As parents, we all intrinsically know how important daily exercise is. After all, for many of us, we’ve been hearing about exercise’s importance for nearly all of our lives. Despite knowing how important it is, many parents will admit that their daily exercise routine is the first thing to fall to the wayside when life gets busy, tough, and challenging, and as parents, we can all relate that life is rarely not tough.

Isn’t that wild? We all know how important exercise is to our health, but at the end of the day, we’d rather do things for our families and homes than do something positive for our health and livelihood. It often isn’t until we have a major health scare or emergency that we get our acts together and try to reverse years, if not decades, of neglected health.

Probably the singular reason that more parents cite than any other, regarding why they don’t regularly participate in an exercise routine more days than not, is time. We all have the same number of hours available to us in any given day — 24 — yet many of us can’t seem to manage to “find the time” to exercise, even when we know it can make a huge difference for our health.

What’s a parent to do, then?

My solution, I think, is the best one I’ve encountered and one that will benefit everyone in your family, not just you.

What is it, you may be wondering? It’s simple, really: exercise with your family. Involve your partner and children in your exercise routine more often than not. Doing so will not only confer health benefits for you, but it’ll also do the same for the rest of your family, and exercise — in whatever manifestation it takes — can be an excellent way to secure some quality time with your family.

Below, I’ll describe in more detail some additional guidelines that can help you involve your family in your exercise routine. Really, it’s a win-win solution, if you think about it: not only will you finally be able to actually take care of yourself and your own health, but you’ll still be spending quality time with your family and, in the process, model for them positive and healthy behaviors that they can later emulate.

Some tips to involve your family in your exercise routine include the following:

Keep it simple. When you’re exercising with your family, don’t overthink it. In fact, don’t even think of it as exercise, per se. Instead, think of it as “play.” Think back to your own childhood and all the games you used to play with your friends or on the playground at school. Easy, pick-up games like basketball, soccer, tag, or simply playing on the monkey bars or climbing on the playground equipment can be a great workout. Your kids will love that you’re actually playing with them and aren’t simply scrolling mindlessly on your phone, and as an added bonus, you’ll be doing something positive for your health.
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