Techniques

Techniques.

Well I have never tried them on a five year old, but there are a lot of drills on drillsandskills.com for body tightness. Can't hurt to look there. There is also the hollow position on the ground or the banana drill.

Back when I first started getting interested in fitness, I learnt a lot from Pavel via 'Power to the People' and 'The Naked Warrior' about maintaining body tension. I'm not sure how well it would have translated to a 5 year old, but from memory, he did go through a number of practical illustrations of what tension can do for your strength.

eg. Handshake with/without clenching the other fist etc.

Anyway, in trying to jog my memory, I came across this article, which may be of some assistance. I like the idea of lots of hollows/superman type work; you can't do them without maintaining tension throughout at least most of your body.

Most kids have poor wall HS because they have poor core control. They need to work lots of hollow and superman and hollow roll to superman to hollow. Stuff like that. Pelvic tilt holds (lay on stomach, pull belly button off floor while squeezing butt but not sticking rear in the air).

Ideas.

When doing straight boby position on the floor I encourage the kids I help coach to suck and tuck their stomach into the ground keeping their legs squeezed together and arms strong etc.

If the child has good body tension it should be difficult to roll them over, which is a fun little test for young children learning gynastics.

More advanced is to lift their legs off the ground (holding by the feet) and see if they can keep their bodies straight without piking at the hips, then try to hold by one foot instead of both feet and the child will see that if they do not have strong leg tension the foot you stop holding will drop.

I find with children you need to show them the result of body tension in order for them to understand to concept, when they see the difference of how easy it is to roll them over if they are lose compared to when they are tight they start to learn better. Then when they are all banana backed when in a HS you can tell them to tighten up or we shout "suck and tuck" they will in time be able to do this.