4 Fun Ways to Stay Fit With Your Kids This Summer : While the warm summer months seem can be incredible fitness motivators, beckoning you outside to walk, run, swim, bicycle, hike, you name it, moms know better than any that exercise routines can quickly get sidelined by kids. For moms, summer is chockful of running to this camp and that camp, planning family reunions and vacations, working, hauling kids to sleepovers, packing, unpacking, you get the idea. Finding a way to stay fit can be tough, but with these clever ideas, and involving your kids, you might just stay on track.

4 Fun Ways to Stay Fit With Your Kids This Summer

Volunteer at Your Kid’s Summer Camp

Summer camps, especially overnight camps, love having extra pairs of hands on hand to assist with volunteer work outside of being a camp counselor. Summer camps often need nurses, kitchen volunteers to wash and dry dishes, extra adults on overnight hiking and rafting trips, arts and craft volunteers, you name it.

In between volunteer duties you can tag along with campers as they go about their dusk til dawn fun-packed schedules of ropes courses, canoeing, backpacking, swimming, and more. Check out your child’s summer camp online or give them a quick call to see if they’re in need of volunteers and if you’re schedule will allow it.

Join a Charity Run

What better way to exercise and have fun than by supporting a cause you care about at the same time? Summer months are full of 5Ks, color runs, walkathons, and fun runs, all set up to donate proceeds to an area nonprofit. Find charitable races and other athletic events near you with tools like Active.com.

If you’re not a runner, don’t worry! Walking is always an option with any type of charity event, and gradually training with your child in the weeks preceding can help build up your strength, stamina, and give you a special opportunity for mother-child bonding.

Exercise on Vacation

In between lavish dinners out and relaxing on the beach, insert fun spurts of exercise into your family vacation routine. Maybe it’s a brisk walk in the morning before the itinerary gets rolling, practicing balance and coordination on your balance disks you bring along, or turning pool time into a swim competition to see who can do the most laps.

Take your vacation fitness up a notch by tracking your steps, calories burned, and diet with wearable fitness technology like FitBit or Bellabeat. After working so hard to maintain a healthy weight and immune system, don’t get sidelined by overindulging on vacation.

Try Yoga

Summer bucket lists are a must when it comes to planning out school-free schedules. Don’t forget to add “try yoga” to yours! This mindfulness-cultivating activity might seem either like a snooze-fest or a pretzel bending venture you’re simply not after, but it could truly benefit both you and your child tremendously. Yoga practice incorporates gentle stretching and deep breathing with strengthening poses and mindful meditation – it builds flexibility, coordination, balance, lung strength, bone density, and more.

Amongst the chaos of summer schedules, yoga can serve as a relaxing exercise to take part in with your children which helps relieve stress and release tension in your mind and body. Find guided yoga instruction videos on youtube (search for “beginners” or “gentle” yoga) or look for a class to sign up for at a studio or YMCA near you.

For many moms, the idea of getting out with your kids to exercise more sounds awesome, but the realities of back, foot, and leg pain paint a different reality for you. Don’t let aches and pains keep you from staying active! Exercise actually benefits most mild to moderate physical pain by boosting blood circulation, reducing inflammation, and producing feel-good hormones.

If chronic pain is keeping you on the couch this summer while your kids play outside, see your doctor about a customized treatment plan to help. It may involve massage, ice and heat therapy, and exercise aids like an orthotic insert, toe crest, or ankle or knee wrap which can provide cushioning, compression, and stabilization to sore and achy joints and muscles. If not for yourself, do it for your kids this summer!