Keeping your child healthy and strong means balancing a good diet and enough physical activity. Exercise supports growth, posture and joint health — especially in developing years.

Luckily, children love yoga’s unique movements since they can explore just how extraordinary their bodies are. Kids’ yoga positions are often inspired by animals or familiar objects, making them easy to remember and fun to try.

Physical movement is vital for children to develop fully functioning bodies. The World Health Organization recommends that kids get at least 60 minutes of moderate to high-intensity exercise daily. However, only 24% of 6- to 17-year-olds achieve this goal.

Here are the best introductory yoga postures to get your child moving.

1. Criss-Cross Applesauce Seated Pose
Undo hours of sitting at a desk in a classroom and improve children's spinal pressure and posture with this seated pose.

Slouching can increase spinal stress by 113%, causing severe back pain. Advise your child to:

• Sit on the floor, find your seat bones and place your weight over them.
• Cross your legs, positioning your knees to touch the ground.
• Raise your arms to place your palms together in front of your heart or over your head like a lamp.
• Hold for five seconds.

Tip: If your child struggles to cross your legs, have them move their feet further forward until they can.

2. Ships Ahoy
The boat pose is easy, strengthening the core while improving balance. Advise your child to:

• Slide your ankles forward more from the seated pose until your legs are straight.
• Move your arms forward until they are level with the floor.
• Rock back on your tailbone and raise your legs a few inches off the floor.
• Hold for five seconds.

Tip: Have your child tighten their stomach muscles to raise their legs.

3. The Cobra

The snake posture is fun for kids and has impressive health benefits. It reverses the damage of sitting hunched over schoolwork. Advise your child to:

• Lie on your stomach on the floor.
• Point your toes down as you slide your hands up along the ground until they are below your shoulders, palms down.
• Raise yourself on your hands, keeping your lower body on the ground. Arch your back upwards and back, letting your head hang until you look like a cobra ready to strike.
• Hold for three seconds, exhale and lower yourself back to the ground. Rest a moment, then repeat four more times.

Tip: Kids who struggle to lift themselves can place their hands further away from their body while staying in line with their shoulders.

4. The Whale
Here’s a fun position to try. It’s excellent for stretching stomach muscles and opening the chest. Advise your child to:

• Exhale from the cobra and lie still for a few moments. Bend your knees as you bring your heels to your buttocks.
• Fold your hands toward your hips, raising them backward to grab your ankles.
• Raise your chest upward, pulling your head toward your feet.
• Rock forward and backward like a little boat or whale in the ocean if you can.

Tip: If your child can’t grab their ankles, tie old socks to them. Have them pull the socks a bit closer each time.

5. The Butterfly
The popular butterfly pose is ideal for opening hips and increasing flexibility. Long periods of sitting decrease hip mobility by 6.1 degrees. Advise your child to:

Sit on your seat bones with your legs crossed.
Place your hands on your ankles, but as you tip forward, make sure your back stays straight as a table.
Next, let the soles of your feet touch.
Finally, bring your hands to your knees, raising and lowering your knees like butterfly wings.

Tip: If your kid can’t get their feet together, move them away from their body until they can.

Each time they practice, they can press their knees a little bit closer to the floor.

Help Your Kids Make the Most of Yoga
Adding yoga to your kid’s daily physical routine helps improve their focus, breathing and spinal health, which supports their overall well-being. Encourage your child to try these five easy postures, increasing their range and reach every time until they feel comfortable. Before long, they’ll be confident in their ability to strike a pose!

Finding the Strategies to Overcome Barriers and Unlock the Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Exercise.

We all know moving regularly is good for us. As well as the medical benefits, in a recent study (the largest global study of its kind) by Asics), it was reported that over 80% of women endorsed the intrinsic and health related reasons for exercise, including the physical benefits, self-care, mental wellbeing, staying in shape, managing stress, feeling happy, and enjoying exercise/sport. However, Asics have uncovered a significant gender exercise gap, indicating that women, especially young women, exercise less than men, and this disparity increases with age. So, if we understand the benefits, and actually feel the positive effects of them, why aren’t we making the time to ensure exercise is part of our daily routine?

The findings

There was a direct link between women’s physical activity and their state of mind, women who moved more, felt better. If they were exercising regularly, women reported feeling happier, more confident and less stressed. However, it was also reported that around the world over half of women are not exercising as much as they would like to and are losing out on the mental and physical health benefits.

Employed women, mothers and homemakers were the least active groups of women, while students and retired women were the most active. Although 51% of women reported decreasing or stopping exercise as they got older, and all women were facing a myriad universal challenging and barriers to exercise throughout their lifetime.

 ‘If they were exercising regularly, women reported feeling happier, more confident and less stressed’.

