Exercise is important for the health of both adults and kids. Looking for a way to get everyone active, and entertain kids on those long summer days? Try a Family Obstacle Course!
Our family is trying hard to focus energy on incorporating physical activity into our day everyday this summer, and trying to make it last for about an hour. We ride bikes, go for walks, hike, swim, play at the park, and focus on a few sports (basketball, baseball, soccer). However, we were looking for something new to do for exercise that could still involve the whole family, but also bring a lot of fun and maybe a little healthy competition. Competition is hard when kids are at all different ages and physical ability levels, so we needed something that they could compete against themselves in. Hence, the idea of the Obstacle Course Olympics was born! A key component, is that it is NOT JUST FOR KIDS, but fun for the whole family. So, mom and dad, get in there and get active too!
Building an obstacle course is easier than you would think, and does not need to cost much money (if any at all). I decided to make it a whole experience by taking the kids to a local recycling center to pick up some supplies for making the course. I thought it would be fun to not only have everyone compete, but to have everyone involved in the making of the course as well. We found old bike tires, bricks, an old saw horse, and a few pieces of wood. We spent a total of $24. We made the shopping trip part of the experience, but we could have make-shifted with things around home and could have skipped the purchase entirely by using what we already had around home.
My goals for the obstacle course was to 1) Get active, 2) Build essential physical skills needed in life, 3) Incorporate competition and/or self-improvement, and 4) Have fun as a family. Therefore, we designed the course around these tenants. Below is what we did, and some other ideas that you could incorporate into your own course.
Twists and Spins:
Building bilateral strength and coordination as well as the ability to recover equilibrium after challenging it can be accomplished by twist and spins moves. Our first obstacle was a somersault. However, other ideas for a twist/spin move could be a cart-wheel, round-off, spin in a circle, or run around a cone/marker. Not everything in life is linear, and we liked the addition of the spin move. You can tell by the picture above that Keenan (5 y/o) is still developing this skill. We used an old yoga mat to mark the location, but you could also use a towel or blanket.
Balance:
Balance requires an integration of many bodily systems. Our vestibular system aids us with our equilibrium, and is developed in infancy. Around the age of three, kids move beyond only the use of this system for balance, and incorporate the use of vision to coordinate their balance. Balance also requires proprioception, which is the recognition of where our body is in space through muscle contraction. Integrating all of these together requires practice. As we move from mid-adult years into our 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, our balance declines drastically. Researchers have found that one out of every three adults over the age of 65 experience an age-related fall every year, some resulting in severe injuries. The best way to combat this is to build our proprioception early in life, and maintain it as we grow older. This obstacle helps kids to develop the strategies important to building proprioception, and helps adult maintain that balance as they become older.
For our balance beam, we elevated a piece of wood on cement bricks. We chose a thinner width of wood, since our kids already posses a large amount of coordination with this activity. However, a 2×6 or 2×4 would work great for most kids, or even foregoing the bricks, and placing the wood directly on the ground. You could also place a garden hose down on the ground and have them tight-rope walk it, or take turns on each leg balancing to the count of 10. Start with skill level of your family, and increase the difficulty from there.
Kick and Aim:
Beyond activation and use of our quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and trunk stability muscles, kicking requires great balance on the stance leg. There is a lot of foot-eye coordination that goes toward dribbling a soccer ball through an obstacle. Ours involved keeping the ball between the coned path, and curving around a tree. The kicking leg will move through multiple planes of movement, and requires depth perception to aim at the ball appropriately. You also must judge your strength to make sure you do not overshoot your course. One of the best “lessons” for our kids on this section was the balance of wanting to go fast on the course, yet needing to practice self-control and bodily control on this section of the course, to keep control of the ball. It took quite a few times before Rhys (7 y/o) realized that he needed to go slower on this section of the course to actually decrease his overall time for the course. Otherwise, he would kick too hard, lose control of the ball, and spend precious time recovering the ball before moving on with the other obstacles. It was a great lesson in how you need to sometimes go slow to go fast. Other kick and aim activities could include kicking a ball once into a “goal” instead of following a path.
