Site Search

Are your workouts boring? How to bring out your "inner child" and learn how to play and have fun again while working out!

By Kristin Goodenough

Remember when you were a kid? How you used to love running and playing with your friends on the playground? Tag, jump rope, kickball it really didn’t matter just as long as you were with your friends and you were playing. Ah, the good old days! I remember the warm sun on my face, the laughter and the serious need to “play hard”. Good times!

I also remember entering junior high and being shocked by the fact that we were no longer able to play at recess. Instead, we were supposed to just sit and talk with our friends. Well, I loved my friends but I would have much rather have been able to talk AND play basketball. I remember coming home from school dying to go outside and ride my bike. Thinking to myself how crazy adults were expecting us to just sit all day. Knowing that I would NEVER let them turn ME into a couch potato.

Sports and dance became my escape, my outlet for play. But I watched my friends study more and move less until finally as adults most of them eventually became inactive. By watching all of the people around me becoming disinterested in working out I decided that I would come up with clever ways of making exercise fun and “trick” them into working out.

I quickly learned that most women beginning an exercise program needed to be distracted from their “pain.” They needed more then just exercise. They needed that 10 year old girl inside of them to come out and play and have fun again. By doing so they were more likely to enjoy exercising, their consistency would improve and they would get the results that they were looking for.

So I learned to develop exercise programs that were disguised as play time and it worked. You could see the “light” return to their eyes as the 10 year old resurfaced. Ladies who were overweight, hadn’t exercised in years or had NEVER exercised consistently were now excited about working out. They learned to enjoy working out and as a result they were attending consistently and getting RESULTS.

Workouts in my boot camp always have fun factor planned in. We always mix things up and offer a lot of variety to keep the body guessing and the mind from getting bored. We also implement a lot of partner and team building drills to keep the motivation levels and the intensity high.

The following are examples of “play time” in boot camp:

  1. Balloon stomp - This is a quick game that we do after our warm up to wake everyone up and get them ready to have fun. Usually we do this game on party days (Birthdays, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day etc.).

    How to play:

    • Each lady is given a balloon with a string tied to it.
    • She takes the string and ties it to her shoe laces.
    • Boundaries are defined by placing cones down forming a small rectangular area.
    • Instructions are given to the ladies letting them know that their job is to stomp the balloons of the other ladies while staying inbounds. The last one standing at the end of the game with their balloon unharmed is the winner.

    This game is simple yet extremely fun. With all of their running around trying to keep their balloons safe they are getting their heart rates up, laughing hysterically, and having a blast!

  2. Fitness Scavenger Hunt - Definitely one of my camper’s all time favorite workouts. With this game a “sense of urgency” is created as participants are encouraged to keep moving quickly from one location to another. They know that they have a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time so they really kick up the intensity and challenge themselves (and each other). This a great team building activity.

    How to play:

    • Small groups of 4-5 are formed. You can assign teams but I like to let them choose who they will be working out with for the day.
    • Each group is given a disposable camera with a flash (It is pretty dark at 5:30a.m.!)
    • Each group is given a list of places to go, an exercise to do at each location and a reminder to take a picture at that location as proof that they completed the exercise.
    • Usually I make a list of 10 locations with 10 exercises.

    Here are some examples of what you may find on a list:

    Task #1: Go to the “hill of pain” (marked with a cone) and walk/run the hill 10 times. Don’t forget to take a picture!

    Task #2: Go to the monkey bars and see who the last monkey hanging is. Take a picture of the hanging monkeys.

    Task #3: Go to the stairs and run up and down 5 times. Smile pretty for the camera!

    My ladies have so much fun with this game that they forget they are working out.

  3. “Tire races” - At our location we have a very steep hill that is perfect for running drills. When ladies come into camp most of them are not ready to run yet and are intimidated by the hill. One way that I introduce them to the hill slowly is to have tire races.

    How to play:

    • Usually I break my camp into small groups of 3 or 4.
    • Each group is given a tire and instructed to roll the tire to the bottom of the hill.
    • Once at the starting line members of each group take turns rolling the tire up the hill racing to the top. The group rolling their tire up the hill the fastest wins. They continue down the hill and repeat for time. • Depending on the size of my group I may have another circuit going on at the same time so that half the group is running the circuit and the other half is racing the tires. After 10 minutes each group will switch.
    • This is a great team building drill, really gets their heart rate up and is a lot of fun. Even my ladies who “hate to run” love this drill.

Remember, have fun and play hard!

About the Author:

Kristin Goodenough is an A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer in McKinney, TX. She owns the Collin County Adventure Boot and specializes in women's only fitness programs. Visit her website at www.bootcamp4women.com.