Being active in the Great Outdoors can be a huge benefit for your child’s fitness. When I am talking about the Great Outdoors I mean being in nature away from society. Going into any woods, meadow, or mountainous areas puts you in the Great Outdoors. Finding a trail in a local park, wildlife area, or national park can put your child in a situation that can greatly add to their overall fitness. But just how can being in nature add to your child’s fitness? You will be surprised by the number of things in the outdoors that can be of benifit.
Exercise in the Great Outdoors starts with hiking. It’s the first thing most readers think about when they consider being in nature. Hiking promotes exercise by moving your child’s body. Hiking is a natural form of exercise. You use your body as it was designed to be used. Hiking starts with walking. Walking uses your whole body to some extent. It is mostly a workout for your legs, but your hips, core and back are also challenged. Even your arms have some movement when walking. Walking burns calories so it helps with our body composition. The walking that comes from hiking can be enhanced easily, and that enhancement leads to burning more calories per mile than just walking.
Outdoor trails can enhance calorie burn because often they are often hilly. Hills can lead to increased calorie burn and an increase in the work out of the whole body. Hills can turn walking into strength training for the legs if there are enough hills or if the hills are steep enough. The workout and calorie burn can also be increased by walking with a pack. Now your child is carrying weight with them making it more challenging. Sometimes the weight is needed for the hike. Your kid maybe carrying water or food in your pack. It is even more of a challenge if you are camping overnight and have to carry in your supplies. If you are not carrying food, water, or supplies you can still carry a pack with added weights to help stimulate the hike. This form of exercise is called rucking. Go Ruck is a great website to dive deeper into this type of exercise and they have gear and articles specifically for kids.
Hiking is a great way to develop stamina. I like developing stamina while hiking because your child is really not “working” on stamina. They are just hiking and enjoying nature. They are pushing their bodies further and their muscles are developing slow twitch fibers that will benefit them the rest of their lives. They are not just learning physical stamina but they learn mental stamina. They are learning that they can push themselves, that they can hike for miles. They often learn that there are no limits to what they can do. Take a kid on a 5 or 10 mile hike and they learn that they can walk 5 or 10 miles. This can be huge for their confidence in their ability to do things over time. Just a word of advice, don’t push too far or too fast. Take breaks frequently. Take plenty of water and snacks. It has to be a fun experience. If it is not fun or becomes too much of a work out it can ruin them and they will only learn to hate the outdoors.
Being adventurous and allowing your child to explore nature can actually increase their coordination. During hikes kids often find acorns that they naturally love to throw or they find rocks near a lake that they will want to skip. If you allow your child to walk along fallen trees they can improve their balance. Trail walking has your child walking on surfaces that are not flat. This helps with joint stability and proprioception which in turn will help with coordination and athletic performance. Occasionally during hikes kids will jump from place to place. All of these different activities help develop their fitness. .
Hiking can even turn into upper body strength training. Kids sometimes will come across boulders that they can climb. They may also find larger stones that they will pick up or attempt to pick up. They may even move a log. When you allow your child to explore nature they can get a full body workout.
If you read the previous blog article “Childhood Fitness is Great in the Outdoors” you already know the mental and emotional benefits to being outside. Being outdoors leads to an increase in mood, decrease in anxiety and depression. Being outdoors helps improve sleep. Nature provides a connection to our world and increases joy and confidence in our children’s lives.
Take advantage of all the benefits that the Great Outdoors offers. Find a place near you or take a trip to someplace far away. Make a plan. Set aside the time. You can do this because it will be good for your child and good for you.
