Got an Athlete in the family, Get a Hot Tub in your Backyard

I remember when my youngest boy Michael decided he wanted to try gymnastics.  He was four.  He saw a TV  show featuring youngsters practicing gymnastics.  He watched the jumping and rolling and bouncing and flipping........well, I guess it looked like a lot of fun.  He became insistent and we enrolled him in a children's tumbling class at our local rec. center.  One thing led to another and by the time he was 10 he was a member of a USA Gymnastics Club competing on the men's team. 

Men's gymnastics is the toughest, most physically demanding sport of them all.  The level of strength and flexibility necessary to perform, even elementary skills, is absurd. The discipline it takes to train four hours a day, five days a week, 12 months a year, is something most people do not possess.  There is no off season in gymnastics.  Strength, flexibility and technique must be constantly built upon.  A couple of months off could put an athlete a year behind, especially as a child.  Gymnastics is not for everyone.  For Michael it was perfect.  He embraced the training and discipline.  The gym became his second home.  His teammates became his best friends.  Our hot tub became his favorite place to find relief from the pain and aches of training.

Mike would spend time in our spa every day.  His body was constantly sore, always being pushed to exhaustion in practice.  Our spa provided the pain relief he needed.  He was in the spa mornings before school.  Again in the evenings after training.  His mother and I would watch him enjoy the relief the spa provided.  It was something that made his training more tolerable.  So if you have an athlete in your family, a hot tub in your back yard will help them deal with many of the issues that athletic competition bring.  

Michael has retired from competing and is coaching now.  He's the men's program director for a gym where he was once a team member.  His love of the sport and  the discipline he learned will be with him always.  I think that in a small way our hot tub was part of that.  We spent many evenings, after his meets, soaking in the spa, reliving triumphs and failures.  Mike spent many hours in the gym working hard and training.   Having a personal spa in our back yard for him, and our family,  is something we're glad we did.