With children and adults spending an increasing amount of time glued to screens for work, school or leisure time, getting outdoors can seem a chore and something that gets missed. Yet the health benefits are enormous, for your mind and your body, so it’s certainly worth the time to make it happen.
Finding family-friendly ways to have fun, spend time together, look after your family’s health and wellbeing, and boost your body strength isn’t that hard. It’s something that children and adults of all ages can enjoy. Whether you are a competitive family or simply like to spend time together to reconnect and boost your health at the same time, then there are many challenges and activities that you can all join in with.
Families of all ages can have fun outdoors with the fantastic range of equipment found in local parks and if you have the space, you can add some great playground equipment and outdoor gym equipment to your garden to bring the fun home.
Check out your local park
There is likely to be a wealth of outdoor gym equipment that can bring some fun and spark a family challenge for families of all ages in your local area. Work together or compete against each other to enjoy the time you spend outside, get fresh air and spend time with family and friends, improving your physical and mental health.
Monkey bars and outdoor pull-up bars – improving upper body strength through play and exercise is good for children and adults alike. Monkey bars and pull-up bars are the perfect equipment to help build arm strength. Whether you compete on distance travelled, repetitions or time, as a family or adult/child partnership or simply have fun beating your own target, it’s great to exercise arm muscles and strengthen the spine-protecting abdominal muscles alongside generally improving your overall core strength.
Including exercises that build strength into your challenges is a great way to help protect your bones and should be an essential part of your family exercise time, as well as aerobic exercises that will help improve your heart.
Swings, slides and seesaws – even the most basic playgrounds have play equipment and many now have outdoor gym equipment (more about that in a bit) and space you can use as a family in many ways to boost your health. Use swings to do arm dips and squats as well as a traditional swing. Even pushing younger family members in a child swing can be pretty strenuous and build upper arm and body strength, as well as great fun to boost your mental health too.
Climbing steps to get to the top of the slide will help leg strength and give family members of all ages a chance to enjoy the fun of the slide down. As a challenge, you see how many drops in a given time or who slides the fastest. The most important thing is to have fun and feel better.
Circuits – depending on the available outdoor gym equipment, try setting up a regular family-friendly circuit training route that you can use and measure your progress against individual and family targets. Challenges can be set that see the winners choose a treat, a forfeit for a loser, or simply to help children learn what they can achieve over time. Exercising as a family is more likely to keep everyone motivated. It’s a great chance to laugh, spend time together, compete, and develop skills with younger family members.
Gym equipment – many parks and playgrounds now feature a range of outdoor gym equipment that focuses on bringing the benefits of exercise machinery to the outside, so you also benefit from the health boost of being outside while you exercise. Much of the outdoor gym equipment can be used by children, so it’s worth checking out what is in your local area or perhaps considering some pieces for a home outdoor gym.
Can’t get to the park?
Not having to travel to enjoy the challenges of outdoor exercise and playground equipment that all the family can enjoy is now pretty easy. With the fantastic range of natural wood and steel equipment available, you don’t have to turn your garden into a plastic haven only suitable for children. Suppliers such as PlayEquip can provide professional advice on the perfect equipment for bespoke home garden set-ups so why not consider bringing the park home to you – where you can have all the fitness challenges you like in the privacy of your very own garden.