How To Keep Your Family Active During Lockdown
School may be unofficially out for now and you may have found yourself wearing a totally different hat — the one of a teacher. While homeschooling children is worrying some parents, this is not the only thing that’s playing on their minds.
Covid-19 has changed our lives, albeit temporarily, but this has led us all to think outside the box. Not only are we suddenly becoming teachers, we’re also trying to keep ourselves and our kids active and happy.
There are many fun family-style workouts that don’t even feel like you’re exercising, meaning it’ll be much easier to get the kids on board.
Here are some fun family fitness ideas that will get everyone moving, including your dog.
Hula Hooping
You can probably recall endless hours of fun hula hooping back when you were young. With the rise of more advanced games and technology, simple pleasures such as hula hooping have kind of fallen by the wayside. But here’s the thing — they’re still fun, and they’re also super cheap.
Getting your hula hooping game on is a great family fitness activity and doing it for an hour can be a good calorie burner. And if you feel like more of a challenge, why not order a weighted hula-hoop?
Skipping
Just like hula hooping, skipping or jumping rope also brings back fond childhood memories. A skipping rope is relatively cheap, meaning you can order one for your whole family.
As well as being a cost-effective family fitness idea, skipping ropes are also portable, which means that you can easily pack it your bag and take it to the park for a bit of social distancing exercise, or do it in a big enough space indoors.
Skipping is an excellent cardio exercise that gets the heart going, and at the right speed, you can burn up to 600 calories per hour. Take a look online to discover more skipping variations that will take your family fitness skipping routine to the next level of fun. Did someone say TikTok video?
Skating and Scooting
If you’ve got some old roller skates, rollerblades, or scooters collecting dust in the garage, now’s probably a good time to get them out!
If you’re anything like most families, you’ve had them sitting in there for some time and you’ve probably forgotten how much fun they can be.
Instead of going for a “social distancing walk” with your family, cruise around on your wheels instead. Roller-skating is a great way of getting your heart rate up and can burn at least 300 calories per hour for adults.
Dancing
If you love a good dance, having a family dance session could be a great way of getting some quality family time while exercising and getting the heart rate up.
Having a family dance-off is the perfect time to let your hair down and be a bit silly, because right now, let’s face it, we all need a good giggle.
Fast dancing or hip hop dancing is the best kind of dancing to burn calories, and the average-sized adult will burn approximately 400 calories per hour doing it.
But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what kind of dancing you do, as it releases endorphins (otherwise known as the happy hormone).
Playing Frisbee
In the US, Frisbee definitely has a bit of a cult following. Here, the popularity is growing as well. In fact, “ultimate Frisbee” is even offered as a sport option in some schools and colleges.
If you have a big garden, playing Frisbee for some family fitness fun is a great excuse to get outside and have a bit of a run around at the same time.
If you don’t like the look of “ultimate Frisbee”, you could simply toss the Frisbee back and forth or you could try your hands at “Frisbee golf” (yes, there’s really such a thing…look it up!).
Walking
Walking outside for exercise is something we’re lucky enough to be able to do at the moment, so make sure you use your daily exercise quota well. While you can’t go too far into the mountains or the countryside, you can make use of what’s nearby.
Walking, whether it’s around the block or doing laps of a park, is a good way to blow out the cobwebs. And if you’ve got a dog, don’t forget they need daily exercise as well.
Some children, notoriously teenagers, but you can infuse some fun into your daily family fitness regime by choosing different routes each time, including a treasure hunt, or even adding some light jogging into the mix as well.
Playground Games
It’s time to take yourself back to those old school days. Which games did you enjoy playing? Start up a game of tag, hide and seek, or capture the flag to get you and the kids running around.
However, getting your family outside away from their computers, phones, and iPads is even more essential than ever since all learning has moved temporarily online. In fact, it’s likely your children will enjoy the respite away from their screens.
Using this isolation period is a great opportunity to get outside into the garden to play some more traditional children’s games and being active at the same time.
Take home message
Children are so used to being fairly active, especially younger ones — they do so much in school, which is why it’s important to keep them moving and find alternatives.
By no means are we suggesting that you try to wear the hat of a PE teacher — give yourself a break! Instead, this is a great chance to spend some quality time together and do some exercise as a family.
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Evangeline has taken part in competitive sports since a young age. As a qualified RYA Dinghy Instructor, she understands the importance of proper nutrition for fuelling extreme and endurance sports, especially due to her experience in Team GBR Squads and captaining and coaching her University first team.
In her spare time, Evangeline loves running – especially marathons. On the weekends, you’ll find her taking on water sports or hiking up a hill. Her favourite evenings are spent taking on a HIIT session or squats in the gym before digging into some spicy food and a ton of vegetables – yum!
Find out more about Evie's experience here.
