Cops & robbers on bikes and other ways to exercise while playing with kids
By Brittany Anas
If you’re having a hard time trying to squeeze in gym time, try going on a “recess break” and playing games with your kids outdoors. Those classic playground games that you loved as a child — tag, kickball and Red Rover — are fun ways to bond with your kiddos and their friends, while also getting in a work-out.
Here are five fun ways you can work out — like a kid.
• Cops and robbers on bike: When we were kids, we just put playing cards in the wheels of our bike for sound effects. Now, you can can get police horns and lights for bikes, like this set from Amazon for just $15. Go out and on a trail and take the old-school game of cops and robbers to a whole new level.
• Neighborhood Olympics: Use a Saturday morning to organize a mini-Olympics, imitating the events. During winter months, sledding in a park can be the “luge” event followed up by an ice-skating trip at your local recreation center or ice rink. In warmer spring or summer months, play driveway basketball games like “H-O-R-S-E,” hold cartwheeling competitions for the gymnastics category, practice serving a volleyball or take laps around the block on your bikes. Reward the kids with mini trophies from Party City. (They’re just 58 cents a piece).
• Marco-Polo: Can’t wait for summer? Take a trip to your local recreation center and play in the pool instead of watching from the pool deck. If your kids are good swimmers, start a game of Marco Polo or just simply tread water while they’re playing. Just treading water alone at a moderate pace can burn off 245 calories per hour.
• Hula-hooping: Hold a hula-hooping contest and try out tricks (like hooping in reverse). They make grown-up hoops that are weighted and will help you strengthen your core. The Acu-Hoop from Overstock will also help define your lower back muscles.
• Roller skating: This past-time will have you reminiscing of fluorescent light shows, couples skate and Paula Abdul pumping from the speakers at the roller-skating rink. Roller skating can burn up to 345 calories per hour. Toys’R’Us has several roller-skate options for kids.
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