Practicing any sport as a child always brings excellent benefits, experts indicate that exercising every day helps infants to have better physical and mental development. In addition, it teaches them how to relate to other children in a healthy way.
The choice of sport will depend on the age and preferences of the children. The ideal thing, especially in the little ones, is that the chosen activity offers them fun and allows them to develop their motor skills, balance and coordination. Si no te convence aún ningún deporte, hoy te mostramos dos opciones: el tenis y el pádel, los cuales son bastante populares en España por lo que disponen de muchas escuelas especializadas.
Calonge Tennis Club is one of them. We are located in Carrer de les Escoles, 4, 17251 Calonge, and we have different types of tracks and courts.
Pediatricians indicate that both tennis and paddle tennis are sports with great benefits for children of growing age, since they tone and strengthen muscles and, in addition, allow motor skills to be developed. As if that were not enough, it has been shown that social contact increases the mental well-being of children and allows the development of soft skills, which will help children to develop in adult life.
Now let’s investigate a little more in each of these two sports. To do this, below we present a summary with the main benefits of paddle tennis and tennis.
Let’s start with tennis!
Tennis is a sport that is played on a rectangular court with a net in the middle. Normally, it consists of two or four players, who are located on opposite sides of the net (1:1 or 2:2). They use a string racket to hit the ball back and forth and whoever gets the most points wins.
It is an ideal sport for children and they can start practicing it from the 4 or 5 years. At the Calonge Tennis Club, we advise you on the practices and techniques that children need to get into this sport or improve their learning.
What are the benefits of tennis for children?
Physical Benefits
Here is a list of the most important ones:
1. Bone and muscle strength
Thanks to the constant movement, changes of rhythm, jumps and acceleration experienced by the extremities, over time they gain muscle mass and strengthen the bones, which helps prevent osteoporosis.
2.Motor coordination
Being an exercise that involves the whole body allows you to sharpen dynamic coordination. This happens when they move their arm to swing the racket at the same time that their core muscles stabilize their hips so they don’t topple over when swinging.
In addition, it allows to improve oculo-segmental coordination, since it generates a link between the visual field and the motor skills of arms and hands.
3. Visual acuity
By constantly keeping an eye on the ball and its trajectory, a link is created between the visual field and motor skills, which will help improve children’s reflexes.
4. Flexibility, balance and speed
Players are constantly stretching before, during and after finishing training sessions, so this helps to constantly improve joint elasticity. In addition, trying to keep pace with run-stop-run increases balance and develops speed.
5. Improves cardiovascular health
Tennis is an aerobic activity that increases the heart rate, which makes breathing deeper and faster, increasing oxygen and blood flow throughout the body. All this contributes to improving heart function, reducing blood pressure and eliminating the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Social benefits
Here are the most important social benefits:
1. Autonomy
Finding himself alone in front of another player, the child must make all the decisions that allow him to earn points with each play, which reinforces his autonomy and builds confidence to make decisions in the future.
2. Teamwork
Group trainings will teach you the value of working together, supporting each other, and respecting each other. In addition, teamwork fosters trust with others and increases the sense of belonging. In the games where they play with a teammate, a close relationship is generated and non-verbal understanding towards the other person is developed in order to work together and obtain the points necessary to win the game.
3. Effort and patience
Learning to push yourself to improve and win matches will be reflected in other facets of your life such as schoolwork and activities at home. Besides The perseverance that they must implement in each of the practices helps them to cultivate patience, since they will only become better players if they remain firm and continue practicing.
4. Control of emotions
No one likes to lose or make a mistake, but part of being an adult is being able to control your emotions. With this sport, children understand what it means to compete healthily and that they will not always be winners, but they will understand that effort has good results.
5. Respect
The dynamics in tennis schools is always aimed at respect, children must learn to respect the rules of the game, the court, the coaches, referees and other players who share with them.
6. Increases self-esteem
Seeing the achievements they achieve with their effort and the congratulations from their coach every time they hit the ball allows their self-esteem to be constantly reinforced. In addition, the phrase “healthy body, healthy mind”, thanks to exercise children will feel better physically, with more energy and vitality, so they will be much more active and happy in the rest of their daily activities.
7. Empathy
In team matches, many times they will have to give up the final play to their partner to win the point, and this allows them to understand that this is a joint achievement.
8. Socialize
The classes and practices allow the infant to interact with various social groups outside the school environment, which will help them to strengthen other types of friendships with common interests.
9. Discipline
In tennis, like many sports, the expected results are only obtained if we practice frequently and do not give up if we fail, which teaches children to understand that you can achieve whatever you want in life if you have discipline and stay focused In the goal.
10. Increases the speed of cognitive processing
Tennis is a game of intelligence in which you have to learn tactics and know how to “read” your opponent. In the game, children have to analyze their opponent, plays and learn to react quickly to win the point, and they only have thousandths of seconds to make the decision, which helps to increase the speed of response in other activities.
Let’s continue with the paddle!
It is a sport that is played in pairs, two against two, and whose objective is that, with a single hit, the ball passes to the opposite field. The winners are those who manage to win two of the three sets.
Little ones can start practicing it from the age of 4 and it is so versatile that it can be practiced indoors or outdoors, which has made it a very popular sport and also offers great benefits for growing children:
What are the benefits of paddle tennis for children?
Physical Benefits
Here is a list of the most important ones:
1. Promotes their motor development
Stimulates the psychomotor development of the child, which allows them to more easily develop their body movement, increasing their general coordination; They also learn to move quickly and develop balance, which will allow them to move more safely from one place to another.
2. Stimulates their physiological development
Thanks to the fact that children maintain permanent physical activity, it allows them to increase caloric expenditure, gaining muscle mass and losing body fat, which has helped combat childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyle, especially in post-pandemic times.
3. Increases reflexes
By moving quickly, changing direction and having to watch out for opponents’ movements, children gain the ability to react with great speed and increase their reflexes.
Social benefits
1. Psychosocial development
As it is a sport for couples, it promotes bonds of friendship, companionship and teamwork, teaching the child to interact with different groups and to create links between them.
2. Teamwork
By having a playmate, children learn to work as a team for a common goal, understanding that each action must be synchronized with their partner, without feeling that they lose prominence, quite the contrary, if one scores a point, victory is both.
3. Improves your self-esteem
Padel teaches children that if they make an effort they can win, which increases their self-confidence, motivation and self-esteem, since they understand that they are capable of achieving any goal they set for themselves.
4.Improves concentration
The nature of the game allows children to learn to concentrate for long periods of time, which may also be reflected in their studies and learning capacity.
5.Management of emotions
As with tennis, children will learn to manage their emotions depending on the situations that arise, whether it is winning or losing the match, they will understand how important the reward of winning is thanks to the effort shared with their teammates.
6.Compete healthy
Paddle tennis schools have as a priority teaching children to be good rivals, which allows them to acquire valuable skills in life such as the fight to achieve an objective, healthy rivalry between teams and camaraderie.
Conclusion
If you are excited to learn this sport and strengthen yourself emotionally, mentally and physically, Calonge Tennis Club is undoubtedly the ideal place to develop and enjoy these benefits.
Without forgetting that if you already have basic learning, we help you improve the strategies and tactics of tennis and paddle tennis so that you can play tournaments like a professional from a very young age.
Contact Calonge Tennis Club and we will plan your practices around your knowledge and availability.