7 Ways To Burn Calories While Playing With Your Kids

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Kids love doing things with mum & dad. So, whenever you can get outdoors and enjoy some quality time with them it’s going to greatly benefit not only your relationship with your children, but your health and fitness as well.

Here’s some activities that we use for fun and exercise at the park with our child.

Kids on the swing:

This one can really be a lot of fun. When your child is in the swing begin pushing as per normal. As soon as your child starts to get some height going, begin the following. Push your child once, squat, push child again, run around to the front of the swing, let your child (pretend) kick your behind and knock you over, fall into a push-up position and push out 2 push-ups, jump up and start again. Kid’s will laugh forever during this set, especially if you over act the kick up the pants and fall to the ground bit. Recommended Time for exercise 8 - 10 minutes.

Piggy Back Races:

How much fun were these when we were kids? Now it’s your turn to make this a memorable activity for your children. You remember how it goes right? Child on your back….and then gallop like a horse over 20 feet. Repeat this 4-5 times then try lunging…That’ll work your quads. Of course, all of this depends on how heavy your child is and in what sort of shape your back is in. Recommended Time for exercise – 5 minutes.

Chase:

Kids have been playing this one in playgrounds all over the world, now it’s your turn to have some fun with it in the park or even your back yard. (Make sure all the dogs droppings are off the lawn….you don’t need to land on any. If you do have a dog this is a game they will play forever. This is also interval training in its most basic form. Recommended Time for exercise - 8 - 10 minutes.

The Crazy Tree Adventure:

Most parks have trees so I’m basing this exercise on that fact. What you want to do is pick out 8 - 10 trees and run as many patterns as you can around them. Starting at the first tree you could sprint to the next, then hop on one leg to the other, commando crawl to another tree….you get the idea (Once again, you might want to do a quick scout around to make sure there are no needles or glass in the area you’re about to play in. Recommended Time for exercise - 8 - 10 minutes.

Soccer Ball Fun:

It doesn’t have to be a soccer ball…any kind of ball will do. You can play piggy in the middle, hot potato, tunnel ball or place the ball around 12 – 15 feet away – Lie down facing away from the ball, blow a whistle (Or shout “Go”) leap up to your feet and sprint to the ball. The first one to kick it wins. Recommended Time for exercise - 8 - 10 minutes.

Monkey Bar madness:

Again, most playgrounds will have a set of monkey bars. This exercise will help you with strength. You stand at one end of the monkey bars and your child at the other. First you encourage them to climb along the bars to you, then you show them how good you are at the monkey bars….make sure you keep you feet up off the ground. Recommended Time for exercise - 3 – 4 turns each

Mr Wolf:

Do you remember Mr Wolf? Ok, for those of you that don’t, allow me to refresh your memory. Someone has got to be “The Wolf”. The Wolf is blind folded. The others all stand around 15 feet behind “The Wolf” and call out “What’s the time Mr wolf?” and the wolf replies with a time – For example if the wolf says “3 o’clock”….the children behind the wolf would all take 3 steps toward the wolf. This continues until the wolf answers “What’s the time Mr Wolf?” with “It’s Dinner Time!!!” The wolf then turns around, whips off the blindfold and chases the children until he catches one…the one he catches, is now the wolf and the game starts again. The objective for the children behind the wolf is to sneak up and tag the wolf if they can….but they can only take the number of steps the wolf says each time. If this occurs there’s no need to wait for the dinner time, the children must run to the start without being caught by the wolf.

As you can see, you can really get a good workout combined with a whole lot of quality time with your kids.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that give us the most amount of enjoyment. Good luck and have fun.

P.S. Still need more ideas? Try these excellent articles:

Tips for Exercising with Kids

Do your kids need more exercise?

Kids Health

Photo Courtesy of - Flickr - mikebaird

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