#the goal today is to balance sprints with chores and see how far i get

[july-19th-club]

okay. ten thirty am. four thousand words behind schedule. house a mess. maybe seven hours of daylight left. lets fuckin go

[cristinajourdanqp]

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need? Plus, 30 Activities to Get Them Moving

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that kids aren’t getting enough physical activity.

Inadequate amounts of physical activity are a strong risk factor for obesity and metabolic dysfunction in kids.  It’s most likely causal, too, because as much as people question the usefulness of only exercising to lose weight, there’s no question that exercise and physical activity in general is important for preventing obesity from occurring. 

Kids are getting so obese that a new RCT came out showing metformin can help them lose weight and normalize metabolic biomarkers.

It’s not just that inadequate physical activity is destroying the physical vitality, body weight, and metabolic health of children. It’s also ruining their movement skills and general athleticism. I don’t work with kids directly, but I have many friends who do. And all of them, from gymnastics coaches to running coaches to basketball/base/football coaches report that the athleticism of the beginners has degraded over the years. Fewer kids are coming into practice for the first time with that raw movement ability. They’re clumsier, clunkier, and more confused than ever before.

Childhood is a big window, but it’s a crucial one. All that time spent throwing a ball—or sitting on the couch manipulating an Xbox controller so that the character onscreen throws a ball—establishes neural pathways. Do you want those pathways to enable efficient, competent throwing (a skill that may have required our big brains and allowed humans to conquer the world), or do you want those pathways to enable skillful button and joystick maneuvering?

The good news is that kids love to move. Even the ones who don’t look it. Go down to a park, the beach, or walk through the city square on a hot day when the fountains are flowing and kids of all shapes and sizes will be moving frequently at slow, moderate, and fast paces. They’re playing tag. They’re roughhousing. They’re jumping from ledges twice their height. They’re all over the place.

And that’s how it works: Get even the most screen-obsessed kid in a fun, physical environment with plenty of opportunities for movement and he or she will move. The innate desire for physicality and play exists in all children.

Overweight kids aren’t too far gone either, and exercise can work wonders. According to a 2015 meta-analysis, there’s “moderate” evidence that exercise by itself is an effective way to reduce bodyweight in overweight and obese children. Another study concluded that strength training and aerobic exercise are more effective at lowering children’s BMI than either alone. I imagine you could optimize a kid’s training regimen even further and get even better results.

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need?

Ethnographic studies have found that, by and large, kids in hunter-gatherer groups play all day long with little to no supervision (PDF). They don’t have scooters and Laser Tag, or barbells and kettlebells, but they also don’t have smartphones and televisions. For these kids, play is movement and movement is play. There’s no other way. Of course, contemporary hunter-gatherer groups are a very rough approximation of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The former have been pushed onto marginalized land by better-armed and more numerous city folk; the latter ranged across an untouched world teeming with large game. Even still, they’re the best model we have for ancestral childhood physical activity.

But we don’t even have to go back to the paleolithic to illustrate the amount of physical activity the average kid should be getting. Just talk to an elderly neighbor. Talk to an older colleague. Or heck, search within your own memory bank. What were summers like as a kid for you? I for one was out all day long if school was out, exploring the neighborhood, roaming the woods, getting into trouble. And I rarely stopped moving.

Anecdotes and personal memories not enough? The data tells the same story. The parents of today’s children got over 8 hours a week of outdoor play (which is still too little). Today’s children get under four. That trend is likely to continue as you go back in time, with outdoor play doubling in frequency and lack of supervision with each previous generation.

These are averages, of course. Some kids get quite a lot. Others don’t.

Kids in Denmark aged 6-12 average 90 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day. It’s highest in the six-year-olds and declines by 3.5 minutes each year.

Elementary school kids in Qatar average around 28 minutes of MVPA per day, with a large discrepancy along gender lines. By age 9, for example, boys are getting over 40 minutes a day and girls are getting just 23 minutes.

Even the Danes aren’t doing enough, in my book.

Kids should be moving all day. I won’t mince words. Look, my kids probably could have moved more, and I knew about this stuff. It’s hard. I get it. But that doesn’t negate that the ideal situation is for kids to be constantly moving. After all, kids have fatigue-resistant muscles akin to elite athletes’. That’s why they can run all day without getting tired, and that’s a fairly strong indicator they’re meant to move all day.

That’s not in the cards, though, so what should kids aim for?

To stave off overweight/obesity, 60 minutes of MVPA (moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) with at least 15 minutes of genuinely vigorous physical activity each day is the absolute minimum. That’s not optimal. That’s barebones.

Kids should be:

Swimming

Running (sprinting rather than jogging)

Squatting (the movement pattern more than heavy weight)

Lifting/hip hingeing

Climbing

Throwing

Supporting their own bodyweight

Jumping

Landing

Balancing

Playing, ideally using all the skills and movements I just mentioned

Ideas To Get Kids Moving

What are some ideas? How can we get kids to get enough exercise while having fun and developing skill? Many need a little nudge. There are innumerable ways to unlock what’s already inside. I’ll throw out 30 of them right here.

Walk to School. If you can make it work, walking to and from school will contribute a good amount of MVPA to a kid’s life. Extra points for getting into trouble on the way.

Swim underwater as far as you can.

Dive for Objects. Give kids a goal, make it a game. Throw a handful of quarters into the pool; see if they can get them all in with one breath. Toss a kettlebell into the deep end and have them bring it back up.

Biggest Splash Contest. Who can make the biggest splash into the pool? Encourage different dives, cannonballs, jackknives, and other jumps.

Water Polo. An excellent training stimulus. One of the hardest sports around.

Lift Weights. Real ones. In Germany, 11-year-old soccer players and 12-year-old Olympic weightlifters are safely front squatting their bodyweight.

Race the Dog (with a Head Start). Tell your kid to make a break for it, hold your dog for a few seconds, then release.

Play Catch. Great way to practice throwing and catching, the latter of which is particularly tricky (and useful to learn).

Barefoot Hike. Your kid will thank you when she’s all grown up and thinks nothing of walking across gravel.

Creek Walk. Jump from rock to rock, climb over logs, balance on fallen trees, take a little dip.

Check Out the local rec center schedule. You’d be surprised at the quality of some of these classes. Gymnastics, dance, martial arts are all good options for building good movement skills.

Get a pullup bar in the house. Place it at a level your kid can reach. Start with hanging, swinging, and various holds, but work your way up to pullups. Give incentives (“do 5 pullups and I’ll give you $20”).

Get the dog they’ve always wanted, with the stipulation being they have to walk it and play with it.

Set up an obstacle course. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just give them things to climb under/over, crawl under/through/, leap over.

Hill Sprints. If you want a killer workout, sling that kid over your shoulder in between his sprints and run some of your own.

Gymnastics. Great foundation for movement later in life. Just stop short of elite competition unless it’s something they really want to commit to.

Have them race. If you catch kids at the right age, they love races without being attached to the outcome. They’ll just let it rip and go all out, all smiles. Winner and loser both have fun.

Roughhouse. Roughhousing is a lost art that helps kids establish boundaries and limits, learn what hurts and what doesn’t, grasp when something is “too rough.” Plus, it’s fun.

Try Parkour. Parkour isn’t something a seven year old just leaps into (go to a parkour gym for formal instruction),but they can certainly start playing around on manmade structures. Visit a business park for good climbing and play.

Animal Impersonations. Crawl like a bear. Hop like a rabbit. Leap like a frog. Slither like a snake. Walk like a duck. These are very difficult modes of transportation that make for great exercise. To keep things fresh and playful, come up with other animals to emulate.

Play Fetch. Throw the ball, they go chase it and bring it back. Same concept as running your dog.

Reverse Box Jumps. That cool Persian tot aside, it makes more sense for small children to practice jumping down from tall objects than trying to jump up them. Besides, landing is where the danger lies later.

Trampoline. Studies indicate they’re responsible for a large number of emergency visits, but a properly set-up trampoline enclosed by a protective net can be a great place to learn how to jump with good form. And again, fun.

Keep a scooter/bike/skateboard around. Kids love zooming around on wheels.

Chore Duty. Give them a standing order to help with bags/groceries/trash. There’s always something they can carry, and every little bit helps make them stronger and more resilient.

Kettlebell Challenge. Keep a kettlebell in the living room and have him or her lift it every day. Marvel at the perfect deadlift form.

Build forts, then destroy them.

Try conventional sports. Although specialization isn’t advised at such an early age (it can actually increase the risk of overuse injuries and inhibit the athletic growth of children), sports are fun and do offer a great path to overall athletic development.

Build up to a mile run. Start by walking it. Throw in some quick sprints in the middle. Then a full on mile run. Then unleash the offer: “I’ll give you [x] if you can run a mile in [x-amount of time].”

Set a good example. If you fail to embrace physical culture while demanding your child do the opposite, that’s a strong nudge in the wrong direction. Make sure you’re moving, too.

That’s it for today, folks. I’d love to hear from you.

What kinds of games, sports, and other activities do you use to increase your children’s physical activity and help them develop a positive relationship with exercise? What’s worked, what hasn’t, and what’s the most unconventional activity you’ve had success with?

Take care all.

[watsonrodriquezie]

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need? Plus, 30 Activities to Get Them Moving

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that kids aren’t getting enough physical activity.

Inadequate amounts of physical activity are a strong risk factor for obesity and metabolic dysfunction in kids.  It’s most likely causal, too, because as much as people question the usefulness of only exercising to lose weight, there’s no question that exercise and physical activity in general is important for preventing obesity from occurring. 

Kids are getting so obese that a new RCT came out showing metformin can help them lose weight and normalize metabolic biomarkers.

