Here’s another awesome post from my Handsome Hubby a.k.a. Derm Dad.

One of the common side-effects of marriage, and especially family life with kids, is getting out of shape and gaining weight.  It is often a matter of priorities.  In order to spend enough time with the family, men have less time to themselves. One of the first activities to be sacrificed is exercise.  Since many of us find it too difficult to modify our intake to adjust for our lower energy output, we gain weight.  Some men resign themselves to an expanding waistline while others vow to fight it, only to find the pounds packing on anyway.  Very few are able to maintain a pre-family level of fitness long-term.  Unfortunately, I am not one of the select few as I have gained a few pounds and have had to size-up my trousers over the years.  However, I have been able to maintain some sort of fitness level thanks to a fitness program designed by me, a Dad, that can help convert family time to fitness time.

My program is called Kidsanity.  Like P90X and Insanity, my program involves cross-training calisthenics-type activities that are available in a home setting and don’t require special equipment or gym memberships.  But unlike these popular programs, Kidsanity gets your kids involved so that fitness and family time can be one in the same.

The first requirement is to have a kid.  The best ages are probably between 1 and 5 years old. It may work for older kids too, but I have no experience with that since mine are still young. Saturday mornings are great for the Kidsanity workout.  When the kids wake up it’s time for you to get up and start your workout.  It’s important not to let your kids wake up your wife because this is an opportunity for you to serve her by letting her sleep-in, if possible.  The first activity that I typically start off with is the toddler-assisted push-up.  Caution: if you have back or neck problems, you may want to consider skipping this exercise. Have your toddler lie on your back when you are in the down position.  Make sure they’re as far forward as possible without being on your neck, which could cause undue strain.  I make sure my toddler keeps legs on-board and holds tightly to my chest instead of choking me.  For me, it requires a good effort to do 15-20 push-ups.

Next up, the run.  Make sure you have a good jogging stroller with tires sufficiently inflated.  Having to push a child-laden stroller takes extra energy.  Unfortunately, it will require a modification of your running form somewhat as you cannot use your arms to pump and your stride may be shortened.  Note that efficiency is not the goal in this exercise – burning the calories while spending time with family is what you are after.  If you can’t go very fast that’s ok, you’re still getting the benefit.  When you plan your run, pick a kid’s play park to stop midway through the run.  This will serve two purposes.  First, it will motivate your child to actually want to go running with you.  Second, it will allow you to do some strength training in the middle of your aerobic activity.  Take advantage of the outdoors to teach your children as you run.  For example, my daughter learned what contrails were before she was three years old because we could see them clearly in the sky during our runs.  Unfortunately, teaching while running does require a certain level of fitness as it is not always easy to carry on a conversation with your toddler as you’re huffing and puffing behind the stroller.  On many occasions it was all I could do to blurt out the words “No more questions” in between gasps of air.

When you get to the park be creative about how you can use this time to your fitness advantage.  The temptation of course is to rest while your toddler hits the jungle gym.  Try to keep up with them so you can benefit from the exercise too.  For example, my daughter likes to climb up a spiral pole to the top of the slide.  After spotting her in case she falls and providing continuous encouragement about making sure she has at least one foot and one hand secure at all times as she climbs, I head over to the fireman’s pole to scale it upwards.  Using only my arms, I climb the pole to the top of the slide where I join my daughter in a race down the double slide.  It is probably the equivalent of doing 4-5 pull-ups.  Every time she goes to the top of the slide (whether it be by climbing the spiral pole or taking one of the stairways), I take the fireman’s pole to give me an upper body workout.  After about 10-15 minutes at the park, we head back home for breakfast with mom.  If I am extra motivated, I will do another set of toddler-assisted push-ups when I get back, although I usually get the complaint that I am too hot and sweaty at that point.

Other exercises that can be done throughout the day involve wrestling with your kids.  At our house, we call it “pile-driver” which was so named because my daughter used to jump on me in a way similar to the pile-driver moves of the old WWF wrestlers.  Having a 30-pound toddler use your gut as a trampoline is a nice ab workout.  Taking a baby and tossing him in the air 10 times will also give you a nice burn.  A few sets of that will give you a good shoulder/upper chest work-out.

There are many ways you can get your kids involved in your own customized Kidsanity workout.  All it requires is a little motivation and a little creativity.  What do you do to involve your kids in your workouts?  Share your ideas in the comments.

You can read all of Derm Dad’s guest posts here.