How to Exercise with Your Kids | HBR Personal Training

Physical activity is essential to a healthy lifestyle for your kids. Exercise helps children do better in school, manage their growth and development, and also lowers their risk of heart disease.

While implementing fitness activities at an early age will go a long way in helping your child build healthy habits, don’t expect them to care or even understand any of these things. Their focus is on having fun, and that’s exactly what you should encourage them to do!

Here are some simple ways you can add your children into your fitness routine:

1. Make Time To Play

Set aside 45 minutes three times a week to participate in fun exercises with your children. Make it part of your after-dinner or after-school routine. If your kids are below 7 years, they may like hide-and-seek or hopscotch. Older children may like to shoot hoops or play soccer. You can also plan one family activity each weekend. This may be as simple as taking them to the playground or going for a hike with your teenager. 

2. Walk, Run and Roll

Let your kids accompany you when you bike, run, walk, in-line skate, etc…. Toddlers, babies, and preschoolers may ride in a bike trailer, jogging stroller, or a bike seat. Grade-schoolers and older preschoolers can get their workout on bikes, skates, scooters while you run, jog and/or walk. If you are a cyclist, find a trail-a-bike that can turn your bike into a tandem-style that your kid can use.

3. Join a Class

Most gyms offer programs that you can enroll in with your children. The classes are guided by a trainer so that you can focus on enjoying yourself. One of the most rewarding activities that you can do is help your kids build motor skills and coordination while you both stay fit. You will become more motivated to commit the more you actually go, which will then create a regular routine to exercise with your young ones.

If you don’t want to enroll in a gym, you can find sports activities that you can join, or even coach. For example: teaching four-year-olds how to kick a soccer ball can tire anyone out. The aim is to make choices that will keep your kids active. Not only will you feel better, but your kids will also associate workouts with playtime.

4. Make it a Game

Try incorporating ways to play while doing certain exercises. Modify strength training moves, like push-ups, to match your kid’s ability. For instance, when you are doing the normal push-ups (toes on the floor, back and legs straight, and elbow bent), your child’s push-ups can be from the knees, or they can just lie on their stomachs and straighten their arms. They can also climb on your back while if you want to add weight to your push-up. 

You can also engage them in simple chest presses, triceps raises, and bicep curls with a set of hand weights. Younger children can use weights such as water bottles, wooden blocks, or bean bags, while older ones can use 1-2 pound weights.

The easiest way to incorporate them in your fitness routine is to use them as weights, i.e. Piggy Back rides while doing cardio, toss the toddler, patty-cake while doing crunches, etc.

5. Go Outside

In today’s digital world, one of the major losses is outside playtime. Most of us don’t see nature as being critical in our everyday routines, and kids get used to screentime at a very young age. One of the easiest ways of exercising with your kids is by going to a local playground. When pushing them on the swing, include some burpees to prevent them from choking. You can also play the pirate ship game, and alternate who chases whom. Get creative, it’s a playground after all  — there’s a reason some gyms and group workout studios look like jungle gyms!