It’s not just that inadequate physical activity is destroying the physical vitality, body weight, and metabolic health of children. It’s also ruining their movement skills and general athleticism. I don’t work with kids directly, but I have many friends who do. And all of them, from gymnastics coaches to running coaches to basketball/base/football coaches report that the athleticism of the beginners has degraded over the years. Fewer kids are coming into practice for the first time with that raw movement ability. They’re clumsier, clunkier, and more confused than ever before.

Childhood is a big window, but it’s a crucial one. All that time spent throwing a ball—or sitting on the couch manipulating an Xbox controller so that the character onscreen throws a ball—establishes neural pathways. Do you want those pathways to enable efficient, competent throwing (a skill that may have required our big brains and allowed humans to conquer the world), or do you want those pathways to enable skillful button and joystick maneuvering?

The good news is that kids love to move. Even the ones who don’t look it. Go down to a park, the beach, or walk through the city square on a hot day when the fountains are flowing and kids of all shapes and sizes will be moving frequently at slow, moderate, and fast paces. They’re playing tag. They’re roughhousing. They’re jumping from ledges twice their height. They’re all over the place.

And that’s how it works: Get even the most screen-obsessed kid in a fun, physical environment with plenty of opportunities for movement and he or she will move. The innate desire for physicality and play exists in all children.

Overweight kids aren’t too far gone either, and exercise can work wonders. According to a 2015 meta-analysis, there’s “moderate” evidence that exercise by itself is an effective way to reduce bodyweight in overweight and obese children. Another study concluded that strength training and aerobic exercise are more effective at lowering children’s BMI than either alone. I imagine you could optimize a kid’s training regimen even further and get even better results.

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need?

Ethnographic studies have found that, by and large, kids in hunter-gatherer groups play all day long with little to no supervision (PDF). They don’t have scooters and Laser Tag, or barbells and kettlebells, but they also don’t have smartphones and televisions. For these kids, play is movement and movement is play. There’s no other way. Of course, contemporary hunter-gatherer groups are a very rough approximation of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The former have been pushed onto marginalized land by better-armed and more numerous city folk; the latter ranged across an untouched world teeming with large game. Even still, they’re the best model we have for ancestral childhood physical activity.

But we don’t even have to go back to the paleolithic to illustrate the amount of physical activity the average kid should be getting. Just talk to an elderly neighbor. Talk to an older colleague. Or heck, search within your own memory bank. What were summers like as a kid for you? I for one was out all day long if school was out, exploring the neighborhood, roaming the woods, getting into trouble. And I rarely stopped moving.

Anecdotes and personal memories not enough? The data tells the same story. The parents of today’s children got over 8 hours a week of outdoor play (which is still too little). Today’s children get under four. That trend is likely to continue as you go back in time, with outdoor play doubling in frequency and lack of supervision with each previous generation.

These are averages, of course. Some kids get quite a lot. Others don’t.

Kids in Denmark aged 6-12 average 90 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day. It’s highest in the six-year-olds and declines by 3.5 minutes each year.

Elementary school kids in Qatar average around 28 minutes of MVPA per day, with a large discrepancy along gender lines. By age 9, for example, boys are getting over 40 minutes a day and girls are getting just 23 minutes.

Even the Danes aren’t doing enough, in my book.

Kids should be moving all day. I won’t mince words. Look, my kids probably could have moved more, and I knew about this stuff. It’s hard. I get it. But that doesn’t negate that the ideal situation is for kids to be constantly moving. After all, kids have fatigue-resistant muscles akin to elite athletes’. That’s why they can run all day without getting tired, and that’s a fairly strong indicator they’re meant to move all day.

That’s not in the cards, though, so what should kids aim for?

To stave off overweight/obesity, 60 minutes of MVPA (moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) with at least 15 minutes of genuinely vigorous physical activity each day is the absolute minimum. That’s not optimal. That’s barebones.

Kids should be:

Swimming

Running (sprinting rather than jogging)

Squatting (the movement pattern more than heavy weight)

Lifting/hip hingeing

Climbing

Throwing

Supporting their own bodyweight

Jumping

Landing

Balancing

Playing, ideally using all the skills and movements I just mentioned

Ideas To Get Kids Moving

What are some ideas? How can we get kids to get enough exercise while having fun and developing skill? Many need a little nudge. There are innumerable ways to unlock what’s already inside. I’ll throw out 30 of them right here.

Walk to School. If you can make it work, walking to and from school will contribute a good amount of MVPA to a kid’s life. Extra points for getting into trouble on the way.

Swim underwater as far as you can.

Dive for Objects. Give kids a goal, make it a game. Throw a handful of quarters into the pool; see if they can get them all in with one breath. Toss a kettlebell into the deep end and have them bring it back up.

Biggest Splash Contest. Who can make the biggest splash into the pool? Encourage different dives, cannonballs, jackknives, and other jumps.

Water Polo. An excellent training stimulus. One of the hardest sports around.

Lift Weights. Real ones. In Germany, 11-year-old soccer players and 12-year-old Olympic weightlifters are safely front squatting their bodyweight.

Race the Dog (with a Head Start). Tell your kid to make a break for it, hold your dog for a few seconds, then release.

Play Catch. Great way to practice throwing and catching, the latter of which is particularly tricky (and useful to learn).

Barefoot Hike. Your kid will thank you when she’s all grown up and thinks nothing of walking across gravel.

Creek Walk. Jump from rock to rock, climb over logs, balance on fallen trees, take a little dip.

Check Out the local rec center schedule. You’d be surprised at the quality of some of these classes. Gymnastics, dance, martial arts are all good options for building good movement skills.

Get a pullup bar in the house. Place it at a level your kid can reach. Start with hanging, swinging, and various holds, but work your way up to pullups. Give incentives (“do 5 pullups and I’ll give you $20”).

Get the dog they’ve always wanted, with the stipulation being they have to walk it and play with it.

Set up an obstacle course. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just give them things to climb under/over, crawl under/through/, leap over.

Hill Sprints. If you want a killer workout, sling that kid over your shoulder in between his sprints and run some of your own.

Gymnastics. Great foundation for movement later in life. Just stop short of elite competition unless it’s something they really want to commit to.

Have them race. If you catch kids at the right age, they love races without being attached to the outcome. They’ll just let it rip and go all out, all smiles. Winner and loser both have fun.

Roughhouse. Roughhousing is a lost art that helps kids establish boundaries and limits, learn what hurts and what doesn’t, grasp when something is “too rough.” Plus, it’s fun.

Try Parkour. Parkour isn’t something a seven year old just leaps into (go to a parkour gym for formal instruction),but they can certainly start playing around on manmade structures. Visit a business park for good climbing and play.

Animal Impersonations. Crawl like a bear. Hop like a rabbit. Leap like a frog. Slither like a snake. Walk like a duck. These are very difficult modes of transportation that make for great exercise. To keep things fresh and playful, come up with other animals to emulate.

Play Fetch. Throw the ball, they go chase it and bring it back. Same concept as running your dog.

Reverse Box Jumps. That cool Persian tot aside, it makes more sense for small children to practice jumping down from tall objects than trying to jump up them. Besides, landing is where the danger lies later.

Trampoline. Studies indicate they’re responsible for a large number of emergency visits, but a properly set-up trampoline enclosed by a protective net can be a great place to learn how to jump with good form. And again, fun.

Keep a scooter/bike/skateboard around. Kids love zooming around on wheels.

Chore Duty. Give them a standing order to help with bags/groceries/trash. There’s always something they can carry, and every little bit helps make them stronger and more resilient.

Kettlebell Challenge. Keep a kettlebell in the living room and have him or her lift it every day. Marvel at the perfect deadlift form.

Build forts, then destroy them.

Try conventional sports. Although specialization isn’t advised at such an early age (it can actually increase the risk of overuse injuries and inhibit the athletic growth of children), sports are fun and do offer a great path to overall athletic development.

Build up to a mile run. Start by walking it. Throw in some quick sprints in the middle. Then a full on mile run. Then unleash the offer: “I’ll give you [x] if you can run a mile in [x-amount of time].”

Set a good example. If you fail to embrace physical culture while demanding your child do the opposite, that’s a strong nudge in the wrong direction. Make sure you’re moving, too.

That’s it for today, folks. I’d love to hear from you.

What kinds of games, sports, and other activities do you use to increase your children’s physical activity and help them develop a positive relationship with exercise? What’s worked, what hasn’t, and what’s the most unconventional activity you’ve had success with?

Take care all.

[fishermariawo]

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need? Plus, 30 Activities to Get Them Moving

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that kids aren’t getting enough physical activity.

Inadequate amounts of physical activity are a strong risk factor for obesity and metabolic dysfunction in kids.  It’s most likely causal, too, because as much as people question the usefulness of only exercising to lose weight, there’s no question that exercise and physical activity in general is important for preventing obesity from occurring. 

Kids are getting so obese that a new RCT came out showing metformin can help them lose weight and normalize metabolic biomarkers.

It’s not just that inadequate physical activity is destroying the physical vitality, body weight, and metabolic health of children. It’s also ruining their movement skills and general athleticism. I don’t work with kids directly, but I have many friends who do. And all of them, from gymnastics coaches to running coaches to basketball/base/football coaches report that the athleticism of the beginners has degraded over the years. Fewer kids are coming into practice for the first time with that raw movement ability. They’re clumsier, clunkier, and more confused than ever before.

Childhood is a big window, but it’s a crucial one. All that time spent throwing a ball—or sitting on the couch manipulating an Xbox controller so that the character onscreen throws a ball—establishes neural pathways. Do you want those pathways to enable efficient, competent throwing (a skill that may have required our big brains and allowed humans to conquer the world), or do you want those pathways to enable skillful button and joystick maneuvering?

