It can be hard to find time in your schedule for exercise, and even more difficult if you have parenting duties as well. Use our tips and tricks to increase your physical activity within and around your family life.

Interweave physical activity with household chores and other everyday activities, such as by climbing stairs, gardening or dancing while hoovering. You can also move about while waiting for cooking or for the kettle to boil. While you are observing your children, you could try some simple strength and balance exercises, like push ups for example, and if any spark their interest, encourage them to join in too. Integrating more physical activity seamlessly into your daily routine means you can minimise any potential disruption it may cause. Take note today of when you are standing around or sitting when you could be moving and see what does and doesn’t work for you. One way to encourage regular activity and reduced periods of inactivity is using a step counter, which you can get on your phone, and challenge yourself to an achievable amount of steps each day.

If you want to exercise purposefully, set a time each day that suits you and stick to it! For example, evenings might be good, after the kids have gone to bed. Your lunch break may also be a good chunk of time to squeeze in some exercise. When you have set a time, that can become your motivational trigger to get going. You should also pick an exercise that excites you or something that you want to aim for e.g. take up yoga, challenge yourself to Couch to 5K or join a sports club. Tell someone else when you want to be exercising if you want to be held accountable. If you want to set aside time for certain fitness goals but can only squeeze in 10 minutes a day, you can find lots of quick workouts online. These include the NHS’s 10 minute workouts as well as many  resources on YouTube such as The Body Coach TV by Joe Wicks and Yoga with Adrienne.