Stay Fit: Baby Provides the Perfect Opportunity to Exercise
Does a sanity-saving and fat-burning fitness routine seem impossible with kids? Stay fit as a family and enjoy the benefits of exercise with baby.
Having figured out that working out with baby in tow burns more calories, more and more parents are using jogging stroller, bicycle trailers, and baby carriers to get in shape. Parents with toddlers use their little one's high energy as inspiration to get up and move.
Bicycle Trailers
A fun and easy method to achieve fitness goals, 60 minutes of moderate biking burns around 570 calories. You'll burn even more with a bicycle trailer attached. A child bicycle trailer adds quite a bit of weight to the back of your bike, requiring more muscle to pedal. The more effort required to move forward, the more calories burned.
Bicycling with a bike trailer attached does more than get you in shape. Pedaling with Jack and Jill creates great opportunities for spending time outdoors. Take a trip down your local bike path and discover flowers, bugs, and animals. Use a bicycle tour with your children as an opportunity to explore your city.
When the kids are at home or school, use your trailer to haul cargo. Carry groceries or hit the farmer's market. With a bike cargo trailers, errands become a workout. Bicycle trailers from top brands like Chariot, Burley, and InSTEP help improve your physical fitness while discovering a new family activity. BicycleTrailers.com features a wide selection of equipment for peddling toward fitness.
Jogging Strollers
Having figured out that jogging or walking while pushing a stroller is the ultimate workout, more and more parents are jogging - burning hundreds of calories per hour. Many moms losing baby weight and dads getting back in shape include running strollers into their workout routine.
One of the most accessible means of getting back in shape, pushing a jogging stroller improves heart health, stamina, and muscle tone. With a running stroller, the gym is as close as walking out your front door. To explore farther field, many rails-to-trails paths feature wide, stroller-friendly surfaces. Visit traillink.com to find rails-to-trails near you. In fact, the JoggingStroller.com team walks the rails-to-trails path behind our office everyday!
Marathoners who happen to be moms and dads also benefit from running strollers. Models like the BOB Ironman stand up to the demands of intense training. Fitness enthusiasts love that getting back to their exercise routine requires only pushing a stroller. The added impact of stroller pushing also appeals to runners. Visit JoggingStroller.com to find detailed descriptions and customer reviews of all the top jogging strollers.
Baby Carriers
For many parents, a baby carrier fits in perfectly with the need to both take care of baby and stay fit. Moderate walking using a baby carrier makes the perfect exercise for women who have only recently given birth and who are prohibited from heavy exercise. For women who delivered by C-section, the PortaMEe carrier is a comfortable option.
Beginning an exercise routine is as simple as strapping on your Baby Bjorn and hitting the treadmill or walking around the block. Looking for a more intense workout? Try backpacking. By putting baby in a pack by Chicco, Deuter, or Kelty, you're getting the same fitness benefits as traditional backpacking. As an added bonus, baby's weight gain gradually adds intensity to your workout. ChildCarriers.com features a wide range of carriers and detailed reviews help you choose the best for you.
Exercise with Baby
With a few modifications of classic exercises, baby becomes the perfect workout partner.
- Sit-ups: Lay on your back with knees bent. Lay baby against your thighs. Gently hold onto baby's hands. Each time you curl up, give baby a fun look!
- Airplane: Lie on your back and bend your knees to your chest at a 90 degree angle. Place baby on your shins and pretend to give her an airplane ride. Always maintain your grasp on baby.
- Kiss Crunches: From the same position as airplane, curl your head and knees toward each other. Each time you curl up, give baby a kiss!
- Pony Ride: Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Have baby sit on your tummy, and hold him gently around the waist. Raise your hips off the round slightly. Hold. Repeat. For extra fun, make horsy sounds!
- Weights: Bench press baby instead of weights. Baby must be able to hold their head up.
- Kiss Push-ups: Lay baby on their back. Get into a push-up position over baby. Each time you lower your chest toward the floor, give baby a kiss.
Play With Baby
Small children often make the best personal trainers. Toddlers have boundless energy, and keeping up takes sweat. Use their propensity to move as motivation to get back in shape.
Take a walk with your little one. Have them ride a run bike , which increases their stride and speed to match yours. You'll have some quality time with your child and they'll learn bike-riding fundamentals. Best of all, they'll see exercise as an enjoyable activity, building a lifetime of fitness a health. RunBikes.com has all the most stylish balance bikes for little ones.
While tricycles may be too big for you to ride, many push trikes offer great opportunities for playtime. While your toddler pedals, you push their tricycle, offering extra bursts of speed to them and a bit of exercise for you. TricycleKids.com carriers all the top brands, and detailed reviews help you choose the best trike for your child.
Find Exercise Groups
Know that parents everywhere face the same dilemma: how to stay fit with baby. Many business savvy moms have started groups based around exercise with children. Stroller Strides offers classes all across the country. Using a stroller such as the BOB Stroller Strides stroller, an instructor leads caretakers through cardio and resistance training. Stroller Fit is another company that encourages fitness with baby. You could even start your own franchise and help caretakers get in shape!
No exercise groups near you? Call your fellow parents and start your own walking group. On your walk, stop by the playground and do chin-ups on the monkey bars. Use the curb as a spot to practice the step-aerobics moves you learned back in your gym days.
Have Fun
Start your own fitness routine, secure in the knowledge that working out as a family easily ups wellbeing. Adding simple changes to diet helps optimize calories burned and weight lost. Even without baby in tow, adding exercise to your day is as easy as parking far away. If you have an opportunity to pass the little one off to a spouse, take extra time to get healthy. Above all, have fun, and enjoy your time with baby - they're only little once!
