10 Fun Ways to Stay Active With Your Family at Home

We all know it’s important to exercise regularly, but when it is necessary to stay home, it’s challenging to stay active.

However, there are several at-home activities that you can try that are designed to get you active while having a blast. No matter your age, fitness level, or workout routine, these at-home activities are great for everyone!

1. Dance Like No One’s Watching

Have you ever tried serious swing dancing? You’ll be sweating within 10 minutes and having so much fun, you won’t even realize you are working out. How about hip hop? Zumba? Tango? Flamenco? You’d be surprised at what you can find online and what will elevate your heart rate.

Check out these 18 fun dance workouts, ranging from Hip Hop to Bollywood to Country Dancing.

Don’t want to try a serious dance workout? No problem! Get the kids involved and have an impromptu dance party instead! Disney songs are fantastic for bringing out your inner child. Blast the tunes, dance around the house, and be absurd. As a wise woman once said, “Let it goooooo.”

2. Make a Game Out of Cleaning

We all know that nobody likes to clean the house or apartment, so why not make a game out of it? Challenge yourself to see how much you can accomplish while listening to your favorite song at max volume.

Try some of the above-mentioned dance moves while you are at it. You would be amazed at the kind of workout you can get just from scrubbing the bathtub or organizing the Tupperware cabinet!

3. Play Interactive Video Games

A great way to exercise while having fun and enjoying family time is to play video games that require you to be active, such as Wii Sports or Dance Dance Revolution.

The goal is to get up and move, so play anything that gets you on your feet. If you’re playing a normal game like Mario Cart, make a rule that you can only play while standing up, or that you have to do 10 push-ups or jumping jacks every time you lose.

4. Make a Laser Maze

Pick a room in your house and set up any color string pulled tightly from wall to wall. Challenge yourself and your kids to navigate over and under the lasers. Set penalties for when someone touches the lasers, such as 10 jumping jacks. If they make it through the entire maze of lasers without touching anything, they are the winner.

Check out this article by A Girl With A Glue Gun on the best ways to assemble your Laser Maze.

5. Play ‘The Floor Is Hot Lava’

Gather the furniture and throw pillows to bring back another childhood favorite game “The Floor Is Hot Lava.” This is a great activity you can do around your apartment or home in which you can get the kids involved.

For the grownups who want to elevate the game up a notch, check out this fun game from an episode of the hit TV show New Girl called True American.

6. Get Creative & Build

Whether you’re building a fort with your child in the backyard, or trying to figure out where the five extra screws from your dresser came from, building stuff involves lots of moving, bending, picking up, and maneuvering.

7. Turn TV Time Into Exercises

The next time you kick back to watch the latest Survivor episode or catch up on American Idol, sit in a squat or pike position on the floor. Make sure you don’t lean up against the couch to ensure you are actively engaging your core. During the commercials, you can up the movements by adding in a stretch or sit-ups.

Check out this article from Betches, which breaks down an entire body workout into five commercial breaks!

8. Play Some State Fair Games

Think of all the fun, active games you play when you attend a carnival or the state fair. This is another easy at-home exercise you can enjoy with the whole family or your roommates.

There’s nothing like a silly race to get people competitive. Try some of the following activities:

• Egg and spoon races
• Two-legged races
• Sack races
• Wheelbarrow races
• Ring toss on leftover bottles

If it’s been a while since you balanced an egg while running or tied your leg to someone else’s, it might be time to hold your own backyard fair.

9. Active Game Night

Game night doesn’t have to mean you’ll be sitting around a board game all night. Work some active games into your fun, like Twister, charades, or play an active video or VR game. Twister, for example, takes a lot of strength and makes for a very active game.

Try setting up a safe area in your backyard or home for a game of tag. To make it spooky or challenging, get some black lights and wear neon colors.

10. Superhero Workout

Superhero Workout is an awesome exercise app by Six to Start. In Superhero Workout, you are protecting the Earth against invasion through the use of a unique battle suit. In order to save humanity, you must pilot the AEGIS One and complete various exercises in order to activate weapons, shields, and various other cool abilities.

Superhero Workout has several extra features you can take advantage of, like a camera-activated motion tracker, which counts your reps and helps measure the number of calories you burn.

How You Can Stay Active & Have Fun at Home

Ultimately, there are many variations of at-home workouts you can try. The goal is to stay active, keep moving, but also generate a fun environment for the family at home. These activities are a great way to break up the monotony of your day as well as stay fit and healthy.

Get the kids involved, be creative, keep moving, and have fun! Exercising is meant to make you feel good from the inside out. Not to mention, interactive games are a great way to bring the family closer together, they make you look good and feel good as well!