My daughter is my natural athlete, she can pick up just about any activity and do well at it. She chooses to express her talents through baton twirling. It’s an individual and team sport that requires body control, coordination, stamina and concentration.
She likes being strong as well. She received the President’s Award for fitness and is always working on her pull up strength. I used to have a pull up bar in the yard at our house and she would go outside in the morning to do pull ups while waiting for the bus. Just the other day she came to me and said, “I’m the strongest kid in my grade.” I asked “Kid or girl?” I should have known better than to ask for clarification. She wasn’t angry just told me she had done more push ups and pull ups than anyone else in her grade. Good for her!
My youngest son has been given the nickname “Dirt” because of the fact he is always filthy. This is usually because he is rolling around on the ground, running, playing, sweating and everything else a active 9 year old should be doing. Along with our love for being active we both have a sweet tooth and never pass up a piece of cake. We were having a piece of cake the other day together and he looked at me and said “It’s OK we have this cake since we are so active.” I smiled and agreed we could have a little cake here and there.
My oldest son is a high school freshman and is fresh off his first year of high school football, preparing for his first year in varsity track. He is a running back and linebacker for his football team and a sprinter on his track team. There is a weight room program at his school which he attends regularly that has no formal instruction in place. The kids there do not distinguish athletic training from the workouts they see online and in magazine that lean towards the bodybuilding side of training. I've tried to explain the difference to him and he respects my opinion but its not the popular opinion in a weight room dominated by the bench press and the bicep curl.
We hit the gym together and I had him warm up by doing 5 easy minutes on the rower then took care of making him a better athlete by doing 5 rounds of some medicine ball and speed ladder work. Of course he wanted to work on upper body after that, primarily on the bench.
We set up a super-set of heavier low rep incline dumbbell press for 5, lighter bench press for 10-12 reps and 5 strict pull ups. We did this for 5 rounds finishing the last bench set as a drop set all the way down to the bar. Then balanced ourselves out with some dumbbell rows.
He was satisfied with the work we did on the upper body and I was just happy we were having a good time together.I pulled out the prowler sled and we did some sled pushes and pulls back and forth to each other and were wiped out in 4 rounds.
Was this a workout I would have selected to do on my own? Probably not, but it filled up our Sunday afternoon and we were both better for it.
They have all watched with curiosity, me exercise at home, beat myself up in the garage, and run sprints in the road at night. They have gotten up early to come watch me race, gone out to other competitions, and come to as many of my baseball games as I have gone to theirs. They have always been there watching and most importantly learning. Sometimes I felt like I was taking away from them by putting that time in to myself but just recently realized it was quite the opposite.
So many times I hear people have gotten away from taking care of themselves because they had kids or got busy with a family. In reality those people end up blaming others for their current situation whether they know it or not. What better way to take care of the ones you love by taking care of yourself and leading by example? Isn't that what we are supposed to do as parents?
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