With childhood obesity on the rise in the US, its important to help get the message across about health and fitness by letting them know that exercise is good for you and healthy. However, over the past years I have heard and seen coaches use exercise as a form of punishment. I ask myself what is the benefits of using exercise as a form of punishment? Are we suppose to say the exercise is fun and healthy but yet they use it as a weapon for punishment? What is the real message behind this?
Using exercise as a form of punishment is not a healthy message we want to send out when exercise should be fun and enjoyable to maintain a healthy lifestyle for life.
Here are the things I have heard over the years from coaches.
1. "If you can't run faster than you have to do 20 push-ups." So if a child can't run fast enough, they do 20 push-ups. How is 20 push-ups going to help the child run faster? I don't ever recall in personal training class that push-ups helps you run faster. Is punishing a kid to do 20 push-ups really going to get the kid to run faster? The punishment of doing 20 push-ups is like a lab rat that gets an electrical shock because it didn't run fast enough on the exercise wheel. You really think that lab rat is going to run faster? NO, they would want to get off. The same as the child wants to quit! Kids are not lab rats and stop using negativity using exercise as a form of punishment to get results. The only result you get is an unhappy kid that will quit.
If you want them to run faster give them drills or games that requires them to run faster such as doing a relay race, tag, bungee run, and even going to a pool to do sprints in the water. So many fun things you can do to help them learn to run faster.
A simple solution is I give the kids drills or exercise to help make body correction to help increase performance. This is not punishment, this is something positively productive to help train the body on what is needs to do to help with proper form and technique to increase performance. The drills should be appropriate, successful, fun and interesting to have the kid to stay engage with the activity. Do you ever do you ever stay in an activity that wasn't fun? Of course not!
2. "If you talk again the whole class will do conditioning! Do you like doing conditioning? " Ok, I see a bad cop coming! You threaten them to do conditioning over some 6-8 year old kids talking and then ask them about if they like doing conditioning. Of course the kids will say no. How is it by threaten them to do conditioning is going to get them to stop talking? Worst of all you just taught them to hate conditioning when conditioning is good for you to help increase performance and get healthier. What message are you really sending here?
What even worst is you punished the whole class! Class is a recreational setting so let them be kids! They just want to get their exercise and have fun. How do you think the kids who are good feel about being punished when the bad kid did something wrong? The kids are really going to hate the bad kid and be singled out from the group. So many things can go wrong in so many levels. I can tell you that you will have unhappy parents and kids.
I'm not no behavior specialist or a psychologist or pretending to be one. In my own personal experience, If you want make correction find other ways to discipline other than threaten them on exercise. When addressing to bad behavior, make sure you let them know what they did is wrong and give them a warning. Always follow through with the warning if they do it the second time. Nothing more worse than giving out 20 warnings and not do it. The kids won't ever get the message because the kids always get their way. Always follow through what you say you do.
I have also given kids two choices. One choice is to sit down (time out) and let me know when you are ready or they miss a few turn (2-3). Second choice is to listen and follow direction so you can get more turns and of course more fun! So the more they listen and follow directions, the more turns and fun they get! Who wants to have fun?!?!
3. "Stop bending your knees, stop bending your elbows, or you will do 50 sit-ups." No sit-ups is going to make corrections on keeping your knees straight or make your arms straight. So again how is it that stronger abs is going to make your leg or your elbow straight? How is abs related to the legs and elbows?
If you want to fix the straight legs and straight arms do some exercises that help them understand the positions. Have them feel their legs and arms being straight. If you can feel it, you can train it, and you can do it. So work on their propioreceptors!
Praise for good performances. Nothing is more feeling good to praise for good performances. The kids will feel good and help build confidence. The kids will feel the appreciation from the coach. In results, they will want to come back for more. In hope the bad kid will catch that and will want to do something good. I always look for improvement in bits and pieces rather than the whole outcome. Praise for the good no matter how big or small the improvement is. There is always room for improvement. When you work on bits and pieces the whole outcome will come together. Worrying about the outcome is too much for a child to think about all the things to worry about to make it good, so keep it small. Positive reinforcement can go along ways!!!
In conclusion:
Sports are supposed to be fun and not feel like you are in the military or boot camp. Yes, there are ways to push your athletes to be their best but certain things such as threatening them to run more laps, no water, comparing other kids, doing 30-50 push-ups, 30-50 squat jumps, doing 30-50 sit-ups are all crossing the line.
Exercise should be a way of life and promoting healthy living at the same time to increase athletic performance. Sending the right message can also help increase the awareness of promoting an active life style through out their lives. This is a must have goal. Exercise is the best health insurance you can have. Plus it is a lot cheaper than paying thousand of dollars on drugs to keep you alive.
Don't make a good thing [exercise] a bad thing!
Sports should be about building champion of character and maintaining healthy lifestyle for life. Sports is not about putting trophies and medals on the wall. The kids are not lab rats and trophies kids. Let them be kids and enjoy life through sports. Positive reinforcement can go along ways than negative reinforcement.
Best of luck to all athletes! Have a safe and fun 2012-2013 season!
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