Fitness Games

As the weather gets warmer, the food gets richer and the pace of life slows for the summer, it’s easy to take a holiday from your workout routine, or find excuses why a lie down is better than a run around.

Routine can be the enemy of fitness. Change up your workout routine regularly to keep things interesting. Be creative and do things you enjoy to stay in the habit of being fit. It also helps prevent all the summer food and drink from sticking to your ribs..or thighs..or belly.

For a holiday workout with a difference, start with a deck on cards. Choose four exercises (a 100m walk/run, pushups, squats, star jumps, lunges, hula hooping, skipping, crunches, plank etc). 

Assign each of the four exercises for the day to a suit in the deck.

For example, Run 100 m is hearts, Pushups is Diamonds, Skipping is Clubs and Lunges are Spades. 

Now, each time you deal a picture card, you do the exercise associated with that suit. Each time you deal a plain card, that is the number of repetitions. 

Play for 20 minutes, or however long it takes to get a good sweat up. The whole family can join in, and there’s sure to be plenty of hilarity if you keep drawing the ‘hard suit’ or high number of repetitions.

This is an easy way to take your workout on holiday. It requires little or no equipment and not a huge amount of space or time.