WITH a growing awareness in the strength of primary school children heading into high school, the Discovery SharkSmart Programme facilitated a strength and conditioning seminar which focused on a number of different aspects about how to
keep young children healthy and active without an over-emphasis on physical strength.
The seminar involved a number of speakers from the Cell C Sharks. Strength and Conditioning Coach Mark Steele, sports dietician to The Sharks, Danielle Roberts, sports psychologist Kirsten van Heerdan as well as a demonstration in the gym by The Sharks’ biokineticist and conditioning coach Jimmy Wright.
“We have found that there is a growing gap between children from when they leave junior school and arrive at high school,” Discovery SharkSmart Manager Pippa Rowe said. “Being able to provide seminars like this for coaches of junior school children is vital in bridging that gap,” she said.
Danielle Roberts stressed the importance of a balanced diet, even for younger children. She discussed the importance of eating regularly with the schedules of a lot of the younger children being rather strenuous.
In his address, Steele said younger children didn’t have to be in the gym lifting heavy weights but should rather focus on using their own weight as resistance when training and exercising. With gym facilities unavailable in a number of schools, Steele provided those present with a few alternate options that can be implemented. He spoke about the importance of resistance training in younger children, the use of skipping ropes and bands as well as the importance on acceleration as a means to strengthen up rather than the use of weights.
Having the likes of sports psychologist Kirsten van Heerden there gave those present a different angle on how to approach the treatment of children in terms of their mental approach and understanding. Children have a very different take to adults and Van Heerden emphasised that it is important that this is understood.
The crux of Van Heerden’s lecture was how to stimulate sport and exercise in young children and she raised a number of interesting points about how incentivising children is not necessarily the way forward in terms of getting the best out of them.
The seminar finished off with a session in The Sharks Gym with Jimmy Wright and Mark Steele. Wright demonstrated a number of exercises that children could use to improve their core strength with the use of bands around their legs and the resistance that can be created.
