Working out can be hard when you have children, so why not get them training with you.
Keeping the whole family in shape can be a tough challenge with so many other commitments around. Many men finds themselves struggling to fit the gym into their busy schedules and getting the kids active too but who said working out had to be confined to the four walls of a fitness suite?
We’ve put together a few tips, on how to get the children involved with your workout from the comfort of your own surroundings.
Use places around you
The garden is a great place to get the kids and yourself active. For basic cardio, get running around and your heart rate up. You can also set up simple challenges such as races to the bottom of the garden to build power and speed. To build balance and agility, create a hopscotch board or have hoping races from one end of the patio to the other.
There are many places in the house that make great workout companions. For example, using the bottom of the stairs is a great way to modify a basic lunge and create more of a challenge for yourself. The stairs can also be used as a cardio exercise. Time how long it takes you to get to the top and back down again. You could even race your children up and down the corridor, setting a time to beat and see who does it first.
If you have a local park, take the kids out on their bikes and get whizzing round the play area. You can set up easy relay races. Use the trees as posts to switch between sprinting and jogging. Many local parks also have workout stations already set up. Incorporate these into your walk or jog round to switch things up.
Run like Obama…
Use the kids
Getting the children involved in your workout can be as simple as having them count your reps or time your sprints. This way you get to train and they get to work on their numbers.
If you don’t have any dung-bells, there is no need to worry. Use your baby as a weight for strength building exercises. From bicep curls to leg press, you can do plenty of gym based exercises at home using your babies bodyweight alone. For an advanced press-up, get your child to climb onto your back and hold their hands round your neck. This makes the exercise harder for you. But they also have fun pretending to be flying through the air.
Get creative
The best thing about working out with the kids is that you can be creative. It allows you to do unconventional exercises. Whether this means you use them as weights or get them creating circuit routines for you to do. Have fun with it. It’s also a great bonding exercise.
