Introduction
Think of rainy afternoons when heading out is not an option, or those overly long summer days when kids are full of energy. Instead of sitting in front of some kind of electronic babysitter, parents can create fun workout times using items that most people have lying around the house. This gets kids exercising and stimulates the imagination and eventually helps them develop a healthy relationship with exercise.
Things Around Your Home for a Fun and Effective Workout for Your Kids
Towels
Your Towels can act as very flexible exercise equipment. Use them for a game of tug-o-war to work on your kids' strength and teamwork. Spread them on the ground for a sliding surface and let your kids practice sliding exercises, which help them improve balancing and coordination skills. They can also be used in stretching exercises promoting flexibility and winding down after exercises of a more vigorous nature.
Plastic Bottles
Empty plastic bottles make great weights or cones for obstacle courses—simply fill them with water or sand to adjust their weight. They could lift the bottles, creating more strength in their arms, or set them as targets to be knocked over with a ball, which would help with their aim and coordination. The bottles also make excellent batons for relay races.
Paper Plates
Paper plates serve as an excellent replacement for sliders. Let your kid put them under his hands or feet. Ask him to slide them backward and forwards on a hard floor. This will make him feel like exercising other muscles in his body. Alternatively, spread them out in a line away from each other; let your child jump from one to another without his feet touching the ground. Such a game is capable of vastly improving the strength and agility of the lower parts of the body.
Pillows and Cushions
Cushions and pillows make for a pliable and safe environment in which to do quite a number of physical activities. Use them to create an obstacle course indoors, where kids can jump and crawl and find their way through. They could be used for balance exercises by putting them on top of each other, and then one tries walking—or hopping—around over them without kicking them over. You may do this barefoot to enhance your sense of balance.
Brooms and Mops
They could also be used to arrange barriers for jumping exercises, helping children gain leg strength and coordination by laying them on the floor and having the kids jump over. Balancing on their hands or shoulder could also suffice as an exercise for balance training. More importantly, they will serve as improvised limbo sticks; a game that seeks to test flexibility and agility in a fun, challenging way.
Boxes
Carton boxes can be made into tunnels and obstacles for dynamic play and physical movements. A child can crawl through them, jump over them, or make them into forts where a little physical strength is needed to lift and rearrange them to build and dismantle them. This will grab the child's interest in creativity coupled with a whole-body workout to enhance the strength and endurance of the body.
Laundry Baskets
There are numerous enjoyable physical activities that can be done with laundry baskets. Kind of a throwing game whereby the children aim at throwing as many balls or bean bags as possible toward the basket from various distances. Using the baskets to carry items in a relay race from one point to the next by the children. Physical exercise coordinates and enhances development in strength of the arm, eye-hand, and cardiovascular endurance.
Benefits of the Workout to Children
Regular exercise will bring about so many benefits to children, which include physical advantages, mental health, and basic emotional stability.
Physical Health
Regular exercise will strengthen cardiovascular fitness by having a fit heart and extremely good blood flow. It strengthens one's muscles; flexibility and bones develop to reduce injuries. It helps maintain a good weight; thus, obesity is avoided in childhood, as are such diseases as diabetes and hypertension.
Mental Health
Physical activity enhances mood and reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression. This is because of the secretion of body endorphins post-exercise, known as nature's mood enhancer. It increases focus and cognitive function leading to better performance in school.
Team Work and Socialization Skills
Workouts in groups or as a family make for socializing contact and a team approach to it. They help kids in cooperation, communication, and problem-solving ability—that sense of community in the activity and joint achievements.
Building of Healthy Habits
If children are introduced to regular exercise at their tender age, it is very possible that through the lessons learned, they could be more disciplined and make exercise their lifetime choice. They would learn to balance life well.
The views expressed are that of the expert alone.