The good news is that kids love to move. Even the ones who don’t look it. Go down to a park, the beach, or walk through the city square on a hot day when the fountains are flowing and kids of all shapes and sizes will be moving frequently at slow, moderate, and fast paces. They’re playing tag. They’re roughhousing. They’re jumping from ledges twice their height. They’re all over the place.

And that’s how it works: Get even the most screen-obsessed kid in a fun, physical environment with plenty of opportunities for movement and he or she will move. The innate desire for physicality and play exists in all children.

Overweight kids aren’t too far gone either, and exercise can work wonders. According to a 2015 meta-analysis, there’s “moderate” evidence that exercise by itself is an effective way to reduce bodyweight in overweight and obese children. Another study concluded that strength training and aerobic exercise are more effective at lowering children’s BMI than either alone. I imagine you could optimize a kid’s training regimen even further and get even better results.

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need?

Ethnographic studies have found that, by and large, kids in hunter-gatherer groups play all day long with little to no supervision (PDF). They don’t have scooters and Laser Tag, or barbells and kettlebells, but they also don’t have smartphones and televisions. For these kids, play is movement and movement is play. There’s no other way. Of course, contemporary hunter-gatherer groups are a very rough approximation of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The former have been pushed onto marginalized land by better-armed and more numerous city folk; the latter ranged across an untouched world teeming with large game. Even still, they’re the best model we have for ancestral childhood physical activity.

But we don’t even have to go back to the paleolithic to illustrate the amount of physical activity the average kid should be getting. Just talk to an elderly neighbor. Talk to an older colleague. Or heck, search within your own memory bank. What were summers like as a kid for you? I for one was out all day long if school was out, exploring the neighborhood, roaming the woods, getting into trouble. And I rarely stopped moving.

Anecdotes and personal memories not enough? The data tells the same story. The parents of today’s children got over 8 hours a week of outdoor play (which is still too little). Today’s children get under four. That trend is likely to continue as you go back in time, with outdoor play doubling in frequency and lack of supervision with each previous generation.

These are averages, of course. Some kids get quite a lot. Others don’t.

Kids in Denmark aged 6-12 average 90 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day. It’s highest in the six-year-olds and declines by 3.5 minutes each year.

Elementary school kids in Qatar average around 28 minutes of MVPA per day, with a large discrepancy along gender lines. By age 9, for example, boys are getting over 40 minutes a day and girls are getting just 23 minutes.

Even the Danes aren’t doing enough, in my book.

Kids should be moving all day. I won’t mince words. Look, my kids probably could have moved more, and I knew about this stuff. It’s hard. I get it. But that doesn’t negate that the ideal situation is for kids to be constantly moving. After all, kids have fatigue-resistant muscles akin to elite athletes’. That’s why they can run all day without getting tired, and that’s a fairly strong indicator they’re meant to move all day.

That’s not in the cards, though, so what should kids aim for?

To stave off overweight/obesity, 60 minutes of MVPA (moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) with at least 15 minutes of genuinely vigorous physical activity each day is the absolute minimum. That’s not optimal. That’s barebones.

Kids should be:

Swimming

Running (sprinting rather than jogging)

Squatting (the movement pattern more than heavy weight)

Lifting/hip hingeing

Climbing

Throwing

Supporting their own bodyweight

Jumping

Landing

Balancing

Playing, ideally using all the skills and movements I just mentioned

Ideas To Get Kids Moving

What are some ideas? How can we get kids to get enough exercise while having fun and developing skill? Many need a little nudge. There are innumerable ways to unlock what’s already inside. I’ll throw out 30 of them right here.

Walk to School. If you can make it work, walking to and from school will contribute a good amount of MVPA to a kid’s life. Extra points for getting into trouble on the way.

Swim underwater as far as you can.

Dive for Objects. Give kids a goal, make it a game. Throw a handful of quarters into the pool; see if they can get them all in with one breath. Toss a kettlebell into the deep end and have them bring it back up.

Biggest Splash Contest. Who can make the biggest splash into the pool? Encourage different dives, cannonballs, jackknives, and other jumps.

Water Polo. An excellent training stimulus. One of the hardest sports around.

Lift Weights. Real ones. In Germany, 11-year-old soccer players and 12-year-old Olympic weightlifters are safely front squatting their bodyweight.

Race the Dog (with a Head Start). Tell your kid to make a break for it, hold your dog for a few seconds, then release.

Play Catch. Great way to practice throwing and catching, the latter of which is particularly tricky (and useful to learn).

Barefoot Hike. Your kid will thank you when she’s all grown up and thinks nothing of walking across gravel.

Creek Walk. Jump from rock to rock, climb over logs, balance on fallen trees, take a little dip.

Check Out the local rec center schedule. You’d be surprised at the quality of some of these classes. Gymnastics, dance, martial arts are all good options for building good movement skills.

Get a pullup bar in the house. Place it at a level your kid can reach. Start with hanging, swinging, and various holds, but work your way up to pullups. Give incentives (“do 5 pullups and I’ll give you $20”).

Get the dog they’ve always wanted, with the stipulation being they have to walk it and play with it.

Set up an obstacle course. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just give them things to climb under/over, crawl under/through/, leap over.

Hill Sprints. If you want a killer workout, sling that kid over your shoulder in between his sprints and run some of your own.

Gymnastics. Great foundation for movement later in life. Just stop short of elite competition unless it’s something they really want to commit to.

Have them race. If you catch kids at the right age, they love races without being attached to the outcome. They’ll just let it rip and go all out, all smiles. Winner and loser both have fun.

Roughhouse. Roughhousing is a lost art that helps kids establish boundaries and limits, learn what hurts and what doesn’t, grasp when something is “too rough.” Plus, it’s fun.

Try Parkour. Parkour isn’t something a seven year old just leaps into (go to a parkour gym for formal instruction),but they can certainly start playing around on manmade structures. Visit a business park for good climbing and play.

Animal Impersonations. Crawl like a bear. Hop like a rabbit. Leap like a frog. Slither like a snake. Walk like a duck. These are very difficult modes of transportation that make for great exercise. To keep things fresh and playful, come up with other animals to emulate.

Play Fetch. Throw the ball, they go chase it and bring it back. Same concept as running your dog.

Reverse Box Jumps. That cool Persian tot aside, it makes more sense for small children to practice jumping down from tall objects than trying to jump up them. Besides, landing is where the danger lies later.

Trampoline. Studies indicate they’re responsible for a large number of emergency visits, but a properly set-up trampoline enclosed by a protective net can be a great place to learn how to jump with good form. And again, fun.

Keep a scooter/bike/skateboard around. Kids love zooming around on wheels.

Chore Duty. Give them a standing order to help with bags/groceries/trash. There’s always something they can carry, and every little bit helps make them stronger and more resilient.

Kettlebell Challenge. Keep a kettlebell in the living room and have him or her lift it every day. Marvel at the perfect deadlift form.

Build forts, then destroy them.

Try conventional sports. Although specialization isn’t advised at such an early age (it can actually increase the risk of overuse injuries and inhibit the athletic growth of children), sports are fun and do offer a great path to overall athletic development.

Build up to a mile run. Start by walking it. Throw in some quick sprints in the middle. Then a full on mile run. Then unleash the offer: “I’ll give you [x] if you can run a mile in [x-amount of time].”

Set a good example. If you fail to embrace physical culture while demanding your child do the opposite, that’s a strong nudge in the wrong direction. Make sure you’re moving, too.

That’s it for today, folks. I’d love to hear from you.

What kinds of games, sports, and other activities do you use to increase your children’s physical activity and help them develop a positive relationship with exercise? What’s worked, what hasn’t, and what’s the most unconventional activity you’ve had success with?

Take care all.

[cynthiamwashington]

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need? Plus, 30 Activities to Get Them Moving

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that kids aren’t getting enough physical activity.

Inadequate amounts of physical activity are a strong risk factor for obesity and metabolic dysfunction in kids.  It’s most likely causal, too, because as much as people question the usefulness of only exercising to lose weight, there’s no question that exercise and physical activity in general is important for preventing obesity from occurring. 

Kids are getting so obese that a new RCT came out showing metformin can help them lose weight and normalize metabolic biomarkers.

It’s not just that inadequate physical activity is destroying the physical vitality, body weight, and metabolic health of children. It’s also ruining their movement skills and general athleticism. I don’t work with kids directly, but I have many friends who do. And all of them, from gymnastics coaches to running coaches to basketball/base/football coaches report that the athleticism of the beginners has degraded over the years. Fewer kids are coming into practice for the first time with that raw movement ability. They’re clumsier, clunkier, and more confused than ever before.

Childhood is a big window, but it’s a crucial one. All that time spent throwing a ball—or sitting on the couch manipulating an Xbox controller so that the character onscreen throws a ball—establishes neural pathways. Do you want those pathways to enable efficient, competent throwing (a skill that may have required our big brains and allowed humans to conquer the world), or do you want those pathways to enable skillful button and joystick maneuvering?

The good news is that kids love to move. Even the ones who don’t look it. Go down to a park, the beach, or walk through the city square on a hot day when the fountains are flowing and kids of all shapes and sizes will be moving frequently at slow, moderate, and fast paces. They’re playing tag. They’re roughhousing. They’re jumping from ledges twice their height. They’re all over the place.

And that’s how it works: Get even the most screen-obsessed kid in a fun, physical environment with plenty of opportunities for movement and he or she will move. The innate desire for physicality and play exists in all children.

