Heart Filled Fun
Heart Filled Fun
February is American Heart Month. Get your heart pumping with these fun family-inclusive aerobic conditioning activities!
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDD), regular aerobic physical activity is one of the most important things people can do to improve their heart health. Preschool-aged children (3-5 years) should be physically active throughout the day for growth and development. School-aged children and adolescents (ages 6 through 17 years) should participate in 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity of physical activity daily. This may seem like a lot, but don’t worry! Your child may already be meeting the recommended physical activity levels! Listed below, you can discover enjoyable activities to help your child reach the recommendation levels.
How do I know if my child’s aerobic intensity is moderate or vigorous?
Moderate intensity physical activity requires some effort and will result in an increase in heart rate. For example, if your kiddo is walking with their friend, they will maintain a conversation without requiring a break. Vigorous intensity physical activity requires a large amount of effort, causes rapid breathing and a substantial increase in heart rate. If your kiddo is walking with their friend, they will need to pause to catch their breath while talking and walking simultaneously - or may stop talking to maintain their breathing.
Here are a few ways to incorporate ‘heart’ exercise into your child’s day:
Dance Party – rainy day preventing you from going outside? Turn up the music inside your house and get dancing! Take turns choosing songs to move to or have everyone write down suggestions and pick out of a hat. For older kiddos, you can download the Just Dance Now app on the phone and dance along to the songs, following the dance moves on the screen.
Obstacle Course – the sky is the limit to create your own obstacle course – whether it be inside or outside your home. The great thing is you can put as many or as few items as you want in it and if the kids are helping, you will most likely pick something they want to participate in. For an added challenge, add in a stopwatch for time, or roll some dice to see how many times they must complete the course.
Here are a few ideas:
Indoor: hopping on one foot, walk across the bridge of pillows, jumping jacks, animal walks (frog jumps, elephant lunges, crab walk), crawl through a tunnel, step up onto a step stool and step down or hop down.
Outdoor: ride a bike or scooter a certain distance, climb up the climbing wall/ladder of the playground, go down the slide, walk along the ledge separating grass from the bark, jump over the cracks in the sidewalk and hop or skip back to the bike.
Relay Race – this is always a great way to get the whole family involved. Check out this post for some fun ideas!
Sports – soccer, basketball, running, and swimming are a few examples of sports that provide great ways to get your blood pumping, making the heart muscle stronger!