WORKOUT 4 KIDS - squats & box-jumps - Demolition WOD

Equipment needed:

• 4-8(+) friends!

• dodge-balls or light balls/items to throw at each other

• Park benches / stable items to jump onto, less than 12"

• 2-4 cones or anything that can be used as 'markers'

Warm-up game:

Dodgeball with a difference

1. Play dodgeball in the normal way. When someone gets hit, they must perform 10 jumping jacks to get back in.

2. Play dodgeball in a bear crawl. When someone gets hit, they must perform 5 burpees (RX / Scale1-no push-up) to get back in.

3. Play dodgeball in a crab walk. When someone gets hit, they must hold a plank for a count of 10 to get back in.

Make sure you 'sell' the movements children do when they get tagged with a dodgeball - it is important to build a positive association with exercise. These movements are not 'penalties', exercise is never used as a 'punishment', these movements are 'buy ins' to get back into the fun game they want to play!

Stretching:

• Quads / hip flexors (squats / squat hold)

• Hamstrings (wide leg squat stretch)

• Shoulders and abs (child pose to cobra)

Skill:

Work on perfect form and finding the right scale for each individual on the following movements:

• Squats

When form is corrected / the correct scale is found for individuals, you can challenge them to do max reps in 1min, to get a 'benchmark' level for where their fitness is currently, which they can aim to improve on over the coming weeks/months.

• Running

Have children perform 'death by 10m' (set out 2 cones/markers 10m apart) and record number of laps successfully completed before failure, which they can aim to improve on over the coming weeks/months.

Workout:

Demolition WOD! - AMRAP until children are too tired/for as long as it remains fun!

Spend some time teaching the box-jump and making sure children have the correct form and have something stable, at the correct/a safe height, for them to jump onto.

Put a cone/marker 10m away from the bench and set up as many of these stations as you have 'teams'. Ideally you would have 2 stations, and two teams of a minimum of 4 (8 total) to compete against each other.

1. 6 squats at the cone/marker

2. Down into a plank until next person finishes squats

3. 10m of carioca - always facing same way (looking at opposition team) - to the bench

4. 6 box jumps onto the 'bench'

5. Down into a plank until next person finishes box jumps

6. 10m of carioca - always facing same way (looking at opposition team) - to the cone/marker

This game works best with teams of four. Each child starts at one of the four different movements/stations (excluding the carioca) and they then rotate through the movements in the order, as described above.

Depending on the age of the children, you can rename these movements however you want to make them more 'fun' e.g. squats can become 'earthquake makers', box-jumps can become 'building crushers' etc.!

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Disclaimer: The author of this blog is not a trained fitness professional. While the workouts for kids blogged about here are specifically designed with low risk movements and little to no weight, they are designed to be administered by people with some knowledge/experience of the movements being described. The example videos alone are not enough to understand and coach the movement safely and anyone wishing to teach these movements to children should have had some training before doing so. Any form of workout comes with inherent risk of injury and anyone undertaking the workouts blogged about here does so at their own risk and cannot hold the author of this blog responsible for any resultant injury that may occur. The workouts blogged about here are based on workouts which are commonly prescribed by the Crossfit Kids coaching community and have at times been modified by the author of this blog, usually to require less equipment.