Overweight kids aren’t too far gone either, and exercise can work wonders. According to a 2015 meta-analysis, there’s “moderate” evidence that exercise by itself is an effective way to reduce bodyweight in overweight and obese children. Another study concluded that strength training and aerobic exercise are more effective at lowering children’s BMI than either alone. I imagine you could optimize a kid’s training regimen even further and get even better results.

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need?

Ethnographic studies have found that, by and large, kids in hunter-gatherer groups play all day long with little to no supervision (PDF). They don’t have scooters and Laser Tag, or barbells and kettlebells, but they also don’t have smartphones and televisions. For these kids, play is movement and movement is play. There’s no other way. Of course, contemporary hunter-gatherer groups are a very rough approximation of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The former have been pushed onto marginalized land by better-armed and more numerous city folk; the latter ranged across an untouched world teeming with large game. Even still, they’re the best model we have for ancestral childhood physical activity.

But we don’t even have to go back to the paleolithic to illustrate the amount of physical activity the average kid should be getting. Just talk to an elderly neighbor. Talk to an older colleague. Or heck, search within your own memory bank. What were summers like as a kid for you? I for one was out all day long if school was out, exploring the neighborhood, roaming the woods, getting into trouble. And I rarely stopped moving.

Anecdotes and personal memories not enough? The data tells the same story. The parents of today’s children got over 8 hours a week of outdoor play (which is still too little). Today’s children get under four. That trend is likely to continue as you go back in time, with outdoor play doubling in frequency and lack of supervision with each previous generation.

These are averages, of course. Some kids get quite a lot. Others don’t.

Kids in Denmark aged 6-12 average 90 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day. It’s highest in the six-year-olds and declines by 3.5 minutes each year.

Elementary school kids in Qatar average around 28 minutes of MVPA per day, with a large discrepancy along gender lines. By age 9, for example, boys are getting over 40 minutes a day and girls are getting just 23 minutes.

Even the Danes aren’t doing enough, in my book.

Kids should be moving all day. I won’t mince words. Look, my kids probably could have moved more, and I knew about this stuff. It’s hard. I get it. But that doesn’t negate that the ideal situation is for kids to be constantly moving. After all, kids have fatigue-resistant muscles akin to elite athletes’. That’s why they can run all day without getting tired, and that’s a fairly strong indicator they’re meant to move all day.

That’s not in the cards, though, so what should kids aim for?

To stave off overweight/obesity, 60 minutes of MVPA (moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) with at least 15 minutes of genuinely vigorous physical activity each day is the absolute minimum. That’s not optimal. That’s barebones.

Kids should be:

Swimming

Running (sprinting rather than jogging)

Squatting (the movement pattern more than heavy weight)

Lifting/hip hingeing

Climbing

Throwing

Supporting their own bodyweight

Jumping

Landing

Balancing

Playing, ideally using all the skills and movements I just mentioned

Ideas To Get Kids Moving

What are some ideas? How can we get kids to get enough exercise while having fun and developing skill? Many need a little nudge. There are innumerable ways to unlock what’s already inside. I’ll throw out 30 of them right here.

Walk to School. If you can make it work, walking to and from school will contribute a good amount of MVPA to a kid’s life. Extra points for getting into trouble on the way.

Swim underwater as far as you can.

Dive for Objects. Give kids a goal, make it a game. Throw a handful of quarters into the pool; see if they can get them all in with one breath. Toss a kettlebell into the deep end and have them bring it back up.

Biggest Splash Contest. Who can make the biggest splash into the pool? Encourage different dives, cannonballs, jackknives, and other jumps.

Water Polo. An excellent training stimulus. One of the hardest sports around.

Lift Weights. Real ones. In Germany, 11-year-old soccer players and 12-year-old Olympic weightlifters are safely front squatting their bodyweight.

Race the Dog (with a Head Start). Tell your kid to make a break for it, hold your dog for a few seconds, then release.

Play Catch. Great way to practice throwing and catching, the latter of which is particularly tricky (and useful to learn).

Barefoot Hike. Your kid will thank you when she’s all grown up and thinks nothing of walking across gravel.

Creek Walk. Jump from rock to rock, climb over logs, balance on fallen trees, take a little dip.

Check Out the local rec center schedule. You’d be surprised at the quality of some of these classes. Gymnastics, dance, martial arts are all good options for building good movement skills.

Get a pullup bar in the house. Place it at a level your kid can reach. Start with hanging, swinging, and various holds, but work your way up to pullups. Give incentives (“do 5 pullups and I’ll give you $20”).

Get the dog they’ve always wanted, with the stipulation being they have to walk it and play with it.

Set up an obstacle course. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just give them things to climb under/over, crawl under/through/, leap over.

Hill Sprints. If you want a killer workout, sling that kid over your shoulder in between his sprints and run some of your own.

Gymnastics. Great foundation for movement later in life. Just stop short of elite competition unless it’s something they really want to commit to.

Have them race. If you catch kids at the right age, they love races without being attached to the outcome. They’ll just let it rip and go all out, all smiles. Winner and loser both have fun.

Roughhouse. Roughhousing is a lost art that helps kids establish boundaries and limits, learn what hurts and what doesn’t, grasp when something is “too rough.” Plus, it’s fun.

Try Parkour. Parkour isn’t something a seven year old just leaps into (go to a parkour gym for formal instruction),but they can certainly start playing around on manmade structures. Visit a business park for good climbing and play.

Animal Impersonations. Crawl like a bear. Hop like a rabbit. Leap like a frog. Slither like a snake. Walk like a duck. These are very difficult modes of transportation that make for great exercise. To keep things fresh and playful, come up with other animals to emulate.

Play Fetch. Throw the ball, they go chase it and bring it back. Same concept as running your dog.

Reverse Box Jumps. That cool Persian tot aside, it makes more sense for small children to practice jumping down from tall objects than trying to jump up them. Besides, landing is where the danger lies later.

Trampoline. Studies indicate they’re responsible for a large number of emergency visits, but a properly set-up trampoline enclosed by a protective net can be a great place to learn how to jump with good form. And again, fun.

Keep a scooter/bike/skateboard around. Kids love zooming around on wheels.

Chore Duty. Give them a standing order to help with bags/groceries/trash. There’s always something they can carry, and every little bit helps make them stronger and more resilient.

Kettlebell Challenge. Keep a kettlebell in the living room and have him or her lift it every day. Marvel at the perfect deadlift form.

Build forts, then destroy them.

Try conventional sports. Although specialization isn’t advised at such an early age (it can actually increase the risk of overuse injuries and inhibit the athletic growth of children), sports are fun and do offer a great path to overall athletic development.

Build up to a mile run. Start by walking it. Throw in some quick sprints in the middle. Then a full on mile run. Then unleash the offer: “I’ll give you [x] if you can run a mile in [x-amount of time].”

Set a good example. If you fail to embrace physical culture while demanding your child do the opposite, that’s a strong nudge in the wrong direction. Make sure you’re moving, too.

That’s it for today, folks. I’d love to hear from you.

What kinds of games, sports, and other activities do you use to increase your children’s physical activity and help them develop a positive relationship with exercise? What’s worked, what hasn’t, and what’s the most unconventional activity you’ve had success with?

Take care all.

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[milenasanchezmk]

10 Ideas to Make Workouts More Fun (and a Contest)

Workouts are work. There’s no way around that. Whenever you move matter through space and time, whether you’re displacing your own body weight or a barbell or a kettle bell, you’re doing work. It’s just physics. But there’s another meaning of “work”: an unpleasant but necessary activity that helps you achieve a desired outcome. Far too many of our workouts end up embodying this second definition. They’re chores, strains. That’s why so many people—all of whom know they should be exercising on a regular basis—remain sedentary, unfit, weak individuals. Physical activity is no longer required to survive. We don’t “have” to do it anymore. If it feels like a miserable experience, why would we?

There are ways to escape this mindset, though. There are ways to make your workouts feel more likely play and less like work. Let’s look at a few today, and I hope you’ll share what works for you in the comment section. Btw, I’ve included a video of me doing one of my favorites below—and a contest to share the fun.

Find an Activity That’s Intrinsically Rewarding

When training, extrinsic rewards are always going to be present. You’re always trying to look better naked, lose weight, hit a PR, get better health markers. But if your training is also intrinsically rewarding—if you derive satisfaction, pleasure, and meaning from the act of training itself— you’ll have no problems sticking with it. Only the hardest of hard core will maintain a training regimen they hate. Everyone will keep a training regimen they love. Find something you enjoy doing, that you’d do even if it provided no health or aesthetic benefits, and make that at least part of your training regimen.

If You Hate Something, Try Something Else

This is the most fundamental mindset shift. Don’t do things that you hate.

A workout doesn’t have to be a walk in the park. Not everything is going to leave you bursting with joy. But if your training regimen is leaving you miserable, if you dread it and find every excuse to skip it, that’s worth heeding.

Maybe you hate back squats, but front squats are downright enjoyable. Maybe you hate spin class, but hill sprints are fun. Maybe you hate dedicated cardio or HIIT sessions, but pickup basketball twice a week does the trick. Find an alternative that accomplishes the same thing.

Try Competing Against Other Entities

I enjoy competing against myself. I like beating my own records, surpassing my own achievements, improving on my former self. I also like competition against other humans. That’s why I ran marathons and competed in triathlon for so long—I liked beating the other guys. It’s also why I love Ultimate Frisbee. There’s nothing quite like the thrill of competition to make you forget about how hard you’re working and how great of a workout you’re getting.

You can compete in CrossFit, in pickup games at the park, in adult rec leagues. Anything at all will work.

Get Better Goals

Me? My goal is to play better:

I want to be able to play Ultimate every weekend with guys 3o years younger (and keep up).

I want to go out for a paddling session whenever I want and not have it feel like work.

