Family Workouts: Get Off the Screens and Get Active!

Trying to get your kids off their screens and more active? Try a family workout that will get your whole household moving and grooving!

As a mom, maintaining your health and fitness is more than just looking great — it’s also about staying healthy for your kids and setting a strong example for them.

Teaching your kids the values of fitness can be started at a young age and continued throughout their lives.

Physical activity is essential for kids for a number of reasons. Exercise will build muscle, improve cardiovascular endurance, and help prevent chronic diseases starting from an early age. Plus, being active helps aid in balance, coordination, and agility.

And your kids will get numerous benefits from exercise that go beyond just gaining strength and endurance. Physical activity in children has also been found to boost mood, cognition, and sleep. These benefits will carry over into their school and personal lives as well.

On top of these benefits, being physically active is also linked to improved self-esteem in children. For example, one study from Pediatric Exercise Science found that sixth-grade students who were physically active had considerably higher levels of self-esteem.

Keep reading to learn more about keeping your kids healthy and active, and check out our awesome family workout ideas!

This backyard family workout will improve strength, cardio, flexibility, and mobility — and it doesn’t require any equipment!

 

Keeping Your Kids Motivated

The enjoyment of physical activity and social support by parents, teachers, coaches, and peers are all cited as essential influences on physical activity in children and teenagers. This is important to note because, in order for kids to want to continue staying active and healthy, they need to view exercise as something to be enjoyed.

So get involved with working out with your kids!

By teaching them exercises, you will not only ensure that they are doing the moves properly, but they will also see how much you enjoy working out. This will keep them engaged and motivated to continue staying physically active.

Building Mental Toughness

In all areas of life, mental toughness is a great tool. This can be taught through challenging workouts.

By utilizing timed circuit-type workouts or requiring a certain number of reps, you can teach your kids to push through even when they are reaching their physical limits.

This mental toughness will carry over into their other sports and is a great life lesson that can be useful in all aspects of their lives.

An Awesome Family Workout Everyone Will Love!

Just like with any workout routine, you want to include all aspects of fitness. This means incorporating strength training, cardio, coordination, and flexibility exercises.

Just like you would start any workout, you want to teach your kids the value of a good warm-up. The warm-up will get your kids’ muscles and connective tissue primed for exercise, help improve coordination, and get them in tune with their bodies.

After the warm-up, this is a great time to introduce your kids to interval training by setting up safe bodyweight exercises. These workouts are awesome because they can be done anywhere and will improve your child’s cardiovascular fitness, strength, agility, and balance.

Push-Ups

Push-ups are the ultimate bodyweight move to teach your kids. This exercise will engage their chest, triceps, shoulders, and core. Always be sure that your kids maintain good form while doing this exercise.

Don’t let their hips sag or their backs bow. They can start on their knees first until they gain enough strength to do a full push-up on their toes.

Bear Crawl

This awesome move will build the core along with upper and lower body strength. Plus, you will be increasing balance and stability.

Bird Dog

This yoga-like move is another great balance exercise that engages the core and glutes. Again your kids will be building core strength while also improving coordination.

Bear crawls develop body awareness, trunk strength, shoulder stability, and motor planning. Just like with all of these exercises, really monitor your child’s form during this exercise and make sure they are really engaging their core throughout the move.

RKC Plank

We all know that planks are one of the ultimate core strength moves. For kids, this may be a bit challenging at first.

Demonstrate the correct form and make sure that your kids know that their form is much more important than how long they can hold the position. Even if they can only hold for 5 seconds at first, that’s fine! They will continue to improve on this the longer they train.

Side Planks

Similar to the RKC plank, be sure to emphasize form while they squeeze and engage the core and obliques.

Ice Skaters

This lower body and cardio move isolates one leg at a time. It will not only build leg strength but will also improve balance and coordination.

Air Squat Jumps

This amazing lower body move will build power and quickness in the lower body. Your kids will build leg and glute strength while enhancing their lower body and cardiovascular endurance.

Be a Fit Family!

This awesome workout routine can be done 1-3 times a week. Try to challenge your kids each time to improve on the time before. This may mean doing one more push-up in the allotted time or holding a side plank for 10 more seconds.

By keeping track of their progress, your kids will be more excited to come back the next time to keep improving. You can challenge yourself too and do these exercises with your kids. You could even do the moves first so that they can see the proper form.

They may even want to beat your time or one-up you on the number of reps you did of a certain exercise. This can become a fun competition that keeps everyone engaged in the workouts!

Being a fit mother is great, but being a fit family is even better. Teaching your kids to adopt a healthy lifestyle is one of the greatest gifts that you can give them. This awesome home workout routine for kids is the perfect way to get your kids working out and feeling great about their health!

*Please know that weight loss results & health changes/improvements vary from individual to individual; you may not achieve similar results. Always consult with your doctor before making health decisions. This is not medical advice – simply very well-researched info on a family workout.

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