Want to have fun while you increase your physical activity levels? This article includes 5 fun PE games adults can enjoy to increase their physical activity levels! Exercise doesn’t have to be a long boring run. Unless you enjoy running.
Keep reading to see how you can increase your physical activity levels with these 5 fun PE games for adults!
The Physical Education Teacher in me
The fun part about being a PE teacher is that I get to figure out simple and inexpensive ways to keep people moving.
Not only do I get to help kids/teens stay healthy, I get to help them do that through game play.
Most kids aren’t heading to their local gym to lift weights or to get their cardio in and as adults I don’t think we appreciate their type of activity as much as we should.
Here are my top five favorite ways to get physical activity:
1: Bouncy Balls
Have you ever seen the big bouncy balls at Walmart? If you haven’t, go to Walmart or any toy store today and grab a bunch of them.
They are only about $2 dollars, but they are SO much fun to play with.
I watch my students play “don’t touch the ground” a lot with them where they volley or strike the ball to keep it afloat.
One of the reasons a person may quit an activity is because they just aren’t good at specific skills. These balls travel slower through the air and are so light it’s almost impossible to let this ball fall to the ground which will make you feel successful.
Not only are you running around to position yourself under the ball to keep it in the air, but you’re getting a little squat work out in when you push the ball back into the air. The perfect and fun way to increase your physical activity levels.
Backyard beach volleyball is always a favorite with these as well! But you can be creative as you want with their usage.
2: Three Cone Kickball
The game is played almost exactly like kickball, but only equipment you need is a ball and three cones. Lets say you don’t have any cones…you can literally use any object from your house, backyard or park.
For pictures and rules on how to play, head over to my article Social Distancing Activities for Physical Education Class.
There are so many variations of kickball, but this one lets you determine how many points you can score each time you are up to kick. That’s what makes the game exciting. Especially for the competitive adults in your life!
Grab a group of friends, and try this game out.
There are kickball leagues popping up all over the place nowadays, but it’s only played the traditional kickball way. If you get enough people to enjoy 3 Cone Kickaball, set up a leage and share this awesome game with others!
3: Swim Fishy Swim
Does this game sound like its for 6 year olds? Yes.
Is it fun for adults? ABSOLUTELY.
I loved playing this game in college when students had to pretend our class was a bunch of little kids to practice their teaching abilities.
It’s competitive, but you are literally doing sprints back and forth. Have one or two of your friends be the sharks. They will stand in the middle of whatever playing field you’re in (gymnasium, backyard, park, street).
They will yell SWIM FISHY SWIM….or if you are over the age of 10 maybe just yell GO. All the players who are standing on one side of the playing area will run as fast as they can to the other side trying not to get tagged. If tagged you have to sit and become a “seaweed” or for adults you may just call it a sitting tagger.
You are now allowed to tag people running by you, without moving from the floor.
My students could play this game all day if I let them. If you’re competitive you will love this game. I think it’s great how much fun people have while playing not realizing they just ran sprints for about 30 minutes.
4: Ultimate Football
I say ultimate football, because I hate throwing disks and wont play Ultimate Frisbee. Like I said earlier, if you can’t feel successful while performing a skill, people usually will quit. That’s exactly how I feel about Frisbee.
But I love the concept of Ultimate. So you really can play with any object you want.
The game is played with two teams. The team with the ball will try to advance the ball down the court/field by passing to their teammates. If you have the football in your hand you cannot move, but your team will be trying to get open for you.
If you drop the ball, an interception is made or the other team knocks the ball to the ground while in the air it AUTOMATICALLY becomes the defensive teams ball in the same spot it was dropped or caught.
My students had a hard time with this concept the first ten minutes of game play. I just tell them any time that ball hits the ground it automatically becomes the other teams ball at the exact point where it dropped.
This is one of my favorite games to play with my students and they love it too. We run back and forth down the court so frequently because we are constantly changing offense or defense, so I know they are getting really great work outs.
Imagine getting a group of your friends together on your “cardio day” to get about 3 miles in playing UF. It’s crazy how much fun you can have getting a great cardio workout in, while playing this game.
5: RipStiks
This activity is more specific because you would need to buy a RipStik at the store, but trust me when I say it’s my students FAVORITE activity out of all the things we have done this year.
I went out and bought 16 RipStiks for my students to learn.
There are YouTube videos you can watch to help you learn how to ride, which is how I taught my students about acceleration and turning.
Once they got the hang of it they never wanted class to end! The feeling of riding around on a RipStik is almost addicting. If I ever have a couple minutes in between my classes, I get on my favorite one and ride laps around my gym. It is a great leg and glute work out too.
I watch my Fitbit when I get on, and my heart rate hits about 115, and it counts for steps. When I take it outside on the pavement or anywhere with an incline my heart rate goes way higher, and my legs get an even better work out due to the roughness or inclines of the concrete.
If you have kids, try to get them one, and then when they aren’t using it steal theirs and get your own work out in.
The cool thing about these also is that you feel accomplished when you are able to get on without assistance or turn and accelerate. And if you aren’t sure if you want one, go to your local sports store and find one out of the package and practice down the isle. I did this every time I went to Meijers with my fiance until it got to the point where I just decided to pull the trigger and buy a bunch for my students.
Stay Healthy
Working out does not have to be dreadful. There are so many things we can do to stay healthy outside of the gym that I think people forget about. You can increase your physical activity levels in a fun way!
I would never say get rid of your gym membership, because there are so many benefits to lifting weights, but if you are trying to decide what to do on a warm sunny day, but still need to get some physical activity in, call up some of your friends and try one of these games/activities out.
For more information on why physical activity is so important for us, check out my two articles;
Advocating for Physical Education and .
I pride myself on teaching lifelong health to my students, but sometimes kids AND adults don’t understand what the benefits of physical activity is. See statistics, reasons why we need to stay active to live long health lives.
For more resources to keep yourself accountable, download my Yearly Weight Loss Planner now. Get 86 pages of meal trackers, weight trackers, short term and long term goal outlines, monthly measurement check ins and monthly reflection sections to adjust your goals.
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