I want to hit the slopes all weekend and be able to drive home without my quads cramping up every time I hit the brake.

And I want to do all that while staying injury-free.

My training focus, then, is to maintain: my fitness, my muscle mass, the viability of my connective tissue, my bone mineral density. I’m not going for PRs anymore because it’s too risky at this stage while bringing me no closer to my goals. But that’s fine. I’ve found what works for me and my goals. And it makes the more “boring” training that much more enjoyable, because I’m working toward something that I love and frankly need to be healthy and happy.

Half my training is play. The other half is training that supports the other half, the play, and gets me closer to it. I know what and I’m doing and why. Do you?

Integrate Training Into Your Work Day

When you’re plugging away behind the computer, take ten minutes to go for a walk, run some sprints in the stairwell, do a few sets of pushups and squats, or swing the kettlebell you keep in your office when you feel like a break. You’re still working, but it’s different. You’ve switched from the mental to the physical, and that change is everything. Suddenly you want to train, because it’s not filling out a report or writing another email.

The added benefit is that taking fitness breaks will make you more eager to get back to work and, thanks to better blood flow to the brain, more productive when you do.

A ten-minute break to move or train every hour is the sweet spot, I find.

Take Up a Martial Art

Humans have a predilection for violence. Human history is in many respects a history of violence. We all need to acknowledge that and integrate it. That doesn’t mean we should be violent. It means there’s nothing wrong—and perhaps a lot right—with developing our capacity for physical conflict in a controlled, safe environment. Sparring, not street fighting. Staying calm in tense situations, not freaking out and escalating. Roughhousing, not brawling.

One of my big regrets is not learning a martial art. I have been learning a bit with an experienced friend, who’s shown me a few things and runs drills with me, and that’s only made me realize how much I’ve missed out on. Don’t make that mistake.

Set a Few Rules

Making rules that “force” you to exercise can be liberating.

One rule I’ve been following lately is “exercise when Shanti (our dog) exercises.” I’ll take the ball or frisbee out to the park, and every time I throw it I’ll exercise until she brings it back. I’ll do as many pushups or bodyweight squats as I can. I’ll hold a plank. Maybe I’ll even bring a kettlebell along and do swings or overhead presses or cleans or goblet squats. Depending on how far you throw the ball and how fast your dog is, you can end up doing short or long sets. This has ended up being one or two of my workouts each week.

Another example is people who hang pullup bars in a doorway and have the rule that they must do five (or however many) pullups each time they pass through. Without fail. If it’s a heavily trafficked part of the house, you might accumulate 30 or 40 pullups on an average day. Those add up.

Maybe you do squats while brushing your teeth. Or “sprint every hill you see.” Or “walk after every meal.” The point is to repeat these rules and stick to them until they’re part of you, and you find yourself training without making the decision to do it. What begins as an arbitrary rule (what rule doesn’t?) will eventually become sacrosanct.

Dance

If you have kids, this is a great way to spend some awesome family time. Have everyone hang out in the kitchen as you prep dinner. Throw on some music. Dance. Get silly. Try something new, don’t be afraid to really move. A Spotify (or similar service) account works well here, because you can create playlists and just throw them on when needed.

I’m partial to the “A to Z of African Dance” YouTube video. Great beat, great dancing, and it’ll give you some good ideas to try that provide a good workout.

Go Creek Walking

Don’t have a creek at hand? Apologies. If you do, however, I want you to visit it at least once a week for the next month—and spend at least an hour during each visit traveling up and down it, jumping from rock to rock, balancing on logs, wading through the water, squatting down to look for crawdads (or crayfish) and frogs and salamanders (but definitely not newts), sprinting up banks, crawling, lifting heavy rocks and logs. It’s a great opportunity to get a variety of movement patterns, expose yourself to nature, and get some barefoot time.

Make the World Your Playground

No matter where you live, the environment offers a wide variety of options for movement, play, and exercise.

Trees: Climb them, do pull-ups on the branches, do handstand pushups against the trunk.

Stairs: Run them, jump them, bear crawl up and down them.

Park Benches: Jump over them, crawl on the back, balance on the back.

Hills: Roll down them then sprint back up.

Traffic Lights: pull-ups, sprint across intersections (when green).

Curbs: Treat like balance beams, do calf raises (or stretches) off the edge, single leg hops up and down.

Target (Store): Hurdle and climb those big red balls they have at the entrance (beware of dirty looks from parents whose kids try to emulate you).

Everything is an opportunity for movement and exercise. You just have to be willing to stand out.

I’d say make the local playground your playground, but certain cities have strict laws against adults using playgrounds without children. Too bad.

Still, know you can always add workout “toys” to your own the backyard (or a willing friend’s if you don’t have one yourself). The slackline has been one such piece of play equipment for me. Check it out—and then see how you could WIN one yourself. 

Now For the Contest…

I want to hear your favorite ways to turn exercise into play—and your questions around enjoying more play in your (and your family’s) life. Simply leave a relevant comment here by the deadline, and you’ll be entered to win.

The Prize: 

Your very own Slackline + The full line of PRIMAL KITCHEN® Collagen products (Collagen Fuel, Collagen Peptides, and Collagen Bars)—the ultimate ways to support the health of your joints, tendons and muscles (not to mention skin, hair and nails).

The Deadline: Midnight PDT, June 21th, 2018

Thanks for stopping in, everyone. Good luck!

[fitpaprika-blog]

The Lesson I Continually Learn

Here we are, nearing the end of the month, and one of the things that made me successful in January was staying accountable with my #fitsister, Sylvia. I’ve stayed pretty accountable with her this month as well, but I feel I need to be accountable with all of you as well.

In terms of Beachbody, I’ve stayed pretty on top of it. I did not do Yoga Fix one day, after watching about five minutes of it and letting my yoga snobbery get the best of me. I intended to do my Iyengar video later in the day, but I didn’t end up having time - or maybe I should say I didn’t make time but, either way, it was not done. It was the first day since January 1st that I didn’t exercise at all. I also missed my workout yesterday due to my best friend being in town, but I did both of the workouts today to make up for it. Otherwise, I’ve done a workout everyday since January 1st, 51 days minus 2, so 49 workouts, at least, but definitely more than that since I usually do a Beachbody workout and a dance class most days. I’ve probably logged close to 100 workouts since the start of the year, so I’m not going to beat myself up over missing a couple of days.

As far as Dance365 goes, I think I’ve given up on that goal. It was a nice idea, but the fact of the matter is that, on days when I don’t have a dance class, I don’t necessarily want to force myself to do it, and that’s what it was starting to feel like. I didn’t think that it would feel that way. I thought I would really enjoy and look forward to my 15 minutes everyday. I look forward to my classes but any day that I don’t go or can’t make it to a class, it feels like a chore to do it at home, so I just don’t. I think that is still in the spirit of the goal - the point was to do something I enjoy everyday, so if I’m not enjoying it then I shouldn’t do it. Besides, I’m doing dance classes 5 or 6 days per week, so it will still be something like 250 days out of the year, which is pretty good.

The idea was also just to dance more because I was really only doing it like 2-3 times per week, and I was doing the same stuff over and over again. Now I’m dancing at least 5 days per week, and I’m doing different types of dance and instruction, so I’m really stretching my mind and body. I don’t need to dance every single day, as long as I’m working toward my goal of becoming a better dancer.

I’m ironing out my dance schedule, as I still haven’t figured out Tuesday. I’ve decided I am not going to do a class on Sunday because that is usually my day of rest in all respects - it’s the day I try to make the rest day fall on for Beachbody, it’s the day I try to do yoga, etc. - and, besides that, I didn’t really find a class that spoke to my heart on Sundays. The studio is closed on Fridays, so I will still be taking five classes per week, which is about the amount that my membership allows. As for Tuesday...I was supposed to be doing Renate’s Zumba class at Dance it Off, but I have found it really challenging to make it over there on Tuesdays, especially when my “home” studio is a mile from my home. If her class was a little later or a little closer, I would make it work because it is awesome. But I’ve been struggling with that - and with the money. If I give up her class (and a couple of other things fall into place), my husband and I could probably start going back to our yoga class so...there’s tension there too. So, anyway, I’m trying out some Tuesday classes at Dance101 to see if there’s even a replacement over there or not. I’ve already bought classes at DIO, so we’ll see...

Okay, now, the point of this little post. What is the lesson I have learned this month that is the lesson I have continually learned over the past five and a half years? You cannot out-exercise bad nutrition. I know this. I’ve learned it in practice many times. Yet, somehow, I still sometimes let the concept of exercise to burn the excess calories get the best of me.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - in the world of weight loss, all of the factors that contribute to it, the only one I really have trouble sticking to is nutrition. And, unfortunately, that one is probably the most important, most essential, of all of them, not just for weight loss but for health in general. I’ve discussed the reasons I struggle with it extensively here - food addiction, emotional attachment to food, growing up a picky eater, etc. - and I’ve fought hard against all of those challenges from the time that I started actively trying to lose weight in July 2011, but I’ve never totally overcome them, and I’m starting to think that they will always be with me - I’ve just got to learn how to manage them better with each passing day.

One of the things that really helped me in the beginning was not really concerning myself with the nutritional value of the food and instead focusing on calories in and calories out. Being a picky eater, it was essential to not limit myself too much in terms of what I could eat and just focus on the amount. But, eventually, a few things happened. First, I plateaued. I had the hardest time breaking 200, and then I did not stay below it for very long. Second, the more I got involved with the health and fitness community, the more I learned about nutrition. I decided I couldn’t be as carefree with what I put in my body in longer - cleaner eating would take my health, fitness and weight loss to the next level. Plus, my nana’s debilitating dementia and the slew of dementia that exists in my family, as well as other mental health issues scared me straight a little - good nutrition, all the research shows, helps your brain health enormously. But all of this took time, and I wasn’t always super good at it, especially as I moved to cleaner and cleaner eating, which really challenged the picky eater in me. I’ve very rarely been able to marry my much healthier diet with my love for fitness on any kind of consistent basis.

