Living Magazine Winter Living Magazine 2015/2016 | Page 10

Staying Physically Active This Winter When it comes to physical fitness, winter is the season of excuses. It’s too cold to exercise outside. Who’s going to watch my kids so I can go to the gym? I don’t have the room, equipment, or time to work out at home. Fitness isn’t seasonal, it’s a lifestyle and your waistline doesn’t go into hibernation because the weather outside is frightful. This year, don’t let that winter coat expand with empty promises that you’ll resume exercising on January 1; use the cold weather as inspiration to change up your routine and get your entire family involved. Become a Lifestyle Role model Involving Your Children As a parent, one of your most important responsibilities is as a lifestyle role model to your children. Studies show that physical activity habits are developed very early in life, with the primary factor being the habits modeled by their parents (Hinkley et al.). Parents who exercise on a regular basis raise children who are more likely to have an active lifestyle, have a healthy weight status, are sick less, and even perform better in school (Jago et al.). Exercising with your children instills in them the idea that physical activity is an integral part of daily life and that a sedentary lifestyle is not normal. The doldrums of winter are the perfect opportunity to be creative, have fun, bond, and model to your children how important daily exercise is. An easy way to get the heart pumping, your muscles burning, and your children involved in a fun exercise routine is through a simple peripheral heart action circuit. Peripheral heart action uses several basic compound movements (exercises that engage two or more joints to stimulate multiple muscles) in an alternating circuit for a fast, effective, and functional full