Exercise is a hugely important part of living a healthy life. After all, it is through exercise that we are able to relieve stress, burn calories, and strengthen our bodies. Exercise can stave off obesity, and it is an important way that we can help regulate our bodies and even our emotions. Unfortunately, far too few people, children and adults alike, are getting the exercise that they so very much need.

As a matter of fact, the statistics that have been gathered on this subject more than support this claim, as these statistics shows that up to two thirds of all American adults are not even meeting weekly exercise goals that have been set out by major health organizations governing this country as well as the world in its entirety. On top of this, less than 5% of the total adult population in this country is actually getting even just a mere half of an hour of exercise in a single day.

And for children in the United States, matters are really not all that much better. After all, less than half of children, only just over 30% of them (a mere one third) are actually getting enough physical activity on a daily basis. And kids these age need physical activity more than anyone, as their brains are still rapidly growing and developing. Early childhood is a particularly important time for this, and it is recommended that kids who fall between ages as young as two and as old as five be working on skills ranging from tumbling to running to throwing to catching. And when children are not being active enough for whatever reason, these skills are not likely being worked on. As a direct result, fine and gross motor skills, which must be fully developed by the time that a typical child reaches the age of six, get missed out on, something that can have life long repercussions for the typical child living here in the United States.

Signing yourself or your child (or even both) up for a variety of classes can help to encourage them (or yourself) into living a more active life. Gymnastics classes are quite common, with more than four and a half million people at or over the age of six participating in the sport on a yearly basis – and that’s just reflective of the United States, let alone elsewhere throughout the world. After all, the sport of gymnastics has been around for quite a long time indeed – as many as 2,000 total years as of the current date, which is certainly very impressive by just about any standards.

But before signing up – or signing your kids up – for gymnastics classes, there are definitely a few things that you will want to keep in mind. For one thing, you want to make sure that the gym is a safe environment that uses protective things such as interlocking martial art mats. Though maybe you might think that these interlocking martial art mats are only for use in a martial arts setting, this is actually far from the case. In fact, interlocking martial art mats are more universal than you might realize, and interlocking martial art mats also come in a variety of different shapes and sizes.

In addition to interlocking martial art mats or perhaps instead of them, the gym that you are looking into might instead have something like gymnastics tumbling mats. The gymnastics tumbling mat can actually be put on top of typical interlocking martial art mats for added cushioning, making it quite perfect for the beginner in gymnastics – or for very young gymnasts who might benefit from the added cushioning. At the end of the day, it is always better for even the most well practiced and experienced of gymnasts to be safe than to be sorry, and so every gym should have at least some form of interlocking martial art mats in place. Ultimately, this is something that is likely to increase business for a gym, making it a more than worthwhile investment at the end of the day.