Many adults face the problem of not having enough time to spend with family and exercise. So why not incorporate both fitness and family time into family exercise sessions? Apart from enjoying the time spent with your children and bonding with them, you can also improve their level of focus and engage in fun physical activities to do with them. Helping your children to understand and experience the benefits of staying active will set them up for healthy habits when they grow older.  The tricky part is striking a balance between getting them to participate and enjoy the activity at the same time. Here are some interesting ways to make parent-children exercise sessions enjoyable.

Go for a Hike Together

Hiking is not the same as walking. It is an extremely beneficial exercise for everyone regardless of age. Hiking also creates opportunities to talk to one another as you explore new landscapes and scenery. When picking a hiking location, pick one is safe and not too challenging but yet will provide a satisfying workout. When children are engaged and having fun exploring, they will forget about it being an exercise. Spending time in nature is therapeutic and relaxing for everyone as well.

Some other benefits of hiking includes:

• Strengthening balance and coordination skills
• Teaching kids about nature
• Creates time to bond and interact with your child

Family Yoga

Yoga for kids will be different than for adults, especially for young children who struggle to keep still. Hence, incorporating child-friendly yoga poses is extremely important. That being said, it is ideal to plan together with your child on the type of poses to do. Yoga brings about many benefits such as:

• Improves muscle strength
• Allows you to build connection with your kids
• Teaches the kids to be more mindful and patient
• Improves the development of balancing and coordinating

Jogging

This is one of the simplest exercises you can engage in with children. You can make these jogging sessions more interesting by creating mini competitions for them, where the winner will be given a prize. This creates more motivation and fun as the kids work harder for the prizes. Jogging also brings many benefits such as:

• Improves muscle strength
• Reduces body fat
• Adding a fun element in the interactions with your kids

Tips to Keep in Mind

There are a few pointers to take note as you encourage your kids to exercise together.

• Track, record, and reward: Keep track of the exercises that you and your kids have done together and record the accomplishments made by them. Reward them at the end of the month to celebrate their efforts and motivate them to keep going.
• Sign up for sports events: Whether it is a boot camp or a marathon, enroll your kids in it! These events add a fun element to the exercise as they get to try new sports and make friends.
• Involve them in planning: Allow them to unleash their creativity by planning for the activities together. Give them more ownership and set their own targets to accomplish.
• Be consistent: Create a routine and a fixed time every week for you and your kids to exercise together. If it is difficult to find time to venture out for a long hike, an alternative is to install an indoor gym at home that will be accessible for everyone and saves time on travelling.

If you are keen to install an indoor home gym for you and your kids to use, Fitness Kid has everything you need. Contact us to learn more about the products and services we have to offer. But remember, it does not matter whether you are exercising indoors or outdoors as long as you are enthusiastic about spending time with your kids! Being excited will influence your child to enjoy exercising with you and build a bond together.