Chinese girl, 7, develops swimming passion, gets core strength training from dad

The Star

3 days ago

A seven-year-old Chinese girl caused amazement with her exceptional passion for sport and the core strength she has developed from professional training.
The girl from Qingyuan, southern China's Guangdong province, is nicknamed Xiaoqilin.
Videos of her performing difficult training tasks with agility at home, which show off the muscular strength she has built up in her abs and legs, have gone viral on social media.
Xiaoqilin's mother, surnamed Guo, said her daughter began training at home with her father, a professional strength coach, after becoming obsessed with swimming a year ago.
Her father turned their living room into a gym, filling it with all kinds of fitness equipment.
He designed a training session for his daughter that lasts 20 to 40 minutes a day, during which she mimics swimming strokes to train the muscles needed for the sport.
She can now perform hardcore curl-ups and dead hangs easily.
Xiaoqilin only began swimming 12 months ago, and already she has mastered the four competitive swimming strokes. She also won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze at a recent city swim meet.
She also does mixed martial arts, taekwondo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu on the side.
Her holidays are filled with all kinds of sport, including strength training, backflip training, swimming and biking. She even practices taekwondo during her lunch breaks.
Xiaoqilin's energetic lifestyle has impressed many people online, and her mother said it helped that her daughter was very self-disciplined.
Xiaoqilin can also easily cycle after picking up the sport at the age of four.
Guo runs her daughter's social media account and posts her training videos. The account has 150,000 followers.
'She is born to be an athlete,' one online observer said.
'I can already see her winning a gold medal at the Olympics,' said another.
'Does she have some revenge plans?' another person quipped, sayingthat she had the air of the protagonist in a revenge film who gets super fit to get even.
Some also expressed concerns over the high intensity of her training.
One person said: 'Too much strength training at too young an age might suppress the child's growth. The parents should wait until she gets older.'
However, Guo said the physical training has a positive influence on her daughter's studies. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST