Getting Started With A Fitness and Health Routine For: Kids

*Check the MILESTONE CHART for general developmental milestones to help in your implementation of activities.

 

 “You cannot make people learn. You can only provide the right conditions for learning to happen.” – Vince Gowmon

 

STAGE: Building and Development

GENERAL AGE RANGE: 5-12 years old 

*Keep in mind age is just a starting factor. Some kids may be less experienced, less mature, have different abilities, delays, etc. that would fall into this category when considering approach to fitness and wellness. 

ATTENTION SPAN: A generalized trick for this is: Age of the child x 2 or 3 = Length of attention span. If they are 5 years old, a typical range would be 5-10 or up to 15 minutes; if they are 6, a range of 6-12 or up to 24 minutes… etc. *This can change due to motivation and interest in a task, fatigue, or even time of day. 

MOVEMENT TYPES: Bodyweight, gymnastics, weightlifting, sport specific. 

SPECIFICALLY: Simple movements (think one direction movements — squats, press, deadlift, pull-up) as well as more complex movements (think multiple directions or skills — snatch, clean and jerk, muscle ups) still with the ability to focus on points of performance or broken down versions of movements.

IMPLEMENTS: Fun, lightweight implements (ex. cones, balls, ropes); light loads (ex. kettlebells, dumbbells, medicine balls, slam balls, sleds, sand bags, PVC pipes). 

TEACHING METHOD: Show and tell, shared attention, imitation, kinesthetic learning (learning by doing), auditory learning (talking about something first), visual learning (demonstrations or written content use, ex: whiteboard).

 

This age group is a group that generally has already been exposed to some type of fitness, whether they have participated themselves, learned about it, or watched others during their preschool discovery and exploration years. This stage is considered the building and developmental years. This stage is a longer stage with vast differences in ages: there can be huge differences in the low-end age of a 5-year-old compared to the upper-end age of a 12-year-old, but sometimes there is more similarity than readily apparent. This age group has many factors that can significantly impact the progress and participation in fitness-related activities [factors including gender, maturity, experience, motivations, skills, involvement in other activities, learning ability, growth both physically and mentally, to name a few].