Side-to-Side Movement:
We spend a lot of our days enhancing muscles that bring our legs forward and backward (flexion and extension) in a sagittal plane (through walking, running, cycling, etc..). However, we also need our bodies to be able to move in a lateral motion for optimal performance and to build strength in all movement planes. To do this, we need to work on our abduction and adduction muscles. These moves also help to support ankle and knee strength, and building these muscles will prevent rolls and strains by strengthening these support muscles around the joints.
For our side-to-side movement, we chose to jump from tire to tire in a zigzag motion. Instead of tires, you could create aluminum foil rings, or draw circles on cement using sidewalk chalk. Other ideas could include zigzagging around cones (or socks, or stuffed animals) like a slalom, or performing a lateral shuffle (classic basketball defensive position) between other obstacles on the course.
Jumping:
Jumping is one of the building blocks of physical activity. Many believe this skill develops naturally, but that is not actually the case. It takes practice and building of the correct muscles. With a lack of physical education classes in schools these days, it is more and more important to build these skills at home.
For our jumping skills, we used a hurdle (pictured above) as a one-legged leap, five jumping jacks on a mini trampoline (pictured directly above), and five rocket jumps (moving from a squat position to jumping as high as you can, and back down to the squat position (pictured below). The incorporation of the squat in the rocket jumps helps to teach a proper hip-hinge technique (or at least we are working on it), and builds the glute muscles.
Other jumping ideas is to hang objects above kids’ heads and have them jump to touch them, or draw a hopscotch course on the cement with sidewalk chalk.
Crawl:
Most of us begin movement in life by crawling. However, many lose this skill after the first few years of life. This is a skill that is important for building contralateral movement, trunk stability, shoulder stability, and movement of the arms and legs in a sagittal plane (flexion and extension). Kids, especially at younger ages, can excel in this skill. However, adults should also perform these movements on a regular basis also to build these muscles and coordination. When was the last time you crawled?
For our crawling, we did an army crawl under a tarp that was elevated by buckets (pictured above), and a bear crawl between other obstacles (which also had them crawl under a limbo pole, pictured directly above). Other ideas could include a crab crawl (with stomach faced up), and you can move lateral, forward or backward. You can crawl under items (like under our tarp, a pole, table or bench), through things (like a pop-up tunnel or large box with the top and bottom cut off), or on top of things (a tarp beach towel or blanket).
Throw and Aim:
Hand-eye coordination is often under-appreciated and underdeveloped. The inclusion of throwing/tossing and aiming can help to develop this hand-eye coordination, depth perception, proprioception, and to help build confidence in children who need this skill developed. We tossed three wiffle balls into a large bucket (with a cut up yoga mat at the marker of where to stand so that the throw was a specific distance). You could use balls, sandbags, or stuffed animals to throw into a bucket, basket, or aim at a marker on the ground or on a wall. Try to use both underhand and overhand throws to build both skills.
The Finish:
Make sure to celebrate your successes! As I stated above, we wanted to include a component of competition and self-improvement. We timed ourselves participating in the course, and kept trying to beat our own previous Personal Records (PR). It was not about beating someone else (although you can do that too), it was about being better than you were the last time. Above is a picture of when Rhys beat his own PR!
Other Notes:
- Make it a FAMILY fun event. Kids love it when the adults compete along with them.
- Have a clear start and finish, so that you can time each attempt and try to beat your previous record.
- Once you’ve completed the course so many times that it is getting old, give the experience a spin by completing the course backward (start with your last obstacle, and work in the opposite direction), or you can even do everything backward (walk backwards between each event and crawl backwards).
- Involve your kids in the creation and brainstorming of obstacles. They love to participate in ones they have made up themselves.
- Just because it is hard, doesn’t mean it can’t be fun! In retrospect, the somersault right before the balance beam on our course was a bit of a challenge, but it made it all that more fun for the adults (the kids didn’t seem to have an issue with it). Our kids also thought the rocket jumps were hard, but you can do anything five times, and it builds great fitness!
Personal Records:
Cory (Dad) – 48 seconds
Jenni (Mom) – 48 seconds
Taylor (19 y/o) – 45 seconds
Rhys (7 y/o) – 48 seconds
Keenan (5 y/o) – 63 seconds
For examples of our whole course put together:
[wpvideo 3QOUo9pP]
[wpvideo rtOOWOAR]
