Looking for second sport ideas for my gymnast

[Anonymous]

This will sound odd but have her try squash. The best players are the most flexible. One of the top female squash pros in the world is a former gymnast.

[Anonymous]

Street dance or hip hop or even jazz dance. So many gymnast don’t have any natural rhythm. Or more likely it’s not being utilized. The floor exercises consist of the little movements of hands and legs and they are always awkward. Being comfortable with dance movements will make the routine so much better.

Ballet requires a straight back and gymnastics requires an arched back so that might not work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:tae kwon do or another martial art. Her strength and flexibility will be a huge asset

+1 My 9 yo loves both of these.

[Anonymous]

Ballet. My now adult child had a friend who was a competitive gymnast who switched to ballet in high school and eventually danced with a professional ballet company for a number of years. She was apparently considered a late starter for ballet but her gymnastics training and natural strength and flexibility helped her.

[Anonymous]

My daughter was a competitive gymnast for a decade. If your daughter intends to stay with gymnastics, you are not going to want to look for a spring sport because the majority of the competitive season is between December and May. Summer swim was a good complement to Gymnastics. It is not super intense and is a low impact activity. A bonus is that your daughter may find she’s very good at fly because of her strong muscles. Diving uses a lot of of the same skills and the coach will love her pointed toes. There is a bit of a difference, but a number of gymnasts do both and there are more opportunities for diving at the collegiate level, based on what we had seen. There are also a few who managed to make track work, but there is a good amount of overlap in the spring and that can be really rough on the body.

[Anonymous]

Whatever she and you believe fits her physically. My daughter was a gymnast/soccer/swim (and other sports) kid. When it came time - I want to say she was 11 - to make the call on whether to focus on gymnastics and go full time, we researched it heavily. Ultimately she decided against focusing on gymnastics. For her, the main alternative was soccer, and she played 4 years in college so good choice. My kid was always very fast - great for vault and soccer, but short. Typical for gymnastics, but not great for swimming, volleyball or basketball. It did not matter for soccer.

I would say pick something she can do in high school as a school sport. She will like the experience.