Who says staying fit has to be boring. By making family fun fitness a regular event, you will enjoy some great time with your family plus everyone stays fit all at the same time.
A moderate exercise regimen that includes some of the activities below can cut your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and breast cancer. Here are five family fun fitness activities that will get your heart pumping and your family having a blast:
Jump rope: This is one of the most perfect family fun fitness activities around. Jumping rope is fun, easy to learn, and it won’t cost your family a lot of money. Plus you can jump rope just about anywhere. All you need are a few jump ropes and you are ready to start jumping. There are different types of ropes designed for different purposes. Jumprope.com does a good job of explaining the different types of ropes and the advantages and disadvantages of each rope type. To add some fun variety to your family’s jump roping activity, consider ordering a wall chart or instructional book that explains single rope basics, partner activities, long ropes skills, and double dutch.
25 Yard Soccer: Traditional soccer fields range from 100-130 yards. For families, such a field is not very intimate, nor forgiving. By shrinking the playing field considerable, your entire family can enjoy this family fun fitness activity. If you have a big back yard free of obstructions, you’re set. Otherwise, you’ll want to take this activity to your local park. All you need for this activity are four plastic cones and a soccer ball. You can make your playing field as small or large as you want. About 25 yards is recommended. Position the goals with your cones, divide into teams, and start playing. Fun Twist: Make this family fun activity an afternoon event complete with a picnic lunch.
Tag in the Park: Put your running shoes on. It’s time to burn some calories the fun way. The ultimate place for this family fun fitness activity is at a community park that has lots of playground equipment. The more things you can run around and climb up and over the better. Parallel bars, overhead climbing structures, slides, large blocks, climbing ropes all make this activity totally fun. So first and foremost, pick a park that has good equipment. There are a great many games of “tag” that are familiar to boys and girls. One of the common games is “last tag,” which simply means that a person tags another and makes him “it” before leaving the party on his way home. The principal rule of last tag is that there is “no tagging back.” The person who is “it” must not attempt to tag the one who tagged him, but must run after someone else. It is a point of honor with a person not to be left with “last tag” against him, but he must try to run someone else down, when he is then immune and can watch the game in safety.
Walkabouts: Walking with your family is a simple, no-cost way to burn fat. Walking is a family fun fitness activity where you can have some good visit time with your family plus walking can be done at various paces to meet the needs of each family member. To make it fun each time you walk, have several walking locales and rotate your walking routes.
In-line Skating: Instead of running which can be bad on the joints, try skating, a better alternative. This family fun fitness activity is considered an aerobic fitness sport by the American Heart Association for good reason. About 350 calories can be burned when skating at 6 mph and when you skate at about 10 mph, you can burn almost 600 calories.