Sports and Physical Activity in Early Childhood: When and What to Start

Why this topic is on your mind

“○○ does gymnastics, △△ does swimming, □□ goes to a soccer class.” Around age 3, the children around you start something one after another. Open social media and you see anxiety-stoking words such as “athletic ability is decided in early childhood” or “don’t miss the golden age”.

In this situation, questions like these come up at home.

• Does a child need to take up something from age 3 in the first place? Is it already too late?
• What sport should we choose? Gymnastics? Swimming? Soccer?
• Is it all right just to play in the park, without going to a class?
• How much should a child move their body each day?
• Is athletic ability decided in early childhood?

Research gives fairly settled answers to these questions. Let’s look at them in turn.

What does the research say?

On physical activity in early childhood, findings from slightly different angles have accumulated, from the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines to longitudinal research on motor development. Here, let’s answer three especially important questions with each body of research.

Question 1: How much should young children move their bodies in the first place?

This is an area where a clear international consensus exists.

recommend the following for children aged 3 to 4.

• A total of 180 minutes or more a day of physical activity of various types and intensities
• Of this, at least 60 minutes should be moderate- to vigorous-intensity activity (movement that makes them breathe harder)
• Not keeping them sitting for more than 1 hour at a time (including time restrained in a stroller, car seat, or baby carrier)
• Screen time for ages 2 and up of no more than 1 hour a day (less is better)

What matters here is that nowhere in the WHO guidelines does it say “do a particular sport”. What is asked for is “a variety of movements, in about this amount in total”, and whether that is exercise in a gymnastics class, a game of tag in the park, or dancing at home is not in question.

A 3-year-old runs around as hard as they can in the park for 30 minutes, dances to Anpanman songs at home for 10 minutes, takes a 15-minute walk with a parent in the late afternoon, and plays chase for 15 minutes before the bath: that alone is 70 minutes in total. Add outdoor play at daycare or kindergarten, and 180 minutes is by no means too high a hurdle.

Question 2: Is athletic ability decided in early childhood?

The phrase “the golden age of athletic ability” is often seen in parenting information. How does research sum this up?

concluded that “improvement in motor skills” and “amount of physical activity” become a mutually reinforcing relationship (an emergent relationship) as children get older.

Concretely, the structure is this.

• In early childhood (around ages 2 to 6), the relationship between motor skills and amount of physical activity is still weak: as long as children move their bodies, skills improve little by little
• From the school years onward, children who “can do” movement are more active, and children who can’t come to avoid it: the gap gradually widens
• Having a certain amount of experience in early childhood of motor skills (the “fundamental movement skills” of running, jumping, throwing, catching, kicking, etc.) becomes the foundation for later exercise habits

What matters here is the summary that it is not that “athletic ability is decided in early childhood”, but that “experiencing basic movements in early childhood makes it easier to get into exercise habits later”. Which sport a child is good at at age 3 has almost nothing to do with future success as an athlete or lifelong exercise habits. What matters instead is building a repertoire of varied movements, such as “running, jumping, throwing, catching, kicking, climbing, rolling”.

We should also add that narrowing down early to a particular sport is not necessarily good. In the field of sports medicine, “early sport specialization” in a single sport from early childhood has been pointed out to be associated with the risk of injury and the risk of burnout, and early childhood is generally positioned as a time for experiencing a variety of movements without narrowing down to particular sports.

Question 3: Which is better, sending a child to a class or letting them play freely?

This is probably the question most mothers are unsure about. Here too, research gives a fairly calm answer.

First, it has been confirmed in repeated research that structured movement programs (gymnastics, dance, sports classes, etc.) are effective.

showed that motor skill interventions carried out in a planned way at daycare, kindergarten, school, and so on significantly improve fundamental movement skills (running, jumping, throwing, etc.). The result is not that “children get better at movement on their own even if left alone”, but that skills grow more easily when there are some deliberate opportunities.

On the other hand, recent meta-analyses also show that when “structured interventions” and “interventions through free play” are compared directly, the difference is not that large.

The results of Chen et al. (2024)a meta-analysis bringing together several studies comparing structured movement interventions with unstructured (free-play type) movement interventions in children aged 3 to 6 are as follows.

• Both structured interventions and unstructured (free-play type) interventions improve fundamental movement skills
• For overall motor skills, there is no statistically significant difference between the two (p=0.08)
• However, for “locomotor skills (running, jumping, etc.)”, structured interventions are somewhat more advantageous

In other words, the summary at present is that fundamental movement skills develop properly even through “playing freely in the park” alone, but when “situations of deliberately practicing jumping, running, and throwing” are added, locomotor skills grow a little faster.

What to do if you actually go ahead

Based on the research, here are points that are easy for families to put into practice.

1. First, with “180 minutes a day” as a guide, roughly look back on your family’s amount of movement

There is no need to time it with a stopwatch. Looking back with “I wonder how long we spent running around outside today” is enough. For children who attend daycare or kindergarten, outdoor play at the center alone adds up to quite a lot of time. What families want to be conscious of is “after pick-up and at weekends”. If there is a run of days such as continuous rain, being unwell, or staying home throughout a long weekend, fill that in a little: please run it in that relaxed way.

2. Cover “running, jumping, throwing, climbing, rolling”

Rather than narrowing down early to a particular sport, experiencing a variety of movements is emphasized in motor development in early childhood. Specifically,

• Running, stopping, changing direction: tag, chasing games
• Jumping and landing: jumping on flat ground, jumping from low steps
• Throwing and catching: soft balls, balloons
• Climbing up and down: jungle gyms, low play equipment
• Rolling and spinning: somersaults, rolling sideways on grass

If these all appear over the course of a week, that is plenty as a foundation of fundamental movement skills. Rotate them, rather than leaning toward one piece of equipment or one game.

3. Decide “whether to attend a class” to fit your family’s situation

In research terms, it is simplest to understand a class as “a mechanism that can reliably create, even once a week, opportunities for movement that are hard to secure at home”. It is realistic to choose not “because everyone goes” but to fit your family’s circumstances.

• Sorting out the benefits of attending: securing time for movement on weekdays, opportunities to practice locomotor skills (running, jumping), social interaction between children, experience of movements that are hard to do at home (mat exercises, movement in water, etc.)
• Cases where it’s fine not to attend: if about 180 minutes of physical activity a day is already secured through daycare, the park, and outdoor play with parents, research has not shown that motor development changes greatly depending on whether a child takes an activity

4. In choosing a sport, put “whether your child enjoys it” first

Gymnastics, swimming, soccer, dance: there is not much research comparing which is best in early childhood. “It is better not to specialize early in a particular sport in early childhood” is the current general summary in motor development and sports medicine. So there is no need to search at age 3 for “the optimal answer as a future athlete”. It is fine to make whether your child says “I want to do it again” the most important thing to judge by.

5. “Screen time” and “restrained time” actually need more attention

Something surprisingly emphasized in the WHO guidelines is “screen time for ages 2 and up of no more than 1 hour a day” and “not keeping them sitting for more than 1 hour at a time”. Days spent zoning out in front of a tablet or TV for long periods, or days sitting in a car seat for hours on a long drive, tend to squeeze the amount of movement. Reviewing “whether screen and sitting time are ballooning” before “whether to add activities” often has a bigger impact in research terms.

Closing dialogue