Gross Motor Focus:

Strengthen Your Child's Core!

Welcome to the first in my series of emails with a Gross Motor Focus!

Our core muscles are actually quite amazing. It has been said that if we were to remove all the muscles from around the spine, so it was simply made up of the ligaments and the bones (vertebrae), it would only be able to withstand about 2 Newtons of force being applied (2kg in layman terms)*!

However, everyday activities such as walking and picking up toys from the floor apply much more force than that. The reason our spine does not fall apart during everyday life is because of core stability.

Core stability prevents the spine from buckling under the immense pressure that our arms and legs put on it, and helps us to keep our balance during movement. It plays an important role in nearly every gross motor activity.

Our core is constantly adapting to our posture, adapting to the forces and pressure we put on our spine, and provides us with a stable base for movement of our arms and legs.

My page about the importance of core stability and core strength has been recently updated, so do pop over and read more, and find out how a weak core can affect your child’s school skills.

Core Strength and Core Stability Info Page

Why not use the summer holidays to focus on strengthening your child’s core muscles?

I have some free photographed activities on my site that are really do-able for busy moms and teachers – check them out on this page and see how you can incorporate them into your child’s holiday routine:

Simple Core Exercises For Your Kids To Do At Home

Have fun building skills with your child this summer!

Thanks for reading and for signing up for my newsletters!

Please feel free to share the newsletter and pages with anyone you think will benefit from the information. Be blessed as you help the children in your life!

Kind regards,

Tracey

Living Life Abundantly! (John 10:10)

* Reference:

Faries, M.D. and Greenwood, M. (2007). Core training: Stabilizing the confusion. Strength and conditioning journal. 29. 10-25.