BNSF News

Your HEALTH Matters: Fun Family Fitness Tip

2007-12-20

As part of Your Health Matters program, health tips are published to give employees information on individual health, family health and, in general, living a healthy life.

The Christmas and New Year’s holidays bring many people more relaxed days with family. Why not include your family in your pursuit to exercise more regularly? Family exercise will improve the health of your loved ones, make exercise more fun and, at the same time, develop stronger connections between all of you. With a little creativity, you can find a way to make it work for everyone.

Fitness Tip

Have each family member pick an exercise at the beginning of the holiday break. For example, a family of four would have four different exercises. Aim for a combination of cardio-based activities, such as jumping rope, running around the block, or jumping jacks, and strength-building exercises that utilize your body weight (pushups, crunches, squats, lunges) or the fitness equipment that you have access to.

On day one, everyone gets together for a fitness assessment, doing as many repetitions as they can for strength exercises or completing an activity (such as running) as fast as they can. Record everyone's outcome on a chart on the fridge.

Now, each family member can train (together or separately) all week long, with the goal of improving their fitness levels and beating their goals from day one. Reward the family member who has the highest percentage increase with something small, but motivating. Keep the focus on the fact that everyone is improving.

For more ways to help yourself – and family – to good health, check out the Health Action programs from Your HEALTH Matters. Go now to HealthMedia. (Note: use the access code wellcare to get started.)

The weekly Health Tips are part of the Your HEALTH Matters program, sponsored by BNSF’s Medical and Environmental Health group. Look for more tips at the program Web site: http://www.bnsf.com/employees/healthmatters.

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