Games for exercise classes – making working out fun

I am a big believer that exercise should be fun! If you are having a good time and enjoy it then you’re more likely to stick at it. One way of doing this is to introduce some games into your exercise routines. Here are 3 of my favourite games I do in my classes:

Split the Deck

Choose an exercise for each suit. Shuffle the deck of cards. Place the deck face down and split into two teams (depending on your size of group you may want to remove some cards. I have removed all odd numbers, Kings and Jacks before to make the number of cards more suitable to the size of teams). Set some rules for what the card number or picture means in terms of reps of the exercise. E.g If hearts are squat jumps then the 8 of hearts cards is 8 squat jumps. I make Queens 15 reps and Ace 20 reps but you can adapt this to whatever reps you want.
Each team takes a card, and then has to do the exercise of that suit for as many reps as the number on the card or picture means. Once they’ve completed the reps they can get another card. This continues until no cards are left… The team with the least cards at the end has to do a forfeit such as 10 burpees… (got to love a burpee ?)

Pass the Kettlebell

You get 2 teams of the same number of people to stand in 2 circles. In each circle one person does 10 squat & Press with the kettlebell while the rest of the circle is doing squats. Once they have completed the 10 squat & Press they pass the kettlebell to the next person and that next person then does the 10 squat & press while everyone else squats. This is repeated until the kettlebell has been all the way round the circle. Once a team has finished they sit down. The winning circle is the one that’s sat down first. I add a 5 burpee forfeit to the team who remains standing. You can do several rounds with each one having a forfeit. Other exercises that can be done are:

8 Lunges each leg with Kettlebell – body extensions for the rest of the team
12 Kettlebell Swings – Star Jumps for the rest of the team 10 Upright Rows with Kettlebell – Press-ups for the rest of the Team

Lucky Dip

Write down different exercises on pieces of paper e.g
40 star jumps
10 Squat Jumps
15 Body Extensions
10 Press-ups
10 Tuck Jumps
30 Mountain Climbers
10 split lunge jumps
15 Tricep Dips

Fold the pieces of paper up and place them in a bucket. Depending on group size you may need to print off the same set of exercises several times (try and make it so people will end up doing 8-10 different sets of exercises each). Put the bucket in the middle and everyone stands in a circle around it. When the game starts they all have to run, grab a piece of paper, run back to their position in the circle, and complete the exercises on the piece of paper. Once finished they can run and get another one. They continue until the bucket is empty. Winner has the most pieces of paper.

These are just a few of the games we use in the workoutlikeamum classes. If you give them a try I would love to hear how you get on! Lucky Dip and Split the Deck are great to play with family and friends too…. Tag @workoutlikeamum in your pictures or posts of you having a go at the games if you share them on Facebook or Instagram.