This week’s Family Fit Club idea is about bike fitness. Going on a bike ride in the warm months is a summertime staple family event. But how can Mom or Dad get a workout in AND have kids in tow? Here’s what I did!
My cardio workouts consist of three sessions a week. I separate them from my lifting times so I don’t interfere with the muscular gains that I’m going for. I do HIIT (high intensity interval training) so my body cannot adapt to my regimen…it’s constantly guessing.
5-minute warm up
20 seconds all out exercise, 1:40 easy recovery x 8
10-minute cool down
You can choose to do this on land or water in any fashion and this past week I did it on the bike…literally with my kids in tow! I found a flat street in my neighborhood and rode all out for 20 seconds. I recovered back to the start for the 1:40 and repeated that eight times. All out is all out…heart pumping, legs burning. I wore my Polar Heart Rate monitor so I could use the clock on it and watch my heart rate on the HIIT and recovery session. I even added a hill and slight incline to my path as well, for added resistance to the workout!
My favorite part is that I had two of my kids with me. One was on his own bike and the other in the trailer. My son on his own bike was doing the intervals ahead of me and enjoyed racing and beating Mommy. Little did he know he was getting a great cardio workout, but to him he was just enjoying the ride! (shhhh, don’t tell him!)
While pulling my daughter up a long hill on a different ride later in the week, I yelled back to her, “You have girl power. You are strong. You are beautiful!” I wanted her to see her Mom in action and know that as a female, we have what it takes inside of us to be strong and confident and let that show through on the outside as well! Planting seeds of fitness that will come to bloom in years to come!
We stopped before the ride to watch the trucks at work on a new-home construction site in the area. They enjoyed getting to see the sites and then let me get my workout in as well. A stop at the park on the way home is always attractive to them as well! Make fitness fun, change it up, do it together. Don’t use your kids as an excuse not to get your workouts in. Find ways to incorporate them with you in what you’re trying to do. The sky’s the limit!
