Lockdown Fitness: Home Workouts For Adults and Kids to Enjoy Together

Mums Tips

Fitness & Health

Published on Saturday, 09 January 2021 10:02

Last Updated on 08 January 2021

Monica Costa

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January is a time of year for fitness, with research revealing that in 2021, there will be a 50% increase in people setting exercise as their new year’s resolutions. But, as we enter into the UK’s third lockdown, gyms are forced to shut their doors and millions of school children are unable to return to school.

During the first lockdown, two-thirds of parents said that the time spent with their children brought them closer together, having a positive impact on their family. This included outdoor activities such as walks and bike rides during the summer months, but now with colder weather, motivating the family to go outside isn’t as easy.

Fortunately, our beloved Joe Wicks (whom I interviewed last Spring) online PE class for kids is back next Monday, which proved to be a huge hit with a staggering 806,000 parents and children logging on in the first lockdown.

With this in mind, the rental experts at Essential Living have done some digging to give us exclusively some of the best home workouts sessions online, perfect for both adults and children to enjoy together during the third lockdown.

1.   Have a Blast With This Family Fun Cardio Workout!

POPSUGAR Fitness launched this family-friendly cardio workout on Youtube back in summer 2019, featuring the Feng family.

Perfect for building your heart rate in the comfort of your living room, this workout combines fun, simple cardio moves, such as star jumps, planks, squat jumps, coordination steps and sit-ups, with different games and challenges to motivate your children along the way.

Starting with a gentle skipping and hopping warm-up, each cardio activity is broken up with a challenge related to that exercise. Whoever wins gets rewards such as a certain family activity of their choice, to stay up an extra 15 minutes at night or choose their favourite dinner.

This 13-minute workout is a fun, motivational video free for any family to access on Youtube, combining cardio and strength training exercises to get the family’s heartbeats racing.

Check it out here:

 

2.   Yoga for Parents and Kids- Hippie’s Flow (Active Together)

This fun yoga routine for children and parents was live-streamed on Youtube by Pau Secrets, a Spanish mum and prenatal yoga, meditation and wellbeing coach. Whilst her coaching, workshops, and classes are cancelled, she is offering free virtual online classes and regular weekly live streams.

In this session, she leads you through age-appropriate yoga poses, partner, and group poses to encourage family bonding and help children build confidence and self-esteem.

Started by a quick running and stretch exercise, herself and her six-year-old daughter demonstrate several yoga poses, including the warrior, the cobra pose, the child’s pose and the prayer pose. These simple stretches are easy to enjoy as a family, designed to release tension throughout the body whilst learning new yoga techniques along the way.

You can watch the live stream here:

 

3.   The Family Fit Club

Children are more likely to exercise if their parents/carers take part, therefore the Family Fit Club is providing free online videos, from warm-ups, games activities and cool-downs which aim to encourage as many children and families to exercise together.

Instead of PE lessons that aren’t currently taking place, the Fit Club have created lots of fun workouts mimicking the movements and actions of activities children love to get up to, such as gaming, sports, cooking, superheroes, dance, TV etc. These workouts have been designed for the entire family regardless of age or ability and can be performed at home across all devices with no equipment needed.

This 11- minute full body workout video contains exercises associated with eight different sports activities with 30 second rests in between. Requiring no equipment whatsoever, this workout video starts with three different types of tennis swings, building heart rate and coordination. You can give this video a go here: 

4.   Oti Mabuse Family Dance Workout Party

During Lockdown, Strictly Come Dancing star Oti Mabuse was encouraging kids to salsa and cha-cha from their living rooms, with her live-streamed workouts at 11:30 am daily, with Disney-themed dances on offer from Aladdin, Frozenand High School Musical.

 

Including dance moves which are suitable for the whole family to enjoy, she has now treated us to her energetic 45-minute dance cardio workout session, streamed from her front room.

Perfect for those with no dance moves whatsoever, this workout teaches moves from Latin dance, the salsa, as Oti talks you through every single move including the side and cross step, the Cuban open step and the Cucaracha. This dance workout is not only fun but also helps with motor skill development

So if you want to get those hips moving, you can access the Youtube video here , free of charge:

5.   Fitness Blender Kids Workout

Global online health and fitness company, Fitness Blender, have created a special kids edition for their members who have children to enjoy. This 25-minute routine runs through three different games to help burn off extra energy and increase bone density, balance, endurance and even strength.

In doing so, they have taken exercises from their regular adult fitness workouts and incorporated child-friendly game themes along with less complex exercises and shorter intervals.

The workout contains three different games, lasting roughly around 5 minutes each, as well as a warm-up and a cool down. Starting with Red Light Green Light– red lights meaning you must stop and freeze and green light to go back to the exercise.

Jump or Drop – repetitions of a regular exercise followed by jumps and drops, where you would drop to the floor to do a push-up and finally a freestyle round, allowing you the freedom to choose any exercise you want. 

You can give this home workout a try here: