Children age 6 to 11 may be the trickiest age to work with because you have to disguise fitness as fun challenges and adventures. The attention span of your child (and maybe you too) can be short, so let me offer you some creative ways to get you and your kids moving.
TOY HIDE AND SEEK – Start with a short note to capture interest, “Son, some of your favorite toys are missing. I’ll help you find them.” Let the fun begin. Confiscate 5 to 8 of your child’s favorite toys. Hide them all around your house, yard and property. Set a timer and see how quickly he or she can find everything. After your children have found them, they get to hide them for you. Whoever finds them in the quickest time wins. The winner gets to pick the next activity or choose the vegetable at dinner or pick the next movie you will see or you name it. You can also have the person who loses has to clear the table at dinner or do some kind of “bonus” exercise, but be careful not to make exercise a penalty. We always want them to view activity in a positive manner, especially at an early age. You could also surprise them with a note that says that some of their favorite toys are missing and see if they are up for a challenge to find them!
FOLLOW-THE-LEADER PARK PLAY – Explore your local parks and follow your kids as they climb, crawl, slide and play. They will love being the leader and you will be surprized at how they can lead you through a great and rigorous workout.
ANIMAL MOVEMENTS AND TABATAS – This may be a silly way to exercise for you but it is highly effective, especially as a cardio blaster and leg workout. Your child will love the exercise and the interaction. Tabata pronounced Tuh-BAH-tuh is a four-minute training set that alternates between twenty seconds of work and ten seconds of rest. Explore a fun workout with your child with all of these animal movements:
BEAR – Bear crawl on all fours with weight equally distributed on all limbs and keep your hips low.
STARFISH – Star Jumps – Squat and jump as high as possible. As you are jumping, spread your arms and legs out as wide as possible and pull them back in to the body in order to land in a safe squat position.
FROG – Frog hops – Squat low and reach your arms forward to the ground with arms straight. Think about pulling your lower body forward with your arms as you hop.
BIRD – Stand still and flap your arms as aggressively as possible with a big range of motion. This one is quite silly, but deceivingly hard.
PIG – Pigs like to roll in mud. Skip the mud, but find a good safe place to roll with arms tucked in and your body long.
FLAMINGO – Single-leg balance work. Stand on one leg with a slight bend in your knee and weight in your heel. Bend at the hips and extend the other leg behind you and reach your arms forward as long as possible. The goal is to get your body parallel to the ground while balancing on the one leg. Hold the position for only a couple of seconds and return to the standing position. Stay smooth and controlled through each rep.
DUCK – A duck walk can be tricky on your knees so be careful. This is basically a walking squat. Try to drop your hips to your heels and explore moving. If knees won’t cooperate, you can raise to a half-squat position.
ALLIGATOR – Get into a push-up position, but drop down from your hands to your forearms. This is an ab/low-back challenge. Level 1 – just hold the position. Level 2 – move your arms and legs up and out, one at a time. Level 3 – see if you can move maintaining this position, making sure to not raise your hips. Moving can be tough on the skin around your elbows, so make sure you are on a good surface and focus the weight on the middle of your forearms.
FROG/SEAL/KANGAROO (Burpees) – Squat low like a frog, then kick your feet out into a “seal” position (top of a push-up), immediately jump back into the frog position and jump high as possible back to a standing position.
Once you have had fun learning the animal movements, explore with Animal Tabatas. There are various Tabata timers at itunes but the company I like best is Workout Muse (www.workoutmuse.com). They provide timers set to workout music and all you have to do is press play on your Mp3 player and get busy. A Tabata is 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest continuously for 4 minutes. That works out to be 8 rounds of work (same as the number of animals above!) Your kids will love the frantic pace of Tabatas and how you keep changing it up for each 20 second interval. After the 4 minute round, rest for 1 to 2 minutes and repeat. Learn more about tabatas from the Faith & Fitness Magazine article ROLE THE BONES TABATAS.
ROCK/PAPER/SCISORS TAG – Place 3 cones in a straight line in your yard or another open space. The middle cone should be 7 to 10 paces from the two end cones. Face off with your child at the middle cone and play rock/paper/scissors. The winner of R/P/S is “it”, and tries to tag the loser of R/P/S before he or she can sprint to the cone behind them. If the loser is tagged before they get to their cone, then the winner gets a point. If the loser makes it to the cone first, they get a point. R/P/S is just to determine who is chasing who. Play best 4 out of 7 then start from your knees. You can also try this sliding, jumping, or moving various other ways.
BOARD GAME FITNESS – Don’t let a rainy day get you down. Any board game can become a fitness challenge:
1. Monopoly – Every time you pass “go” do 20 jumping jacks. Every time you go to jail, you also have to hit 10 burpees. When trading properties, try to work in fitness challenges for the other person to accomplish.
2. Scrabble – Your opponent has to do the number you score in push-ups or squats or both!
3. Trivial Pursuit – Every time you get a “slice of the pie”, your opponents have to do 5 lunges with each leg or a challenge of your choosing.
ELMO PUSHUPS – Training With Infants And Toddlers (5 years old and younger)
LEGO LUNGES – Training With Children (Ages 6 to 11)
CELL PHONES AND CAR KEYS – Training With Older Kids And Teenagers.
Learn about all of the stages of family fitness.
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