Personal Fitness: “Camp PAD” (Developing Talents)

So we wanted to talk to the girls about the importance of physical fitness and starting to get in the habit of being active while they are young. At first I wasn't positive what I wanted the "CAMP PAD" to include because some of our girls are a lot more active and competitive than others... and I definately didn't want to turn activity days into some sort of drills hour.  Most of them play sports, dance and have a good idea about most of that. Then I got thinking maybe they don't know that much about other kinds of ways to be physically active. I know many of the families have passes to community centers so I figured maybe we could introduce them to the classes that you normally see there. So...the main things we practiced/did were stretching, yoga, pilates and zumba. I printed most of the following off and had them to show the girls as we practiced them.

First I told them the difference between aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise and that basically aerobic is when they go for a while and breath a lot (using oxygen) and that anaerobic is short burst of energy like sprinting and uses energy in their muscles (I guess I did get something out of my college degree!).

Then we started with going through some stretching exercises.... there are a lot on the internet to choose from, but also included some of my own favorite stretches.

Then we went on to Yoga and tried these positions, learning their names:

along with the Sun Salutation, a basic Yoga movement.

"Sun Salutation or "surya namaskar" is the basic foundation for the power yoga practice. Surya Namaskar literally means "obeisance to the sun". The Sun Salutations are a complete workout in themselves and thoroughly warm up the entire body, preparing it to awaken to the benefits of the postures." - Sol Power Yoga

I was going to do some pilates next but we ran out of time and the girls were really excited about Zumba. Here are the pilates things we would have done:



Zumba... I could be wrong but Zumba to me is basically dancing, with someone leading. According to wikipedia, "Zumba involves dance and aerobic elements. Zumba's choreography incorporates hip-hop, soca, samba, salsa, merengue, mambo, martial arts, and some Bollywood and belly dance moves. Squats and lunges are also included.^[3] "

So for Zumba I asked for volunteers to get up in front of everyone and do a few dance moves and the rest of us would follow. We had the music turned up loud and just started dancing. Every once in a while a girl would scream out "freestyle" which meant do whatever you want. We were outside but I had my phone with you-tube hooked up to our stereo and two of the girls (sisters) knew a dance to "Waka Waka" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRpeEdMmmQ0) and led the rest of us in the dance. I thought it was a perfect example of Zumba and the girls really liked it.

After that it was time to end so we had some popcycles and I think the girls had a blast :).