In this fast-paced, technology-dominated world it can be hard to get your exercise in, and statistics show an unfortunate decline in childhood exercise. So it is more important than ever to find creative ways to stay active so as to better your health and set a good example for your children (if you haven’t caught our article on children and inactivity, feel free to check it out here). We’ve compiled a list of fun activities you can do together regularly to help you enjoy some fam-time and instill the value of fitness in your children.

Explore The Great Outdoors

Take weekly family walks or hikes in different spots around your town or city. Together, you can research locations and choose a new one each week.

Raise The Roof

Hold a household dance party every now and then. Everyone stops what they are doing for 20 minutes of serious boogying! You can play dance games like Freeze Dance as well for extra fun.

Climb The Walls!

Find an indoor wall-climbing business that has adequate safety harnesses and training. These exist in most cities. You may have to travel to get there but if you all love it, it could turn into a fun biweekly family road trip.

Be A Family Of Fish

Attend ‘family swim’ a couple nights a week together at your local pool.

Labour Of Love

Work together to tend your garden or to build something, like a shed or porch outdoors. You can give the safer jobs to your children such as fetching supplies or holding and passing you tools. Both building and gardening are hard work and can be very rewarding. They would be great skills to teach your family.

Blade Your Way To Family Fitness

Get each member fitted out with roller blades and go as a family twice a week.

Pass The Baton

Set up a relay race in your backyard or all around your property with different activity stations, use a colored tie to pass on to the next as each member finishes.

Healthy Competition

Hold a weekly fitness contest. Whoever does the most sit ups or jumping jacks that week gets to pick the movie for family night, or gains a couple dollars for their bank.

Scheduled Slots

Have designated times to use the family treadmill and stick to them. That way each member will know when it is their turn to get their daily exercise in if they haven’t already.

Family Frisbee

Divide your family into two teams and have a routine ‘Family Frisbee Day’ in the park.

Chase A Good Cause

Train for, and complete a ‘fun run’ as a family for a cause you feel collectively passionate about. This will help with family fitness while also illustrating the importance of altruism to your children.

“Ready Or Not, Here I Come!”

Play a long game of hide and seek around your house twice a week with the whole family! This will be fun for any age, exciting for little ones and nostalgic for older members of the family.

Car Games

Make a game of parking your car – Let’s Move suggests “Park farther away and count with your children the number of steps from the car to your destination. Write it down and see if you can park even farther away on your next stop.”

Join The (Dance) Revolution!

Invest in moving video games such as Wi Fit or Dance Revolution and get your whole family involved by making a fun competition out of it, or just schedule a couple evenings a week to take turns playing without competing!

Summer Fun

Go to the beach and make sandcastles! Simple but fun for everyone. Or you can play beach volleyball.

Hit The Family Court!

Learn a sport together. If one of you is good at basketball, teach the rest of the family. Or learn to play “kick ball”, an incredibly fun combination of soccer and baseball. Get the neighbour family together for bigger teams and more fun!

Thanks for visiting DocChat we hope you enjoyed our family fitness ideas and that you’ll be back again soon!