Family Fitness: How to WOD Together

By Lara Foster

Sitting in the car for hours can leave the body feeling restless, depleted, and tired. One of the best lessons I learned about movement was from a Coach of mine who played for the WNBA. I asked her how their bodies kept up with all the hours of travel. She said that no matter where they went, how long it took to get there, or when they got there, the First thing they always did was Workout and Move their bodies.

The truth is, no one Feels like working out after a long day, a long ride, a long whatever. But most of us Know, that no matter how we feel now, we’ll feel better during/after/when we workout or move. So we do.

Basic Human Movement is something I’ve been working on understanding for over a decade now. Mostly because I’ve failed so miserably at utilizing it’s core components and concepts. I’ve kind of reached a place where maintaining a balanced life IS the goal. In the past I was so focused on my own goals for fitness that I’d stay up late, get up early, or just plain miss any real connection with people to get that workout in. It was something I needed to do at the time to feel the benefits of consistency. But unfortunately, I also sacrificed a lot of time with people to make the achievement possible.

My goals these days are more about unity, connection, engagement and interaction. I just don’t want to workout alone anymore. It started to feel like an endless empty cycle. No goal or success was ever fulfilling enough, they always came and went with the tides.

So, a new opportunity arose when Gretchen and I visited family in Utah. Do we sacrifice the few hours with family to get a workout in? Do we sacrifice our fitness to get time with our family in? How can we be present for both and not sacrifice anything?

And BOOM: Out came the Family WOD!!!

Most of the time family activities turn into hikes, walks, or bike rides, which are all fine and fun in their own right. But how about when you need that surge of a good a** kickin workout. How do you do that together? Can you do that together?

Gretchen, Samsoni, Lara, Dave (& Princess)

Introducing the players of our Sunday workout, in the park, in Utah.

Samsoni: 13, football player, extreme athlete, skateboards a lot, all around great kid.

Dave: 44, Sam’s Dad, familiar with Crossfit, deep into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, very active, slight back injury.

Gretchen: 35, regular Crossfitter, high intensity junkie, no day is complete without a workout.

Lara (that’s me!): 34, regular Fitness Enthusiast, enjoys nature, needs creativity and adaptability in all workouts.

Here’s what we came up with:

Use TABATA timing. For those that are unfamiliar that’s 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest.

Create a rotating circuit. We were on a playground and had a few pieces of equipment to use.

-Kettlebell

-Hill

-Monkey Bars

-Ground

-Bench/Step

Create stations in a circle so that transitions from each exercise during the 10 seconds of rest are seamless and easy.

All stations are available to be utilized with your capability, so scale as needed. Vocalize this so all the players know.

Station 1: Kettlebell Swings 35#, to any height/range

Station 2: Hill Sprints or Walk (with or without added rock)

Station 3: Pull-ups (regular, kipping, jumping, or dead hang hold)

Station 4: Toes 2 Bar (Or knees to chest, or push-ups on the ground)

Station 5: Box Jumps or Step-Ups

Use an APP on your phone to alert the transitions through work/rest/rotate modes.

Here’s a link to what we used: Interval Timer – Timing for HIIT Training and Workouts by Deltaworks
https://appsto.re/us/GTKoy.i

Use Music on another phone to keep people jammin’ while they move. Pandora, Spotify, Itunes, all work.

Have FUN!

We treated each station as a circuit and went in order as presented above. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 then started over at 1 again. We completed FOUR Full Rounds of the circuit, all with the sequence of TABATA Timing.

It did start to get a little hard towards the end, but it was nice to move to a new exercise every 20 seconds. You were just constantly pushing yourself, never getting bored, and never having time to even think about slowing down or not giving it your all. It was a perfect 10 minutes of a whatever level of intensity you could manage kind of workout. ANYONE CAN DO THIS!!!