New trends in fitness for kids

What did you learn in school that you still do now? I'm referring to physical fitness - that 45 minutes of drudgery that you tried to get out of. Remember, the ugly shorts, the showers, the smelly locker room.

Well, today things have changed and for the better.

How many of you still use the sports that you learned during those long school years? Did any of your sports stick after age 20?

There's a different trend in physical education programs now. The schools that have designed gym time use it for lifetime sports skills, the type of physical education that can be integrated and used in the lifestyle of an adult.

There are small courses in square dancing, lap swimming, aerobics, tennis, soccer and even golf and bowling. There are courses in volleyball and basketball for both boys and girls. The objective now is to find a fitness niche for your lifetime.

Soccer and basketball are high on my list for good lifetime fitness sports for kids. They keep the student in constant motion for long periods of time, giving good cardiovascular conditioning without the child being aware of it. The age of the children who can handle these sports varies. Older kids like basketball and the younger ones like soccer. Hand and eye coordination are important items regarding whether or not a child will enjoy these sports. If you have a child with small motor or large motor problems, these sports will help develop those weak areas.

Some children prefer exercise to music; dancing, ballet, tap, aerobics and gymnastics. These are sports that the young enjoy and usually continue as adults.

Lifetime sports are limited to the area that is available. If you took up lap swimming as a child and find yourself in a town without a swimming pool, or a pool with very little usable time, then you have lost the use of a lifetime sport. Tennis taken up in college can be lost if no courts are available or are only available in clubs. If you have taken up golf only to find yourself in an area where golf is a prohibitive expense, then you slip away from fitness and often do not return to it.

It is hard to fit today's nomadic lifestyle into lifetime fitness habits. The schools are giving it a try. They deserve credit for keeping ahead of the changing fitness fields. Today they offer mini-courses in many, many different activities. They try to coordinate these courses so as to apply them in some way to the adult lifestyle. It's a good concept and, I believe, one that will work.

Jerry Vance is certified by the American Council on Exercise and teaches fitness at the Carson City Community Center and for the American Lung Association.