Your natural joy of movement

Children naturally like to move and need a lot of exercise for healthy development. The playful approach and the variety of forms of movement lead to lasting success. The be-all and end-all is regularity.

When in 2019 up to 2,000 children and young people junior marathon who took part in the running festival in the city of Mozart, emotional moments and wonderfully heartfelt moments were produced every second in the Volksgarten. It was similar in the years before and on May 14, 2022 it will be the same again on the day of the "Bunte Sportpalette". Not only measured by the percentage of the total number of participants in Salzburg's largest running event, the children and young people at the running festival in the city of Mozart have a rock in the board.

Together with our partners, we give young, active children and young people easy and tempting access to a day dedicated to physical activity and garnish it with participation in the junior marathon competitions with a guaranteed, high experience factor. Why initiatives like the junior marathon, which, thanks to targeted work in preparation, is much more than just a day of running, is extremely important as a signal for healthy behavior in young people, can be explained by the fact that exercise is essential for good development .

Important questions and the answers to them:

Why do children and young people have to move?
"Sporting exercise is an elementary part of the physical development of children and young people," explains Salzburg Marathon organizer Johannes Langer, who can look back on almost four decades of experience as a running coach. On the one hand, exercise is essential for developing motor skills and building healthy bones. Nowadays, Langer observes an “impoverishment of sensory experiences that are essential for physical, intellectual and social development” as opposed to a wide range of consumer and leisure opportunities. On the other hand, exercise from childhood promotes cardiovascular health, strengthens mental health and prevents numerous common diseases such as obesity or back pain. In the long term, it also provides preventive protection against cardiovascular problems, cancer and diabetes.

When we are children we lay the foundation for our entire life. Because in these years we learn our skills on which we build our range of movements as adults. dr Holger Förster, Salzburg specialist in paediatrics and sports medicine, remembers in one RunUp article from 2020 not to start too early: "It is extremely important to make good use of the toddler group and kindergarten age to establish the joy of movement and to exploit potential on which the whole life is built." In other words: what What is neglected in the coordinative area in childhood cannot be re-learned in adulthood, or only to a small extent. “The basics for how movement must take place are stored in childhood as templates in the cerebellum. If you take advantage of this opportunity, you have everything you need for a colourful, active and healthy lifestyle.” Conclusion: Exercise is an essential building block for the healthy development of young people – with de facto zero risk.

Why is early childhood the right time to promote exercise?
Sporting movement, especially running, is in our blood. It makes no sense per se to slow down our potential and our strengths. Children have a natural level of activity, Förster points out. In other words: children need exercise to satisfy a basic need. Small children can often be observed to cover almost all distances at a run or a brisk walk and only learn to walk at a leisurely pace later.

How should children and young people move?
Versatility and variety – these are the key keywords when it comes to the movement behavior of children and young people. "Especially for our youngest, a wide range of offers is needed to ensure that sensorimotor skills are taught," emphasizes Langer. While small children focus on playful discovery, the first competition comparisons and team sports play an increasingly important role in adolescents and round off the sporting experience. Langer sees incentives in the emotional components and emphasizes the joy of measuring oneself. Social behavior through physical activity also becomes more important the older the children are.

In the case of small, kindergarten and elementary school children, the parents and other caregivers are required to create the framework for sufficient playful movement. Coordinative game exercises Catch or search games promote stamina and coordination. Very important: fun must always come first! This promises that children are more likely to stay in sports and form a basis for an active lifestyle. And that's important, because exercise has a stress-reducing effect even in small children, promotes their balance and leads to better sleep quality in the long term.

With its natural program, athletics offers a lot that is ideal for children. Running, jumping, throwing are important elements of natural play. Endurance-based running is a one-sided burden for children and young people, which is not only monotonous, but also has a selective effect on the development process of young people. Therefore, the playful approach in club training or in children's free time running is just as important as the short running distances that are offered at the running festival in the city of Mozart. The little ones run around 500m long, primary school children around 900m and the older ones around 1,800m.

How long should children and young people exercise?
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that children and young people do 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day plus vigorous aerobic activity three times a week to strengthen their muscles and skeleton. Ideally, children under the age of five should be physically active for three hours a day from the start of mobility. Incidentally, small children cannot overstrain themselves during playful movement, they have a natural protection against this, since the skeletal muscles tire more quickly and require a (short) break. The bad news: Not even 20% of children and adolescents worldwide meet the range of movement recommended by the WHO.

For comparison, adults should get 150-300 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise per week "for substantial health benefits." Also, do strengthening exercises twice a week. WHO recommends physical activity for everyone, regardless of age, gender, cultural background or socioeconomic status.

Which initiatives start running events?
Practically all running events in Austria and Europe have offers for children and young people. Mostly it is emotional running competitions of shorter distances on the day before or in the run-up to the main run. On the basis of a cooperation with educational institutions and clubs, running not only tries to share its offer, but also its competence with the target group. Everything culminates in an eventful children's or youth run, where fun is the main focus for most.

In Great Britain the initiative of the Daily Mile has developed - every day pupils walk a mile. The project is running very successfully on the island and is putting out feelers to other countries. In Vienna, the Vienna City Marathon has been supporting the campaign for a good two years. The Running Festival in the City of Mozart has been working with schools that take part in the junior marathon for many years. Sports students implement sports-scientific movement units with the children and young people. The junior races of the running festival are embedded in a comprehensive range of sports in the Volksgarten, the "colorful range of sports". Here, the colorful variety of the sport is presented on the running stage. “Each of the sports on offer appeals to different abilities. It doesn't matter whether it's about basic motor skills or specific coordination skills and techniques," explains running coach Johannes Langer, why it is so important to him to have the widest possible mix of sports at a running event. The children and young people benefit from the unique opportunity to try out different sports and forms of exercise in one afternoon and in one place.

Does regular exercise make kids smart?
The positive effect of regular physical activity on creativity, cognitive abilities of the brain, on the ability to concentrate and pay attention as well as better memory functions have been scientifically proven. This applies to adults as well as children, converted to forms of exercise suitable for children and young people. There are also a number of compelling studies showing that children with more active leisure time have advantages in school. dr Förster is convinced of this: "Schools must recognize how important an appropriate level of physical activity is for the overall development of the child. Exercise is not a waste of time; on the contrary, it leads to better attention and concentration.”

It is very much to be feared that exercise has been neglected in the average everyday life of children and adolescents in the last two years. In modern times, the physical activity behavior of young people is largely dependent on the range of physical activity offered in schools and organized sport in clubs. Both were temporarily not possible or otherwise often only possible to a limited extent. It is obviously not realistic that the entire need for exercise was compensated for in the private sphere. On the other hand, there is enough worrying scientific evidence about how much the health of children and young people has deteriorated in the last two years. Resolute countermeasures are needed here. The running festival in the city of Mozart will fulfill its responsibility.

In recent weeks, a number of scientists and experts have publicly advocated the motto of putting children and young people at the top of society's priority list in the post-pandemic phase. At the running festival in the city of Mozart, we pay a lot of attention to the needs of young people. May 14th is all about the youngsters' joy of movement with the "Bunte Sportpalette" including the junior marathon.

Tip: The RunUp podcast on “Movement in Children and Adolescents” with dr Holger Foerster and Johannes Langer