Key barriers

We may try to fit in a morning workout, a lunchtime run or a post work class, but unless we are committed to our schedule, life, how we feel, and work, can too easily get in the way. How often do we then give up on the plan completely, before making a new promise a few months later and starting again? Often only when a holiday or an event is looming! The most reported barriers were lack of time (74%), too many other commitments (76%), low self-confidence (55%), the cost of gyms (59%) and the cost of coaches and trainers (62%). Almost two-thirds of mothers cited motherhood as the primary reason they dropped out of doing regular exercise. Gendered expectations and stereotypes about caregiving and household responsibilities were also shown to negatively impact women’s exercise levels and 38% of women said they lacked the access to the relevant equipment or space to exercise.

The importance of creating a foundation of regular movement

Exercise can reduce our risk of major illness (coronary heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes and cancer) as well as lower risk of early death by up to 30%. As well as that, exercise improves our quality of life while we are here as well, our bone and muscle strength, recovery from illness, how tired we feel and how easily we can move and run around after the family. Further benefits also include quality of sleep, boosting self-esteem and improving our mood. All benefits the study noted that the participants endorsed. So how much do we need to do? The NHS recommends completing 150 minutes per week (or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise) through a variety of activity and including strength training sessions during that time. They also recommend reducing the time sitting down (standing desk anyone?) and breaking up long periods of inactivity. However, if you hit your target and are also spending a lot of time sitting or lying down, this can still have a negative impact on your health, so it’s important to note to keep moving throughout the day.

Motivation

How do we get motivated and, more importantly stay motivated? According to the report friends are women’s most important exercise influencers. Women are most motivated to exercise by those who are similar to themselves. However, if your friends don’t exercise, or you feel you have no one close to workout with, you can find likeminded women of all ages and abilities to workout with. This Girl Can promotes hundreds of classes and clubs for a diversity of women. There are so many trainers from all backgrounds online or in person, where you can find new friends to exercise with and support you!

After friends, the second most common exercise or sport influencers for women were parents in childhood (twice as likely for younger women) or romantic partners in adulthood. This is a great reminder of the examples we set and encourage in our children and that exercise, and healthy habits should be top of that list to support a lifetime of health and fitness. You don’t need to feel guilty and take time away from the family and partners to exercise, you can incorporate weekend walks, bike rides, home workouts and yoga sessions together to create precious family time while staying active, hitting your step count and weekly exercise goals.

Actions we can take – report recommendations.

1. Making movement accessible and affordable.

A home workout with an affordable training programme and compact, convenient workout equipment is really all you need to get going, or back into exercising regularly. There are a huge number of home workout programmes to choose from, and you can easily find one to suit your budget, level, needs, interests, and goals.

Whether you are into a short, quick HIIT session a few times a week, strength training, Pilates class or nourishing yoga flow, there are options for everyone, including pre-and post-natal programmes for pregnancy and new Mums. You can find trainers with home workout programmes on You Tube (including the Amp Wellbeing channel), on Instagram, or on our workout centre platform! There is no need to splash out on a full home gym to start with, many programmes can be completed with no equipment, using bodyweight resistance, or starting with water bottles for weights and build up from there.

2. Creating safe and inclusive spaces for women.

Of course, this is essential for gyms and studios to review and home workouts are not an alternative to the importance of safety for those who prefer that environment in which to workout. There are now more workout spaces solely for women, but really the point is that all gyms should be safe and welcoming for women. However, given the high percentage of women that cite body insecurity, lack of confidence to exercise and feeling too intimidated to start, home workouts can be a safe and inexpensive place to start, test out different types of exercise and develop a foundation and confidence to build onto attending gyms and studio classes.

3. Workout with friends, partners and family

Having a personal goal to work towards facilitated exercise for 65% of women and for 43% of women booking races or events was a motivator for exercise. Think about what you want to achieve this year and set a clear SMART goal to work towards! Goals really do help you keep on track and adding a workout buddy, or exercising with your partner helps to keep you accountable and motivated to achieve it.

In the report, 43% of women said that working out with teammates or friends encouraged them to embrace physical activity and/or kept them going. Even if it is one session a week, for a run, a boot camp or a tennis match, find someone who can help keep you accountable for moving on that day. If you workout online, share in the comments and community to keep engaged and committed to showing up.

4. Exercise can just be for fun, feeling good and enjoyment. Impress yourself!

Let’s get rid of the stigma around what exercise is, what it needs to look like, as well as the reasons why we exercise. You don’t have to be a pro athlete to enjoy team sports or want to be the first to finish the race. You don’t have to workout 5 times a week at home and follow a strict programme to be fit and for it to be worth it (unless you have a particular goal in mind, then that helps!). And women don’t just exercise ‘look good’ (however it has been shown men exercise more for enjoyment than women do). Just focus on exercises that are beneficial to you and that you can enjoy doing regularly. Enjoy a walk? Try and fit in 150 minutes over the week. Enjoy a mix? Schedule different classes such as yoga, Pilates and strength training and work around that, often a varied routine helps keep our interest, and motivation, high.

5. Encouraging women now, and our future generations 

Educating everyone about the specific needs of girls and women in sport an exercise is an important step in helping make exercise an accepted and encouraged part of every day. This Girl Can, Women in Sport,  and Asics have launched Move her Mind as a platform to support all women get involved in sport and exercise. The platform shares resources and stories to support, encourage and inspire more women to move.

