When I was a new mom, I had big ideas about what my yoga practices and workouts with my kids would look like.
If I’m honest, it was mostly a yoga vision when I was a new mom. I didn’t embrace non-yoga movement until I was a year postpartum with my first kid.
My postpartum body wasn’t getting stronger with yoga alone and wishful thinking wasn’t working either.
When I first started adding weights to my movement practice, my 2 goals were simple:
Build Strength
Do not drop weights on child
But once I really got into it, I fell in love with challenging my body in new ways and getting stronger in the process.
I also loved the idea of showing my kids that exercise wasn’t just a means to an end.
Working out can be fun.
In fact, exercise SHOULD be fun.
If you’re not enjoying it, why bother, right?
So pretty early on, I let my kids into my workout space.
I let them try lifting the lightest weights I had, if they wanted to.
If I was in plank pose, they’d climb on top and we’d make a game of it.
And if you’ve ever watched a 4 year old try to to jumping jacks, you know it’s one of the best things you will ever witness.
We had fun, but it wasn’t all matching outfits and animal-themed poses.
My kids like to run in circles around me and stop directly underneath me when I’m holding something heavy. They often start exercising with me, then stop after a few seconds, complaining it’s too hard and then lie on the floor asking me when I’m going to be done. Sometimes they’ll grab my legs or my arm while I’m trying to move.
Because in real life, kids don’t act like the perfect workout partner angels that you see on Instagram or YouTube momfluencer accounts. And that’s ok. It’s also important to see what workouts really look like with kids around so you can better manage your own expectations.
In my latest video my YouTube channel, I show you exactly what it looks like when I workout with my kids around. And at the very end, I share a quick 2 minutes of exercises you can easily incorporate your younger kids into, if they’re interested.