I did it in January, and I got great results. I had hoped to keep going strong in February, despite some challenges I knew were coming my way, but it hasn’t been great, y’all. I’m not sure I’ve had a single day where I stayed completely on my plan and most days I fell right off of it. Some of these meals were planned - trying a new restaurant as part of our monthly board game outing, Valentine’s Day dinner, etc. - and others weren’t. Probably where I was most unsuccessful was in terms of snacks, particularly breakroom snacks, which has been a challenge at my job in the past, as well. We frequently have good, decadent snacks. I know this is going to tank my results for February, despite my continued dedication to fitness, and I’m disappointed in myself. But now I can only move forward.

What this has taught me is that I can’t let this get the best of me. I want to say, “Look, you’ve wasted a whole month. You’re totally slaying the fitness side, doing so much and getting stronger and better, but it’s not going to amount to anything because of how you’ve been eating. Good job at wasting your time.” That’s the inner dialogue I have going on in my brain, and then that sabotages me, right? Because then I think, well, if I’m just wasting my time anyway then I might as well give up. If I can’t control my eating then that means none of the fitness matters and that means I should just call it a day. Quit.

But that’s the devil on my shoulder talking, right? Because it’s not true, not entirely. The fitness counts for something. Sylvia said she could see it in my arms the other night. I’m getting better at the choreography in my dance classes. I’m making it through most of the rounds in 21 Day Fix without stopping. The fitness matters. If nothing else, it balances out my poor eating. Maybe I won’t lose any weight this month, but I don’t think the scale will show a gain either, and that counts for something. I have to remember that this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. Do I hate that I could have lost another 8-10lbs this month, and I’m not going to because I let my food addiction and emotional eating get the best of me? Yes. I feel like it’s a setback. I had it in mind to meet my goal weight in December, and now I don’t think I will meet it until at least next January.

But here’s what I have to tell myself - so what? The point is to meet it, right? The point is to keep going. The point is to learn more and more about myself, what I’m capable of and what works best for me to meet my goals. The point is to approach each day with good intentions. If I have to talk to an upset donor six times because I do not control the FedEx driver and then that means I feel like I need some Chinese food - that’s not good, but it’s not the end of the world. I shouldn’t feed that emotional frustration with unhealthy food because that’s a mentally unhealthy reaction to that situation. But if I do - because I’ve been doing that my entire life, and habits like that are really difficult to break - then it’s fine. It doesn’t mean I then need to go get ice cream. Or the next day I should eat the cookie in the breakroom. It doesn’t mean I don’t do a workout. It does not mean that I quit. The next day is a new day to do better. Maybe the next day, I face an equally difficult mental hurdle, but I beat it, and that’s progress. I just have to keep moving forward.

Maybe I won’t meet my goal weight in 2017. I started in 2011, y’all. Clearly, I am in this for the long haul. Do you know what, though? Not once - not once - have I weighed in at 275lbs since that first day. Not once. In five and a half years, I have never gained it all back. So that counts for something, right? So I lost a month. At least it was the shortest month! At least I succeeded in other ways in February! At least I learned from the mistakes I made!

March is not going to be any easier. I will be on a trip that is more or less centered on eating March 2nd through 5th. The next weekend is my first anniversary with my husband, and we are going on an overnight trip to celebrate that, as well as my birthday - and there will be Chinese food (but we are planning to just have that one meal and otherwise remain healthy during the trip). The weekend after that is my birthday weekend because my birthday is on March 22nd. I’m not sure what food perils that will entail - actually on my birthday, I plan to eat nothing but breakfast food and dessert all day long. So there are definitely some food pitfalls, which means I’m going to have to stay extra vigilant during all of the other days in order to still succeed. I have to keep moving forward.

One other change of note is that I started making meal replacement shakes for breakfast. That is actually going really well. It is saving me about fifteen minutes in the morning, which means fifteen more minutes of sleep in the morning and fifteen more minutes the night before to spend time with my husband. I’m not feeling hungry until lunch time. I get in an extra serving of vegetables because I blend up spinach in them. I had a ton of shakes leftover for this first time through experiment, so I can’t say with conviction that it will be cheaper that buying breakfast food, but if it’s not cheaper, I think it will at least not be any more expensive. And it saves me food prep time on the weekends as well. Instead of eggs for breakfast, I’m basically having eggs for lunch, as I’ve been making those egg muffins. Those are so easy and fast to make on the weekends, as well as super easy to pack for lunch in the mornings, and they are tasty and filling. After all of this time, I finally have breakfast and lunch sorted, which makes dinner so much easier to plan and execute!

I only have four more days left of 21 Day Fix. Then I’m starting Core de Force again on Monday. I’m either doing the Deluxe Calendar or the Hybrid Calendar - probably the deluxe. To sum up - this month has not been great, but I’m still in a positive mindset, and I’m going to try to stay positive moving forward. I’ll still post whatever results I get Saturday morning so stay tuned!

[cristinajourdanqp]

10 Ideas to Make Workouts More Fun (and a Contest)

Workouts are work. There’s no way around that. Whenever you move matter through space and time, whether you’re displacing your own body weight or a barbell or a kettle bell, you’re doing work. It’s just physics. But there’s another meaning of “work”: an unpleasant but necessary activity that helps you achieve a desired outcome. Far too many of our workouts end up embodying this second definition. They’re chores, strains. That’s why so many people—all of whom know they should be exercising on a regular basis—remain sedentary, unfit, weak individuals. Physical activity is no longer required to survive. We don’t “have” to do it anymore. If it feels like a miserable experience, why would we?

There are ways to escape this mindset, though. There are ways to make your workouts feel more likely play and less like work. Let’s look at a few today, and I hope you’ll share what works for you in the comment section. Btw, I’ve included a video of me doing one of my favorites below—and a contest to share the fun.

Find an Activity That’s Intrinsically Rewarding

When training, extrinsic rewards are always going to be present. You’re always trying to look better naked, lose weight, hit a PR, get better health markers. But if your training is also intrinsically rewarding—if you derive satisfaction, pleasure, and meaning from the act of training itself— you’ll have no problems sticking with it. Only the hardest of hard core will maintain a training regimen they hate. Everyone will keep a training regimen they love. Find something you enjoy doing, that you’d do even if it provided no health or aesthetic benefits, and make that at least part of your training regimen.

If You Hate Something, Try Something Else

This is the most fundamental mindset shift. Don’t do things that you hate.

A workout doesn’t have to be a walk in the park. Not everything is going to leave you bursting with joy. But if your training regimen is leaving you miserable, if you dread it and find every excuse to skip it, that’s worth heeding.

Maybe you hate back squats, but front squats are downright enjoyable. Maybe you hate spin class, but hill sprints are fun. Maybe you hate dedicated cardio or HIIT sessions, but pickup basketball twice a week does the trick. Find an alternative that accomplishes the same thing.

Try Competing Against Other Entities

I enjoy competing against myself. I like beating my own records, surpassing my own achievements, improving on my former self. I also like competition against other humans. That’s why I ran marathons and competed in triathlon for so long—I liked beating the other guys. It’s also why I love Ultimate Frisbee. There’s nothing quite like the thrill of competition to make you forget about how hard you’re working and how great of a workout you’re getting.

You can compete in CrossFit, in pickup games at the park, in adult rec leagues. Anything at all will work.

Get Better Goals

Me? My goal is to play better:

I want to be able to play Ultimate every weekend with guys 3o years younger (and keep up).

I want to go out for a paddling session whenever I want and not have it feel like work.

I want to hit the slopes all weekend and be able to drive home without my quads cramping up every time I hit the brake.

And I want to do all that while staying injury-free.

My training focus, then, is to maintain: my fitness, my muscle mass, the viability of my connective tissue, my bone mineral density. I’m not going for PRs anymore because it’s too risky at this stage while bringing me no closer to my goals. But that’s fine. I’ve found what works for me and my goals. And it makes the more “boring” training that much more enjoyable, because I’m working toward something that I love and frankly need to be healthy and happy.

Half my training is play. The other half is training that supports the other half, the play, and gets me closer to it. I know what and I’m doing and why. Do you?

Integrate Training Into Your Work Day

When you’re plugging away behind the computer, take ten minutes to go for a walk, run some sprints in the stairwell, do a few sets of pushups and squats, or swing the kettlebell you keep in your office when you feel like a break. You’re still working, but it’s different. You’ve switched from the mental to the physical, and that change is everything. Suddenly you want to train, because it’s not filling out a report or writing another email.

The added benefit is that taking fitness breaks will make you more eager to get back to work and, thanks to better blood flow to the brain, more productive when you do.

A ten-minute break to move or train every hour is the sweet spot, I find.

Take Up a Martial Art

Humans have a predilection for violence. Human history is in many respects a history of violence. We all need to acknowledge that and integrate it. That doesn’t mean we should be violent. It means there’s nothing wrong—and perhaps a lot right—with developing our capacity for physical conflict in a controlled, safe environment. Sparring, not street fighting. Staying calm in tense situations, not freaking out and escalating. Roughhousing, not brawling.

One of my big regrets is not learning a martial art. I have been learning a bit with an experienced friend, who’s shown me a few things and runs drills with me, and that’s only made me realize how much I’ve missed out on. Don’t make that mistake.

Set a Few Rules

Making rules that “force” you to exercise can be liberating.

