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Exercise bands are one of the easiest and cheapest ways to incorporate strength training into your weekly routine. I bought mine at Big 5 for $15 but Amazon is selling them for $9.99. There are four different colors for the bands and each band is based on weight. I use the Red Band Medium strength band and it has an equivalent weight of 10 pounds. The blue one has an equivalent weight of 15 pounds. It’s light weight and can be used in a hotel room or at the park or your garage.

The best exercise to do with the band is to workout your thighs and butt. I stand on it with both feet, shoulder width and hold the bands at shoulder height in a squat position. Then I side-step to the right 8-10 steps and repeat on the left side. My child mirrors me with a jump rope and just jumps along in front of me! It gets even BETTER if you can do over head chest presses while standing on the band. And better if you turn your hands down and lift upwards (elbows pointing towards the sky) while side-stepping to each side. I love it because your butt, thighs and arms all get a fantastic strength training set and my kid is happy too. In addition, you can loop the band around a pole and hold it at chest height and complete 3 sets of 12 backward rows. If you’re creative and know your body parts, you can create a complete workout for yourself using the bands. Spri has a fairly decent selection of “how to” articles here.

I think the most important part of exercising is that you are teaching your kids that exercise is fun and that they can do it too. This workout that I do doesn’t add more than fifteen minutes to my daily routines and if my kids can do it “like mommy” than they are thrilled as well.