Be Active With Your Kids!
If your kids are like mine, when I am participating in an activity, they are excited and truly love to jump in with me! Getting kids or teens motivated to be active starts at home, so here are a few tips to get started!
- Encourage health and activity by example – Choose an activity (biking, running, kayaking, baseball, etc) that you like so that it doesn’t feel like a chore. If you are having fun, your kids notice. Have fun and they will too!
- Plan an off-site activity – use the parks/trails/playgrounds nearby that your kids love or haven’t been to really get them excited to go somewhere fun or new!
- Keep it short and sweet – Keep the intensity high and plan something short then let the kids build upon what you did together or just let them explore and run around.
Here are a few short workouts that can be done with no equipment at all
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The Mountain: Choose the appropriate reps and exercises for your kids
→ Use a ‘mountain’ scheme 5-10-15-10-5, so the reps build and then come back down to finish
→ 5 jumping jacks + 5 pushups + 5 squats
→ Then 10 of each, then 15 of each, then 10 of each, then 5 of each
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Deck of cards (can take a bit longer, recommended for older kids)
→ Assign an exercise to each type of card (hearts= tuck jumps, spades= burpees, etc)
→ Flip a card, determine the type of exercise and the corresponding number on the card is how many you have to do!
→ Be creative with the face cards and make it fun or silly! (ie Queen = give your mom a kiss on both cheeks:)
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Circuit
→ Choose exercises and reps and go!
→ Choose how many rounds or how much time you have and try to get as many rounds as possible
Here are some exercises to choose from:
• Body weight squats
• Dips
• Push ups
• Jumping jacks
• Tuck jumps
• Burpees
• Lunges
• Planks
• Pull ups/chin-ups