One rule I’ve been following lately is “exercise when Shanti (our dog) exercises.” I’ll take the ball or frisbee out to the park, and every time I throw it I’ll exercise until she brings it back. I’ll do as many pushups or bodyweight squats as I can. I’ll hold a plank. Maybe I’ll even bring a kettlebell along and do swings or overhead presses or cleans or goblet squats. Depending on how far you throw the ball and how fast your dog is, you can end up doing short or long sets. This has ended up being one or two of my workouts each week.

Another example is people who hang pullup bars in a doorway and have the rule that they must do five (or however many) pullups each time they pass through. Without fail. If it’s a heavily trafficked part of the house, you might accumulate 30 or 40 pullups on an average day. Those add up.

Maybe you do squats while brushing your teeth. Or “sprint every hill you see.” Or “walk after every meal.” The point is to repeat these rules and stick to them until they’re part of you, and you find yourself training without making the decision to do it. What begins as an arbitrary rule (what rule doesn’t?) will eventually become sacrosanct.

Dance

If you have kids, this is a great way to spend some awesome family time. Have everyone hang out in the kitchen as you prep dinner. Throw on some music. Dance. Get silly. Try something new, don’t be afraid to really move. A Spotify (or similar service) account works well here, because you can create playlists and just throw them on when needed.

I’m partial to the “A to Z of African Dance” YouTube video. Great beat, great dancing, and it’ll give you some good ideas to try that provide a good workout.

Go Creek Walking

Don’t have a creek at hand? Apologies. If you do, however, I want you to visit it at least once a week for the next month—and spend at least an hour during each visit traveling up and down it, jumping from rock to rock, balancing on logs, wading through the water, squatting down to look for crawdads (or crayfish) and frogs and salamanders (but definitely not newts), sprinting up banks, crawling, lifting heavy rocks and logs. It’s a great opportunity to get a variety of movement patterns, expose yourself to nature, and get some barefoot time.

Make the World Your Playground

No matter where you live, the environment offers a wide variety of options for movement, play, and exercise.

Trees: Climb them, do pull-ups on the branches, do handstand pushups against the trunk.

Stairs: Run them, jump them, bear crawl up and down them.

Park Benches: Jump over them, crawl on the back, balance on the back.

Hills: Roll down them then sprint back up.

Traffic Lights: pull-ups, sprint across intersections (when green).

Curbs: Treat like balance beams, do calf raises (or stretches) off the edge, single leg hops up and down.

Target (Store): Hurdle and climb those big red balls they have at the entrance (beware of dirty looks from parents whose kids try to emulate you).

Everything is an opportunity for movement and exercise. You just have to be willing to stand out.

I’d say make the local playground your playground, but certain cities have strict laws against adults using playgrounds without children. Too bad.

Still, know you can always add workout “toys” to your own the backyard (or a willing friend’s if you don’t have one yourself). The slackline has been one such piece of play equipment for me. Check it out—and then see how you could WIN one yourself. 

Now For the Contest…

I want to hear your favorite ways to turn exercise into play—and your questions around enjoying more play in your (and your family’s) life. Simply leave a relevant comment here by the deadline, and you’ll be entered to win.

The Prize: 

Your very own Slackline + The full line of PRIMAL KITCHEN® Collagen products (Collagen Fuel, Collagen Peptides, and Collagen Bars)—the ultimate ways to support the health of your joints, tendons and muscles (not to mention skin, hair and nails).

The Deadline: Midnight PDT, June 21th, 2018

Thanks for stopping in, everyone. Good luck!

[watsonrodriquezie]

10 Ideas to Make Workouts More Fun (and a Contest)

Workouts are work. There’s no way around that. Whenever you move matter through space and time, whether you’re displacing your own body weight or a barbell or a kettle bell, you’re doing work. It’s just physics. But there’s another meaning of “work”: an unpleasant but necessary activity that helps you achieve a desired outcome. Far too many of our workouts end up embodying this second definition. They’re chores, strains. That’s why so many people—all of whom know they should be exercising on a regular basis—remain sedentary, unfit, weak individuals. Physical activity is no longer required to survive. We don’t “have” to do it anymore. If it feels like a miserable experience, why would we?

There are ways to escape this mindset, though. There are ways to make your workouts feel more likely play and less like work. Let’s look at a few today, and I hope you’ll share what works for you in the comment section. Btw, I’ve included a video of me doing one of my favorites below—and a contest to share the fun.

Find an Activity That’s Intrinsically Rewarding

When training, extrinsic rewards are always going to be present. You’re always trying to look better naked, lose weight, hit a PR, get better health markers. But if your training is also intrinsically rewarding—if you derive satisfaction, pleasure, and meaning from the act of training itself— you’ll have no problems sticking with it. Only the hardest of hard core will maintain a training regimen they hate. Everyone will keep a training regimen they love. Find something you enjoy doing, that you’d do even if it provided no health or aesthetic benefits, and make that at least part of your training regimen.

If You Hate Something, Try Something Else

This is the most fundamental mindset shift. Don’t do things that you hate.

A workout doesn’t have to be a walk in the park. Not everything is going to leave you bursting with joy. But if your training regimen is leaving you miserable, if you dread it and find every excuse to skip it, that’s worth heeding.

Maybe you hate back squats, but front squats are downright enjoyable. Maybe you hate spin class, but hill sprints are fun. Maybe you hate dedicated cardio or HIIT sessions, but pickup basketball twice a week does the trick. Find an alternative that accomplishes the same thing.

Try Competing Against Other Entities

I enjoy competing against myself. I like beating my own records, surpassing my own achievements, improving on my former self. I also like competition against other humans. That’s why I ran marathons and competed in triathlon for so long—I liked beating the other guys. It’s also why I love Ultimate Frisbee. There’s nothing quite like the thrill of competition to make you forget about how hard you’re working and how great of a workout you’re getting.

You can compete in CrossFit, in pickup games at the park, in adult rec leagues. Anything at all will work.

Get Better Goals

Me? My goal is to play better:

I want to be able to play Ultimate every weekend with guys 3o years younger (and keep up).

I want to go out for a paddling session whenever I want and not have it feel like work.

I want to hit the slopes all weekend and be able to drive home without my quads cramping up every time I hit the brake.

And I want to do all that while staying injury-free.

My training focus, then, is to maintain: my fitness, my muscle mass, the viability of my connective tissue, my bone mineral density. I’m not going for PRs anymore because it’s too risky at this stage while bringing me no closer to my goals. But that’s fine. I’ve found what works for me and my goals. And it makes the more “boring” training that much more enjoyable, because I’m working toward something that I love and frankly need to be healthy and happy.

Half my training is play. The other half is training that supports the other half, the play, and gets me closer to it. I know what and I’m doing and why. Do you?

Integrate Training Into Your Work Day

When you’re plugging away behind the computer, take ten minutes to go for a walk, run some sprints in the stairwell, do a few sets of pushups and squats, or swing the kettlebell you keep in your office when you feel like a break. You’re still working, but it’s different. You’ve switched from the mental to the physical, and that change is everything. Suddenly you want to train, because it’s not filling out a report or writing another email.

The added benefit is that taking fitness breaks will make you more eager to get back to work and, thanks to better blood flow to the brain, more productive when you do.

A ten-minute break to move or train every hour is the sweet spot, I find.

Take Up a Martial Art

Humans have a predilection for violence. Human history is in many respects a history of violence. We all need to acknowledge that and integrate it. That doesn’t mean we should be violent. It means there’s nothing wrong—and perhaps a lot right—with developing our capacity for physical conflict in a controlled, safe environment. Sparring, not street fighting. Staying calm in tense situations, not freaking out and escalating. Roughhousing, not brawling.

One of my big regrets is not learning a martial art. I have been learning a bit with an experienced friend, who’s shown me a few things and runs drills with me, and that’s only made me realize how much I’ve missed out on. Don’t make that mistake.

Set a Few Rules

Making rules that “force” you to exercise can be liberating.

One rule I’ve been following lately is “exercise when Shanti (our dog) exercises.” I’ll take the ball or frisbee out to the park, and every time I throw it I’ll exercise until she brings it back. I’ll do as many pushups or bodyweight squats as I can. I’ll hold a plank. Maybe I’ll even bring a kettlebell along and do swings or overhead presses or cleans or goblet squats. Depending on how far you throw the ball and how fast your dog is, you can end up doing short or long sets. This has ended up being one or two of my workouts each week.

Another example is people who hang pullup bars in a doorway and have the rule that they must do five (or however many) pullups each time they pass through. Without fail. If it’s a heavily trafficked part of the house, you might accumulate 30 or 40 pullups on an average day. Those add up.

Maybe you do squats while brushing your teeth. Or “sprint every hill you see.” Or “walk after every meal.” The point is to repeat these rules and stick to them until they’re part of you, and you find yourself training without making the decision to do it. What begins as an arbitrary rule (what rule doesn’t?) will eventually become sacrosanct.

Dance

If you have kids, this is a great way to spend some awesome family time. Have everyone hang out in the kitchen as you prep dinner. Throw on some music. Dance. Get silly. Try something new, don’t be afraid to really move. A Spotify (or similar service) account works well here, because you can create playlists and just throw them on when needed.

I’m partial to the “A to Z of African Dance” YouTube video. Great beat, great dancing, and it’ll give you some good ideas to try that provide a good workout.

Go Creek Walking

Don’t have a creek at hand? Apologies. If you do, however, I want you to visit it at least once a week for the next month—and spend at least an hour during each visit traveling up and down it, jumping from rock to rock, balancing on logs, wading through the water, squatting down to look for crawdads (or crayfish) and frogs and salamanders (but definitely not newts), sprinting up banks, crawling, lifting heavy rocks and logs. It’s a great opportunity to get a variety of movement patterns, expose yourself to nature, and get some barefoot time.

