Whether we get our kicks inside or outside of the gym, our enthusiasm for fitness isn’t always infectious, not least with our children! After all, kids of a certain age prefer to stay indoors on video games these days than get out and run a few miles. In fact, can you remember ever wanting to run 5 miles when you were a kid? It’s important that we get our children interested in fitness, but it’s not as simple as that. What can we do to ensure that we get them engaged as early as possible?
Lead By Example
We can tell our kids to do more exercise, but if we don’t do it ourselves, why should they listen to us? If we spend a lot of time going to the gym or exercising anyway, this is the perfect starting point. But if your children don’t see you exercising, especially if you go to the gym, then it’s time to integrate a little bit more into your daily life so your children can see exactly what you’re doing.
Pick A Roundabout Path To Fitness
Once they’ve started to move a little bit more, you can ask them what their goals are. Maybe they want to play some sports, or they just want to run around for fun. Whatever it is, if it gets them moving, this is a success! What you can do is work with them to help them nurture their goals. For example, going for a fun run is a great way to get fit, but also it requires planning and preparation. You can do this by heading out to the shops to get custom track suits you can both wear, or having a look online at other people and how they’ve trained for a specific event, and implementing these practices yourself. Work together on it, it’s quality time with them!
Make It Fun!
Even if they have no goals, as long as it’s fun, they are getting the heart pumping and the blood flowing. And this is something we can underestimate. It doesn’t matter how many reps they complete or how many miles they run, as long as they are up and active, this provides them with a foundation of fitness. You can play games or run around in the park with them, and as long as you have some idea of how long they’ve been running around for until they get tired, you can gradually push this in the right direction. So, if they get tired after 20 minutes, the next time, aim for 21, then 22, and so on.
Motivation to exercise it’s hard enough for us, and if we got sedentary children and we want them to develop some love for fitness, we’ve got to realize that it’s quite a battle we’ve got on our hands. It’s important to start when they’re young, but if it’s too late, don’t feel that you failed. Regardless of how old they are, as long as they start moving, this is a step in the right direction. It’s like when you started exercising, if you couldn’t do a press up at the beginning, you didn’t give up. But gradually as you built your strength, you were able to do more. It’s exactly the same thing with our children.
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