Exercise Stations - Porter Youth Center

"As each child finished a designated number of laps, increasing each session from 2 to 3 to 4 to 5, etc., each would go to one of several exercise station areas. There were exercise stations designated for jumping jacks, push ups, and sit ups. After the exercises a warm-down lap or two was run.

The children also enjoyed competition like 100 meter sprints against each other, with the winners advancing from each group to race against each other. They also liked to run one lap to beat a designated time, for example everyone tried to run faster than 2 minutes.

One special workout most kids enjoyed was a backwards challenge. To mix up the running on the track, they were challenged to run backwards the entire time for one lap without stopping or to do some out of the ordinary thing besides running.

One interesting idea is to get children who usually stand and talk to 'walk while they talk' at recesses or during lunch time. Especially if they wore pedometers, this walking while talking gives them quite a bit of unexpected exercise."