This Girl Can has a wealth of information, motivation and support on getting started, or back into exercise. There are so many tips, ideas and signposts on how to ease yourself in, juggle life and exercise, keeping motivated and overcoming any nerves of joining in.

It was also found that supporting, role-modelling and encouraging exercise in children and within the family is central to keep women exercising throughout their lives. How can you incorporate exercise into your families weekly habits? Read our blog on Balancing Family, Work and Fitness here for ideas. If you already do, please share your tips in the comments below!

Next steps

Women are already at a disadvantage from the gender health gap, however the gender exercise gap is something we can takes steps to address in our own life, which can also contribute to supporting our overall health and wellbeing. We know by incorporating more movement into our lives we can maximise the physical benefits, enjoy self-care, support our mental wellbeing, stay in shape, manage stress, feel happier, and just enjoy exercise and sport. Let’s all encourage each other, and ourselves, to move more and feel better, then we can all enjoy the benefits and close the gap. How will you move today?

Focusing on your wellbeing in 2023

The new year is a time when we look back on the last 12 months and decide what changes we want to make for the future. The fitness industry has seen a significant increase in the number of people making New Year's resolutions to start exercising more, eat healthier and lose weight. However, January can also be a hard month to get going on these plans. It's cold, dark and busy, so we can feel more like hibernating in our free time than jumping around. If you're one of these people, you might be wondering how to keep up with your goals throughout the year. Here are some tips:

Set some goals. It doesn't have to be new year new you, or require making a 180 degree change in lifestyle, but if you want to get into healthier habits and make those fitness changes you want to make stick for the long term, then you have to start somewhere. Goals can be a really fun, motivating way of turning habits into a healthy lifestyle, particularly when they incorporate all of your wellbeing. They help in many ways, from scheduling time to relax and enjoy self care, to spending time with friends and family, getting those finances in order and prioritising sleep as well as improving your exercise and nutrition. Taking a more balanced approach and using small step changes, can help you improve the likelihood that you will make positive and lasting changes in all areas of your health.

Make it specific. The first step in setting New Year's health and fitness goals is to make them specific. Instead of saying "I want to get more exercise," try "I want to walk (run/bike/dance) three times a week for 30 minutes after dinner." Schedule it in your diary, but if something comes up that prevents you from walking one night, at least you can count it as missed instead of giving up completely and you have 3 days out of 7 to achieve your goal. If you want to achieve more strength and tone, you could sign up to an online class and commit to taking two full body 30 minute classes a week to start off with, then review your actions each month to ensure you're moving towards your goal.

Make sure your goals are realistic. If you're just starting out, don't expect to run a marathon or lose 50 pounds in a month. Setting unrealistic expectations can lead to frustration if you don't reach them right away, overeating when you've restricted yourself too much and burnout from trying to do too much too soon, which can lead you to stop all together. Instead of aiming too high, start small and increase your level of activity gradually over time. Consistency in exercise routines and approach to nutrition is key to those health and fitness goals, and you don't need a gym or heavy equipment to achieve body confidence or a toned physique, but you do need to allow time for yourself to get there in a healthy and sustainable way. Read our blog on the benefits and reasons to use light weights in your workouts here. And remember, abs are made in the kitchen! 

Set small goals that are easily measurable. For example, if your goal is to run five miles every other day by June 1st, instead of saying "I'll run five miles every other day," write down "I'll run two miles, three times a week for the first month." You then have a starting point (achievable for you) which can help you to break down your goal over the next 6 months and work out how you can build up to achieving it realistically from there. Writing down your goal helps you stay accountable for it as well as track your progress toward achieving it. If you can share them with a friend or create an accountability partner, you're also more likely to stick to them. Depending on your overall goal, you don't have to be strict or rigid in your approach, allowing flexibility in your goals can help make them more enjoyable and achievable. You could set an intention, such as "workout 3 times per week for half an hour," as this lets you then choose the workout you feel like doing on the day so you're more likely to stick to the routine and feel good when you've done it, whether it was HIIT, sculpt or yoga. 

 

Some examples of simple SMART fitness goals: eat 5 servings of fruit/veggies every day (ideally aiming for 30 different types of plant over a week for optimal health benefits); go for a 30 min walk 3 times/week (at a time which works for you); do 10 push ups every other morning or before bed (build up to add a one minute plank hold!); drink 6-8 glasses of water per day throughout the day; get 8 hours of quality sleep every night; spend 1 hour reading each week, set aside 20 minutes 3 times a week. These small habits can then build into lasting lifestyle changes for overall wellbeing.

Lastly, it's important to take the time to think about what you want from your fitness plan. What are your ultimate fitness goals? What do you want to achieve in the next month or year? How do you want to feel by the summer? Once you have an idea of what you want, write them down so that you can break them down and track your progress along the way. What goals can you set today? We'd love to know how you're getting on, let us know in the comments below.