If you have children, you have surely watched in amazement how they can play or run around for hours and seemingly never get tired. My daughter never stops- never! I was watching the other day as she would jump from toy to toy tirelessly while playing with the neighbor. I was worn out just watching her, but then it hit me. She is doing stations.

Naturally, she did not think about it and there was no rhyme or reason to what they were doing, but they were doing stations. She would ride her bike chasing her friend, then they would jump rope, play hopscotch, chase each other in a game of tag, get back on the bike, and on and on. I decided to revisit my youth and do a toddler fitness session.

To best simulate this I figured three exercises were mandatory: biking, jump rope, and suicide sprints. These were to simulate their playing with the jump rope and bike being obvious. The sprints were to simulate the back and forth of chasing one another in a game of tag. These sprints are where you choose a distance you want to travel. For example, the length of my yard (30 meters or so). Then you cut it into sections by thirds or fourths. I would start at my fence sprint one fourth of my yard, touch the ground and sprint back. Then immediately I would sprint to the halfway point, touch and return. Then three fourths and then the entire yard. This is one rep.

My routine was to bike around our block (@ .33 miles) as fast as I could. Then return to my house and jump rope for five minutes. Then bike again. Then do three suicides. I repeated this whole process three times.

My neighbors had to think I had lost my mind, but who cares. I honestly felt like a kid again.

It was a fairly decent workout and worked well for me because there is not much traffic on my block. If you are on a busier street or really have nowhere to ride, get one of those bike stands that allow you to turn your bike into a stationary one and go for about two minutes. Or maybe you have a stationary bike or elliptical or some other machine already. Two minutes at a high intensity should simulate the same.

If you have the desire to feel like a kid again, this is the workout for you. I will definitely incorporate this into a cardio rotation.

(Photo courtesy of Sanja Gjenero)