7 Minute Workout With Toddlers

My sister turned me on to this seven-minute workout. The idea is you work really hard for seven minutes–pushups, planks, jumping jacks, crunches, etc–but it’s only seven minutes and then you’re done. Seems like it should fit my toddler-twin-mom, freelance lifestyle. So far I’ve done the workout twice. The first time I did it M and E were asleep. The second time, I tried it when they were awake…

I started up the app, which I’d downloaded onto my phone. A Siri-like voice instructs what exercise to do while the screen shows a little animation of a “wall sit” or “side plank,” whatever the exercise is, and beeps when the time is up. “Now rest” it instructs after each exercise, as a yellow timer ticks down ten seconds.

The first exercise was jumping jacks. When M saw me doing them, she jumped right in. She’s been working a lot on jumping and is pretty good at it now, but trying to put her arms in the air at the same time was an exciting new challenge.

Next up was the wall sit. I rushed to find a place on the wall as the timer ticked down. M came and leaned against the wall next to me. E did, too, and for a second we were all leaning against the wall together in the living room.  But then E got distracted by my knees and trying to climb in my strangely suspended lap. Wall sit ended a bit early.

For pushups, M lay down on the floor next to me, doing her own version of pushups (something like a seal) while E tried to climb on my back. Then they both tried to climb on my back, giggling. Abort.

Stepping on and off a chair, E came right up to the chair and put her hands on it, wanting to climb up, too. This is the chair next to the sideboard, the one the twins like to climb up on and press all the stereo buttons. I kept pausing to make sure I wasn’t going to step on her fingers. I also worried I was encouraging this climbing-on-chairs behavior. Suddenly Siri was saying, “now rest,” but i hadn’t done enough stepping up and down. To continue and cut short my ten second rest, or abort? Quick time is ticking!

Triceps dip on chair, in which you face away from the chair, feet on the floor while gripping the seat with your hands and lowering your bottom slowly up and down, stopped very quickly because E was trying to climb onto the chair behind me. The chair is a bit wobbly even without me straining at a precarious angle off the end of it. Visions of disaster. Next!

High knees running in place. This was more like it! “Who wants to run with me!?” I yelled, getting into the spirit of this collaborative toddler workout. But by then M and E were starting to lose interest.

Around five minutes, when we got to the second round of pushups, I ended the seven minute workout early because I was breaking a sweat and didn’t want to leave the house smelling like a dank underarm (I was fitting the workout in before we had plans to go out, which is the whole idea, right?). I still consider the workout a success and I love the seven minute concept. Maybe that’s what I should be doing right now, while M and E are napping, instead of eating cookies and writing this blog. Hm.

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