far to say that is the same for all sports. Where as most sports seasons run over the winter or summer, gymnastics runs all year round. If they need a week or two off to focus on something else, that’s ok. It doesn’t mean they aren’t progressing at all, it just means they are operating at their own pace. Communicate this with their coach. Building a trust worthy relationship with your child’s coach is important for many reasons, but most importantly they are going to be your child’s support down in the gym. If your gymnast has been feeling upset about coming to gymnastics, make sure you communicate that with the gym or the coach, so they can be especially attentive to their needs and emotions. Coaches have a whole range of teaching tactics they can use, and the more information they have about a gymnast… the more the gymnast will get out of their lessons! Children are incredibly resilient, and with the proper guidance, support and educational environment they can truly flourish. Give them time, kind words and they can achieve anything. SKILLS FOR LIFE Signing off for now, Coach Maygan. We hope everybody had a GREAT time at FCGC this year. All the coaches and staff are so impressed by everyone's achievement’s and we can’t wait to have everybody back in the gym in 2019! Firstly, we all need to enjoy our holiday and rest up as much as we can, so we all can return to the gym ready for another year of awesome skills and personal development. We all know that keeping active and engaged over the holidays can be a challenge sometimes… so here is a super fun Holiday themed gymnastics challenge you all can try! We have called it “Keep the Hat On”. We had a few of our coaches and gymnasts try out the challenge already, and the vote is in. WE LOVE IT! Here are the rules:
Take a look at our attempt: Show us some of your pictures and videos of you trying the challenge. Use the hashtag #FCGCskills on any of your social media posts for us to see! We would LOVE to see our gymnasts practicing their skills outside of the gym. We hope every single one of our members and their families have a fun, safe and active holiday. Keep thinking of your gymnastic goals so you are prepared when you return! Signing off for now,
Coach Maygan. We can hardly believe it, and I'm sure you can't as well!
We are just one week out from our End of Year Display! Our Gymnasts have been hard at work in the Gym every week of this Term, remembering all of the elements of their individual apparatus and group routines. With the support and encouragement of their coaches, all of their routines are looking fantastic! We can hardly wait to see them performed for all of our spectators. The costumes are getting their final touches. Skills are getting refined. Gymnasts are inviting friends & family. Front Desk is readying our Raffle Donations Table. Coaches are preparing the gym for over 300 spectators. Our High Bar Cafe will be also be opening it's doors! We can hardly wait! If you need any further information on times, costumes, raffle donations etc. All information can be found on our website. Signing off for now, Coach Maygan. |
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