We all know that we need to exercise during lockdown. This is as much for our mental health as well as our physical health, and as we start the beginning of week 3, we might be running out of ideas, cabin fever may be setting in with the kids and we may be starting to feel a little low!

Here are some fun things to do to keep active, entertained and hopefully have some laughs, which is especially needed at this time. You won’t even feel like you’re exercising with some of them!

Try to get in a combination of cardio and resistance exercise as this will look after your heart and lungs and help to tone your body too.

Let’s start with walking (while we are still allowed to!) This is great exercise and you reap the benefits from being outside in the fresh air too. Try alternating between walking at a steady pace and then speeding up for a minute and then going back to your steady pace. If you have kids you can set a point ahead and race to it or crab walk/lunge/hop/skip/jump to it. It will make the walk more fun for them and very entertaining for you!

However, if you can’t get out for a walk or if we are prevented from doing that, here’s a few ideas to do at home.

Learn a dance and get the kids to perform it. It’s great fun learning a dance and hard work too. You’ll have lots of laughs as you get the moves wrong and the more you practice, the more exercise you get.
Do a Zumba class (if you’re a W Fitness member you can follow along to our live classes in our Facebook Group) These are great fun and the music is so good that you’ll feel like you’re on holiday (as well as building up a sweat and getting a really good workout). A Zumba class can burn between 400 and 1000 calories!
Play games that involve moving such as Twister (everybody has one in the house somewhere ????). You can test your core strength with this one trying not to fall over. Charades is another good example, just remember to really exaggerate the movements. Yoga spinner is great fun just spin the dial and perform the yoga movement that it lands on. You could always make your own variations of these such as dance moves, exercises etc.
Try doing headstands with your kids (they are quite often very good at it). This is great for your core muscles and gets the blood rushing to your head.
Try skipping. I bet most of us haven’t done this since we were children. If there are three of you, you could have two people moving the rope and one skipping. I used to love running in and out of the skipping rope!
Create an obstacle course in the garden. You could use hoops, cones, sticks, balls, mats, mini trampolines, cushions and tunnels. Set them up so that it makes a course involving jumping, running and balancing and then do the course a set amount of times. You could even put challenges at each one such as 10 star jumps or 10 burpees. Just make sure to get the kids to help you tidy everything away ????
Hide things around the garden for the kids to run around and find and get them to do the same for you! It’s coming up to Easter so if you’ve managed to get some Easter eggs, this is the perfect opportunity.
Play Hopscotch. Either buy a Hopscotch mat or better still, chalk one onto the drive. Another one of my favourites – I could play this for hours.
If you have enough room for races, get the children to race each other (and you!) but using animal walks such as crab walk, bear crawl or bunny hops. You could get the children to think of other animals too.
Blow up some balloons and either throw them to each other or use them for volleyball, basketball, football or tennis. You could also incorporate these into your races by holding a balloon between your legs.
If you have a few cardboard boxes lying around, set them up in a row and they can jump, hop or skip over them. Join in for a good cardio workout!
Put cushions and pillows around the floor and tell your children that the carpet is the sea and that they have to jump from cushion to cushion without falling into the sea!
Try to balance on one leg while standing on a pillow. Time everyone to see who lasts the longest. This is a great exercise for your core and to improve your balance.
Buy some exercise dice with exercises on one dice and number of reps on the other and take it in turns!
Try our Toned In 10 workouts for some resistance-based exercise and use resistance bands, weights etc (if you have them) for added resistance.

Some of these are obviously aimed at younger children but I’m sure even teenagers and definitely adults would have a laugh getting involved with these.

If you have any more ideas, please let us know on our W Fitness Facebook page.

Keep fit and healthy and stay safe ????

Much Love,

Caroline & Hannah