Monday, December 20, 2010

Motivate!

Best Ways to Motivate Your Child Toward a Life Time of Health and Fitness

As parents and potential grandparents, we have an investment in guarding our own health and fitness. We don't just want to watch from the sideline; we want to be able to keep up with the younger people in our lives. We have an even stronger urge to protect their health and fitness.

Here are six important facts to help you stay motivated to be physically active:

1. No matter what one's weight or gender, the biggest predictor of future exercise participation is past participation. Children who learn to enjoy physical activity or sports while they are young are much more likely to continue to do so as adults. Children will become intrinsically motivated to exercise when they are older if they experience it as being rewarding, fun, and relaxing when they are young.  These early experiences with health and fitness need to be very positive and enjoyable.

2. Character counts. People who are reliable, self-motivating, and disciplined are most likely continue with an exercise program. These traits are also best instilled at a young age and parents are the most influential models and teachers of these traits. If you want your child to be dependable then you must be dependable, too.

3. Level of self-control will influence if someone will participate in health and fitness programs. A person must believe that what they do matters when it comes to their health. Having access to and the latest information on health and fitness-related matters will increase a person's active participation. If they are unaware of how much control over their own health and fitness they actually have via diet, exercise, and other lifestyle choices they, will be less likely to do the things that are proven to enhance their health and fitness.

4. Perceived barriers such as a lack of time will discourage participation. Most health gains can be achieved in as little as two and a half hours of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week, with additional moderate to vigorous muscle strengthening activities that involve all major muscle groups two or more times a week.

5. Perceived barriers such as a lack of exercise facilities will also discourage participation. As it turns out, there is no place like home. Free weights and exercises with simple, inexpensive equipment can get the job done at home when people are given a well-designed, intelligent program to follow.

6. Social support from family and friends is an important predictor of whether someone will maintain an exercise program once they get started. Having someone to count on and someone counting on you to keep an exercise appointment can make all the difference. We can be key to each other's success.

Begin today to implement each of these six motivational tools. Exercising with your children in a playful way now will cause them to associate fitness with happiness. This is the key to their participation in healthy activities throughout their lives.

January is Fitness goals month at Action Karate Please call 1-888-99-SHARK to reserve your spot! or visit www.actionnewtown.com for more information.
Contributed by Solomon Brenner author of Black Belt Parenting and Master Instructor of Action Karate.