Make the World Your Playground

No matter where you live, the environment offers a wide variety of options for movement, play, and exercise.

Trees: Climb them, do pull-ups on the branches, do handstand pushups against the trunk.

Stairs: Run them, jump them, bear crawl up and down them.

Park Benches: Jump over them, crawl on the back, balance on the back.

Hills: Roll down them then sprint back up.

Traffic Lights: pull-ups, sprint across intersections (when green).

Curbs: Treat like balance beams, do calf raises (or stretches) off the edge, single leg hops up and down.

Target (Store): Hurdle and climb those big red balls they have at the entrance (beware of dirty looks from parents whose kids try to emulate you).

Everything is an opportunity for movement and exercise. You just have to be willing to stand out.

I’d say make the local playground your playground, but certain cities have strict laws against adults using playgrounds without children. Too bad.

Still, know you can always add workout “toys” to your own the backyard (or a willing friend’s if you don’t have one yourself). The slackline has been one such piece of play equipment for me. Check it out—and then see how you could WIN one yourself. 

Now For the Contest…

I want to hear your favorite ways to turn exercise into play—and your questions around enjoying more play in your (and your family’s) life. Simply leave a relevant comment here by the deadline, and you’ll be entered to win.

The Prize: 

Your very own Slackline + The full line of PRIMAL KITCHEN® Collagen products (Collagen Fuel, Collagen Peptides, and Collagen Bars)—the ultimate ways to support the health of your joints, tendons and muscles (not to mention skin, hair and nails).

The Deadline: Midnight PDT, June 21th, 2018

Thanks for stopping in, everyone. Good luck!

[cynthiamwashington]

10 Ideas to Make Workouts More Fun (and a Contest)

Workouts are work. There’s no way around that. Whenever you move matter through space and time, whether you’re displacing your own body weight or a barbell or a kettle bell, you’re doing work. It’s just physics. But there’s another meaning of “work”: an unpleasant but necessary activity that helps you achieve a desired outcome. Far too many of our workouts end up embodying this second definition. They’re chores, strains. That’s why so many people—all of whom know they should be exercising on a regular basis—remain sedentary, unfit, weak individuals. Physical activity is no longer required to survive. We don’t “have” to do it anymore. If it feels like a miserable experience, why would we?

There are ways to escape this mindset, though. There are ways to make your workouts feel more likely play and less like work. Let’s look at a few today, and I hope you’ll share what works for you in the comment section. Btw, I’ve included a video of me doing one of my favorites below—and a contest to share the fun.

Find an Activity That’s Intrinsically Rewarding

When training, extrinsic rewards are always going to be present. You’re always trying to look better naked, lose weight, hit a PR, get better health markers. But if your training is also intrinsically rewarding—if you derive satisfaction, pleasure, and meaning from the act of training itself— you’ll have no problems sticking with it. Only the hardest of hard core will maintain a training regimen they hate. Everyone will keep a training regimen they love. Find something you enjoy doing, that you’d do even if it provided no health or aesthetic benefits, and make that at least part of your training regimen.

If You Hate Something, Try Something Else

This is the most fundamental mindset shift. Don’t do things that you hate.

A workout doesn’t have to be a walk in the park. Not everything is going to leave you bursting with joy. But if your training regimen is leaving you miserable, if you dread it and find every excuse to skip it, that’s worth heeding.

Maybe you hate back squats, but front squats are downright enjoyable. Maybe you hate spin class, but hill sprints are fun. Maybe you hate dedicated cardio or HIIT sessions, but pickup basketball twice a week does the trick. Find an alternative that accomplishes the same thing.

Try Competing Against Other Entities

I enjoy competing against myself. I like beating my own records, surpassing my own achievements, improving on my former self. I also like competition against other humans. That’s why I ran marathons and competed in triathlon for so long—I liked beating the other guys. It’s also why I love Ultimate Frisbee. There’s nothing quite like the thrill of competition to make you forget about how hard you’re working and how great of a workout you’re getting.

You can compete in CrossFit, in pickup games at the park, in adult rec leagues. Anything at all will work.

Get Better Goals

Me? My goal is to play better:

I want to be able to play Ultimate every weekend with guys 3o years younger (and keep up).

I want to go out for a paddling session whenever I want and not have it feel like work.

I want to hit the slopes all weekend and be able to drive home without my quads cramping up every time I hit the brake.

And I want to do all that while staying injury-free.

My training focus, then, is to maintain: my fitness, my muscle mass, the viability of my connective tissue, my bone mineral density. I’m not going for PRs anymore because it’s too risky at this stage while bringing me no closer to my goals. But that’s fine. I’ve found what works for me and my goals. And it makes the more “boring” training that much more enjoyable, because I’m working toward something that I love and frankly need to be healthy and happy.

Half my training is play. The other half is training that supports the other half, the play, and gets me closer to it. I know what and I’m doing and why. Do you?

Integrate Training Into Your Work Day

When you’re plugging away behind the computer, take ten minutes to go for a walk, run some sprints in the stairwell, do a few sets of pushups and squats, or swing the kettlebell you keep in your office when you feel like a break. You’re still working, but it’s different. You’ve switched from the mental to the physical, and that change is everything. Suddenly you want to train, because it’s not filling out a report or writing another email.

The added benefit is that taking fitness breaks will make you more eager to get back to work and, thanks to better blood flow to the brain, more productive when you do.

A ten-minute break to move or train every hour is the sweet spot, I find.

Take Up a Martial Art

Humans have a predilection for violence. Human history is in many respects a history of violence. We all need to acknowledge that and integrate it. That doesn’t mean we should be violent. It means there’s nothing wrong—and perhaps a lot right—with developing our capacity for physical conflict in a controlled, safe environment. Sparring, not street fighting. Staying calm in tense situations, not freaking out and escalating. Roughhousing, not brawling.

One of my big regrets is not learning a martial art. I have been learning a bit with an experienced friend, who’s shown me a few things and runs drills with me, and that’s only made me realize how much I’ve missed out on. Don’t make that mistake.

Set a Few Rules

Making rules that “force” you to exercise can be liberating.

One rule I’ve been following lately is “exercise when Shanti (our dog) exercises.” I’ll take the ball or frisbee out to the park, and every time I throw it I’ll exercise until she brings it back. I’ll do as many pushups or bodyweight squats as I can. I’ll hold a plank. Maybe I’ll even bring a kettlebell along and do swings or overhead presses or cleans or goblet squats. Depending on how far you throw the ball and how fast your dog is, you can end up doing short or long sets. This has ended up being one or two of my workouts each week.

Another example is people who hang pullup bars in a doorway and have the rule that they must do five (or however many) pullups each time they pass through. Without fail. If it’s a heavily trafficked part of the house, you might accumulate 30 or 40 pullups on an average day. Those add up.

Maybe you do squats while brushing your teeth. Or “sprint every hill you see.” Or “walk after every meal.” The point is to repeat these rules and stick to them until they’re part of you, and you find yourself training without making the decision to do it. What begins as an arbitrary rule (what rule doesn’t?) will eventually become sacrosanct.

Dance

If you have kids, this is a great way to spend some awesome family time. Have everyone hang out in the kitchen as you prep dinner. Throw on some music. Dance. Get silly. Try something new, don’t be afraid to really move. A Spotify (or similar service) account works well here, because you can create playlists and just throw them on when needed.

I’m partial to the “A to Z of African Dance” YouTube video. Great beat, great dancing, and it’ll give you some good ideas to try that provide a good workout.

Go Creek Walking

Don’t have a creek at hand? Apologies. If you do, however, I want you to visit it at least once a week for the next month—and spend at least an hour during each visit traveling up and down it, jumping from rock to rock, balancing on logs, wading through the water, squatting down to look for crawdads (or crayfish) and frogs and salamanders (but definitely not newts), sprinting up banks, crawling, lifting heavy rocks and logs. It’s a great opportunity to get a variety of movement patterns, expose yourself to nature, and get some barefoot time.

Make the World Your Playground

No matter where you live, the environment offers a wide variety of options for movement, play, and exercise.

Trees: Climb them, do pull-ups on the branches, do handstand pushups against the trunk.

Stairs: Run them, jump them, bear crawl up and down them.

Park Benches: Jump over them, crawl on the back, balance on the back.

Hills: Roll down them then sprint back up.

Traffic Lights: pull-ups, sprint across intersections (when green).

Curbs: Treat like balance beams, do calf raises (or stretches) off the edge, single leg hops up and down.

Target (Store): Hurdle and climb those big red balls they have at the entrance (beware of dirty looks from parents whose kids try to emulate you).

Everything is an opportunity for movement and exercise. You just have to be willing to stand out.

I’d say make the local playground your playground, but certain cities have strict laws against adults using playgrounds without children. Too bad.

Still, know you can always add workout “toys” to your own the backyard (or a willing friend’s if you don’t have one yourself). The slackline has been one such piece of play equipment for me. Check it out—and then see how you could WIN one yourself. 

Now For the Contest…

I want to hear your favorite ways to turn exercise into play—and your questions around enjoying more play in your (and your family’s) life. Simply leave a relevant comment here by the deadline, and you’ll be entered to win.

The Prize: 

Your very own Slackline + The full line of PRIMAL KITCHEN® Collagen products (Collagen Fuel, Collagen Peptides, and Collagen Bars)—the ultimate ways to support the health of your joints, tendons and muscles (not to mention skin, hair and nails).

The Deadline: Midnight PDT, June 21th, 2018

Thanks for stopping in, everyone. Good luck!

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