Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 120 | How to Stay Active as a Family Team

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Ep. 120 | How to Stay Active as a Family Team · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  Pick an activity that's active, that doesn't feel like you're working out with your kids. Hey guys, welcome to the Five Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:32
  What's up guys, welcome back to 5 Minute Fatherhood. So one of the things that often we have to struggle with as dads is we get overwhelmed and one of the first things to go is exercise. And oftentimes you kinda think to yourself, well, you know, that's just the cost of this season of family life.
• 0:48
  But one of the problems that can really begin to emerge very quickly is that for a lot of guys, this is an area where you really start to break down if you don't have areas where you can really physically exert yourselves. I started to kind of have these kinds of excuses about exercising. And I just noticed over time it was just having an impact on me emotionally, spiritually, emotionally.
• 1:13
  And I know one thought that really helped me understand where this fit in my life was the idea that if you can't get out of your mind, get into your body. And I was finding myself getting just sort of trapped in sort of mental loops, emotional loops.
• 1:28
  and really exerting myself physically was sort of popped me out of that state. And so I found it just really absolutely crucial. It wasn't even the physical health that really sort of drove me to be a little bit more disciplined, but it was really realizing that this has made me a much more healthy person. And I want to be that person for my work and for my family. But this can be tough to do as you're building family. So I want to go back and forth with Jeff real quick and ask, okay, how do you get exercise as a family team? Because one of our...
• 1:56
  prescriptions to you guys you hear us talk about a lot is if you find that you don't have time to do something, maybe the answer is to integrate it into the family as opposed to just sort of drop it completely. And so one idea that we've tried to do to try to integrate exercise into family is we got really into different racket sports. We were into tennis for a while. Now we're getting into pickleball, which is awesome. Jeff and I are both from the Northwest. We're this
• 2:22
  court originated. And it's taking over all the way here in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. We've got pickleball courts. I didn't even know this until a friend of mine told me. So I went out to Costco, bought the paddles, and we've been hanging out there as a family. And man, you get like a really good workout in 30 to 60 minutes. And even Kyra, she's 10. She's really learning how to play. It's a really simple game. And so that's one example of how to integrate family and do something that's a little bit on the exercise cardio side. But Jeff, what are you guys trying to figure out how to
• 2:51
  Yeah, I love that. And we love pickleball. So that's such a good one. One, since we have toddlers, one that I would kind of say that's helpful for us is go for walks. Now that's kind of like the elderly version of exercise, right? Like what old people do, but, but, but it is true. There's something about just movement per day, right? So there's a difference, you know, for me, I usually have to get up kind of early and go to the gym and stuff like that. At least with the stage, the kids are in, they're not going to be, you know, pumping iron and lifting weights or whatever. But like you said, I want it to be integrated. I want them to kind of, but here's a better way to put it. Us going for walks is kind of the thing that I think sets the tone for,
• 3:20
  for our family to know that this like getting outside being healthy getting fresh air caring about our bodies is important so it's more like the foundational piece that gives them that tone so that then they can kind of build on that the rest of their lives like oh this is just something we do we just get outside we we we are active we are you know we sweat we get we are we're healthy and it's actually one of our pillars on our mission and vision thing and walks by the way can't are not just for exercise but i think they like are like a
• 3:44
  key to a family team going on family walks or just kind of strolling and meandering around is like connecting there's always like that's always when dreaming and vision happens it's when the spouses have a lot more of an intimate moment to just check catch up it's like it's just like this break you get away from the screens and you get away from the home and you have this kind of shock in the day of like it's different and man it has like 10 basically different benefits and one of those is exercise so that's what i would say for sure is going on walks
• 4:07
  Yeah. And you guys aren't runners, right? You don't do the jogging thing? No, no, no. I wouldn't. Yeah. I'll just take my electric skateboarder on my electric bike all day. That's like, that's my version of a run. If it has a motor, that's, that's my run. All right. So that's number two. Number three, a third idea is a lunchtime workout with one of the kids. And so, um, this only works of course, if you live kind of close to home, but I worked only about eight minutes away.
• 4:31
  from my house. And so I would go home, grab one of the kids and then do a workout in the middle of the day. I found this to be extremely helpful for me to kind of refresh. So I just took that lunch hour and I would take one of the kids to the gym with me or do something else with them. And so really try to get a workout in and that sort of helped me hit the reset button right in the middle of the day. So that's a third idea. Do you have a fourth one for us?
• 4:54
  Yeah. A fourth one is it's kind of a cousin of a couple we've said, but just to say it outright is pick an activity that's active that doesn't feel like you're working out with your kids. And so I would say the two for us is swimming and basketball, right? Like going to the ocean, going for a swim, going to the beach. I know not everyone can do that. We can even do that in December. I'm sorry.
• 5:12
  But or going out in the driveway, like I just got a basketball hoop for my birthday. But Alyssa actually it's funny, like even Alyssa said, like when she got it for my birthday, she said it was like for us as a family. So it's just kind of funny. Like we even see it like that of like activities are meant to be played together. And so she got it for me on my birthday. But then like every day since then, we've been out in the driveway playing and the kids have been shooting and we've been running around. So like something like that, I think of something where it basically feels more like a game that, you know, you're just being active in. And especially again with younger kids, that's usually the easiest, best way to go for sure.
• 5:41
  Yeah. And the last one I'll say is to find a coach in some kind of activity that you do two evenings a week. So we did this with Taekwondo. I know people that do this with CrossFit. We had a PT coach that sort of we did that for a season as a family. But to actually carve out maybe a couple of evenings, and this could be like right after work or right before dinner, right after dinner, something like that.
• 6:04
  where you guys can, and we like to do this a little before dinner, but just go straight to some place where there's an activity going on that you can all participate as a family that kind of crosses all those age groups. So those are just one to give you guys some quick pop ideas for how, if you find that you need exercise to get out of your mind and into your body, to do that with your family can help you really get through some hard seasons as a dad,
• 6:34
  have kind of a coaching opportunity with your kids. Hey guys, if you like this short content on 5-Minute Fatherhood, then you're going to love long-form interviews that Jeremy and I do with other dads just like you over at Dads Building Teams. We go much more in depth hearing the stories, challenges, and journeys of different dads who are trying to build multi-generational teams on mission. Just go to whatever podcast platform you use and search for Dads Building Teams.