Apps to encourage children’s exercise and fitness

The summer holidays have arrived, which means plenty of fun, sun and kids running riot with their friends.

Without the staple of P.E. to keep your children participating in some much-needed exercise every week, finding a way to make sure they’re staying healthy as well as enjoying their time off can be a struggle.

Fortunately, there are a variety of apps available that encourage children to keep fit and have fun simultaneously, so we’ve rounded up a few of the best ones to check out.

Super Stretch Yoga

Super Stretch Yoga HD is a free app available for the iPad that teaches children fun and easy yoga moves that they can try out themselves. With the app, your child can start practicing poses modeled by children of their own age, letting them stretch out their limbs and show off their skills. The application includes a total of twelve yoga poses for your child to perfect, each with its own description and accompanying video.

Yoga is a great hobby to get your child interested in, as it encourages mental wellbeing and physical fitness. Not only does it improve strength and flexibility, it’s also likely to be something that they continue to enjoy as they enter adulthood.

The videos included with this application offer reassurance to keep beginners trying until their perfect each position, as well as advice on the best time of day to try out certain poses. You can even play the videos on your television with an Apple TV.

Strava

If you’re the kind of parent that regularly walks their child to school or goes for small adventures on the weekend, Strava is the perfect app for you and your family. It allows you to map all of your walks, bike rides, and hikes, and the time you spend on each journey. This means you can motivate your kids by showing them how much they’ve accomplished in a certain period of time.

Though this app isn’t marketed directly at children, it’s a great way to make walking to school and traveling to new places more fun. The further you go, the more reason your child has to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. You even get little notifications when you create a new personal best, allowing your family to celebrate each milestone together.

Sworkit Kids


This exciting new app that helps you to turn fitness into a game, including workouts for strength, agility and flexibility. Designed primarily for children between the ages of 7 and 14, the Sworkit Kids app features guidance and demonstrations by children of the same age as your own. This feature alone makes the app an absolute staple for young ones, as who’s better to demonstrate the activities than the kids themselves?

Sworkit Kids also uses a scientifically proven technique of combining interval training with randomised exercises, so they’ll never get bored of the same old routines.