game – Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

Keep Kids Moving This Summer!

Your kids are home from school. You’ve played all the board games you can. And, maybe it’s even a rainy week. What can you do to burn off a little of that excess energy building up in both you and the kids? KEEP MOVING, of course.

You probably have items in your home that can help create a playful, imaginative workout. Here are some ways to help kids stay active with household items:

Painters Tape

Put a strip on the floor—young enough kids can use it as a balance beam. They won’t be balancing, but they can try to walk along it and stay on the line. You can make it straight or zig zag it.

If you have a hallway, use painters tape to turn the floor into a hopscotch. Swap a bean bag for the rock you’d use outside and now your child can hop their way down the hall.

Or, in the hallway, put tape at different intervals and different angles to create a “Mission Impossible Laser” hallway. Your child has to try to get from one end to the other without touching the tape. This one is easy to make easier […]

Keep Kids Moving This Summer!Maggie Downie2023-06-21T17:05:02-04:00

Fitness Holiday Gift Ideas

Buying a loved one a fitness gift provides more than just the surface level gift. It shows you really care about their health and wellness, which is key to a quality life. Here are some of my favorite fitness holiday gift ideas for all types of friends this year:

For the Fun Fitness Type:

How about going a little retro with a pogo stick? Sure you can get this gift for a child, but you can also find one for your silly, fun loving, Tigger-impersonating friends. If you opt for this just make sure it’s weighted for an adult. I’ve seen them weighted up to 180 pounds.

If you have a group of friends that workout together or you know a sports team that exercises together, consider HIIT the game. It is a card game where you draw high intensity exercises, but along the way you can swap cards with players or make someone do an exercise you don’t want to do. You get points for each move you can complete.

For the Practical Fitness Type:

A fun water bottle is a good reminder for anyone in your life to stay hydrated. This is especially important when we exercise.

Gaiam now makes foldable yoga mats. While […]

Fitness Holiday Gift IdeasMaggie Downie2021-12-20T14:56:44-05:00

Get Moving

This time of year we often see lots of family and friends for various gatherings, often for prolonged periods of sitting and eating. While that is fun, sometimes we can miss out on our regular exercise routine because we are preparing, shopping, or prepping for meals. It means this is often the season of a lot more calories in and a lot less calories out. So how do you get your family moving?

There are fun ways to incorporate movement that can include the whole family and might actually get you all laughing together. Remember, movement shouldn’t be a chore or a bore. It can and should be fun.

Eleven Tips for Getting your Family Moving around the Holidays

Walk Between Dinner and Dessert

As an added bonus, taking a walk often gets you out of dish duty.

Play Charades or Another Physical Game

If your family needs a real challenge, show up this year with Twister.

Stretch Between Courses

Think of this like the seven inning stretch. Get up and get moving. Pick gentle stretches that feel good. Some shoulder shrugs or a group hip flexor stretch.

Dance While Washing Dishes

Put on some fun music and dance while you clean up. I think […]

Get MovingMaggie Downie2018-02-14T16:07:47-05:00

Plank Story: Elementary school games

This lovely lady helps make life extra fun.

This is an oldie, but a goodie from over a decade ago. My friends were turning twenty-five. It may be laughable now, but we were struggling with aging and growing up. I’m actually more comfortable with getting older now than I was then. Since today is Julie’s, my best friend from elementary school, birthday, it seemed only fitting to pull this from the archive. Happy Birthday, Julie. And to every twenty-five-year-old: it’s going to be okay.

Elementary School Games

Upon turning twenty-five, in Peter Pan fashion, Julie planned a birthday party for herself filled with elementary school games like bombardment, kick ball, and spud.

On average, I’d guess the attendees at the party were between twenty-five and thirty-five. The point is, we would be categorized a young, at least according to my grandma.

After five hours of playing games designed for children, I injured my hip (which would result in a visit to a physical therapist), Julie’s right ear became permanently attached to her right shoulder due to a kink in her neck (that required massage and physical therapy to undo), and Matt hurt his […]

Plank Story: Elementary school gamesMaggie Downie2018-02-14T16:25:17-05:00

Mission Impossible Laser Game

I totally forgot to mention that in December Matt and I went to San Antonio, Texas where we discovered the BEST game ever. It’s a laser game where your job is to get through a room of lasers—from one side to the other—without ever touching any lasers. You feel like you’re in Mission Impossible, partly because they are playing music from the movie.

You lose points if you hit a laser. Once you are through the room you can pick a more challenging level or try to beat your own time.

We were lucky to be the only people there so we could just keep playing the game over and over. Matt would go, I would, etc. for an hour and a half.

It was a reminder that games can be exercise and exercise can be fun. I like to exercise so I don’t always need that reminder. Still, I didn’t realize I was getting a workout until I […]

Mission Impossible Laser GameMaggie Downie2014-08-04T18:02:17-04:00