Rock Family Fitness By Making It Fun

Too often, fitness becomes associated with boring, repetitive exercises and restrictive diets.

By making exercise out to be hard work, people unwittingly set themselves up for disaster. In truth, exercise should be a regular part of your day-to-day life, just like eating and sleeping.

In order to instill healthy habits in your kids, it’s a good idea to start young and make it fun and easy for them to get involved.

Exploring fitness as a family has multiple benefits. It helps keep everyone trim and healthy. It also provides a valuable opportunity for everyone in the family to bond.

By replacing unhealthy habits like fast food dinners and snack-fueled movies with physical activities, you can promote fitness and strengthen your bond.

Your family can also work to help keep each other accountable by building a support group. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Make It a Competition

Some kids are more competition-motivated than others, so this may not work in all families. For some people, however, knowing that they’re competing for prizes or just bragging rights can do a lot to motivate them.

When you’re just starting out, pick something simple like how many hours of exercise were completed a week. As you get more experience, you can host a family Olympics-style event.

2. Go On a Walk

If you have a family dog, you have a perfect excuse to spend some time being active, but families without pets can still benefit from nightly walks. Use your walking time to talk about your day, explore your neighborhood or just have a quiet night out.

3. Play Sports

Even if your kids aren’t enthusiastic about joining team sports, you can play casually as a family.

Let everyone have a say and rotate what sport you play since different sports will play to different people’s strengths. Try to introduce your kids to a wide variety of activities that might interest them.

4. Incorporate Active Play Into Your Day

Exercise doesn’t have to be something you schedule; spontaneous physical activity can be fun and rewarding.

Encourage your kids to get up and move around throughout their day. Start dancing around the house while you’re doing chores. Challenge your kids to an impromptu race. Whatever you do, just be sure to make it fun.

5. Try an Active Video Game

Some tech-savvy kids might be more motivated to work out if the exercise is couched in play.

All of the major gaming consoles have motion gaming devices associated with them now, so it’s easy for most families to begin working out together.

Dancing games, sports games, adventure games and exercise-based games like Wii Fit Yoga are all possible choices.

As an added bonus, games are interactive and can be played competitively, making it possible for kids to play on their own or as part of a group.

No matter how you decide to incorporate fitness into your family’s routine, what’s important is that you take the time to build a strong foundation and make exercise part of your lifestyle, not just a part-time activity.

By teaching your children at a young age to embrace an active lifestyle, you help encourage a lifetime of healthy habits.