5 Ways to Exercise with Your Children

1. Get Moving Together

Finding the time and energy to exercise as a busy parent can be a daunting task because you are very rarely left alone. Unfortunately, very few parents realize that they can exercise with their children, instead of trying to separate the physical from the practical. Regardless of the age or number of children in your family, there are many ways to get you and your kids moving every day.

2. Create a Bag of Tricks

The first step to exercising with your children is to make the concept fun. Start by creating a "bag of fitness" for the entire family, by writing down 20 to 30 movement related activities that everyone can enjoy on scraps of paper, then folding and placing them in a bag. Every day a member of the family gets to take a turn drawing from the bag and choose an activity that everyone can do together. For example, activities might include walking to a local park, riding bikes together or swimming at a nearby pool. If money or location is an issue, try writing ideas like playing tag indoors, dancing to music videos on television, or doing a kick-boxing tape together.

3. Motivate and Reward

Create excitement for physical fitness with your children by letting them track their progress on a family activity calendar. For every activity completed, let your children mark their progress on the calendar with a sticker and earn points towards specific rewards. For example, for every five stickers earned, your child can choose a family outing that gets everyone moving (ice skating, roller blading or swimming at the lake).

4. Play Games Inside

If creating family activities and exercise rewards is not enough to motivate you or your children to exercise, try tricking your family into getting physical. Purchase video games that get your kids off of the couch, such as the WII Nintendo system that lets you actively box, golf and bowl during a game. Or try purchasing a game like "Dance Dance Revolution" which challenges children and adults to follow complicated dance patterns in front of their very own television. There are also exercise videos available created specifically for kids, such as Denise Austin's "Fit Kids" or Leslie Sansone's "Kid's Walk." In order to prioritize your own physical fitness, try jumping in and exercising with your children, or simply creating a personal circuit of push-ups, squats and jogging nearby.

5. Learn and Move Outdoors

If staying indoors will make your children stir crazy, than why not try hitting the great outdoors for physical activity together. Help your children learn and move by going on nature walks. Start out ahead of time by designating certain points if your child spots specific animals, flowers or birds, and count up points earned during a long family walk. Whoever gets the most points can pick another fun activity to do for another day. Try bowling, renting bicycles, walking on the beach, climbing on jungle gyms or hitting a trampoline as some of the many ideas for physical movement that you and your children can enjoy together.