Workouts With a Little Extra Kid-Challenge

Push-ups not challenging enough? Add a kid climbing on your back. Credit: Port of San Diego, Flickr

I spiced up my workout routine recently with a little Tabata routine that we featured here. If you haven’t tried a Tabata workout, you should. It’s a super-quick way to get a workout that will leave you sweaty. And sore. (So sore it had me reminiscing.) But even though it had my arms aching, I loved its simplicity and the fact that there are endless combinations of Tabata workouts you could do — no equipment or gym required.

As we mentioned in that post, a Tabata workout consists of 20 seconds of an exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest. You repeat that eight times before switching to the next exercise. The moves for my particular workout were push-ups, jump rope (I switched between faux jumping rope and high knees), squats and mountain climbers. All tough in their own right. But I didn’t account for the added challenge my kids would bring to Tabata.

I always exercise with my kids around. There’s no escaping them. And even though I usually start my workout when they’re occupied with their toys, it never fails that as soon as they see me doing something exciting (and to them, working out = exciting!), they want to get involved. A newbie Tabata exerciser, I knew after the second round of push-ups that it was going to be a tough workout. But then the kids started climbing on me during push-ups, adding to the challenge. My son would try to escape the basement and climb up the stairs, so often my 10-second breaks consisted of running after him, up stairs and carrying 25 pounds back down, only to repeat the cycle once I finished my next 20 seconds of work.

And then the mountain climbers. I hate mountain climbers anyways. But then the kids went and added extra challenge by crawling under my mountain-climbing “tunnel.” Or my son would again continue on his path to the stairs, and I would do mountain-climber shuffles, mountain-climbing my way into his path to block him from the stairs.

Kids add challenges to workouts in a lot of ways. Sometimes it’s carving out the time for the workouts amid time constraints. But sometimes, it’s just the added challenge to the workout itself with extra resistance and extra chasing between sets. I consider them my little trainers who are always trying to make my workout just a little extra tough. And it works.

Do you work out with your kids around? Do yours give your routine a little extra level of difficulty? —Erin