The value of "sword fights" in children's fitness
NOTE - This post was originally written for our 'weekly warble' segment in a few Facebook groups for the community local to our gym.
This week I'd like to talk about the value of "sword fights" in children's fitness (and of course I mean pretend sword fights using pool noodles).
As it turns out we sometimes fiddle around with pool noodle sword fights in our adult classes too, but I'll focus on the kids example for today.
Now I know there's a good chance you're thinking "that wasn't what I expected when I started reading this post", but bear with me, it's quite an interesting topic.
Straight off the bat there are a couple of straightforward benefits off pool noodle sword fights for fitness:
1) They're just great fun. This means that very often they'll get even the least fitness motivated child up and moving around.
2) They can be a surprisingly good cardio workout. And thus when you combine that with point 1, they're a decent way to deliver cardio to someone who might not otherwise be motivated by more standard types of "cardio".
Those two were pretty straightforward. Here's a less obvious one...
I believe that for children who aren't currently confident catching balls and other objects, pool noodle sword fights can help them learn this skill.
"How's that?" you ask.
My observation is that many children who aren't great at catching do things like close their eyes or look away when balls are thrown at them (usually with arms outstretched). They're intimidated by the ball coming at them. They want to catch it, but don't have the confidence and/or skills to see the ball coming and get their hands to it so they subconsciously try and protect themselves to some degree by turning away and having their arms outstretched so the ball isn't being caught near them. Of course in reality this means that they're more likely to get him by the ball, but it's still an attempt at a protective reaction.
Pretend sword fights can help with this. When I pretend sword fight with a child, I have great control over how fast (and where) I swing my sword. This means that by swinging obviously, slowly and gently I can give children the chance to, in a less threatening situation, see an object coming at them and react by blocking it with their sword, all while keeping their eyes open and focussed on the object coming at them. If you do this long enough, and in a gentle manner, it's my observation that children start to relax to the idea of an object coming at them. This then transfers over to some degree into their catching. By having success blocking my sword, they develop greater confidence to block a ball with their hands. When you then start throwing and catching with them they are more likely to keep their eyes open and fixed on the ball as it comes to them, and they are thus more likely to catch it.
In this way, if your child is intimidated by catching, you can help to build their confidence by:
Doing gentle pretend sword fights where they get lots of chances to successfully block your strikes with the pool noodle. Only successfully strike them occasionally and do it slowly and softly.
When you start using a ball, don't worry about catching. Get them to simply block the throws with their hands (e.g. play "dodgeball" but where their aim is to block the ball, not dodge it or catch it).
Then move to catching very gentle throws from a close distance.
Gradually make the throws bigger, faster etc.
And that's it. That's an awesome value of sword fights in children's fitness. And it's one you can cheaply and easily have a go with your kids yourself!
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