Playground Workout

I just finished e-mailing my friends from my small group who have been my biggest encouragers with my current quest for permenant weight loss, but thought that I would do a post on the same thing. My self created playground workout.

It's so hard to get to the gym on a regular basis without having to take the kids. The gym that I belong to is great cause it's free (it's connected to the hospital I work at), but the down side is that I have to pay for child care if I bring the kids when I work out. Eric and I have had high hopes of trying to work it out so that I can go when he gets home from work, but that only seems to happen once in a while. So, I thought there must be some way to get some exercise in each day without having to wait to go to the gym.

We were at the park this morning as we are starting to be on most mornings at about 8:30. Going to the park is great first thing in the morning cause it gets the kids moving instead of sitting in front of the TV and it forces me to get going too. This morning I put my workout clothes on and got my tennis shoes on before we left for the park. Once we were there I let the kids run a muck, I finished feeding Alissa her breakfast and then I looked around for ways to get some exercise. Of course, joining in with the kids running around is pretty good exercise, but I wanted to be more intentional about it. So here's what I came up with:

1. Step ups on the playground step (like an aerobic step, but just up and down)

2. Standing push ups on the back of the sitting bench (it felt good to use the bench for something other than just sitting there)

3. Calf raises using the playground step

4. Pull ups on the monkey bars (for the stronger of you reading this-- I can't do it yet)

5. Sitting knee bends on the high step of the playground (sit and pull knees toward chest) abs

So try it out if you are so inclined. And let me know if you have other ideas for additional exercises.

I'll keep going to the gym when I can, but now I have no excuse for not getting exercise in.