Summary:

Academic gymnastics integrates physical activities to foster balanced development in physical, mental, social, and emotional aspects of life. It equips children with essential skills, flexibility, and discipline for a purposeful and fulfilling future. Gymnastics enhances health by preventing diseases, improving flexibility, fostering discipline, and accelerating motor skill development. It also strengthens muscles, encourages punctuality, and instills a healthy lifestyle. Gymnastics cultivates mental strength, creativity, and self-confidence in individuals, contributing to overall well-being and success.

Academic Gymnastics: Enhancing Physical, Mental and Emotional Growth:

Definition of Academic Gymnastics:

Gymnastics refers to a program of selected physical activities through which the goal of balanced physical, mental, social and emotional development of human beings can be achieved. Gymnastic activities develop qualities like speed, agility and flexibility in the human body.

1- Educational gymnastics refers to the knowledge that teaches children the skills, art and manners for a successful life in the future.

2- The knowledge that guides children to move properly to achieve good goals is called "educational gymnastics".

3- Educational gymnastics is that part of general education which guides an individual to lead a purposeful and engaged life and prepares him for the future.

4- Educational gymnastics is an individual's purposeful, certified and holistic experiences, performed intentionally, with or without equipment, in a large and engaging manner, leading to the improvement of one's life.

5- Educational gymnastics refers to a program that consists of enjoyable physical activities and promotes the balanced development of children mentally, physically, morally, emotionally, spiritually, socially and psychologically.

6- Educational gymnastics refers to the knowledge that is based on attractive physical movements and teaches children the skills to perform and control basic and subsidiary movements correctly.

7- Educational gymnastics is a part of general education. It is a process that teaches children how to act according to what they think.

8- The knowledge which directs children to move properly for the attainment of good ends is called educational gymnastics.

Role of Gymnastics in Physical Education:

Gymnastics is an important component of physical education. The role of gymnastics in physical education is as follows.

1- Prevention of Diseases:

Regular participation in moderate gymnastics training reduces the risk of health-related diseases such as asthma, cancer, obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Gymnastics encourages a healthy diet, regular exercise and a balanced lifestyle. Gymnastics training helps build strong bones in children and can reduce the risk of osteoporosis later in life. Children, teenagers, adults and the elderly alike can reap the health benefits of participating in gymnastics.

2- Increase in Flexibility:

A large amount of time is spent on improving flexibility in gymnastics training. For competitive gymnasts this means improving jumps and jumping. For recreational and adult gymnasts it's about improving the flexibility of muscle groups to prevent injury. The more flexible a person's muscles are, the less likely they are to strain or tear muscles performing everyday tasks.

3- Discipline:

Gymnastics training teaches athletes discipline from an early age. Players must be able to take instructions from their coaches and apply them independently. When a coach is working with another athlete, they must be able to continue their program on their own. Gymnasts learn the discipline and commitment to attend the class in every session. In addition, athletes gain the determination to overcome fear in order to master new skills.

4- Improves Motor Skill Development and Accelerates Learning:

In gymnastics training, athletes learn how to fall strategically, and make constant minor adjustments in movement. This constant adjustment allows the gymnast to be more proactive about the movements and their results. This permanent adjustment makes a gymnast aware of movements and their results. It speeds up the improvement of harmony and learning of motor skills.

5- Increase in Strength:

Gymnastics training emphasizes core strength, reflexes, full-body muscle extension and flexion, bodyweight and strength to improve balance. Gymnasts are the strongest athletes in the world and gymnastic strength training can help to tone up all muscles and reduces chronic muscle aches and pains.

6- Punctuality:

It is a common observation that high-performing gymnasts are also high-performing students. This is due to the fact that gymnastics teaches the youth time management skills. Students involved in gymnastics generally must plan their weeks in advance. Adults who participated in gymnastics as children are generally better at managing their time later in life than those with no gymnastics experience.

Healthy Lifestyle:

Youth who participate in competitive gymnastics are more likely to make good lifestyle choices. This is due to the busy schedule that demands gymnastics training on top of school studies. Gymnastics also help in improving creativity skills preparing mentally strong children and increases self confidence.